John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

He then goes on to say in paragraph 14—and I commend a reading of this to everybody in the House and others who are interested in these proceedings:

Accordingly, if, during the course of my inquiry, it appears to me that there might have been a breach of any Commonwealth, State or Territory law by the Commonwealth or any officer of the Commonwealth related to the subject matter of the terms of reference, I will approach the Attorney-General seeking a widening of the terms of reference to permit me to make such a finding.

He then goes on to say this:

That position has not been reached.

In other words, this man is looking at everything and, unlike the opposition, unlike the government, Mr Cole has access at a level nobody else has. He has not only DFAT’s documents. They went to DFAT when this inquiry started and copied all the documents that they wanted. This is the cover-up! We were accused by the Labor Party of covering up. That was their first charge. How are you covering up when you invite them into the bowels of DFAT and you give them all the documents? That is some cover-up! Not only has he done that but he has also got the relevant documents from my department. More importantly than his getting our documents, he has also got AWB’s documents. We do not have AWB’s documents. The only documents of AWB that we have are those of correspondence.

In other words, you have the situation of an outstanding Australian lawyer, a person who had a very high reputation at the Sydney bar before he became a judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, who then served on the Court of Appeal in New South Wales, which arguably after the High Court of Australia is the most prestigious court in this country—he has all of those qualifications—who is acting completely independently of the government. He has access to everything and he is examining everything.

In those circumstances, I think the Leader of the Opposition and those behind him ought to take the advice of their mate Kim Chance in Western Australia. He is a man of great stature and respect in the Australian community. He is a person who is highly regarded in the Australian Labor Party. I know they will not take his advice, because they cannot help themselves. But I think out there the Australian people will respond to this proposition. If you have an eminent lawyer who has all the documents, all the independence in the world and all the integrity in the world looking at them, I think the Australian people are more likely to believe him than the member for Griffith.

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