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

Indeed. Investigations by police and prosecutors are also underway in New Zealand and Switzerland. But here in Australia things are moving at a snail’s pace.

The Attorney-General, in releasing the Cole report yesterday, was in the business of softening us up and lowering expectations. He said:

I would like to add a word of caution. ... it may take time for the independent agencies involved in the task force to thoroughly consider all of the relevant material before commencing any prosecution.

This is appropriate. Government agencies should only take actions to investigate and prosecute citizens or companies when they have a proper basis for doing so. Thanks to Commissioner Cole’s inquiry, we now have a basis for making proper, informed decisions about whether persons or companies can and should be prosecuted for possible breaches of Australian law.

Reading this, I am concerned that it is the government’s intention and desire to hold back and delay any charges and cases going to court arising from this scandal. Why might the government want such a delay? What motivation could it have? The answer might be found in a report in today’s Age by Richard Baker and Dan Silkstone, which goes as follows:

AWB figures implicated in the Iraq wheat scandal have threatened to call Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer as a witness if they face trial, with one vowing “my QC will rip him to shreds”.

With the Cole report yesterday recommending 11 former AWB executives be investigated for possible criminal offences but clearing Howard Government ministers and officials, several wheat board figures embroiled in the scandal hit out at the Coalition.

“The Government knew ... They knew everything,” said one AWB figure. “It’s like Breaker Morant all over again. If I go to trial, then Downer will be the first witness called, that’s a promise. My QC will rip him to shreds.”

The report also says:

The threats from the former AWB executives came as the lawyers representing them at the Cole inquiry criticised the conduct of the inquiry, with many claiming it was set up to protect the Government.

They certainly got that right. It was set up—and it was a set-up—to protect the government. If the government wants to emerge from this scandal with any shred of integrity, it will not try to hide these cases until after the election. It will deal with them expeditiously. The AWB executives who say that they will call Minister Downer as a witness may be bluffing but, for the sake of this country’s reputation, this matter must be dealt with, and dealt with not by an inquiry with rigged terms of reference but in a court where everyone has the opportunity to put their case.

The immediate need is for the Howard government to send a clear signal that public accountability has not gone through some Stargate-like portal and disappeared into outer space. The Prime Minister should accept the resignation of the Minister for Foreign Affairs. That would be the signal.

But we need to take action on a number of fronts to improve public accountability and rescue it from the abyss into which it has fallen. We believe that ministers should be required to adhere to a formal code of conduct. We think that question time should be rejuvenated with measures to enhance the independence of the Speaker. We think that ministerial advisers should be accountable to the parliament. We think that freedom of information legislation should be strengthened by abolishing conclusive certificates. We think that corporatisation, outsourcing and commercial confidentiality should not be used as excuses to evade open government and accountability. We think we need more legislation to provide effective protection for public interest disclosures or whistleblowing in the public sector. Finally, we think that job insecurity forced on departmental secretaries and agency heads can lead to politicisation of the Public Service and that we need fixed contracts for a period of five years for these people.

We are blessed with a healthy democracy, but it has become flabby and blotchy in recent years. It might not yet need an extreme makeover, but it needs work. If the AWB scandal does not act as a real wake-up call, then our present smugness and complacency about the health of our democracy will cause us to drift even further down the path of those countries where corruption is a way of life and it is not what you know but who. (Time expired)

See this speech in context