John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the documents.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the documents.

This report is one to the Senate from the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee, and I am particularly interested in volume 2 of this report because that deals with the Foreign Affairs and Trade portfolio—the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, AusAID and Austrade. Of particular interest to the Senate is the fact that on pages 4, 5 and 6 of this report we have answers to questions from senators which were asked on 3 November 2005 in relation to the Australian Wheat Board. I might come back to those answers in a short while.

However, this stands in very stark contrast to the approach of the government in relation to not only the foreign affairs and trade estimates committee but all estimates committees in the recent round. Senators would recall that in an absolutely unprecedented action the Leader of the Government in the Senate indicated that ministers and officials would not be answering any questions in relation to matters that may, however loosely or indirectly, have some vague association with matters before the Cole royal commission. In fact, it was interpreted even more broadly than that.

How did this come about? Neither the Labor Party—the opposition—nor, for that matter, any non-government senators were informed of this ban. The cabinet had made a decision some time before Minister Minchin indicated to the estimates committee that the ban had been imposed. When this Senate chamber determined the arrangements for the Senate estimates committees, no-one in government had the courtesy to inform the opposition or non-government senators that questions on this important matter that had been dominating public and parliamentary debate in the week prior to Senate estimates were banned. No-one acknowledged or notified senators in this chamber that they were about to be ambushed by the government.

It was unprecedented. It was improper. It was absolutely outside the standing orders that govern the operations of this Senate chamber and the committees of the Senate. It was something that had never previously occurred in the history of the Commonwealth parliament. I suppose you do not expect much courtesy in this place but, for this government, it plumbed new depths. But this is a government that has absolutely no interest in parliamentary accountability.

We have a situation where when questions were asked of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, time and time again, when the questions were directed through the minister, the minister refused to answer. It was quite extraordinary that when questions were directed to officials from Austrade—which has statutory autonomy—there was a problem. The Minister for Trade, Mr Vaile, had not made a direction to Austrade officials in accordance with the Austrade Act so as to prevent Austrade officials answering questions. But that was ignored too. We could not even get a straight answer from the minister at the table, the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Coonan, as to whether Mr Vaile had provided a direction in writing to Austrade officials to prevent them from answering questions properly directed to them. Why not? Because no such direction was provided in accordance with the Austrade Act by Minister Vaile. So they were hung out to dry.

From time to time, some questions about the operations of the department in relation to how it responded to a subpoena from the Cole royal commission, how documents were collected and other procedural or administrative issues were answered. Through recent evidence at the Cole royal commission, what has become absolutely clear in relation to those procedures in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is how hopeless even that action was. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had a coordinating role but the procedures in other departments have also proven to be absolutely inadequate. We even had a situation where one minister was congratulated for ensuring another search took place in his department, the Department of Defence, in recent time. So the procedures within the department have been inadequate.

The breach of Senate procedures, the breach of proper process and the breach of faith involved in this are unprecedented in the history of the Commonwealth. Of course, the government is hell-bent, with its new Senate majority, on turning the best accountability mechanism we have in the Australian parliament into a farce and a joke. As far as the opposition are concerned, we intend to keep going.

We know what the Prime Minister’s theme is in relation to any questions that might embarrass him. As someone who is moving on in years, I remember in my youth Helen Shapiro’s famous hit Not Responsible. That is the Prime Minister’s theme song: ‘Not, not, not responsible. I can’t answer for the things I do.’ They might be Helen Shapiro’s words, but they are John Howard’s slogan. That is how this government does business: not responsible. The Prime Minister will not be responsible for his or the government’s actions. The words of the song are: ‘I can’t answer for the things I do.’ In Mr Howard’s case, he won’t answer for the things that he and his ministers have done.

I find it absolutely extraordinary that we have a situation where we go to war with Iraq on the basis of a lie and make the most condemnatory statements as a nation about the Saddam Hussein regime when, on the other hand, while we are doing that, through the backdoor, we are acting as Saddam Hussein’s bankers to the tune of $300 million. Under the laws of the land, introduced by the Howard government and supported in large measure by this opposition, if a person is reckless as to whether funds will be used to fund terrorism or be used to facilitate or engage in a terrorist act—if you are just reckless—the penalty is life imprisonment. So imagine what would happen in the case of an Islamic or Muslim organisation where $300,000 was channelled to Saddam Hussein. But in this case $300 million was channelled because this government turned a blind eye to what AWB were doing. It is the greatest scandal in the history of the Commonwealth of Australia. (Time expired)