Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is again to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. I refer the minister to last night’s statement by a spokeswoman for the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, Mr Truss, that the 2004 confidential report from the Wheat Export Authority to Mr Truss contained details of AWB payments of transport fees to a Jordanian trucking company. Given this statement, why did the minister tell the House on 8 December last year in response to a question about freight costs paid by AWB in Iraq:

... those confidential reports to the minister for agriculture ... do not contain the sort of information implied in the honourable member’s question.

Minister, why did you mislead the House?

Peter McGauran (Gippsland, National Party, Deputy Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. I did not mislead the House. I believe the answer to his question lies in the letter from the Chairman of the WEA to Senator Heffernan, as Chairman of the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Estimates Committee, which is dated 7 February:

When questioned specifically by WEA staff over the provision of “kickbacks” in Iraq AWB(I) denied any wrong. AWB(I) staff pointed to the unique circumstances of Iraq sales (eg: that sales were to include delivery of wheat over land and payment is not made until the wheat is delivered) to explain why it was necessary to pay a Jordanian trucking company and why prices may appear above global benchmarks.

Whilst we are talking about statements from last night, I notice your statements and your doorstop talks about how this is the smoking gun.

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

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It goes to relevance. The question referred to his quote, which said that those confidential reports ‘do not contain the sort of information implied in the honourable member’s question’. That was about transport fees.

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

The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat.

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

That is why you misled the House.

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

The leader will resume his seat. The minister is answering the question.

Peter McGauran (Gippsland, National Party, Deputy Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If it will help the honourable member understand the role of the WEA, they look at land transport costs to free on board, because they are costs borne by wheat growers—in other words, they are a cost to the national pool. But in the normal course of events they do not look at land transport costs offshore because of the assurances they have received in the past that they are borne by the customer and therefore are not a draw on the national pool and are not within their charter. But they made an exception. To their full credit, they made an exception to this practice and to these responsibilities when in August 2004, on the basis of public newspaper reports, they made inquiries about land transport costs in the event that those costs were being borne by wheat growers. So it is a very simple thing. Let us talk about last night. Last night this was the smoking gun. This morning, the Leader of the Opposition says there is no smoking gun.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Is the minister aware of claims made in the public arena asserting the involvement of the Australian government in the alleged AWB kickback scheme? What is the minister’s reaction to these claims?

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

I thank the honourable member for Mackellar for asking me a question about this issue. I appreciate her interest in asking me a question. Let me begin answering these claims by making a simple point: if Saddam Hussein’s regime had remained in power, the oil for food program would have continued and the corruption of the oil for food program would have remained undiscovered.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Order! The minister will resume his seat. Members on my left are holding up their leader!

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

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It goes to relevance. On the basis of this argument, we went to war with Saddam Hussein to stop corruption in the AWB.

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

The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. That is not a point of order.

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

The corruption would be continuing undiscovered if the Labor Party had had its way. Let me just make that point. It was the work of the coalition provisional authority, it was the work that was done to expose what Saddam Hussein’s regime had been doing through access to the documents of that regime and interviews with people in that regime that made it possible to establish the corruption in the oil for food program. There was the establishment of the Volcker committee and its report and ultimately the establishment in this country of the Cole commission.

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Tanner interjecting

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

The member for Melbourne is warned.

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

The second point is that the opposition—the Leader of the Opposition in particular—has accused the Prime Minister, ministers, officials of various government departments and diplomats in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of being corrupt. Not morally corrupt. He said, ‘No, they were corrupt, period.’ According to the Leader of the Opposition, ‘This is the worst piece of corruption I have seen in 25 years as a federal politician.’ I have often reflected on this. If I were so corrupt, why would you ask 28 questions and not one to a person who is apparently corrupt? Let me make this point: more abhorrently, the Leader of the Opposition has accused the Australian government of being responsible for the deaths of thousands of American soldiers in Iraq and of funding Palestinian suicide bombers and he takes a point of order about weapons of mass destruction—

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms King interjecting

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

The member for Ballarat is warned.

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

but on the Lateline program on Monday night, the Leader of the Opposition said that this money was responsible for funding Saddam Hussein’s research into weapons of mass destruction. So at least we get the concession from the Leader of the Opposition that Saddam Hussein was doing research into weapons of mass destruction. These are profoundly serious allegations to make against the Australian government—

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Tanner interjecting

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

The member for Melbourne will remove himself from the chamber under standing order 94(a).

The member for Melbourne then left the chamber.

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

What is interesting is that, as we come to the end of this parliamentary week, no evidence has been produced at all to support these extraordinary, extremist and hyperbolic assertions. Last week the Leader of the Opposition said to the National Press Club:

...I promise you—

the people at the National Press Club are journalists—

and every Australian—

this—

will be the most aggressive Parliamentary interrogation this Government has faced in its ten long years in office.

You can just imagine him saying it, all blown up, explosive and excited: ‘The worst corruption in 25 years’, ‘Responsible for the deaths of Americans’, ‘Suicide bombers’, ‘Research into weapons of mass destruction’, yet after a whole week of these incredible assertions the Leader of the Opposition today was quoted on Brisbane ABC news as saying:

There is no smoking gun here.

Oh dear! The most corrupt, appalling, vile, cruel, wicked people in the history of the universe—but there is unfortunately no smoking gun. The Leader of the Opposition, at the end of the day, is a weak man who is a pathetic parliamentary performer.

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

The CIA agrees with me, I am sorry about him—

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

The leader will come to his question or resume his seat.

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

My question is to the Minister for Transport and Regional Services. We will get back to uncovering this scandal. I refer to the statement from the minister’s office last night that the 2004 confidential report from the Wheat Export Authority to him contained details of AWB payments of transport fees to a Jordanian trucking company. I also refer to the fact that the minister’s statement contradicts the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry’s answer to the House on 8 December last year:

... those confidential reports to the minister for agriculture ... do not contain the sort of information implied in the honourable member’s question.

Why didn’t the minister take steps under the ministerial code of conduct to correct this mislead as soon as possible? Why did he turn a blind eye?

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Minister for Transport and Regional Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is absolutely no difference between the comments that have been made by me and the comments made by the new minister for agriculture. What the minister for agriculture has clearly pointed out is that the Wheat Export Authority exercised its legislative responsibility to investigate allegations that were in the public domain. It reported on these matters in the confidential report to the minister, which I received in October 2004. Whilst the report is confidential, Mr Besley, the chairman of the authority, has said a couple of things about what was in that report. The first the minister for agriculture commented about a couple of minutes ago in his letter to Senator Heffernan in which he made the comment and referred to his statements in front of the Senate estimates committee that nothing untoward emerged from that check. To quote from Mr Besley, in the newspaper today, he said:

The information given to the minister—

and in this instance it was me—

contained no evidence of wrongdoing. Instead, the minister was told the WEA had given AWB a “clean bill of health”.

So the advice given by the WEA to the minister was that the AWB had a clean bill of health on these issues. I believe the response that was made at that time was entirely appropriate. It dealt with the complaints, it dealt with the allegations and advised the minister that the AWB had a clean bill of health.