Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

He interjects ‘a blind eye’. For the government to have turned a blind eye, either officers of government departments would have had to turn a blind eye, and it is perfectly obvious from their evidence that they did not, or the government—that is, ministers and the Prime Minister—would have had to instruct them to turn a blind eye. Of course, there is no evidence to that effect either.

The fact is that all of this is being played out in an extremely transparent way. If the government wanted to turn a blind eye, if it wanted to brush this issue under the carpet or pretend that something had happened that had not happened, or if it wanted to deceive and be dishonest, presumably it would not have set up a commission with the powers of a royal commission. If people reflect on it, it simply defies commonsense.

Let me make it perfectly clear. We are happy to have a discussion about this every single day of the week. From recollection, I think the opposition asked 110 questions about this issue. Today is the day when the new industrial relations system comes into force. Mr Combet went on television yesterday and said that the Labor Party should get into the government over this. The member for Perth made a great song and dance—I saw it on the news last night—about how ‘we in the Labor Party are going to beat up the government on industrial relations’. We had four lazy questions about the blindingly obvious on industrial relations. We had a heap of the usual hysterical accusations against the government on AWB Ltd, when the government has already set up a commission of inquiry into it. I would have thought that those opposite would want to be just ever so slightly cautious about making too many conclusive allegations against the government on this issue before the Cole commission reports.

Maybe the Cole commission will find that the government was involved in corruption, had known all about it and so on. If I may say so, Mr Speaker, I would have thought that ever so slightly unlikely, but I do not know; we will have to wait and see. If it does not come up with those sorts of conclusions, it is going to be a very embarrassing day for the Australian Labor Party and other critics of the government—a very embarrassing day. I would have thought that the government had done absolutely the right thing. Far from trying to hide or cover anything up, it set up a commission of inquiry so that all of the facts could be put out on the table.

Let me conclude with something—and from time to time I will come back to this in question time.

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