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

My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I refer to the minister’s statement to parliament that the United Nations had only raised with the government ‘a general concern about contracts of the Australian Wheat Board’ and, further, ‘When the opposition talks about warning bells, it picks out obscure documents.’ Why did the minister make these statements when the government had received this cable, dated 13 January 2002, which was sent to the minister’s office and contained the following warnings from the United Nations Office of the Iraq Program: first, that the Iraqis were demanding a surcharge of $US14 per metric tonne for wheat which would be paid outside the oil for food program; second, that the funds were to be provided into a bank account in Jordan; third, that the system was designed to provide illegal revenue for Iraq in US dollars; fourth, that the UN believed that the company involved in the scheme was owned by the son of Saddam Hussein; and fifth, that the AWB had concluded contracts of a similar nature to this with the Iraqi regime? Minister, how could you regard this cable as an obscure document containing only general warnings?

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

First, I thank the honourable member for Griffith for the question because this is the first time I have been asked a question on this issue this year. I very much appreciate the opportunity to say something about it. The honourable member raises the question of the cable of 13 January and selectively quotes from it. I note that this cable reports allegations that had been made not by the United Nations but—as we subsequently discovered, but which we did not know at that time—by the Canadian Wheat Board, who were of course competitors of the Australian Wheat Board.

The second observation I would make is that, if you read the whole cable—and the reason the opposition has these cables is that they were tabled in the Cole inquiry today—you will see that the last paragraph says: ‘The Office of the Iraq Program,’ the OIP, ‘noted it had no way—

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

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

Order! The member for Griffith is warned!

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

of judging the accuracy or otherwise of the claims the Iraqi Grains Board is alleged to have made about AWB,’ and so it goes on. There was not a suggestion from the United Nations office of Iraqi programs that this allegation was accurate, just that the allegation had been made. Subsequently, this allegation was checked out on several occasions. First of all it was checked out, and that is of course referred to in one of the other cables tabled today, but subsequently the United Nations office of Iraqi programs asked for specific documentation from the Australian Wheat Board, through the Australian government—documentation which got to the heart of contracts that the allegations suggested might have been rorted.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, if I may say so, with some difficulty obtained these additional contracts that had not previously been provided to the United Nations which the United Nations wanted in order to establish the veracity of these claims that had been made by the Canadians. These contracts were finally obtained by the department from AWB Ltd and given to the United Nations, who studied the contracts and concluded that these allegations that had been made against AWB Ltd, as referred to in these cables which were tabled in the Cole commission today, were unfounded.