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

The foreign minister sits over there, and his credibility day by day has evaporated before our very eyes. He is incapable of providing any answer to any question concerning his responsibility for this $300 million ‘wheat for weapons’ scandal—a ‘wheat for weapons’ scandal which delivered money to the enemy. No greater act of treachery could be delivered to the Australian armed forces than to allow $300 million to go into the hands of an enemy with whom you are on the cusp of going to war.

This minister, who does not have the guts to be present during this debate, had the responsibility under Australian law to ensure that did not happen. And this minister, the foreign minister, failed to discharge his duties to the Australian people. More importantly, he failed to discharge his duties to our men and women in uniform. He allowed money to go to the enemy to buy weapons for use against Australian troops.

This Prime Minister has sought to defend his rorted terms of reference—terms of reference which he has rorted for one reason alone, which is to defend the foreign minister. He has tried to advance two reasons as to why these rorted, narrow terms of reference are somehow defensible. The first is this: he says, ‘The United Nations didn’t ask us to do any more.’ If you look at the UN report, the Volcker inquiry, you will see that it was established to examine the role of the UN and UN suppliers. It had no mandate to examine the role of national governments in the first place. But even given that, when the Secretary-General of the United Nations made his statement after the Volcker inquiry report was delivered, even he referred to the fact that each of these supply contracts had to be certified. By whom? By national governments. And which national government certified the biggest slosh bucket full of money over to Saddam Hussein? This government here.

There are three players in this scandal: the United Nations is the first, AWB is the second and the Australian government is the third. Guess what? We have had an inquiry into the United Nations—that is, the Volcker inquiry; we are having an inquiry into AWB—that is, the Cole inquiry; but have no inquiry whatsoever into the third player, which, of course, is the Howard government.

The Prime Minister’s second defence is that findings of fact can be made. He knows full well as he stands at the dispatch box that those findings can only be made in relation to whether the AWB should be charged with a criminal matter. He knows that. He stands before us in this act of defiant cover-up each day. We have before us a government which has failed its most fundamental task of national security. Instead of acting as a government and recognising that it has a case to answer, or at least recognising that it has a sense of responsibility—and, I have to say, shame—its recourse is one standard extract from the John Howard text of political survival: cover-up, cover-up and cover-up. (Time expired)

Question put:

That the motion (That the motion () be agreed to.

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