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

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Brand proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Government placing its short term political interests ahead of the long term national interest in relation to AWB Oil for Food scandal.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

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

What a disgraceful performance we saw from the Prime Minister in question time today—the ducking and shoving away of responsibility for this tragic scandal from himself. The one thing on his mind is: how can I and my ministers escape blame? How can we make absolutely certain that, whatever comes out of this, we will not have to accept responsibility for the worst scandal in many a long year in federal history? It is the most incompetent performance by a government: the trashing of our national reputation, the wreckage of the interests of the major trading components of our economy, our farmers—the trashing of all of that. How could the Prime Minister evade responsibility for that and throw as much smoke, as much of a camouflage, as he possibly can all over it here in question time?

He even got to the point where he was blaming the opposition shadow spokesman on foreign affairs for his ‘lack of attention’ to his job, as though it is the responsibility of the opposition to sit down and read the intelligence reports—all the cables, all the materials, that come in from all the diplomats—and stick up a flag and say, ‘Hey, Mr Prime Minister, take a look out for this,’ as though that was the opportunity we had and as though that was our responsibility. The simple fact of the matter is that he and his ministers were responsible. They were getting the cables and the analyses and they had day-to-day control of these matters—and they failed.

Then we saw another performance yesterday. What bold analyses there were out there in the editorials. What extraordinary things were to be expected of the Prime Minister. What did he let out then? The view that he was really going to get to grips with the situation which had emerged. He was going to put together the best possible mechanism for ensuring that we had a decent outcome in Iraq. We were going to cut adrift the elements of the scandal that the Iraqi government was objecting to, to wit AWB. We were going to be there; we were going to be decisive.

What a damp squib he produced—as though the only person he could send to effectively represent the grains interests was the chairman of AWB! It was sheer lack of courage on the part of the Prime Minister that he selected Mr Stewart when so many others were available in the Grains Council from any of the other organisations. All he needed to get from AWB was AWB’s permission, if you like, to stand aside from the contract. The Prime Minister did not effectively achieve that sufficiently to ensure that he went away with a delegation that looked as though we were making a fresh start on this as we approached the Iraqis.

They should be able to succeed; they ought to be able to succeed. The simple fact of the matter is that, if the government’s connections with Iraq mean anything at all, it ought to be a simple matter for that delegation to succeed in its objective in getting the Australian farmers back into that market. But they decided that they would handicap themselves on the way through.

The Prime Minister should be on his knees begging for forgiveness from the wheat farmers of Australia. When they needed him to protect them from this $300 million bribery scandal, he turned his back on them. Instead of protecting the Australian farmers, he is scrambling to protect himself and his ministers. This is an arrogant government. They have been abusing their total power, scrambling to save themselves at any cost, blatantly ignoring the national interest in pursuit of blind political self-interest, covering up their sorry hides, trashing our farmers’ livelihoods, damaging our national economy, undermining our reputation as an honest player, endangering the lives of our troops in Iraq, turning a blind eye to what we know was a systematic and deliberate rorting of the oil for food program and channelling hundreds of millions of dollars into Saddam’s coffers.

But, for the Prime Minister, this counts for nothing. Instead of coming clean, the Prime Minister and his ministers have swung into damage control—they stonewall, dissemble, evade questions and use their total power to close down parliamentary scrutiny. When ministerial heads should be rolling, they gag public servants and curtail Cole to quarantine their ministers. They are a law unto themselves, accountable to no-one—least of all, the Australian people and, far less, the hapless wheat farmers, who are the innocent victims of a shameless scandal, unwitting pawns in this disgraceful mess who will pay with their own economic security. The farmers now know that Saddam made almost as much out of Australian wheat as they did.

But, instead of going out to our wheat farmers and begging their forgiveness, what does this Prime Minister do? What is the best political spin he can come up with? What answer does he give? ‘I don’t know; no-one told me; I wasn’t informed.’ He pleads ignorant stupidity. How badly are you travelling when stupidity is the best you can come up with—the Forrest Gump defence? Then, in a bizarre example of policy on the run, the Prime Minister hastily dispatches a rescue mission to Iraq that includes executives from AWB, the very people who presided over the regime of kickbacks and bribes. Frankly, it is like sending the burglar back to the scene of the crime!

The government persistently hide behind this fiction that the Cole royal commission can answer all the questions in relation to their own behaviour. Our shadow spokesman on foreign affairs will have a bit to say later about Bret Walker’s opinion. But let me make this absolutely clear: what that opinion demonstrates is what all of us here know by commonsense—that there is a different treatment of the AWB executives in this and of the potential Commonwealth officers involved, including ministers. They cannot escape that. That is simply a fact.

There is different treatment between the two. On one side, they will face the full blast of Cole’s independent scrutiny; on the other, that has caveats attached to it. That is the first point. The second point is this: there is a lot more that the Australian people want to know about this particular scandal which has so dishonoured our nation. They want to know, for example, where the money went. There is nothing in Cole’s terms of reference which will establish where those hundreds of millions of dollars went where we had the rescue contracts, on the last occasion in 2003, one of which we revealed here yesterday.

The Prime Minister accuses us of presenting no evidence, yet we do document after document at every question time. This particular document demonstrated that Saddam, in this last rescue mission of Mr Vaile, got as much out of the wheat contract as the Australian farmers. That was pretty spectacular. That certainly was the best performance, if you like, of the corrupt other end on this. As to where that money went afterwards, there is no inquiry as far as we are concerned.

What was the money used for? There is no inquiry. Yesterday the Prime Minister got on television. I admit that, from time to time, I am reasonably accused of using the odd abstract or difficult word. But when asked by the interviewer whether he could tell him and the Australian people what this money was used for, he used this expression: ‘Kerry, money is fungible.’ Let me say this: money is not fungible in this sense. What the Prime Minister has decided is that this issue is ‘fudgeable’—a much more readily understood term. He does not want an inspection of this because manifestly it demonstrates the culpability of this government for turning a blind eye to a set of events that saw the funding of some of the more horrible things around the globe.

A further thing that the Cole inquiry cannot inquire into is how much of this money remains unaccounted for, given that AWB’s kickbacks to Iraq continued for 18 months after the collapse of Saddam’s regime. This is an interesting thing. Who got the money in those 18 months? We know that Saddam got the money before then. We do not know who got the money after then. There seems to me to be three candidates for this. First, the Australian wheat farmers might have got it. It would have been a change, if they got the price that was paid for the wheat that was sold to Iraq. It would have been good if that happened, but I suspect that is not what happened. Second, it might have gone into the hands of Wheat Board agents and ended up in the back kick of some of the people who are going to be appearing before the Cole inquiry, though this is not an area that is going to be inquired into. Three, I am afraid to say that it is much more likely that it kept going to Alia; it kept going to the transport companies. And if it kept going to the transport companies, it was directly funding the Ba’athist component of the insurgency. The Australian people are entitled to an answer on that. They are entitled to know what the truth is as far as that is concerned.

Everything the Prime Minister does is to take the edge off any parliamentary scrutiny on him, to get rid of the Senate processes associated with it, to get rid of the Senate estimates committees—what is now demonstrated to be, or has been, one of the most effective mechanisms of accountability of government.

You come into this chamber and shut down every censure debate that we have moved, bar one, at the outset. You obfuscate on every question that is asked of you by the opposition. You tell the public that the opposition is presenting no evidence here, despite the fact that at every question time we have presented a document, a new strand of evidence that was readily available to and could have been picked up by the government. It could have had knowledge of this and saved the honour of this country. This slothful, lazy government is great on spin but, when it comes to delivering solid administration of any particular area, it is an absolute no-account bunch of bottom-feeding fish. That is what this government amounts to when it comes to any effective accountability or any effective administration in this place.

We saw a bit more of what we had to deal with here. I have nothing against Mr Stewart—he is obviously a person of interest in this situation—but his job now is to sit down and work his way through his papers and prepare his organisation for the further inquiries of the Cole commission. Talk about obfuscation! When I first raised this letter with the Prime Minister, I asked, ‘Have you seen this letter?’ ‘Of course not,’ says the Prime Minister. ‘No, you are springing this one on me’—a letter that was copied to the Prime Minister, I might say, and I thought would have sat indelibly on his mind, given that he has said he has devoted a great deal of attention to it. He has said things in this letter which are so blatantly untrue.

You cannot tell me, Mr Deputy Speaker Causley—and you would know something about this as a National Party member—that there is not somebody in the Grains Council or in Cooperative Bulk Handling in Western Australia who could take Mr Stewart’s position in this particular delegation. All you needed to do was to sit down with Stewart and say, ‘Listen, you fellows have disgraced us—admittedly, we’re in it with you—and you’re out of this. You sign one letter saying that as far as you’re concerned you waive your rights over this particular trade to Iraq at this particular point in time, full stop.’ That is what would be protecting the interests of the farmers. But they cannot do this because they have no moral authority—and they know it—because the AWB people whom they are addressing know that they are in on the joke. The simple fact of the matter is that they cannot deal straight with AWB because AWB know that they have partners in crime. They know all about you; everything out there is confected. There is this brolga dance around this heap, this mess, of corruption that has to be danced by the ministers, pretending they are doing something and praying that AWB do not cough up that at least some of them were in on the joke.

This is going to go on for some considerable period of time in this place, because this is a major scandal that goes to the heart of the way this government governs. The fact is that this government cannot defend the Australian national interest because it is too lazy, too slothful, too unprincipled to be able to sensibly administer our foreign policy and our domestic affairs. (Time expired)

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

First, let me make this observation. The week before last, at the National Press Club, the Leader of the Opposition said:

... I promise you and every Australian—

that this session of parliament—

will be the most aggressive parliamentary interrogation this government has faced in its ten long years of office.

We have now reached the end of that parliamentary session. In my particular case, I make the observation that there were 70 questions asked by the opposition. All 70 questions were about AWB Ltd, despite the fact that this is a subject which is being considered by the Cole commission. I make the observation that not one of those questions—out of 70 questions—was put to me.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Rudd interjecting

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

The member for Griffith interjects. I want to say that I am disappointed. I am a bit more than that: I am hurt! The fact is that we had all the answers ready to go—and the jokes with them. But unfortunately the questions never came.

More seriously, the opposition claims that this is an issue of enormous concern. The fact that AWB Ltd may—and it is a subject that is yet to be proven before the Cole commission—have been involved in kickbacks is a matter of great concern. But the opposition’s proposition here is that the government has been involved in this. We have had two weeks, 70 questions, several censure motions, attempted censure motions, MPIs, an enormous amount of parliamentary time and a very fair wind, if I could put it that way, from some elements of the media—I think we all know who I am talking about. I forgot to mention the hearings in the Cole commission as well, and all the evidence that has been presented in the Cole commission under questioning—I must say it seems to me to be very forensic questioning—by the senior counsel, Mr Agius, to AWB Ltd officials and former officials. Despite all of that there is no evidence that the Australian government has been involved in this affair at all—none, not any evidence at all.

For all the bluster and the confected passion—from the Leader of the Opposition, in particular—and after two long weeks of labouring in the parliament, the Leader of the Opposition has achieved precisely nothing. He has taken up the time of the parliament without focusing on issues that might have a little more resonance from the opposition’s point of view—if I could be so bold as to suggest that their tactics could change—and would be of greater moment to the Australian people.

Not a skerrick of evidence has been produced that the government is complicit or involved in this, despite the fact that the Leader of the Opposition on two occasions prior to the parliamentary session accused the government of being corrupt. ‘Corrupt’ is a big word to use—but there was no evidence. The Leader of the Opposition stood up outside parliament—which is an interesting thing to do, but accusing people of being corrupt is an extremely serious accusation.

The trouble for the Leader of the Opposition is that this whole issue and the way it has been handled in parliament has gone very much to the heart of his own credibility and the longevity of his leadership. The Leader of the Opposition established a series of benchmarks, all of which he has failed to meet. He said it was going to be the most aggressive parliamentary interrogation that government has ever faced. To be honest, I think a lot of members have been rather bored with the constant repetition of the questions and the hyperbole that we have seen during MPIs, censure motions and attempted suspension motions. The Leader of the Opposition said that the government was corrupt. He came into the parliament for two weeks and never provided any evidence; nor has any evidence been provided anywhere else. He said that the government was complicit.

The truth of this matter is perfectly obvious, I would have thought. The truth of this matter is demonstrated by what has happened in other countries as well as this country. There were 66 countries whose 2,000 or more companies were involved in oil for food kickbacks under Saddam Hussein’s regime. Everybody agrees that that was a bad thing. As Mr Volcker pointed out in his report, the responsibility for this failure rested with the United Nations and the officials in the United Nations who were meant to run this program. But in 65 of the 66 countries the government did not pick up what was going on; they were not able to identify what was going on. In this country, we did not either. We are the 66th country.

But we in this country were supposed to set a standard of detecting what at least allegedly is fraud—certainly a breach of United Nations sanctions and possibly even worse. We in this country were supposed to detect something that 65 other countries—including the United Kingdom, Canada, Sweden, France, New Zealand and so the list goes on—were not able to detect. Somehow we were supposed to have the miracle powers of transparency that no other government on earth had. We may be a miracle government, a great government and a strongly supported government, but we do not have miracle powers that no other government on earth has. We do not have those. We just have a lot of determination and we do a lot of hard work.

The opposition talks about ‘the warning bells’. It picks out obscure documents and says, ‘Look, if you read this sentence here on page 973, and surely the Prime Minister did, you can interpret that as being a reference to food. And if you mention food, that could be wheat, and that could be that the Wheat Board was corrupt and therefore the government should have known.’ It is one of these typically contorted—and, if I may say so, from the public’s point of view, completely unconvincing—arguments.

The other 65 countries presumably had about as much access as we had to any of those reports—particularly the UK, because they were part of the Coalition Provisional Authority, and to a much greater extent than we were. The argument is that, by some miracle, they failed to pick this up, but we should have; and it is dereliction of duty that we failed to do that. At the end of the day that kind of an argument is simply not going to wash.

In this country we have taken the Volcker inquiry very seriously and we have established a commission with the powers of a royal commission to look into all of these issues. The opposition suggests that in this country we are involved in a cover-up, but none of the other 65 countries—only two of which have set up an inquiry at all: one in South Africa, which has not even convened yet, so I cannot speak of that beyond the fact that they have established it; and one in India, which was an in camera inquiry—has set up the transparent and public process that we have set up in this country. But the argument of our Labor Party is that we are involved in a cover-up. It beggars belief that anybody could push that argument and that anybody, including in the media, would ever believe that.

We are perfectly happy—and I have said this over and over again throughout all of this—for all our files to be gone through, for our officials to be interviewed and for there to be complete transparency. Mr Cole made the point in the statement he made, I think on the Friday before last, that he does, under the terms of reference, have the capacity to look into the government. This is the point that I do not think the opposition understand—or, they might understand it, but they certainly do not want to understand it. But Mr Cole makes this point very clear. If AWB Ltd was lying to the Commonwealth, that is potentially an offence. But to lie to the Commonwealth and to endeavour to mislead the Commonwealth, you have to establish whether the Commonwealth knew the information or not in the first place. So he needs to establish, as he has pointed out, what the Commonwealth knew in order to establish whether anyone misled the Commonwealth, which is potentially an offence. You do not have to be a QC to work that out; it is pretty obvious. Therefore, as a result of the way the terms of reference are written, the Cole inquiry has enormous breadth.

Mr Cole has also made the point that, if there were any suggestion that a Commonwealth officer—including the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, me, the agriculture minister, whoever else; the education minister sitting here—has been involved in fraud, corruption or whatever it may be—I have forgotten the exact term he used—then he will ask for his terms of reference to be expanded. But he said that so far there is no such evidence. Of course there is not. I have never seen such evidence. This suggestion that the government has been complicit is a suggestion that I can only regard as absolutely absurd. It is politicking of the worst kind.

I have read and I have heard some people say that the way the Public Service is handling this shows that they have been politicised. That suggestion is an extraordinarily insulting thing to say about our diplomats and our public servants. It is suggesting, if you like, moral corruption on the part of those people.

I have been a minister for 10 years and before that, at one stage, like the member for Griffith, I worked in the Public Service. I worked as a diplomat, like he did, in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. My experience of our public servants is that they are good, impartial people. They tell you if they do not agree with you. They would draw my attention to mistakes I had made—if I did make mistakes. They are people of true honour and integrity. I read in the Australian that I had a new doctrine that I would not stand by them, that I would separate myself from them. That is complete nonsense. I stand by the public servants in my department and I stand by their integrity. These are good people, these are honourable people, these are hardworking people. I do not know how they vote—they probably vote in all sorts of different ways—but I do know how they work: they work hard and they work in a determined way. And, contrary to what the Australian suggests, I stand by them. I stand by these people; I stand by their integrity. They work for me. As their minister, I am the leader of the organisation and I am prepared to take all of the responsibility that comes with that.

Let me conclude by coming back to the issue of warning bells. The member for Griffith and the Leader of the Opposition make great play about how many warning signs there were out there. I have made the point already in this debate that 65 other countries did not pick up the warning signs but by some miracle we were supposed to. The member for Griffith, I discovered, has actually on several occasions met with the Australian Wheat Board in the wake of the warning signs that he now says everybody should have seen. Some of these warning signs he refers to are available on the internet!

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Rudd interjecting

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

It is incredible. There they were on the internet. He did not bother to read them, but we should have all been reading them—and so should the other 65 countries involved. All these ministers—Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Persson of Sweden, the list goes on—should have been poring over these websites. But not the opposition, because, as the member for Griffith said: ‘It wasn’t my responsibility.’ I thought they did have a responsibility to scrutinise the government and keep the government honest and all these pompous sayings that they use—which, actually, I pretty much agree with; but they are rather weak at doing it, if I may say so. The member for Griffith in a Sky interview, by the way, said, ‘Oh, I only once met with AWB Ltd.’ Two days later he said he met several times with AWB Ltd. There is no evidence he even asked them, ‘By the way, this stuff on websites all around the place about possible corruption in the oil for food program: are you guys involved in that?’ Apparently, he did not even ask that question, despite the fact that this material was out there.

My last point, because my time has nearly expired, is this: the wheat mission that will be led by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade will include Brendan Stewart. The opposition says Brendan Stewart, the Chairman of AWB Ltd, is guilty and should not go. There has been no evidence presented to the Cole commission that I am aware of—and I am aware of a lot of it; and the opposition has people sitting in the Cole commission as well—that Brendan Stewart is guilty of anything or has been accused of being involved in kickbacks. One day that evidence might or might not appear, but I have never seen that evidence. We on this side of the House—and the minister at the table here, Ms Julie Bishop, is a lawyer—believe in the timeworn principle that all men and women are innocent until proven guilty. Brendan Stewart for us is not guilty, even if the opposition thinks he is. (Time expired)

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Cole has two powers: to investigate companies under the oil for food program that have been mentioned adversely by Volcker and to make recommendations concerning whether or not they have breached the law. Mr Cole has no such parallel powers in relation to the Commonwealth government—that is, as the commission currently stands. Mr Justice Cole made this point very clearly in his 3 February statement. He said:

The present terms of reference permit me to make findings of possible illegality only in relation to the three companies mentioned in the Volcker report. They do not permit me to make findings of illegality against the Commonwealth or any of its officers.

The Prime Minister has on several occasions quoted selectively from Mr Cole’s 3 February statement in this place. But he has taken care, of course, not to repeat the crucial element of Mr Cole’s statement, and I repeat it:

The present terms of reference ... do not permit me to make findings of illegality against the Commonwealth or any of its officers.

Mr Cole has said that in order to make a finding about whether the AWB defrauded the Commonwealth it is necessary for him to make a finding about the Commonwealth’s knowledge. In this regard Mr Cole has said that he will address and make findings about the role and knowledge of DFAT. But it is important to note that his investigation of the government extends only to what the government knew about AWB wrongdoing. In other words, he can investigate whether the government knew that someone else was acting illegally, but there it stops. He does not at this stage have the power to investigate whether the Commonwealth breached Australian or international laws, nor does he have powers at this stage to make findings as to whether the Commonwealth has breached Australian or international laws. Mr Cole has indicated that if, in his current investigation into Australian companies, he comes across evidence pointing to a breach of Australian laws he will then request an expansion of his powers accordingly.

But such evidence about the Commonwealth now can only be obtained as an incidental by-product of the investigation into the four companies, not as an explicit focus of the investigation now, as the Prime Minister and the foreign minister well know. In other words, Mr Cole’s investigations now are conducted in a manner such that he effectively has one hand tied behind his back, courtesy of the limited powers the Prime Minister has given him in the original letters patent.

Furthermore, Mr Cole has been placed in this difficult position. If, incidental to his primary investigation of the four companies, he happens to come across evidence concerning the lawfulness of the Commonwealth’s own action or actions in relation to the AWB, the commissioner can request that the Commonwealth give him more powers to then investigate and reach findings in relation to the Commonwealth itself. Mr Cole should be given those powers now so that his investigations can be conducted and findings made in a totally unfettered environment now.

Labor has sought an opinion on these matters from Bret Walker SC, without doubt one of Australia’s most accomplished and respected lawyers, a former President of the Law Council of Australia and importantly a lawyer with previous experience as a commission of inquiry head, including most recently on the commission of inquiry into the Campbelltown and Camden hospitals. Mr Walker advised:

... the Royal Commission, as presently restricted by its Terms of Reference, definitely does not have full power to investigate whether there has been any relevant wrongdoing on the part of the Commonwealth or its officers.

In his opinion:

... full deployment of the Royal Commission’s powers to investigate and make findings of fact cannot presently squarely address the question whether there has been Commonwealth wrongdoing—as opposed to mere Commonwealth knowledge or suspicion of AWB wrongdoing.

In this respect, Mr Cole in his 3 February statement said that, if he ‘encounters material’ which suggests criminal behaviour by the government, he will seek to have his terms of reference expanded. Mr Walker describes this as an invidious position for Mr Cole to find himself in and notes that ‘it will be a serendipitous or incidental chance’ by which the commissioner might in the course of his inquiries stumble upon information which ‘turns out also to indicate the possibility of Commonwealth wrongdoing’.

Contrary, therefore, to the Prime Minister’s assertions that Mr Cole will look at every aspect and that he will ask all the questions, the terms of reference clearly restrict Mr Cole’s ability to look at the whole picture. Let us consider for a moment some of the matters that Mr Cole cannot under his current terms of reference investigate or make findings about. First, he cannot investigate or make findings about whether the government or any officials breached any domestic Australian law. Second, he cannot investigate or make findings about whether the government breached international laws—for example, whether it upheld its obligations under UN Security Council resolutions, including resolution 661, to prevent Australian citizens and companies making payments to Saddam Hussein’s regime. Third, he cannot investigate or make findings about whether the government, including ministers, performed its functions competently or negligently under domestic or international laws and, if negligently, whether recklessly negligently in terms of the discharge of its responsibilities.

Fourth, as we indicated in question time today, he cannot investigate or make findings about where the money went. He cannot investigate whether the kickbacks paid by the AWB and approved by DFAT were used to reward the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, to buy weapons, to fund the insurgency in Iraq or for any other purposes that are blatantly illegal under a range of domestic and international instruments.

On 13 February the Prime Minister told the parliament that the inquiry was established as a result of the findings of Volcker. He said that Volcker:

... did not make an adverse finding about the Australian government. If he had, then the terms of reference would have gone further than they have.

The Prime Minister’s statement tells us two things: first, that he knows that Mr Cole’s terms of reference do not include an investigation of the Australian government’s wrongdoing, belying his constant claims that they do; and, second, that his justification for not expanding the terms of reference is that the Volcker inquiry has cleared the government of any wrongdoing.

The problem with Mr Howard’s Volcker defence is that the Volcker inquiry did not have in its own terms of reference the power to investigate the actions of the Australian government. Furthermore, Volcker himself in making his conclusions, in relation to both the AWB and other matters, had not been provided by the Howard government with full documentation. The Howard government had not provided Volcker with the documents provided by the Wheat Export Authority. Furthermore, we know from Senate estimates that DFAT’s electronic files were not provided to Volcker either.

Therefore, it is now an established fact that Volcker was not given full documentation by the Howard government. It is an established fact that Volcker had no powers to make findings against the Australian government anyway. But even if they had such powers, how could Volcker have reached any informed finding in relation to the government’s actions when the Howard government had deprived the Volcker inquiry of huge slabs of relevant documentation? The Prime Minister has used explicitly the absence of adverse findings in Volcker to justify the fact that the Cole commission of inquiry was not given wider terms of reference. It is for these reasons that the Prime Minister’s defence of the narrow terms of reference given to Mr Cole collapses in a heap.

What we have seen in the debate over the last two weeks is a government which has been clearly found out for having not done its job—for not having had its eye on the ball, for not having discharged its most basic of national security responsibilities; namely, to prevent hundreds of millions of dollars being paid over to the enemy.

In question time today we had a Prime Minister, by contrast, rather than recognising that his government had done something wrong, determined instead to deliver the parliament and the opposition in particular a moral lecture. A moral lecture is what the Prime Minister gave us today. He told us what the decent thing to do was. He told us that the only decent thing to do was for the Australian Labor Party basically to button up—that the responsibility of the opposition at this stage was not to provide proper scrutiny. He lectured us that the decent thing to do was not to presume that the AWB had been in any respect guilty of anything. This comes from the Prime Minister seven years after this whole corruption scandal began. It comes two years after the Volcker inquiry began. It comes six months after the Volcker inquiry reported the fact that this $300 million scandal is the worst contribution to Saddam Hussein’s regime worldwide, and it comes one month after the Cole inquiry began.

And still this Prime Minister has the audacity to stand in this House and deliver the Australian Labor Party a moral lecture about what the decent thing to do is. Well, Prime Minister, the decent thing to do would have been to have told the truth about ‘kids overboard’. The decent thing to do would have been to have told the truth about Iraqi WMD. The decent thing to do would have been to have told the truth and done the right thing in response to each of the warnings that you had about what the AWB was up to. The decent thing to do would have been to have provided full documentation to Volcker. The decent thing to do would have been to have provided decent terms of reference to Mr Cole for his inquiry and the decent thing to do would not have been to gag public servants from telling the truth to the Senate estimates committee because you fear what the truth might contain.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Griffith is stepping a little too far with the word ‘truth’.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If the Prime Minister is going to give us a lecture about decency—

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Griffith will listen to the chair!

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I suggest, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the Prime Minister adhere to basic standards of decency. Those standards of decency should be upheld in this parliament.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I call the member for Maranoa, Member for Griffith, I will not be ignored. The member for Griffith will withdraw the word ‘truth’, which is implying in some way that there was a lie.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With respect, Mr Deputy Speaker, I did not at any stage accuse the Prime Minister of lying, so on what grounds are you asking me to withdraw my statement concerning the government not telling the parliament the truth?

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask you to rephrase it because of the obvious inference. The opposite of truth is obviously the opposite, isn’t it?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With respect, again, Mr Deputy Speaker, on multiple occasions during question time today we stated that the government had misled the parliament. That means to not tell the parliament the truth. The Speaker on each of those occasions did not seek to cause either the Leader of the Opposition or me to in any way withdraw in relation to any of those observations.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will allow it to stand, but can I tell the member for Griffith that I will not tolerate it again.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon to speak on this matter of public importance submitted by the Leader of the Opposition. I would like to read into the Hansard what it says:

The Government placing its short term political interests ahead of the long term national interest in relation to AWB Oil for Food scandal.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I reject outright this MPI introduced by the opposition. It is this government, following the Volcker report on the UN oil for food program, that established the Cole inquiry. The inquiry headed by Justice Cole will investigate all matters from the Volcker report. It has the powers of a royal commission. As the foreign minister said this afternoon in this debate, of 66 countries, we are the only one that has established an inquiry with royal commission powers into the Volcker report and the findings that relate to the Australian Wheat Board. The other 65 countries that were mentioned in that report are not doing anything like establishing a royal commission into the adverse findings against them in the Volcker report.

The Labor Party has spent the last two weeks attacking the Prime Minister and government ministers—the trade minister, the foreign minister, the agriculture minister—and anyone else they thought that they could slur under the privilege of this parliament, because they are trying to imply that they had knowledge of the kickbacks that are alleged under the Volcker report. In that two weeks they produced no evidence, but they continue to slur the reputation of decent people. That is what they are doing—slurring the good names of good people. They spent two weeks asking 70 questions and putting up MPIs and censure motions, and they still have not brought forward a shred of evidence to back up their claims.

Some of the slurs are so offensive to me and to other members on this side of the parliament that I believe those on the other side should apologise to our ministers. Those opposite are bringing slurs against these ministers, alleging that they knew of these kickbacks and that the money was being used to fund Palestinian suicide bombers.

Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Shame!

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is a shameless claim. Members opposite are saying that $100 million has gone to the enemy in Iraq—the enemy that was the Saddam Hussein regime. These are despicable slurs on anyone’s character. Those on the other side should apologise to our ministers.

The Leader of the Opposition has now started his attack on the executive chairman of the Australian Wheat Board Ltd, AWB Ltd, Brendan Stewart. I know Brendan Stewart; he happens to be a constituent of mine. He is a fine man. Not only is he a fine man, and the Chairman of the Australian Wheat Board, but he is also a practising wheat grower, so he knows how hard it is to grow wheat. In his position, and from his experience with commodity boards and representing farmers in the organisation in Queensland, he knows how corrupt the world markets are. The world markets are corrupted by the subsidies that are paid by the Americans to their growers under the disguise, in some cases, of export enhancement grants designed to get American wheat into world markets. These grants distort the markets for our growers here in Australia.  Brendan Stewart is a man who understands that the international wheat trade is not a level playing field. He is the Chairman of the Australian Wheat Board, which holds the pool of wheat. If we are to be able to continue sales of our wheat to Iraq during the Cole inquiry and have those sales negotiated during that period, it is from the pool of the Australian Wheat Board that we will have to draw that wheat.

I call on the Opposition to come into this place—or outside; anywhere will do—and say that they support the single desk arrangement for the Australian Wheat Board. The single desk arrangement is in the best interests of the Australian wheat growers. We have not heard the Labor Party come into this place and say, ‘We support the single desk arrangement for the Australian Wheat Board.’ They are attempting not only to slur the good names of ministers on this side of the parliament but also to undermine the Australian Wheat Board’s vested power of the single desk arrangements, which are so essential in delivering the best outcome in corrupted world markets for the hardworking Australian wheat growers.

The Labor Party, in their attacks on this government and on Brendan Stewart and the Australian Wheat Board, have become the best friend the American wheat farmers have ever had. The shadow foreign affairs minister has become a lobbyist for the American wheat lobby, not for the Australian wheat growers. It is worth casting our minds back to the period of the first Gulf War, when the Leader of the Opposition was a member of the government; he was a minister. In the period after the first Gulf War he became the Deputy Prime Minister. We should examine the actions of those opposite during that first Gulf War when wheat growers, through the Australian Wheat Board, had made sales to Iraq that were not covered by anything more than the export finance insurance that was taken out by the Australian Wheat Board.

It was very important that we involved ourselves in the first Gulf War, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, but tied up in the middle of that were export sales of wheat to Iraq through the Australian Wheat Board that have cost the Australian wheat growers money. Fifteen per cent of that pool, and the interest on that money, has never been paid to our Australian wheat growers. The Leader of the Opposition, who was then in government, could have said that the government would make those payments to the wheat growers that were outside the export finance insurance. The government could have covered the non-payment—which occurred because of the war—for those sales into Iraq.

On this side of the House, we have the best interests of Australian wheat growers foremost in our minds. We understand the importance of the wheat market in Iraq. Through the single desk arrangements—once again—of the Australian Wheat Board and its predecessors, this nation has been supplying wheat to Iraq for more than 50 years. The Iraqi Grains Board understands that we are a reliable supplier of quality wheat. Even during the oil for food program the wheat we were selling to Iraq was providing much needed food. Those who suffered at that time under the Saddam Hussein regime were at least able to be nourished by the good wheat that came from the Australian wheat growers.

The Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile—we all send our condolences to him and his family at this very sad time for him on the loss of his father overnight—will be leading a delegation to Baghdad to endeavour to find ways to continue wheat sales to Iraq during the period of the Cole inquiry. (Time expired)

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The discussion is concluded.