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

With your indulgence, Mr Speaker: can I state on behalf of the opposition that we are very glad that women are going to get access to this vaccine—the result of the splendid work done by a great Australian scientist. It is a very good outcome. My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Minister, given your confirmation of this finding by the Cole commission, which states:

By June 2004 DFAT was aware that AWB’s wheat prices had included costs associated with transportation of wheat within Iraq, that AWB claimed to have retained and paid money to a Jordanian trucking company in relation to transportation within Iraq, and that AWB had conceded that the Jordanian company might of its own volition have provided kickbacks to the regime ...

which I might say is an unqualified statement, on what basis did the minister direct his department three months later, on the eve of the Australian federal election, to tell the US Senate that, in relation to the allegations against AWB—and recollect what that finding was—the Australian government rejected the allegations entirely and that—I again quote from the instructions—it unequivocally ‘dismissed the allegations’?

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

I am sorry, the honourable Leader of the Opposition says ‘without qualification’. He includes in the quote the qualification ‘of its own volition’—that is, it is perfectly clear that Commissioner Cole is not alleging at that point that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade knew that AWB were paying kickbacks. That is obvious.

Point No. 2: if the Leader of the Opposition would only read the report, he makes that clear in the conclusion he draws. The Leader of the Opposition claims he has read the report. It is yet another example of the Leader of the Opposition misleading this parliament. Of course the Leader of the Opposition has not read the report, because if he were to read the report he would find that two or so pages further on the commissioner draws his conclusions, and his conclusions are that the department did not know. The Leader of the Opposition can spend the whole of question time and the whole of the rest of his time as the Leader of the Opposition—which may not be very long—trying to establish that Commissioner Cole concluded that the department knew; but, frankly, the department did not know and the Leader of the Opposition’s attempts to slur the reputation of officials of my department are reprehensible.