Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Coonan, the Minister representing the Minister for Trade. Is the minister aware of comments by Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce where he expressed sympathy for the AWB executives on the basis that they were merely doing their job of trying to get a good deal for Australian wheat farmers? Can the minister indicate whether Senator Joyce’s view reflects the government’s trade policy, a policy that saw $300 million funnelled to Saddam Hussein? Isn’t this what the Volcker report said happened when it found that the largest beneficiaries of the kickback scandal, including the $300 million paid by the AWB, were the Iraq ministries of defence and military industrialisation and the Iraqi intelligence agency? Does the minister accept Senator Joyce’s view that ‘you’ll never get anywhere unless the right people are looked after’, even if the so-called ‘right people’ are in Saddam Hussein’s government?