John Howard, at the National Press Club yesterday:
I condemn what happened. It was an unauthorised document. It does not represent my views. It was tasteless and offensive. There are many, there are myriad legitimate criticisms that can be made of the Australian Labor Party, but I do not believe that the Australian Labor Party has ever had any sympathy for the Bali bombings and I thought it was an outrageous thing to say.
Peter Costello, six weeks ago:
Mr Costello says sympathy should be going to the families of those who died in the Bali bombings not the people who carried out the attacks.
“I think it was a very strange time for the Labor Party, to come in support of the Bali bombers,” he said.
“Let’s not forget, the Bali bombers killed 88 of our fellow Australians.
Let’s have some sympathy for the 88 dead and their families, rather than sympathy for those who cruelly and cold bloodedly decided to kill them for no reason, other than they were Australians.”
Outrageous.
I am not even remotely surprised that members of the Liberal Party have resorted to these fake leaflets in Lindsay. This is a government that has willingly and opportunistically exploited societal divisions whenever it has been feasible to do so. They are usually a bit more subtle about it, but the strategy has always been there. And it is quite likely that no official in the party would have been involved in making the decision to create those fake leaflets, but that does not absolve them of responsibility. It is the culture of the Liberal Party under John Howard that implicitly endorses these tactics. And it needs to be reformed, urgently.
