Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The single thing I will concede from listening to the last speaker is that it is a sad day indeed for Australian wheat growers. I guess it is also a very sad day indeed for the Australian Labor Party, because clearly it was the hope and wish of the Australian Labor Party that Commissioner Terence Cole’s inquiry would in fact lead to the justification of their outrageous allegations during the period of the inquiry that there was some corruption or knowledge of corruption at a government level. It is very interesting that Senator Ludwig would refer continuously to the terms of reference: if only the commissioner had had the capacity to look further, then it would all have been different! That again flies in the face of the facts of the matter and the capacity of his terms of reference.

It is useful to go through the process of events leading to the inquiry to once again inform the Australian public and the Senate of what actually happened, not what was the fantasy or on the wish list of the Labor Party. These events continually amplify this government’s transparency and credibility in this matter. It has to be remembered that it was always the United Nations’ role to approve oil for food contracts, not the role of the Australian government. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade did not approve oil for food contracts; the UN did that through the resolution 661 committees. That is well known and on the record. So any allegation that the Australian government was somehow complicit in these matters is absolute rubbish.

The full nature of the oil for food scandal came about, as we know, after the fall of Saddam Hussein some 3½ years ago. The toppling of that dictator and that outrageous regime obviously gave an opportunity not only for a number of freedoms in that country but also for the United Nations to forensically examine, through the Volcker inquiry in April 2004, a whole range of documents from the Iraqi government that unveiled what we now know was widespread corruption. That widespread corruption occurred across 2,200 companies from 22 countries, such was the nature of the entrenched corruption.

The government moved very decisively. We immediately responded to the UN report by setting up an open and public inquiry with royal commission powers. You could not ask for a government to move with more speed, transparency and propriety than we did in this matter. The Cole commission has proved through its deliberations and report that it is the most rigorous, independent and transparent inquiry in the world into matters arising from the Volcker inquiry. I will repeat that: it is the most rigorous, independent and transparent inquiry that has yet been conducted into these matters.

I could go on about the rigour of the Cole inquiry—it worked tirelessly over a full year with 76 days of hearings, hundreds of witness statements and tens of thousands of pages of documents. Commissioner Cole did not resile from that. Those opposite have continued to contend that the terms of reference stymied their fantasy of having the Australian government branded as corrupt. On no fewer than five separate occasions, three of which related to a reporting date and two of which related to the ambit of the inquiry, those terms of reference were changed—and they were changed straightaway. There was absolutely no delay in that.

The attitude of the Australian Labor Party in this was amplified and reflected upon on 2 February when Mr Beazley said on 3AW: ‘We don’t want to see the AWB simply emerge as a scapegoat in this.’ There is plenty of mischief there—plenty of mischief for wheat farmers. But on this day, like on so many others, Labor have missed the mark. They have besmirched Australian wheat growers and continued to pursue a government which has acted with propriety and completely transparently on this matter. The government should be applauded instead of being denigrated in the way that those opposite have done.