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 Deputy Prime Minister and I refer to his answer to my last question concerning the Austrade cable of 11 March 2000 and his specific answer to it. I also refer to the Deputy Prime Minister’s statement just now that the general issue of concerns about AWB’s dealings with Iraq ‘was certainly known to the government at the time’. Deputy Prime Minister, if these concerns were certainly known to the government at the time, referring to the time when this cable was sent in March 2000, how is that compatible with the Deputy Prime Minister’s formal statement to the parliament on 8 November 2005, when he said, ‘The allegations raised first came to my attention as a result of the Volcker inquiry,’ which did not begin until April 2004, some four years later?

Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Griffith knows full well the difference in this issue. It is about allegations of kickbacks and it is about allegations of the use of Alia. This is about questions with regard to the contracts. The substantive issue here is that these questions were answered to the satisfaction of the United Nations, which was running the oil for food program. The opposition know that, and they are just trying to create a political scandal out of this. This government has been totally transparent in offering up all the information to the Cole inquiry, as was clearly indicated to me by ministers in the Iraqi government. How complimentary they were of the fact that the Australian government has established this inquiry to get to the bottom of this matter.