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

My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I refer to his statement to parliament on 31 October last that: ‘As far as the government is aware, the first knowledge of Alia and concerns relating to the AWB’s use of the company was in the context of the Volcker inquiry’—an inquiry which began in 2004. Why did the minister mislead parliament by using the excuse that he had not been briefed on the name of the Jordanian trucking company when it has now been revealed that for six years he had known about the fact that a Jordanian company owned by Saddam Hussein’s regime had in fact been the subject of formal UN warnings concerning that company’s dealing with the AWB? Why did the minister mislead the parliament?

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