John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

If the member for Griffith will contain himself, I will come to the issue that he has raised. The commissioner has said a number of things. I refer the House back to the statement he issued on 3 February 2006, in which he said that the inquiry will address and make findings regarding at least the following: the role of DFAT; the knowledge of DFAT; what AWB told the Commonwealth and in particular DFAT; and whether the Commonwealth, and in particular DFAT, was informed of any knowledge AWB may be found to have had regarding payments by AWB to Alia. In other words, Mr Cole is making it very clear that he will make findings in relation to all of those matters.

Importantly, he also said in paragraph 14 of that statement—and I ask the House to listen to this carefully because it goes to the core of what we established the committee to do:

Accordingly, if, during the course of my inquiry, it appears to me that there might have been a breach of any Commonwealth, State or Territory law by the Commonwealth or any officer of the Commonwealth related to the subject matter of the terms of reference, I will approach the Attorney-General seeking a widening of the terms of reference to permit me to make such a finding.

Mr Speaker, let me, I hope doing no injustice to the language of the commissioner, spell out a little further what that means. That means that, if he thought a minister had broken the law, he would ask for an extension of the terms of reference to investigate that. And it is entirely proper that he would do that. Interestingly and instructively, he then went on, in paragraph 15, to say:

That position has not been reached. The position may change—

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