Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries) Share this | Hansard source

It is hypocrisy on a grand scale. In addition, Australia’s great trading reputation has been damaged by these disclosures. The blame for this damage must now be laid fairly and squarely at the government’s feet. What might seem an extremely complex issue can be distilled to a very simple form so as to understand why the government is culpable in this scandal and why these ministers are seeking to escape responsibility for it. In the agriculture portfolio there is a seamless line of reporting from the Australian Wheat Board and its actions through the Wheat Export Authority to the minister for agriculture and, through the minister for agriculture, to his cabinet colleagues and ultimately to the Prime Minister. For the benefit of the House and for those not intimately familiar with this procedure, I will explain it yet again.

Historically, the Australian Wheat Board has handled the single desk arrangements for the export of wheat, the pooling of returns from export and the distribution of those proceeds to growers. In 1995 the Howard government privatised AWB and created a private monopoly to carry on the single desk role. So the current structure of AWB and AWB (International) is of the Howard government’s making. It is not the opposition’s making; it is not the wheat industry’s making. The final decision on the structure was made by the Howard government.

To monitor the role and performance of AWB and to protect the interests of growers, the government created the Wheat Export Authority. The WEA has wide-ranging powers under statute to examine records, to examine contracts in detail and in totality, to certify export details and to hold discussions on these and any other matters with officers from the AWB. In fulfilling its role, it is required by law to report to the minister in a confidential report to the parliament—that is a public document—and to wheat growers, which is also a public document.

The facts in relation to this scandal are these. Since 1999 the Wheat Export Authority has been reporting to the minister on wheat matters and on the contracts that are now the substance of this inquiry. The minister may come to the dispatch box and tell this House that the WEA reported to it in 2004 but what the minister may fail to say is that over a long period of time, and indeed since the year 2000, the WEA has been investigating, and presumably reporting to the government on, matters relating to contracts—in particular, incentives that have been paid by AWB in these contracts. In October 2000 the Wheat Export Authority specifically engaged a consultant to provide expert technical advice, analysis and assistance in examining the incentive payments in that supply chain, with a direct brief to examine the incentives that AWB offers compared to other competitors. So going back to 1999 we have a forensic examination by the WEA of the contracts themselves, of the overland transport component and of the incentives that were being paid.

If the WEA did not report these matters to the government, then it has been grossly negligent in this matter. Even if it did not report them, the government and its ministers already knew from other sources that these incentive payments were of particular concern to our trading competitors in Canada and the United States. Even though the minister might mount a defence that the WEA only drew its attention to these matters in 2004, when we examine the confidential WEA reports from 1999—if we ever get to do that—I would be very surprised if they were not mentioned. We know that from the year 2000 the WEA specifically employed a consultant to advise it on the technical matters relating to these contracts. Those technical matters included the transport component, which was grossly inflated and which was the channel for the kickbacks, and the other incentives.

I detailed those warnings to the House during the censure debate. They ranged from June 1999 right up to 22 October 2003. They were not just claims made by a wheat grower or by somebody in the industry or by somebody floating around the world who had a bit of information about these kickbacks. These complaints were made by the Canadian wheat authority and they were made by the US government. Yet these ministers in government did nothing about these specific inquiries.

We are not dealing with a small rural industry here. We are dealing with Australia’s great wheat industry. This is an industry that produces some 23 million tonnes of wheat a year worth some $5 billion in exports from this country. It is an industry that employs tens of thousands of Australians. The sheer size of this industry and its importance in national and regional economic terms demand the highest standards of management from the AWB and the government and its departments and statutory authority. That ultimately is its guarantee of survival in a corrupt, competitive international marketplace.

The charges against this government are substantial. The defences that have been mounted to date can only lead any reasonable person to the conclusion that these ministers were not only ignorant but also negligent. In being negligent they have done untold damage to Australia’s wheat industry and to Australia’s wheat farmers and their families. More than that, they have sullied the great trading reputation of this country. Let it be a matter of public record now that over a long period of time, from 1999 to 2003, substantial matters were raised about kickbacks under these contracts and that ministers in this government presumably, on their own admissions, did nothing. They did nothing, as they claim, because, they say, they were ignorant of these particular matters and any wrongdoing in this scandal.

This is a scandal of momentous proportions. It is a scandal that is now damaging wheat farmers and their families across Australia, and it is doing so because of the negligence of this government. It failed to act when it should have. It failed to act responsibly in response to those matters brought before it by the Canadian wheat authority and by the American government. From 1999 to this day the minister has received reports from his own Wheat Export Authority, which examined these contracts over that period and the inland transport component. In the face of all that, the minister claims the government knew nothing. I rest my case. (Time expired)

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