Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move:

That this House censures the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister for:

(1)

turning a blind eye to stark warnings that AWB was doing illicit business with Saddam Hussein behind the United Nations’ back;

(2)

ignoring cables that told the Government in no uncertain terms that this was going on; and

(3)

treating this Parliament and the Australian people with contempt by refusing to come clean in this place about the Government’s role in this Wheat for Weapons scandal.

Leave not granted.

You just said you wanted to. I move:

That so much of sessional and standing orders be suspended to permit me to move the following censure motion:That this House censures the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister for:

(1)

turning a blind eye to stark warnings that the AWB was doing illicit business with Saddam Hussein behind the United Nations’ back;

(2)

ignoring cables that told the Government in no uncertain terms that this was going on; and

(3)

treating this Parliament and the Australian people with contempt by refusing to come clean in this place about the Government’s role in the Wheat for Weapons scandal.

This is the fourth time that a censure motion has been refused by the government on this matter—this the worst scandal that has confronted a national political government in my lifetime in parliament and, I would suspect, the lifetime of everybody here in this place. This is a Prime Minister who was fulminating about two minutes ago on how open and accountable he had been and how much he enjoyed these opportunities in parliament, yet he has permitted his Leader of the House on four separate occasions now to deny a censure motion in this place. I call that cowardly running away. The cables I am speaking about today, which is why we ought to have the censure motion, stand guilty on the forehead of the Prime Minister and his ministers—guilty of turning a blind eye. We got very close to that in the statements of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and I will get to that.

The government think it is business as usual to do business with Saddam Hussein behind the UN’s back. Now their pathetic defence of stupidity and ignorance is in tatters. Negligence: case proved. Recklessness: case proved. Turning a blind eye: case proved. The time for squirming and slithering is over. They have to come clean, front the Cole commission and explain themselves. They have ruined the trade for our wheat farmers and now they are trying to use the wheat farmers as a political human shield. What sort of government is this Prime Minister running? Wages for our troops, millions for their mates, turn a blind eye to warnings. This is not just turning a blind eye. Bronte Moules has poked them in the eye. She said: ‘This is crook. Do something about it. This is serious.’ She said, ‘The Canadians alleged AWB were complicit; check it properly.’ If you turn a blind eye from such a stark warning, you are complicit in corruption. It is seriously corrupt and heads should roll. This is the putrid underbelly of John Howard’s government: forgetful people get $1 million tax-free jobs and the warnings of senior bureaucrats are studiously ignored. They would not listen because they were more interested in protecting their mates than they were in protecting the farmers. That is this government.

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