Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, you make a very good point, because I made a note of the points raised by the Leader of the Opposition in moving this motion and I am going to respond to them. The Leader of the Opposition was given an opportunity to make his points, and I am going to respond to them. He claims that the government have truncated the Cole commission of inquiry. Has anybody bothered to ask what the Labor Party would have done in a similar circumstance? I can guarantee that the Labor Party would never have had a commission of inquiry into this issue. They would never have moved as quickly as we moved in giving to the Cole commission of inquiry the powers that the Cole commission has. The Labor Party would never have established the Cole commission of inquiry. The government have not truncated that. The government have given the Cole commission of inquiry extensive powers under the brief that has been given to it. We have indicated that if it wants to extend its terms of reference it only has to ask. The commissioner has asked for an extension of the terms of reference in a particular area. That has been granted. In his statement—and I will read this into the Hansardthe commissioner said:

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 said:

That position has not been reached.

So the commissioner has made it abundantly clear that he is not hamstrung or restricted in dealing with the issue we have asked him to address in the wide-ranging terms of reference that he has been given. So the Leader of the Opposition’s claim that the Cole commission of inquiry has been truncated by the government is absolute rubbish. He went on then to claim that the government are only supplying documents to the Cole commission after they are being raised by the Australian Labor Party. That is a ludicrous proposition. They were provided at the earliest opportunity after the Cole commission of inquiry was established.

We have continued to say all the way through this process that we are cooperating fully with Cole. We want Cole to get to the bottom of all the facts in this whole issue in terms of the operations of the oil for food contracts that the Australian companies involved in the program were engaged in, and that was the AWB and two other companies. Obviously, the focus of the inquiry so far has been on the evidence that has been sought with regard to the activities of AWB, but it has been part heard. The Labor Party are hanging people out to dry. They are acting like a kangaroo court of judge, jury and executioner when the inquiry is still under way. The legally established inquiry is still under way and is still taking evidence. There are many witnesses, we understand, who have not appeared before the Cole commission of inquiry to give their evidence, yet the Labor Party are already prepared to bring down a verdict. That is not the Australian way. This has been established. I suggest that, in the circumstances, the Labor Party would never have established a commission of inquiry. We did; we should let it run its course, find what it is going to find and bring down its conclusions in the way it should.

In responding to the motion by the Leader of the Opposition, I say that he keeps reiterating the point, and the member for Griffith keeps reiterating the point, that there were 14 or 15 occasions of where the government should have done this and the government should have done that.

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