Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Hansard source

Why is this suspension motion of urgency before the House to consider? Because among other things we have a Minister for Foreign Affairs who presents himself in the parliament, slapping himself and the government on the back because they have been oh such good boys. They have said that there are 65 countries involved in the oil for food program scandal, involving 2,200 companies around the world—but which mob got the gold medal? Answer: AWB, approved by the minister scuttling out the door of the chamber right now. They got the gold medal because the $300 million they tipped into Saddam Hussein was bigger by a factor of five or six compared with the company that came second. They ask in this place: aren’t they good boys for setting up an inquiry they had no alternative but to set up, for the simple reason that this is a scandal of monumental proportions not just in Australian political history, not just in Australian corporate history but in terms of the world itself when it comes to the breaching of sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s regime?

Why is it so urgent that the House consider this suspension motion? The matter contained within it goes to the core of negligence on our national security and damage to our exports—negligence and damage that have been caused by this government failing to respond in any way to the 17 warnings we have documented so far that they received and turned a blind eye to. This is a government that did not do its job. This is a government that has instead had its energy focused on its short-term internal political interests, not the long-term national interest.

The reason this motion is particularly urgent is that, quite apart from the 17 warnings we have documented so far—warnings from the United Nations, warnings from the United States, warnings from the government of Canada, warnings from Australian wheat farmers, warnings from the intelligence community, including the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, warnings from their own government officials and even warnings from good old cowboy Trevor Flugge through the communications that have come through the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq—the government could not find anything that was sufficiently meritorious for them to act on.

But the reason why this matter is of such urgency for the House to consider is that, in the four cables that have been presented today in the Cole commission of inquiry, we have new information. It is brand new. This is not generic in terms of something that might have been going wrong with the oil for food program here or there. This is information that is direct, explicit and specific. It is about the detail of what was alleged that the AWB was up to—and our fearless friend the foreign minister, in question time today, dropped himself right in the middle of it. He is always going a step too far, our Alex. He is always wanting to prove what a fine fellow he is in his parliamentary performance. He went a step too far when he actually told the truth to the parliament and said this: ‘I personally received these cables, I personally was briefed on these cables and I personally read these cables.’

So what was contained in these cables that our fearless foreign minister has today admitted to receiving, being briefed on and having read? These cables from January 2000 say—and I emphasise the specificity of what is contained in the documents—first, that the Iraqis were demanding a surcharge of $US14 per metric tonne for wheat, which would be paid outside the oil for food program; second, that the funds were to be provided into a bank account in Jordan; third, that the system was designed to provide illegal revenue for Saddam Hussein’s regime; fourth, that the company was supposed to be owned by Saddam Hussein’s son; and, fifth, that the AWB itself had concluded just such a contract with Iraq.

How on earth could you claim, as the foreign minister has done in parliament, that this was not explicit, direct and indeed alarming information about the activities of the AWB? His public claim up until now was that it had all been someone else’s fault, all the AWB’s fault. This minister has today admitted in parliament that he personally received this information. This minister’s defence, in terms of what he did with it, was that his department made a few phone calls to the AWB and the AWB chaps said it was all fine. The government say this is all about accountability. They want plenty of questions but they scurry from this place when a censure motion is on. Where is the Minister for Trade, Mark Vaile? Jeannie Ferris, who went with him to Iraq, has mysteriously reappeared in the Senate today. The trade minister has not reappeared in the House. They deserve to be censured. (Time expired)

Question put:

That the motion (That the motion () be agreed to.

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