Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

It is not speculation. They were there doing the job that your government sent them to do, and a major Australian company was simultaneously flouting those sanctions. As those sailors served us, money was being funnelled from the wheat exporter, right through their blockade, into the coffers of Saddam Hussein—money that would eventually be spent on weapons, potentially to be used against Australian soldiers.

What Australia really needs to know is what role our government played in this scandal. Was it just a case of sheer incompetence? That is the government’s best defence. Was it a failure to read the cables? Was it a failure to pick up the 29 warning signs or to take the necessary action? Or was it even a failure by the Minister for Foreign Affairs to follow up on his own requests for more information, which he had scribbled in the margin of one of the cables that he bothered to read? The government’s best argument for the behaviour of its ministers is that they were lazy, incompetent or just plain stupid. These are ministers with front-line responsibility for our national security and economic wellbeing, but they were too lazy to read the cables they were sent. Should we accept the ‘incompetence’ defence or was it even more sinister? Was it wilful blindness—the ‘don’t tell me, I don’t want to know’ excuse? Or was it more than that—a sideways nod, a wink-wink, nudge-nudge, she’ll be right signal to AWB? Or was there even direct knowledge and acquiescence?

In all scenarios, it is no exaggeration to say this is one of the most appalling scandals, if not the most appalling scandal, in the history of the Commonwealth. And yet we have an inquiry that is prevented from examining the most pressing and serious question of the affair: how did the Australian government betray Australian sailors and soldiers by letting money flow past their blockade and into the treasury of one of the world’s most ruthless tyrants? One thing we do know is that, whatever happened, the Howard government has been committed to covering up the scandal. That is not changed one iota by this bill. It is a sensible bill that makes a modest procedural change, but it does not go to the core mechanism of the cover-up: the restrictive terms of reference of the Cole inquiry.

Even this little change is not something that the government did willingly. It took the expense and delay of a Federal Court action to show them what action was needed. Labor gave the government the same advice for free. On 12 March the member for Griffith and I issued a statement calling on the government to take action to resolve the problem of AWB’s exaggerated claims for legal professional privilege, which threatened to stymie the work of the inquiry. Typical of his arrogance, the Attorney responded with a withering press release calling our demand for a solution to the legal professional privilege problem ‘misconceived’.

In this place we sometimes might overlook, if not forgive, arrogance when it is displayed by someone gifted with extraordinary ability, but that does not seem to apply in this case. This press release was an example of how the Attorney’s arrogance is in inverse proportion to his competence. The self-righteous, lecturing tone was a sure sign that he was about to stuff this up. In fact, the Attorney seems to have the temperament of a BASE-jumper—if he is going to take a fall, he will make it all the more spectacular by talking himself up to great heights beforehand.

Almost three months and an expensive Federal Court case later, the Attorney-General finally dealt with the problem that he had ridiculed Labor for recognising. In presenting this bill, he has had to face up to his own incompetence. This extreme sports approach to governance may give the Attorney-General an adrenalin rush, but it leaves the rest of Australia cold. We would prefer that he got it right in the first place, even if it does mean admitting that Labor occasionally has a good idea.

To make matters worse, today we have learnt more of the consequences of the Attorney-General’s failure to take action in March when Labor urged him to do so. We learnt that AWB is now applying to the Federal Court for a declaration that 1,240 extra documents sought by the inquiry and subject to privilege. This looks like being yet another delay and another expense in this increasingly drawn-out inquiry. We have to wonder what the point is of streamlining the process for assessing privilege claims when those claims have already escalated into litigation of this level.

If the Attorney had taken our advice in March rather than issued his silly press release, a streamlined process might have been in operation some time ago. Of course, this bill would not have prevented AWB from taking court action to assert their privilege over the documents, but it would have meant the question was addressed at least two months earlier and, potentially, through a simpler and less expensive process. Now we are faced with an utter mess: a dispute over the status of over 1,200 documents at a time when the commission of inquiry should be nearing its end. What is even more frustrating is that it is not the first example of Mr Ruddock’s unique blend of arrogance and incompetence, nor, it seems, should we expect it to be the last.

Just yesterday we saw another classic example, when the Australian Law Reform Commission carpeted the Attorney’s sedition laws, saying sedition ‘should be removed from the federal statute books’. This followed the Attorney’s heavy-handed manner last year when pushing the antiterrorism laws through parliament. He ignored Labor at that time, but he also ignored his own backbenchers and the recommendations of a Senate committee, who joined in our warnings that the sedition laws were a mistake. Only last week, Mr Ruddock was back in this place parading like a peacock about the chamber and attacking me and others on this side for opposing those laws on the basis that they only scared journalists and artists, not the purveyors of violent propaganda.

Then yesterday, again from the heights of hubris, came the fall. The study by the Law Reform Commission of the laws he had commissioned told him what the rest of us had been saying for six months: the sedition laws were a mistake. Mind you, the Attorney’s conceit was only amplified in the face of this extraordinary criticism. He pretended it was all part of a cunning plan. I am not sure, Mr Deputy Speaker McMullan, whether you listened to The World Today on ABC radio this morning, where, staggeringly, Mr Ruddock said:

This is no embarrassment to me. It was the result that I anticipated and expected.

You have to ask: why on earth did the Attorney ram through the sedition laws if he ‘anticipated and expected’ such stinging criticism from the Law Reform Commission? Why did he not simply accept the view of Labor, of his backbench, of the Senate committee and, now, of the ALRC that 14th century sedition laws designed to stifle criticism of the government are not the right vehicle to deal with the 21st century problems of terrorism and community violence? If that is the best spin he can put on this exposure of his ineptitude, then the Attorney’s career has truly descended, almost into the realms of some sort of tragicomedy.

We saw the same pattern on the bankruptcy anti-avoidance laws. Early in 2005, the Attorney opposed outright Labor’s plan to improve the clawback provisions against those high-flying bankrupts who hide their assets in the names of families and related entities. Early in 2006, the Attorney’s own plan included Labor’s suggestion that he had opposed 12 months before—again, the height of arrogance and the fall of incompetence. Now we are seeing something similar with the family relationship centres. The Attorney has been swanning about the country talking about these centres and plans a trip in July to open all of these new centres.

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