Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

It is incredible. There they were on the internet. He did not bother to read them, but we should have all been reading them—and so should the other 65 countries involved. All these ministers—Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Persson of Sweden, the list goes on—should have been poring over these websites. But not the opposition, because, as the member for Griffith said: ‘It wasn’t my responsibility.’ I thought they did have a responsibility to scrutinise the government and keep the government honest and all these pompous sayings that they use—which, actually, I pretty much agree with; but they are rather weak at doing it, if I may say so. The member for Griffith in a Sky interview, by the way, said, ‘Oh, I only once met with AWB Ltd.’ Two days later he said he met several times with AWB Ltd. There is no evidence he even asked them, ‘By the way, this stuff on websites all around the place about possible corruption in the oil for food program: are you guys involved in that?’ Apparently, he did not even ask that question, despite the fact that this material was out there.

My last point, because my time has nearly expired, is this: the wheat mission that will be led by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade will include Brendan Stewart. The opposition says Brendan Stewart, the Chairman of AWB Ltd, is guilty and should not go. There has been no evidence presented to the Cole commission that I am aware of—and I am aware of a lot of it; and the opposition has people sitting in the Cole commission as well—that Brendan Stewart is guilty of anything or has been accused of being involved in kickbacks. One day that evidence might or might not appear, but I have never seen that evidence. We on this side of the House—and the minister at the table here, Ms Julie Bishop, is a lawyer—believe in the timeworn principle that all men and women are innocent until proven guilty. Brendan Stewart for us is not guilty, even if the opposition thinks he is. (Time expired)

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