Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President. I should not be baited by Senator Heffernan but his behaviour is beyond the pale. The government only allowed Commissioner Cole to make determinations about whether three Australian companies had breached Australian law. The terms of reference prevented the commissioner from making determinations about whether ministers met their obligations. In March, the solicitor assisting, in a letter to the shadow foreign minister, confirmed that the commission did not have terms of reference enabling it ‘to determine whether Australia has breached its international obligations or a minister has breached obligations imposed upon him by Australian regulations’. There you have the solicitor assisting making it clear that Mr Cole’s terms of reference did not include the capacity to look at the actions of the ministers. The letter goes on to indicate that those matters are ‘significantly different to that in the existing terms of reference’.

So when we hear John Howard, Alexander Downer and Mark Vaile saying that the inquiry has cleared their government, we know it has done nothing of the sort. We know from the solicitor assisting that the matters investigated and reported on by the commission were significantly different to whether or not ministers had met or breached their obligations. The government has cynically claimed that its own role has been reviewed and that there has been transparency, scrutiny and accountability. What absolute nonsense. The government went into damage control when it received the request from the UN and set up the inquiry on its own terms to try to limit the damage. This has been about damage limitation, not about a full, transparent case of scrutiny and accountability.

The government rorted the terms of reference to prevent scrutiny of its role and extended its cover-up to the Senate. For three successive estimates rounds, the government has prevented public servants from answering questions from senators on the wheat for weapons scandal. The government has not allowed the Senate to play its role and inquire into what occurred inside the bureaucracy. It is one of our core functions. It is one of the reasons that the estimates process has been established and serves this country well, but the government has point-blank refused over the last year to allow the Senate to fulfil that function. It was a convenient excuse to prevent proper examination of it and its departments’ activities. This went ahead, I might add, despite Commissioner Cole’s statement that such inquiries at Senate estimates committees would not disrupt his inquiry. So in spite of the cover-up, the rorted terms of reference and the gag on estimates, these facts remain. These are facts that the government cannot walk away from.

Australia’s monopoly wheat exporter passed $300 million in bribes to the Saddam Hussein regime. AWB was the biggest single rorter of a sanctions regime designed to provide food and medical and humanitarian supplies to the people of Iraq—$300 million and the biggest rorter. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, headed by Mr Downer and Mr Vaile, approved the contracts that contained the bribes. Australian regulations regarding the oil for food program only allowed Australian companies to export to Iraq under a permit issued by the Minister for Foreign Affairs where, ‘The Minister is satisfied that permitting the exportation will not infringe the international obligations of Australia.’

Under this regulation, Foreign Minister Downer approved 41 AWB contracts over a five-year period. This is not a question of the minister perhaps missing something or, in a rush, not noticing the detail; nor is it a question of it being an occurrence that was not brought properly to his attention. The minister approved $300 million in bribes and 41 contracts. This is a scandal on an enormous scale. This is bribery, fraud and breach of the UN obligations on a scale not seen in any other country. The Howard government was warned about the bribes—not once, not twice but on 35 separate occasions. On 35 separate occasions, reference was drawn to concerns. This included reports and cables from Australian officials and warnings from other countries. It was a hot issue in the US about how we were getting away with it. On 35 separate occasions, reports, cables, warnings were ignored: hear no evil, see no evil.

Despite claiming ignorance of sanctions busting by the AWB, the Prime Minister used Saddam’s corruption of the oil for food program as a pretext for committing Australian troops to the invasion of Iraq. Ironically in Iraq our troops faced an insurgency in part funded by the $300 million we paid them. They were able to arm themselves with the money we were bribing them with. How do you think the Australian Defence Force feel about that?

This has been the worst corruption scandal in Australia’s history, with hundreds of millions of dollars funnelled to the Saddam Hussein regime under contracts approved by the foreign minister of this country. It has done immeasurable damage to Australia’s international trading reputation, and that price is being paid by wheat farmers across Australia. What does this say about morality, responsibility and accountability in politics in this country? In question time, again, the government was trying to take the moral high ground about its commitment of troops to Iraq without UN approval by saying: ‘Saddam Hussein was a butcher. We’ve done the good thing by getting rid of Saddam Hussein.’ There is no question that Saddam Hussein was a butcher. There is no question that the world is better off without him being in power.

The government is trying to take the moral high ground when the whole justification for the invasion of Iraq was based on a lie—that of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. AWB has been exposed as having profited over many years by breaching, rorting and paying bribes while we lectured the world on best practice in governance. We committed troops, we continued to breach sanctions and we ignored 35 warnings from various departmental advices inside the government that said there was a problem. Where is Australia’s standing? Where is the morality? After what occurred under this government’s watch, how can we hold our heads up with any pride in our ability to maintain proper standards of accountability in this country?

We committed troops to a war against a force that had been sustained by our rorting and our bribes. It is a scandalous situation—as I say, one that has not been seen on this sort of scale before in Australian public life. I think the question to ask now is: will there be any ministerial accountability for this? Will any minister say: ‘I take responsibility for this. I should’ve done better. I should’ve known. I should’ve heard the warnings’? You can bet your bottom dollar, no.

John Howard threw out ministerial accountability about 8½ years ago. No-one has taken responsibility for anything in the last eight or nine years. No minister has taken responsibility for anything that has occurred in their department or on their watch. Again, we will have the same here. It will all be somebody else’s fault: ‘Nothing to do with us.’ If it is not the former Labor government’s fault it will be somebody else’s fault. The government will take no responsibility for the largest scandal in Australian public administration we have ever seen, because they refuse to own up to their responsibilities. They had the National Party mates club rorting this system, bribing Saddam Hussein’s government, and now they will not take any responsibility for their actions. (Time expired)