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

First, I thank the honourable member for Griffith for the question because this is the first time I have been asked a question on this issue this year. I very much appreciate the opportunity to say something about it. The honourable member raises the question of the cable of 13 January and selectively quotes from it. I note that this cable reports allegations that had been made not by the United Nations but—as we subsequently discovered, but which we did not know at that time—by the Canadian Wheat Board, who were of course competitors of the Australian Wheat Board.

The second observation I would make is that, if you read the whole cable—and the reason the opposition has these cables is that they were tabled in the Cole inquiry today—you will see that the last paragraph says: ‘The Office of the Iraq Program,’ the OIP, ‘noted it had no way—

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