Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this MPI that has been introduced by the Labor Party. It reads:

The Government’s negligence in responding to 33 separate warnings on the $300 million wheat for weapons scandal, its attempted cover-up of this scandal and its impact on the Australian wheat industry.

That is the MPI that has been presented by the Labor Party, and this side of the House rejects those allegations outright. I have a great interest in the Cole commission of inquiry, because I represent a large group of wheat growers in Australia, and I know that we on this side of the parliament are interested in the outcome of the Cole investigation—unlike those on the other side of the parliament. The matters relating to the Australian Wheat Board and its trade under the oil for food program are before the Cole commission now, and the Labor Party should allow Commissioner Cole to do his job.

The United Nations established an independent committee of inquiry, led by Paul Volcker, to examine the operations of the oil for food program in Iraq. This government cooperated fully with that inquiry. There has been no cover-up; we are not hiding anything. We cooperated fully with that inquiry. The final Volcker report raised questions about activities of three Australian companies during the oil for food program. We cooperated with the inquiry and they raised questions about three Australian companies. In response to the Volcker inquiry, this government established a commission of inquiry led by Justice Cole.

I have been joined in the House by the member for Riverina, who I know has a great interest in the welfare of Australian wheat growers and who fully supports the Cole inquiry that has been set up by this government to investigate matters raised in the Volcker report. In the Volcker report, something like 2,000 companies from 66 countries were named. It is interesting to note that Australia is the only country that has established an inquiry that is fully transparent. This government is cooperating to ensure that Commissioner Cole can do his job. That is hardly a cover-up.

I want to touch on some of the comments and allegations that come from the other side of the House repeatedly. The Labor Party say that they are the friend of the Australian wheat grower. It is worth putting on the Hansard record that during the first Gulf War, when we were on the other side of the House, the Labor Party were on the Treasury bench. The now Leader of the Opposition had become Deputy Prime Minister. The Australian Wheat Board, selling on behalf of Australian wheat growers, had contracted to sell wheat into Iraq. Supported by both sides of the parliament at the time, in order to ensure that we could help as part of a coalition of like-minded countries, and to ensure that Iraq was pushed back out of Kuwait, wheat had been forward sold into that market in Iraq. Up to 85 per cent of the value of that wheat was covered by the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation. Fifteen per cent of the value of that wheat got tied up in the failure of the Iraqi regime to honour payments to the Australian wheat growers. This was a Labor Party, in government, that could have done something about those payments to ensure that the wheat growers of Australia were not the innocent victims of the Labor Party support of our involvement in the first Gulf War, to ensure that Iraq was pushed out of Kuwait.

That debt to Australian wheat growers has since been written off. But who had to bear the brunt of that loss? The Australian wheat grower. So when the Labor Party comes into this place and says that they are the friends of the wheat growers of Australia, I say—

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