Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pity that the member opposite who raised the point of order is deaf as well as being involved in the vendetta against Simon Crean. I go further to look at the Volcker report. To put it in true perspective, when we look at the inquiry Volcker embarked upon, he was looking at 2,220 companies—food companies, a bank, the UN secretariat and UN contractors. There were 2,220 companies involved in that investigation, involving 66 member states. If you listened to the subterfuge from the Labor opposition, you would have thought that the Volcker inquiry was exclusively about Australia and Australian Wheat Board Ltd—AWBL. You would not have thought that there was another thing being investigated.

As I said when the honourable member across the way was not listening, the MPI says that the government has not fulfilled its role. I said it had fulfilled its role totally when it appointed the Cole commission to look into Australia’s role and whether or not there had been any breach of federal, state or territory law. I said on a number of occasions that it was about time that the opposition awaited the outcome of that inquiry and then perhaps we can debate what occurs after that. Of course, if we waited for that, the major story that would be running on the front page of the newspapers would be the bloodletting of the Labor Party. Anybody in politics knows that disunity is death. That is precisely what the Labor Party wishes to cover up. The issues are being dealt with quite properly by the government in fulfilling its role, the same role that in the matter of public importance the opposition says we have not fulfilled. Quite clearly, anyone who questioned the government’s response to the Volcker inquiry has properly been answered by the Cole inquiry.

We can look further at the sorts of things that the government is doing in addition to assist in Iraq to ensure that the actions of the coalition of the willing result in a successful outcome for Iraq. In that context, we have committed $173 million in aid—$55.5 million for immediate humanitarian needs; $47 million through multilateral agencies to support elections, agriculture, governance and refugees; $37 million spent on reconstruction assistance, mainly in agriculture and governance; and a further $33 million allocated for construction assistance from 2005 to 2007. In addition to that, we have involved ourselves in UNICEF projects with another $14.5 million for water and sanitation—the provision of two million litres of clean water daily. AusAid funds to UNICEF for water tanks in Basra are benefiting over 200,000 people through the provision of daily supplies of water and rehabilitation of water and sewerage facilities in 10 governorates. AusAID funding supported the rehabilitation of seven Nissan water treatment plant power stations. In the area of health, 4.2 million children under five-years-old and 700,000 pregnant women have been the beneficiaries of a vaccination program. There has been training for 140 physicians and 203 health workers on preventative health services, immunisation and health management. There has been training of 450 health workers specialising in child sickness.

In other words, not only does the government totally refute the proposition set out in the MPI by saying that we have properly fulfilled our role by appointing the Cole commission under the Royal Commission Act 1902 to inquire into these matters but also we are simply one country out of 66 with all the focus on one company when there are 2,220 involved. What we are really seeing is the Labor Party getting rid of all those people who supported the disastrous Latham experiment and masking the bloodbath by attacking sitting members in payback for decreasing the amount of union control of the Labor Party. That is what should really be debated today, not the question of whether or not Australia has acted properly with regard to the Volcker report, which the government have clearly done. (Time expired)

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