Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

As I was just saying before I was so rudely interrupted, all cables are automatically, by definition, referred to my office, and that is about 130,000 a year. I would have thought that had become a bit apparent to people who knew something about how government works, because my portfolio is responsible for the cable system.

But let me just repeat what I said earlier: the Minister for Transport and Regional Services is responsible for the issue of Airservices Australia, not the foreign minister, and that has always been the case. The recent report by the Australian National Audit Office confirmed that the investigation undertaken by the Australian Federal Police considered the conduct of Airservices employees. The advice received from the AFP was that there was no evidence to support a charge of criminal conduct contrary to Commonwealth law by Airservices Australia employees. So I would have thought that, as usual, the right things were being done. There was an Auditor-General’s report; there has been an AFP investigation, and that is what we expect.

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