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

My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I refer to the fact that in February 2005 Mr Volcker claimed to the Australian ambassador to the UN that the Howard government’s cooperation with the Volcker inquiry had been ‘beyond reticent, even forbidding’. I also refer to reports that the minister instructed the Australian ambassador to the UN in late 2005 to ‘set up a meeting between AWB executives and Mr Volcker in New York’ and, further, that ‘that meeting led to a watering down of the allegations the Volcker report eventually made against the Australian wheat exporter’. Can the minister confirm whether either he or his officials organised for Mr Lindberg and other senior AWB officials to meet with Mr Volcker and his staff in New York in September-October 2005, immediately prior to the publication of the report?

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

With the greatest of respect, I am not sure who wrote that question but that has all been in the media and played out very extensively.