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

What we have in this chamber is a foreign minister who is in total and absolute denial of everything that is going on around him, of every piece of evidence that has been presented—and he scuttles, without courage, from the chamber. The government, of which he is the Minister for Foreign Affairs, were warned repeatedly about this ‘wheat for weapons’ scandal, and what did they do? They chose to do nothing. They are in denial of the fact that there were 27 separate warnings. They are in denial of the fact that the foreign minister had a legal responsibility under Australian domestic law to enforce sanctions against Iraq. They are in denial of the fact that, because of his failure to do so, $300 million was paid over to the enemy.

This foreign minister says that other companies were involved worldwide as well. He is right. There were 2,200 companies from 65 different countries involved in this, and guess who got the gold medal performance? The AWB—first out of 2,200, with $300 million. Guess who got the silver medal? A company from India, by kicking in $40 million to $50 million. There is a big gap between gold and silver, and I do not even know who got the bronze, but this minister is responsible for the ultimate gold medal performance in producing corrupt contracts with Saddam Hussein’s regime.

The reason for this motion being urgent is that this exercise in denial is entirely delusional because this minister refuses to face and acknowledge some basic facts. He described himself boldly, grandly, in the media as a minister exhibiting ‘characteristic diligence’. What level of delusion do you have to be suffering from to describe your performance in this $300 million ‘wheat for weapons’ scandal as ‘characteristic diligence’?

Let us look at some of the excuses masquerading as defences which the foreign minister put up today. The first half of his great defence was: ‘You’ve hurt my feelings.’ He felt that the Leader of the Opposition had not shown good manners. The foreign minister was feeling sad, hurt and upset by that, and as a result Alex left the chamber feeling very cross. That was the first half of his defence. Then we got to the second half of his defence, which I think is the ultimate perversion of foreign policy logic. It runs like this: ‘I, Alexander Downer, had to invade Iraq, which was under Saddam Hussein’s regime, in order to discover that I, Alexander Downer, had approved a company which was sending $300 million to Saddam Hussein’s regime.’ The logic is this: ‘We had to go and invade Iraq to find out that Iraq was receiving corrupt payments from Australia.’ This is monumental nonsense—and Mr Hunt is about to get up and speak to us—

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