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

Let me stand back from this thing called the wheat for weapons scandal. At times like this in the debate we have to ask ourselves what it all means for Australia’s national interest. It is important to put it in short, sharp and stark terms. What it means is that there has been negligence in terms of this country’s national security interests; damage to this country’s export interests and our economy overall, and the wheat farming interests of our nation in particular; and that as the debate has unfolded the government, with control of the Senate, is becoming a government increasingly out of control and a government increasingly focusing on its short-term political interests and not on the long-term national interest.

Let us go to the first of these points, which deals with negligence in terms of the nation’s security and our broader national security interests. What we have presented so far in this debate, which has now raged for some months, is a series of warnings—17 in all—received by the Howard government. Each of them were dismissed in order. Their attitude to each of these warnings was, ‘There’s nothing in those warnings which would cause the government under any circumstances to believe that it should inquire more thoroughly about what the AWB was up to in Iraq.’

Today we had a major addition to those warnings in the four cables that have been released, cables which go to the very detail of the information which had been provided by the United Nations through our mission in New York—coming originally from the government of Canada—to foreign minister Downer’s office, where the matter then died. That is what happened: it just died. Nothing was done. That is the cold, hard reality coming out of everything that this minister had to say today.

I spoke also of not just negligence regarding national security but of damage to our exports. You would know, Deputy Speaker Scott, how important the grain industry is to our country’s economy. You would know the importance of the grain industry to your own electorate. You would know what would happen if the international reputation of Australia’s export monopoly, the AWB, was to be seriously damaged by the inaction of the Howard government in ensuring that the AWB was doing the right thing.

I would assume, Deputy Speaker, that a person such as you would find it of grave concern if the AWB was up to things and your government, of which you are part, was not taking proper action to ensure that it was not rorting UN sanctions against Iraq and not rorting the oil for food program under the United Nations to the long-term damage of the reputation of Australia’s hardworking wheat farmers. I would have thought, Deputy Speaker, that, coming from the part of Queensland that you do, you would have been actively concerned about that.

I have spoken about negligence regarding our national security—17 warnings were dismissed—and damage to our nation’s export interests, including our hardworking wheat farmers. But the other thing which this whole debate brings to the surface is the arrogance of the government.

Not only was the Volcker inquiry, which was established by the United Nations, not provided with all the documentation in the government’s possession on this wheat for weapons scandal but the Cole inquiry was given limited terms of reference by the Prime Minister so that it would not focus squarely on making findings on the competence and due diligence of the ministers charged with responsibility for our end of the oil for food program. For Volcker, there was minimal cooperation; for Cole, there are limited terms of reference—and certainly no capacity to make findings on the competence of and the due diligence executed by ministers.

So that leaves the parliament to do the job. Because Volcker was short-changed on information and Cole was short-changed with his terms of reference, we are left with this parliament—this institution—where our job is to hold the executive accountable. What has happened here? Since the government gained a majority in the Senate, we have seen arrogance unplugged from the Howard government. It is not possible to launch a Senate inquiry which would cause this government any form of political embarrassment. Then there were the extraordinary measures taken two weeks ago to ensure that public servants would not answer the most basic questions of fact before Senate estimates about this wheat for weapons scandal.

We are left with this chamber, the House of Representatives, where any question of the most basic factual nature concerning the responsibility of these ministers for this scandal have to be asked. Once again, what do we encounter here but arrogance unplugged, as each question we ask of a factual nature of ministers opposite is dismissed. The questions are not answered, or the answer is delayed to another day, or ministers fly to the other end of the earth in order not to be here to answer them.

That is where we come to with these most recent developments in the ‘wheat for weapons’ scandal. But with matters now before the Cole inquiry we are about to enter a whole new phase. What I would like to do today in this matter of public importance debate is to begin to describe the chapter which is about to unfold. It is a brand-new chapter. It is postwar Iraq, the period in which this ‘wheat for weapons’ scandal had another 18 months to run. Let us put all this into a bit of context. The first corrupt payments on these contracts occurred when? It occurred in November or December 1999, a month or two before Foreign Minister Downer got the cable which we have been debating in the parliament today, a cable which warned him that something was up with the AWB’s dealings with the Iraqi regime. Had he acted with due diligence at that time then this scandal would not have unfolded, $300 million would not have been paid to the Iraqi dictator and the five years of scandal which unfolded would not have occurred. On top of that, the damage to our national security and our export interests would not have been as severe. But the minister did not do his job.

In the 3½ years from the end of 1999 through until the Iraq war in March 2003, there were literally tens of contracts approved by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade from the AWB, with the money then being paid from the oil for food program into the AWB’s bank account, off to a bank account in Jordan and then into Saddam Hussein’s coffers so that he could buy some guns, bombs and bullets for later use against Australian troops—and we suspect he possibly also drew on those funds to pay $25,000 to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. But that is all up until the war. The war happened in March and April 2003. The saga which is about to unfold through the matters before the Cole inquiry at present and the broader debate on these matters is what happened in the 1½ years after the war, before this $300 million rort was finally closed down.

The Prime Minister said something very significant in his interview with Kerry O’Brien on The 7.30 Report a couple of weeks ago. The Prime Minister was defending himself about why no action was taken in response to the 17 warnings the government had received, including the startling information revealed for the first time today in parliament in those cables of early 2000. What was the Prime Minister’s defence? It was a very interesting form of words he used. I am sure the Prime Minister’s office is watching—think carefully about this. What he said was: ‘When the war happened, the dam burst. The information started to flow.’ That was in March and April 2003. What information started to flow? What we know is that after the war the occupying forces—including the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom—captured all the senior Iraqi officials, including those in the agriculture ministry and those in the Iraqi Grains Board. All the people on the corrupt end of the deal were suddenly under our control.

What else did they get when, as the Prime Minister said, the dam burst? I will tell you what else they got: they got a truck load of documents. On top of that, as part of that truck load of documents, they got some really stinky ones, ones which we suspect had a few letters attached to them—the letter A, the letter W and the letter B. A bit of a problem starts to emerge at this point. Of course, by this stage you have the entire country crawling with the intelligence community, sent by the CIA under the auspices of the Iraq Survey Group to track down the much belated and still missing weapons of mass destruction. But while they were doing that through the Iraq Survey Group they were unearthing the money trail. The money trail, of course, came out of the oil for food program. They were trying to work out where all this money came from that Saddam was out there trying to buy weapons on the international market with. It came off the back of this rort which had been running since 1999.

So when the Prime Minister blurts it out on national television to defend himself from attack but in fact opens himself to a fresh new flank, he is admitting that this whole bucket load of information started coming his way. But here is his problem: this was in March, April, May and June 2003. You would think these blokes who call themselves the government—they take the pay cheque—having finally got that information, would have shut the rort down. It ran for another year and a half. Another great truck load of contracts gets approved and another series of rip-offs of the UN bank accounts occur, and all this goes on while this mob, the government—the Prime Minister and Fairy Floss, the foreign minister—are out there running the country and being the co-governors of Iraq. They control the country.

Then what happens in this period? Enter Trevor Flugge, the chap who is up before the Cole inquiry right now, John Howard’s Million Dollar Man—no longer Seven-hundred Thousand Dollar Man but Million Dollar Man. Note carefully today, honourable members, the response by the Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer, from Queensland, Mr Dutton. He basically confirmed, if I heard him right, that there may have been a few tax concessions associated with that $1 million payment as well. Could it have been $1 million tax free? We do not know yet. We would like some confirmation from the government as to what exactly was the case. But Million Dollar Man is out there from this time on not as an AWB representative but as the Howard government’s representative. He has changed hats. He is there representing the interests of John Howard, Alexander Downer and Mark Vaile. He is there in the field together with Mr Long, formerly of the AWB as well.

It is in this period that we find these individuals involved in providing advice to the Coalition Provisional Authority—on what? On what should happen with the continuation of these wheat contracts with the Iraqis. Suddenly the poacher has become the gamekeeper. He has been allowed into the nest. We find that these AWB representatives—now Howard government representatives—are in Iraq, the engine room of the Coalition Provisional Authority, with all this information flowing in from the intelligence community, the captured documents and the interrogated Iraqi officials. Doesn’t this present an interesting set of circumstances? You have Mr Flugge there sitting in the Coalition Provisional Authority with 29 or 30 other Australians and suddenly all this information starts to flow in the door. What do you do with it? This is the story yet to be told.

In those critical months of March, April, May and June 2003, we have a really stinking cat thrown onto the table, and all this information starts to unfold. It comes to the surface in about June 2003 when Mr Long—formerly of the AWB and now in the Howard government’s employ—sends back a memo to Canberra saying: ‘Good, God! We’ve got a memorandum of instruction from the Coalition Provisional Authority which says that there have been kickbacks attached to these contracts with the Iraqis. What are we going to do about that?’ In that cablegram they say that a list has to be prepared of all the contracts that have been done with Iraq, putting those with a 10 per cent kickback attached to them on one side of the ledger and, on the other side of the ledger, those which do not.

In the weeks and months that this debate has raged, the government have failed to answer what they did to pursue whether or not AWB fell on the wrong side of that ledger, that list or that matrix which was being prepared. Throughout this period of time, you have Mr Flugge—with gun in hand and presumably a bucket of cash provided by the Howard government as well. I have noted carefully the Prime Minister’s belated response to my question yesterday that Mr Flugge has been out there doing a job on behalf of the Howard government. That is where the debate is about to unfold to.

This whole 18-month, postwar period points not just to incompetence or negligence but to a government doing much more than turning a blind eye. Throughout 2003-04, when the corrupt contracts are continuing to roll, the government is in control of the government of Iraq itself and the entire information flow. This is where the debate will now go. Mr Flugge is central to this story. He is Mr Howard’s personally chosen representative—his own personally selected million dollar man—the man sent there to do a job in Iraq. They certainly did a job on Iraq. Whether they did a job for Iraq remains to be seen. We intend to pursue this new chapter in the $300 million ‘wheat for weapons’ scandal, until we have the truth out of this government once and for all.

See this speech in context