Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move the following motion:

That this House censure the government for continuing the cover-up of its role in the $300 million wheat for weapons scandal, its arrogance and abuse of power in directing public servants not to answer any questions about the scandal and its misleading of the parliament about all documents, including electronic files, being provided to the Volcker inquiry.

Leave not granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the Opposition from moving forthwith:That this House censure the government for continuing the cover-up of its role in the $300 million wheat for weapons scandal, its arrogance and abuse of power in directing public servants not to answer any questions about the scandal and its misleading of the parliament about all documents, including electronic files, being provided to the Volcker inquiry.

It is disgraceful, having shut down the Senate’s capacity to inquire into their malfeasance in relation to the wheat for weapons program, having failed to answer any of the questions we have asked of them in this place, that those opposite should have the hide to refuse a censure motion on this now. This is a cowardly government, a weak government, a government running for cover and using its power. This is an arrogant government, abusing its total power and scrambling to protect itself at all costs. The Prime Minister no longer believes he has to explain himself to the Australian people. This growing arrogance in the government is there because it thinks it is accountable to nobody. Any skerrick of evidence that might implicate the Prime Minister, Mr Vaile, Mr Truss, Mr Downer or, now, Mr Costello in the wheat for weapons scandal is now out of bounds. It is off limits, locked away. What an outrageous abuse of power.

The Prime Minister has corrupted the process to save himself and his guilty ministers. They, in the wheat for weapons scandal, are the guilty party. That is why this government will do anything to run and hide from questions on this scandal. They have arrogantly shut down every avenue of scrutiny available to the Australian people. What do you have to hide, Prime Minister? Australians can only assume that this cover-up that John Howard and his ministers are in means that they are in this scandal up to their necks.

Today, as the scandal breathes uncomfortably hot down their collective necks, this arrogant Prime Minister and his five know-nothing ministers shut down all parliamentary scrutiny. When we asked the Senate leader why he gagged officials, he said: ‘Because we’re in government and you’re not.’ ‘We can ride roughshod over the Australian people and their representatives because we are in government and they are not.’ When we ask the Prime Minister and his ministers serious questions, what do they say? ‘How would I know?’

This morning we had the unprecedented gagging of government officials—the servants of the Australian people now barred from answering questions at Senate estimates committee hearings. To prevent the now daily roll-out of more damaging, incriminating evidence, public servants have been ordered not to answer questions relating to the Cole inquiry. This is an arrogant government engaged in a deliberate, shameless cover-up.

The Prime Minister, in defence of himself, had a proposition back in 1989 that questions were not permitted of officials on a matter going to the cabinet—at that point of time, a limited, discrete area. It was a position that lasted for a short period. This is shutting the Senate out of this debate for the entirety of the Cole royal commission.

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