This is the audio and transcript of Tony Abbott’s interview with Kerry O’Brien on The 7.30 Report on August 27, 2003.
It took place one week after Pauline Hanson and David Ettridge were found guilty of electoral fraud and sentenced to three years in jail.
Hanson and Ettridge were accused of falsely claiming that 500 members of a support movement were members of “Pauline Hanson’s One Nation”, enabling it to be registered as a political party and to claim electoral funding.
In August 2003, Tony Abbott was a cabinet minister in John Howard’s government. He was Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service. [Read more…]
EMERSON: Yet again the Howard Government has thrown the truth overboard. Tony Abbott had denied the existence of any fund to pay for the costs of witnesses who testified against Pauline Hanson. It’s emerged today that such a fund did exist. Not only did it exist, Tony Abbott organised it personally. Tony Abbott needs to answer these questions: where did the money come from, who received the money and who made decisions on who received the money? A $100,000 secret slush fund is a huge amount of money in anybody’s terms. But perhaps not in the Liberal Party’s terms. So Tony Abbott needs to answer those questions and surely John Howard is not going to deny any knowledge of Tony Abbott’s $100,000 slush fund.