Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition’s premise is that somehow we supported Saddam Hussein and we supported corruption—that in fact we were corrupt and we were supporting Palestinian suicide bombers and supporting the killing of American soldiers. That does not stand up to even a test of commonsense, let alone a test of common decency.

When the Volcker commission was set up, the Prime Minister, the trade minister and I—the three figures the subject of this censure motion—all insisted that not just our government departments, the Australian government, but also the AWB should fully cooperate with the Volcker inquiry. Our point is that we actually wanted to get to the heart of this issue, not escape from the heart of it. We do not want to cover anything up—quite the contrary. We were fully supportive of Volcker. If we wanted to cover things up we would not have been supportive of Volcker. We would not have made our officials available to Volcker. We would not have made documents available to Volcker. If we had not been fully supportive of disclosure on this issue, we would not have set up a judicial commission with, in effect, the powers of a royal commission.

The fact is that, as we have got information, we have followed up that information, culminating with a judicial commission which now has access not only to all of the relevant DFAT documents but also to the documentation of the AWB. That is something that the Cole commission has. That is something that we certainly did not have. That is something that Volcker, we hope, had, but we are not so sure, on the basis of some of the evidence that is coming forward in the commission.

I would have thought that this was a pretty simple case of the government repeatedly doing the right thing—a government that opposed Saddam Hussein and wanted him out of office, and that helped to get him out; a government that contributed to freeing the people of Iraq, who have turned out to vote in their millions; a government that has always opposed corruption in all of its manifestations; and a government which, on this issue, has acted not only with probity but with complete integrity.

Measure that against an opposition that accuses the government of corruption, which is a criminal offence. That is what the Leader of the Opposition has accused the government of—accusing the government of supporting the funding for the killing of American soldiers and the killing of Israelis through Palestinian suicide bombers. The opposition might wonder why it is not going very well. You have your cheer squad out there, but the reason the opposition is not going very well is that your arguments are not credible. This is a government which has full integrity on the issue of Iraq.

Let me conclude with one point. This was very interesting. Last night, the Leader of the Opposition went on the Lateline program. The House might recall that one of the previous arguments used against this government is that it lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Go on. Up you go. All roar. Yes, yes. That is what you said. There were questions here. We had resolutions. The Leader of the Opposition was thumping the table—‘the most disgraceful thing in the whole of the history of the world’, ‘this government has brought shame upon Australia’. This was because we got rid of Saddam Hussein.

But then, of course, the arguments changed. I noticed that last night on the Lateline program the opposition, having argued that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, said that actually Australian money—it was not Australian money, of course; as the Prime Minister explained; it was Iraqi money—

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