In which it must be decided what to do and how to keep it a secret.
Mr Howard, thanks for joining us.
Good evening.
You’re rather enjoying this Carmen Lawrence business, aren’t you?
Oh, look, it’s not a matter of enjoying yourself. There’s a bigger issue here.
What is it?
I think there’s some concern in the community about whether or not their politicians are telling the truth. That’s what I’m getting…
This is in the polls?
Well, a lot of it’s from moving vehicles.
Moving vehicles?
And at the lights. You get a fair bit of it at the lights.
There’s a bit of a spate of this at the moment, isn’t there?
A spate of what?
Of people in highly paid publicly elected positions of power, lying.
No, I think most of them are telling the truth.
Did you tell Andrew Peacock the truth?
I don’t mean to each other. Andrew and I had an arrangement.
What was it?
We didn’t tell each other the truth. I mean, Andrew didn’t tell me the truth…
Did Alexander Downer tell you the truth?
Obviously there’s a bit of friendly fire. My point is I think most politicians are telling most of the truth most of the time.
So how do you account for the behaviour of the Premier and the Attorney-General in Victoria at the moment?
Well, they’ve obviously sacked the Director of Public Prosecutions down there by accident, haven’t they?
How do you know?
They didn’t plan to do it and they obviously had no idea it was going to happen and they were terribly surprised when it did.
How do you know that?
They said so. They’ve been saying that for a month.
Why have they been saying it for a month?
It’s so true, that they’ve been repeating it. So true is it, that it requires to be repeated.
So that everybody understands it?
Yes, can we move on? I’m tiring of this line of questioning.
What about Dr Lawrence?
I think we need an inquiry but it looks at the moment as if what’s happened is that she came into a meeting and voted in favour of something she’d never heard of.
She recommended it, didn’t she?
Yes, but she didn’t know what it was.
That’s fair enough.
That’s pretty standard, yes.
What about your own man over there?
Mr Crichton-Browne?
Yes.
He’s resigned.
Has he?
He’s resigned?
Yes, so he says.
Has he resigned?
Not so far as I know.
So he hasn’t resigned?
Yes.
Yes, he hasn’t?
Something of that sort, yes.
Has he resigned or not?
Yes, absolutely.
Have you accepted his resignation?
I wouldn’t get it. He’d resign to the President of the Senate.
And has he resigned to the President of the Senate?
He says he has, yes.
And has he?
Not as I understand it, no.
Mr Howard, we’re out of time.
Oh dear. And we were getting on so well.