Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Public Accountability and Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker—I am. The changes, according to the explanatory memorandum, will improve governance and accountability in the Australian Trade Commission. I am pointing to the need for this to be done and I am speaking in support of the opposition’s amendment.

Othman Al Absi also told the 7.30 Report that Austrade’s Ayman Ayyash kept in touch with them all ‘so many times’. I wonder what about? The Australian public has a right to know. Why would an Austrade official who was in the business of selling wheat talk ‘so many times’ and ‘party’ with the chairman and general manager of a kickback receipt company? So far neither Austrade nor the Australian government has provided anything like a satisfactory response. Here again was an opportunity for Austrade to have asked a pointy question or two: did Austrade know that Alia was 49 per cent owned by Saddam Hussein and that all the kickbacks were going straight back to Saddam’s treasury? This is something the Australian public has a right to know about.

Unfortunately, in February this year, during the last round of Senate estimates hearings, Senator Coonan chose to gag Austrade officials appearing before the committee. The government’s contempt for parliamentary democracy took another leap, and public servants working at Austrade were gagged. They were not permitted to speak about AWB. So we really have no way of knowing. The Prime Minister, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Trade have repeatedly claimed that they are being open and transparent about the ‘wheat for weapons’ scandal, so why is it that we cannot ask Austrade in Senate estimates about what they know? We want to know about the role of Australia’s man in Jordan, Ayman Ayyash. Just what were his dealings with Alia? Just what did he know about AWB kickbacks?

The Cole inquiry’s terms of reference do not call for an assessment of what Austrade did or did not know, or did or did not do. The government has made sure the Cole inquiry protected them from such important questions. The government claims it is being honest and transparent about the AWB scandal, but it has not given the Cole commission any terms of reference to inquire into the conduct of Austrade, much less government ministers themselves. Nor will it allow senators to question Austrade officials about the AWB scandal as part of normal Senate estimates processes. This is a government which claimed it would not abuse its Senate majority. What a joke. This bill claims it will improve the corporate governance and accountability of Austrade. I say that nothing would sharpen the sense of corporate governance and accountability quite like a couple of sessions in front of Senate estimates committees.

In closing, I refer to the current wheat deal. A transparent and accountable Austrade might even be able to give us a full account of what has happened to our on-again, off-again wheat deal with Iraq. We had the trade minister saying today that it is going to be secured. The question is: just how much is Iraq going to pay Australian farmers for 350,000 tonnes of wheat? Hard-working wheat farmers deserve to know where they stand and certainly deserve a transparent and accountable Trade Commission. I encourage the House to support the amendment.

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