Fake email backfires for Australian opposition leader
Updated
Australian opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull's attempt to link Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to special treatment for his car dealer friend has crumbled, with police finding the key email a fake.
Kevin Rudd's declared Mr Turnbull no longer fit to be opposition leader and urged the Liberal party to oust him.
Presenter: Alexandra Kirk
Speaker: Kevin Rudd, Australian Prime Minister; Senator Nick Minchin; Joe Hockey, Shadow Treasurer
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Kevin Rudd's prediction of a fake email's been confirmed.
Police raided Treasury official Godwin Grech's home, uncovered the email and declared it a fake. They suspect he was involved in creating it.
The Prime Minister's demanding Malcolm Turnbull quit, claiming he knew about the hoax email and promoted it.
RUDD: I would call on the senior people of the Liberal party - Mr Costello, Brendan Nelson, Senator Minschin - to tap Mr Turnbull on the shoulder and say, It is time to go'. He does not have the character to occupy the highest office in the land.
MINCHIN: Well that's just a silly, childish remark by Mr Rudd, whose smugness knows no bounds and should be treated with the contempt it deserves.
LIRK: Senator Nick Minchin insists Mr Turnbull's leadership is not tarnished.
MINCHIN: No, not one iota, he has quite properly on behalf of the opposition, sought to hold this government to account.
KIRK: According to the Government Mr Turnbull over-reached. Many on his own side agree. One experienced backbencher questions his leader's judgement. He says some of Mr Rudd's indignation is justified, warning that's how most on the backbench see it.
Another colleague says it's damaging for Mr Turnbull, suggesting he eat some humble pie and get on with the case againt Mr Swan.
But another is more forgiving, saying it's an occupational hazard for Opposition leaders to seize on any credible evidence of government wrongdoing.
The Opposition's still gunning for the Treasurer, adamant Mr Rudd's car dealer friend John Grant was given quote "rolls royce" treatment.
The Government's now released new emails. Wayne Swan says they show "beyond doubt" two other car dealers received "as much, if not more attention from Treasury" than Mr Grant.
RUDD: I know Mr Swan very well. He is a diligent and exceptionally upstanding treasurer.
AM asked the Government if any of the other dealers received a phone call from the Treasurer. It's understood the dealers in question didn't request to speak to Mr Swan and were referred to Treasury in other ways.
And in the latest twist to the story - Coalition sources have confirmed that Godwin Grech worked for shadow treasurer Joe Hockey a decade ago when Mr Hockey was the minister for financial services and regulation.
HOCKEY: It was a round 10 years ago, and he was a departmental officer in my officer for a matter of weeks, and if there is somehow any suggestion at all that there was a relationahip between Godwin Grech and I on this matter its absolutely wrong because I haven't a conversation with him for at least a couple of years.
