Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Public Accountability and Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is also to the Deputy Prime Minister. I refer the Deputy Prime Minister to the claim by the member for O’Connor that The Nationals knew AWB was engaged in corrupt conduct but did nothing about it. Is the member for O’Connor correct when he says:

The dogs have been barking about corruption for years. A number of people who were not Liberals were constantly out in the marketplace saying it was the way you did business in the Middle East and if our side is guilty of anything it is of trusting a mob of agri-politicians all of which have close connections with The National Party.

Did the Deputy Prime Minister ignore this corruption because AWB and The Nationals come out of the same kennel?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me say a number of things in reply to the question asked by the member for Wills. Let me say this: in my dealings with the Deputy Prime Minister, the Deputy Leader of the National Party, and all the other men and women of the National Party in this parliament I have found them to be people of total integrity and utterly trustworthy. That has been my experience, and any suggestion made by anybody to the opposite is a suggestion that I totally repudiate.

Let me say also in relation to the press reports concerning the remarks made by the member for O’Connor that there is within the community a proper and healthy debate about wheat marketing arrangements, and I intend that debate to be resolved in a way that promotes the interests and the welfare of the wheat growers of this country. I have found over the years that the best friends the wheat growers of Australia have are members of the Liberal Party and members of the National Party not members of the Australian Labor Party.