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

of judging the accuracy or otherwise of the claims the Iraqi Grains Board is alleged to have made about AWB,’ and so it goes on. There was not a suggestion from the United Nations office of Iraqi programs that this allegation was accurate, just that the allegation had been made. Subsequently, this allegation was checked out on several occasions. First of all it was checked out, and that is of course referred to in one of the other cables tabled today, but subsequently the United Nations office of Iraqi programs asked for specific documentation from the Australian Wheat Board, through the Australian government—documentation which got to the heart of contracts that the allegations suggested might have been rorted.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, if I may say so, with some difficulty obtained these additional contracts that had not previously been provided to the United Nations which the United Nations wanted in order to establish the veracity of these claims that had been made by the Canadians. These contracts were finally obtained by the department from AWB Ltd and given to the United Nations, who studied the contracts and concluded that these allegations that had been made against AWB Ltd, as referred to in these cables which were tabled in the Cole commission today, were unfounded.

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