Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to the debate on this particular report and associate myself with the member for Canberra and other members on this side who have raised serious concerns about the way in which the government has chosen to respond to what is of course a very serious assault upon the Australian Wheat Board, its actions and behaviour. Indeed, that is clearly outlined in five volumes of reports by Commissioner Cole. What we do know, however, is that since the report has been tabled the government have chosen to pretend that somehow they have no role to play and have had no role to play in regulating the way in which AWB operates and have sought to suggest that they should be accused of no wrongdoing because there has been no wrongdoing on the part of the government or a particular minister.

The Labor Party fundamentally disagrees with that proposition. There is no doubt in the mind of, firstly, Commissioner Cole—who is of course limited by the terms of reference but who even with respect to those terms of reference concluded—that there was gross misconduct on behalf of people representing the Australian Wheat Board. Indeed, there was a failure—a fundamental, systemic failure of government—to consider the complaints that were being made by all sorts of people and parties with respect to the behaviour of the AWB. There is no doubt that the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Trade at the time failed to have regard to the multitude of complaints that were made over a long period of time about the unlawful behaviour of the AWB.

I guess it should not surprise us on this side and indeed this nation. If a government is willing to engage in an unlawful war, why should I be surprised that it does not concern itself about the unlawful behaviour of the Australian Wheat Board? The fact is that this government chose, through its own negligence, to fund two sides of an unlawful war. I think it should therefore be condemned by the parliament and condemned by this nation that the government would allow the AWB to continue its actions in a manner that has brought this country into disrepute.

Labor warned the government that it was not in the interests of this nation or indeed in the interests of the world that we follow the Bush administration into Iraq. We said it was not going to assist Iraqis; it was not going to assist the citizens—the men, women and children—of Iraq; it was not going to in any way do anything other than place our troops in harm’s way. It was not an assault upon terrorism. In fact, it was going to increase the likelihood of terrorism both in that region and at home. I think those things have been shown to be true.

As the supporters of the war start to drift away and start to join those that were originally in opposition to the war, we have to therefore take note, and soberly take note, of the conclusions of the Cole report. In that report, Commissioner Cole clearly points out the list of complaints that were made, which makes a mockery of the answers of the government that they could not and did not know that there were serious bribes going on to fund the Saddam regime. I know my colleague the shadow minister for foreign affairs, the member for Griffith, did attempt in his contribution to articulate the multitude of warnings, but because there were so many he was only able to reach 25 warnings that the Minister for Foreign Affairs was notified of. I would like to continue where the shadow foreign affairs minister left off by adding a further 10 warnings that were made to the government or should have been known by the government.

On 19 May 2003, the foreign minister met with senior BHP Billiton figures in London to discuss BHP’s bid for the Halfayah oilfield in Iraq. BHP told Mr Downer that BHP executives had been working on oil for food projects in order to maintain relationships with Iraq and:

... in September 2000 BHP transferred rights in Halfayah to a Joint Venture led by Tigris Petroleum, headed by BHP executives who were responsible maintaining relationships with Iraq by working on oil for food related projects until a normal political situation could be established in Iraq.

BHP said they and Tigris had already briefed the PMO, DFAT, Defence and AFFA about their interests in the Halfayah oilfield.

On 3 June of the same year, US Wheat Associates wrote to the US Secretary Of State, Colin Powell, about concerns that some of the money paid under AWB contracts ‘may have gone into accounts of Saddam Hussein’s family’. On 6 June 2003, the then Minister for Trade rejected the US allegations out of hand, describing them as ludicrous and insulting, and instructed the embassy in Washington to convey his views to Secretary Powell. On 10 June of the same year, an Australian representative on the CPA, Michael Long, received a memorandum of instruction from the CPA. This memorandum asked ministry advisers to, among other things:

Identify which contracts have a kickback or surcharge. We need to know what percentage kickback or “after sales service fee” was involved under the “Extra Fees” category. Your ministry is likely aware of this charge so please work with them to identify and indicate on the matrix.

Long forwarded the memorandum of instruction to DFAT, who forwarded it to the AWB on 13 June.

On 23 June 2003, the Australian representation in Baghdad sent a cable to Canberra outlining the new Coalition Provisional Authority’s reprioritisation of contracts in the immediate postwar period. It stated:

Every contract since phase 9 included a kickback to the regime from between 10 and nineteen per cent. The CPA was advising ministries to tell companies with contracts that the “after sales service fee”, which was usually to be deposited in offshore banks, would be remitted to them.

This cable listed for action Dr Calvert, DFAT, Mr Smith, secretary of Defence, and General Cosgrove, Chief of Defence Force. For information it listed the Prime Minister, the Minister for Trade, the Treasurer, the Attorney-General, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Minister for Defence, ASIO, DIO and ONA. On the warning between June 2003 and January 2004, the AIC held intelligence that the former Saddam regime had four suppliers and that the OFFP was to pay Iraq the 10 per cent commission. These reports were distributed to DFAT, the Department of Defence, the Treasury and the department of industry.

In an interview with SBS’s Dateline on 8 February 2006, Senator Bill Heffernan said that AWB had been coming into his office for the past 2½ years and that:

I kept saying to them we hear that you blokes are on the take as it were or giving kickbacks.

On 12 September 2003, the US Department of Defense published a report into the misuse of oil for food which found that AWB’s contract was potentially overpriced to the tune of $US14.8 million. In October 2003, Treasury officials working on secondment to the Iraqi ministry of finance as part of the Coalition Provisional Authority forwarded to Canberra a report that found that Saddam’s regime required that 10 per cent of the face value of contracts they submitted under the oil for food program be paid directly to the regime.

In the same month in 2003, on 22 October, US Senator Tom Daschle, the Democrat senator from South Dakota, wrote to US President Bush asking him to investigate claims that Australian wheat was sold to Iraq at inflated prices and that money was then given secretly to Saddam Hussein’s family to maintain trade. He urged Bush to discuss the matter with the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, during his visit to Australia. The Australian Embassy in Washington wrote to Senator Daschle describing the allegations he raised in his letter to the President as reprehensible. In the same month in the same year, on 23 October, the embassy in Washington sent a cable reporting a discussion with Senator Daschle’s staff about the Democrat letter to President Bush. A contact told the embassy that they had been advised by State that:

... its scrutiny of OFF contracts revealed that 10% had been added to the price of every OFF contract.

There are another 10 warnings that were provided to departments of this government, indeed to the minister’s office, that were ignored by this government.

It is a sad indictment that the government has not even had the good grace to accept that it has fundamentally failed the Australian people, it has fundamentally failed to regulate AWB’s behaviour. There has been no acceptance of ministerial responsibility, whether it be by the Minister for Foreign Affairs or by the Minister for Trade. I think the fact that the government has failed to do so shows that this is an out-of-touch government, a government that thinks it can get away with anything, that holds the Australian people in such contempt that it does not believe people must be accountable for their actions or, in this case, their inactions.

It seems to me that everybody knew that the AWB were providing kickbacks to the Saddam regime except Minister Downer and Minister Vaile, if we are to believe the government. That clearly could not be the case. That clearly is not true, and we argue therefore that these ministers must go. They must resign. They must follow the principles of ministerial accountability. This government has to take some responsibility for the failures of the AWB, the crimes that have been committed in the name of this country, otherwise we will be condemned around the world for deliberately turning a blind eye to this corrupt practice—which, in the end, aided and abetted an enemy of this country, a dictator who ultimately was being funded and therefore armed to potentially kill and maim our Australian defence forces.

Debate (on motion by Mr Neville) adjourned.

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