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 Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade. I refer to the Deputy Prime Minister’s sworn evidence to the Cole inquiry dated 5 April 2006 in which he stated on 43 occasions that he had no recollection of having received any of the 21 warning cables dealing with the ‘wheat for weapons’ scandal. I also refer to confirmation in DFAT Senate estimates yesterday that since the year 2000 DFAT has been able to formally audit the opening, printing, exporting—that is, moving the contents of one cable to another document—and closing of cables by an electronic cable log. Minister, did you personally check this electronic cable access log before submitting your sworn evidence to the Cole inquiry on 5 April?

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