Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Minister for Transport and Regional Services) Share this | Hansard source

Yesterday, about this time, the honourable member for Corio rushed breathlessly to the press gallery to tell them all he had found the smoking gun: he had the evidence that would bring the government down. By this morning, the Leader of the Opposition had brought him down by making it clear he did not have a smoking gun, and he did not have a smoking gun because the comments by the member for Corio were absolutely empty. The reality is that there have been no messages of warning delivered to ministers for agriculture over the years about this particular issue.

Indeed, the messages that came from the Wheat Export Authority, from Tim Besley—a very respected businessman who knows a good deal about commercial activities—to the minister of the day were unambiguously that they had investigated the AWB and had found nothing untoward. No minister was given advice by the Wheat Export Authority which would suggest that there were matters of concern that needed to be investigated further. The Wheat Export Authority had access to all of the documents that the AWB had at its disposal. They had the opportunity to move through the office at will and find what they wanted.

Indeed, after the Wheat Export Authority had made a decision that they wanted to investigate some of the allegations that had been made in Canada and the United States about kickbacks in relation to Iraqi trade, they took it upon themselves to undertake this investigation. They analysed a whole stack of records. They attended the AWB offices. They examined contracts, certification of export details, authorisation letters from the UN and they verified that those details were consistent with information that had previously been provided and obtained by the WEA.

The WEA staff examined 17 out of 41 sales contracts for the sale of wheat to Iraq under the UN oil for food program, so it was a pretty thorough examination and representation. Their conclusion was there was nothing untoward. They found nothing untoward. The Leader of the Opposition is trying to propound some kind of a theory that the minister should have said to the chairman of the WEA, a distinguished businessman with very substantial commercial credentials—

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