Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

Well, let us go to the seeds of what created this, because it is incompetence on the part of the government. It goes back over a number of years, since the time the Howard government privatised the AWB back in 1998. It is now obvious that that structure that they oversaw was deeply flawed. Those responsible for putting that structure into place should now be apologising to every wheat grower in the country and every member of the Australian public.

To remind the House: it was the Deputy Prime Minister and his immediate predecessor who must accept prime responsibility for the development and carriage of the legislation that set up the current wheat marketing arrangements. It was the previous Leader of the National Party, the member for Gwydir, who did much of the early work in devising AWB’s structure during his time as primary industries minister. It was his successor, the current Leader of the National Party, who was agriculture minister during 1998, who took much of the legislation through the parliament. They both now stand condemned for having failed to produce a structure for the privatised AWB that was robust enough to maintain its reputation as a company worthy of the trust of the international marketplace and of Australian wheat growers.

It was in fact a succession of National Party agriculture ministers, including the current Deputy Leader of the National Party, that failed to ensure that the Wheat Export Authority did the job it was set up to do. When in government, the National Party gave a Corporations Law company, AWB, a legislated monopoly. They took the monopoly from a statutory body and gave it to a privatised body. The National Party had a clear duty to put in place a mechanism to ensure that the monopoly power was not abused. What was needed was a real watchdog, but instead of a Rottweiler they produced a Chihuahua. That is what happened: the Wheat Export Authority was pathetic in terms of its scrutiny. On paper, the Wheat Export Authority has extensive powers to oversee AWB’s management of the single desk. In practice, it was a complete flop.

In the five years that he was agriculture minister, the current Deputy Leader of the National Party did nothing to ensure that the Wheat Export Authority was doing its job. During those five years, the Wheat Export Authority—despite having the power to look at every contract and to demand a look at every document—completely missed AWB’s involvement in the wheat for weapons scandal. Even when the evidence was mounting and articles about the possible involvement of the AWB in sanctions busting were starting to appear in the press, all the Wheat Export Authority did was to ask the AWB if it was doing the right thing. When the AWB said, ‘Yes, everything is above board,’ the Wheat Export Authority just went back to sleep.

The minister responsible at the time, Minister Truss, was asleep, too. But in the minister’s case it is even worse, because he effectively condoned these activities back in March last year when he was asked about the wheat for weapons, the bribes and the kickbacks. This is what Minister Truss had to say:

But even if the Australian Wheat Board was paying commissions for wheat sales in Iraq, that would not cause any great worry.

That is what the minister said. He went on:

... if ever there were any kickbacks to the Iraqi regime, then I guess they would end up with the government. So that is not terribly unusual.

Not only was he asleep at the wheel; he was also prepared to condone this as normal practice. It is an absolute disgrace and the government stands condemned. Did they ever direct the authority to vigorously investigate the allegations that were flying around at the time? Of course not.

I went through that to talk about the problems. But I also want to contrast all that to the way in which Labor when it was in office administered and discharged its responsibilities in dealing with the single desk in very similar circumstances. When we were in office during the first Gulf War we had to deal with contracts of wheat to Iraq. The first Gulf War resulted in the United Nations sanctions—sanctions which the Wheat Board then set about corrupting, as seen in the most recent Cole inquiry revelations. Labor allowed no such rorting. Gareth Evans, the then foreign minister, insisted on his department satisfying itself that the sanctions were not breached by Australian companies—in other words, no bribes were paid.

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