Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Justice and Customs (Senator Ellison) to a question without notice asked by Senator Ray today relating to customs and the importation of goods from Iraq.

I have no intention of jeopardising any ongoing investigation, as Senator Ellison responded, but there are serious process issues that do require an answer.

It is incumbent on this government and it is the duty of this government to ensure that its actions or inactions are fully explained to the public in respect of this matter. At estimates, which allows us to examine these matters, the government’s response was, ‘It’s under the oil for food program and, therefore, public servants are not allowed to respond,’ irrespective of whether it was outside the terms of reference or not. Even if it was not able to be examined by Commissioner Cole, this government’s response was, ‘We won’t answer it because it’s part of the oil for food program.’ It does require an answer. It does require this government to come clean and say what happened, in a broad sense, in terms of process. Otherwise this government is going to be labelled as being truly rotten to the core in this area. It is not only a government that is becoming tired and arrogant but it is a government that is becoming morally and ethically bankrupt over the handling of the AWB oil for food program and the whole of the oil for food program itself.

The Hawke government in 1990 made amendments to several statutory instruments in order to comply with the UN obligations to implement security resolution 661—the resolution condemning Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. Those amendments were made to the Customs (Prohibited Exports) Regulations 1958 and the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations 1958. The amendment regulations, prior to repeal, provided a prohibition against the import of goods from Iraq or Kuwait and the exportation of goods from Australia to Iraq or Kuwait without written permission from the minister of foreign affairs and trade. Under these regulations, the minister had the ability to place conditions upon the companies to obtain permission to import commodities to or export commodities from Iraq. Throughout the first Gulf War and immediately prior to the ill-fated adventurism of the Howard government, these sanctions stood as a bulwark against the former Hussein regime.

These prohibitions were enforced by a competent Labor government but, since the Howard government took over in 1996, we find that $300 million in funds were illegally channelled to that regime. That is the AWB scandal that this government has not been fully able to explain. We find that funding of a torturer, the wilful dereliction of this government, is put sideways with it because this government has been unable to separate itself from the issue. It has sent it off to the Cole royal commission, but only in a limited and narrow way. It did not allow the broader issue to be ventilated.

Last week we saw the culmination of that in the Senate when we heard for the first time that the AFP were investigating not one, not two, not three but seven instances of illegal importation of goods subject to an embargo under the UN oil for food program. Not only are there export rorts of the oil for food program but there are now import rorts. The Howard government’s support and beneficence to its comrades in arms, the Hussein government, seems to know no bounds.

Firstly, the international binding sanction regime, as outlined in paragraph 4, provided for the outcome. It required in part that states:

shall prevent their nationals and any persons within their territories ... from remitting any other funds to persons or bodies within Iraq or Kuwait except payments exclusively for strictly medical or humanitarian purposes and, in humanitarian circumstances, foodstuffs.

And the Australian government failed to prevent the corrupt transfer of some $US320 million of aid money from the UN escrow account for non-humanitarian purposes.

The collaboration of AWB is in itself prima facie evidence that the Australian government did not fulfil its obligations. We are now aware of seven other instances of the Howard government failure to act and to enforce laws that are seemingly not in the best interests of the sick former regime. Why did the Howard government not fulfil its obligations? Those matters do require clear answers from this government. (Time expired)