Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Age on Saturday, through the work of its investigative unit and after some years of revelations related to the Securency subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Australia, had the extraordinary front page information that a cache of confidential Securency documents obtained by the Age revealed that this Reserve Bank of Australia firm wired $5.8 million in suspected bribe money to a mysterious company in the Seychelles in early August last year, 10 weeks after a police investigation began into previous allegations against this Reserve Bank subsidiary. Two months later, in September, a further $1.5 million was wired by Securency to the tax haven account. The documents reveal that up to $23 million in suspected kickbacks was paid by Securency to win currency contracts in Nigeria. Further on, the article says:

The RBA has failed to respond to questions from The Age about why it allowed the extraordinarily high-risk business practices - which should have been detected in any routine audit - to continue in the face of a police bribery investigation.

The way Securency moved its money has been described by a government source as ‘‘a classic money-laundering technique that you expect from a sophisticated criminal syndicate, not a Reserve Bank company’’.

These are extraordinary allegations, they are front page and they include comment from a government source. They should be investigated by this Senate, and I expect that the opposition and the government will support the Greens in ensuring that this investigation gets under way. The primary question here is: where is the due diligence of the Reserve Bank? It is missing.

Question put:

That the motion (Senator Bob Brown’s) be agreed to.