Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer him again to his 25 March 2003 statement to parliament that:

... the oil for food program has been immorally and shamefully rorted by Saddam Hussein, who has used the proceeds of it to acquire his weapons capacity ...

Given that you have just said that the rort was widely known and that the AWB was the largest single user of the oil for food program worldwide, why didn’t it occur to the Prime Minister to investigate whether there were any problems with the AWB?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At that time it was common between the government and the opposition that the AWB was an organisation of total integrity and repute. On 6 June 2003, three months after I made my statement to the parliament, there was a response to the allegations made by the American Wheat Associates—allegations, incidentally, as to their detail before the commission. Mr Cole has indicated that he will be very carefully examining the role of the AWB and also the Commonwealth in relation to that issue. This is what the then shadow minister for primary industries, Senator Kerry O’Brien, and the then trade spokesman, Craig Emerson, had to say, such was their belief in the integrity of AWB Ltd—

Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order on relevance. Unless the Prime Minister wants to hand over the government to the Labor Party now, the stance that he is taking on this is completely irrelevant.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. The Prime Minister is in order. I call the Prime Minister.

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They said:

In the absence of evidence to support the allegation, Australian wheat growers are entitled to dismiss the claims as an attempt to promote the sale of US subsidised wheat in the Iraq market.

We had received no credible advice or evidence to doubt the integrity of AWB Ltd. That was a view that I retained well beyond the date quoted by the Leader of the Opposition. If he is honest with himself, so did he.