Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

That is a shameless claim. Members opposite are saying that $100 million has gone to the enemy in Iraq—the enemy that was the Saddam Hussein regime. These are despicable slurs on anyone’s character. Those on the other side should apologise to our ministers.

The Leader of the Opposition has now started his attack on the executive chairman of the Australian Wheat Board Ltd, AWB Ltd, Brendan Stewart. I know Brendan Stewart; he happens to be a constituent of mine. He is a fine man. Not only is he a fine man, and the Chairman of the Australian Wheat Board, but he is also a practising wheat grower, so he knows how hard it is to grow wheat. In his position, and from his experience with commodity boards and representing farmers in the organisation in Queensland, he knows how corrupt the world markets are. The world markets are corrupted by the subsidies that are paid by the Americans to their growers under the disguise, in some cases, of export enhancement grants designed to get American wheat into world markets. These grants distort the markets for our growers here in Australia.  Brendan Stewart is a man who understands that the international wheat trade is not a level playing field. He is the Chairman of the Australian Wheat Board, which holds the pool of wheat. If we are to be able to continue sales of our wheat to Iraq during the Cole inquiry and have those sales negotiated during that period, it is from the pool of the Australian Wheat Board that we will have to draw that wheat.

I call on the Opposition to come into this place—or outside; anywhere will do—and say that they support the single desk arrangement for the Australian Wheat Board. The single desk arrangement is in the best interests of the Australian wheat growers. We have not heard the Labor Party come into this place and say, ‘We support the single desk arrangement for the Australian Wheat Board.’ They are attempting not only to slur the good names of ministers on this side of the parliament but also to undermine the Australian Wheat Board’s vested power of the single desk arrangements, which are so essential in delivering the best outcome in corrupted world markets for the hardworking Australian wheat growers.

The Labor Party, in their attacks on this government and on Brendan Stewart and the Australian Wheat Board, have become the best friend the American wheat farmers have ever had. The shadow foreign affairs minister has become a lobbyist for the American wheat lobby, not for the Australian wheat growers. It is worth casting our minds back to the period of the first Gulf War, when the Leader of the Opposition was a member of the government; he was a minister. In the period after the first Gulf War he became the Deputy Prime Minister. We should examine the actions of those opposite during that first Gulf War when wheat growers, through the Australian Wheat Board, had made sales to Iraq that were not covered by anything more than the export finance insurance that was taken out by the Australian Wheat Board.

It was very important that we involved ourselves in the first Gulf War, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, but tied up in the middle of that were export sales of wheat to Iraq through the Australian Wheat Board that have cost the Australian wheat growers money. Fifteen per cent of that pool, and the interest on that money, has never been paid to our Australian wheat growers. The Leader of the Opposition, who was then in government, could have said that the government would make those payments to the wheat growers that were outside the export finance insurance. The government could have covered the non-payment—which occurred because of the war—for those sales into Iraq.

On this side of the House, we have the best interests of Australian wheat growers foremost in our minds. We understand the importance of the wheat market in Iraq. Through the single desk arrangements—once again—of the Australian Wheat Board and its predecessors, this nation has been supplying wheat to Iraq for more than 50 years. The Iraqi Grains Board understands that we are a reliable supplier of quality wheat. Even during the oil for food program the wheat we were selling to Iraq was providing much needed food. Those who suffered at that time under the Saddam Hussein regime were at least able to be nourished by the good wheat that came from the Australian wheat growers.

The Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile—we all send our condolences to him and his family at this very sad time for him on the loss of his father overnight—will be leading a delegation to Baghdad to endeavour to find ways to continue wheat sales to Iraq during the period of the Cole inquiry. (Time expired)

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