Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was a member of the committee that investigated the food for oil task force and the suggestion by the Greens political party that there was rife corruption amongst the police forces and the investigatory agencies. So I have a slightly better understanding of the report that has just been tabled than the previous speaker who, I think, breezed in on a couple of occasions for a short period of time. This oil for food matter has been the subject of the Cole royal commission. It was then the subject of a joint committee of this parliament. It was the subject of a $23 million investigation by the Federal Police and by ASIC. It was the subject of very intense scrutiny across the board.

Why the Senate agreed with the Greens political party to re-establish yet another committee to look at alleged shortfalls in the first inquiry I could never understand. They did say they had some new evidence that would expose widespread corruption amongst Australian agencies. The Senate committee duly sat. We heard the new evidence in camera. Whilst I accept the genuineness of the person involved, those who were there to actually see the demeanour of the witness and the evidence given were not in any way persuaded that the evidence was accurate, relevant and was such that it did expose any new information into this inquiry. With all the respect I can muster, this inquiry was a complete waste of the Senate's time and the costs of the committee. You will see that the majority report tabled today indicates that there was no evidence at all of any impropriety, no evidence at all of any necessity to conduct further investigations and, in fact, the majority report congratulated the Australian Federal Police and ASIC and all those involved on their work.

The Greens political party took a lot of umbrage at the fact that the inquiry was shut down, and the committee went into that in some detail. Why was it shut down? Not because there was corruption that was about to be exposed but nobody wanted to be exposed. It was quite the contrary. There was no evidence whatsoever that the original investigation was anything but appropriate and proper. The reason it was shut down—and, unfortunately, the Greens political party never seemed to be able to understand this—was that the law as it stood prevented any serious further investigation. The investigators came to that conclusion, and so they engaged a senior QC, at quite a cost, as you would expect, to look through all aspects of the investigation and to advise the police and the then government—which, incidentally, was the previous government—whether it should go any further. The QC fully investigated it and indicated that the difficulties in getting evidence to substantiate any prosecution were far outweighed by the cost and the likelihood of being able to get evidence that was telling.

As the majority report points out—something the Greens political party and perhaps some columnists did not understand—evidence given to the Cole royal commission could not be used, under Australian law, by the Federal Police to mount prosecutions. So the police had to go round and reinterview everybody, many of whom came from overseas and many of whom were unwilling, or uninterested in even talking to the Australian Federal Police. That was the problem that confronted the AFP when they started the investigation, but they had to go and again get all of the evidence that was given at the Cole royal commission. They interviewed some people in Australia, most of whom claimed privilege and some of whom refused to talk to the police. Whilst the Federal Police did a very thorough job, it became very obvious that there was nothing further that they could reasonably do that had not already been done.

It was clear to the committee that nothing important, nothing useful, could ever come from a further investigation into this. Certainly, there was no evidence and no suggestion of any corruption, impropriety or lack of good faith in anything the Australian Federal Police and ASIC did in their further investigation of that oil-for-food matter.

The Greens are calling for a federal ICAC. That, of course, is another issue. But, certainly, the results of this inquiry by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee do not in any way provide support or evidence for the call the Greens are making. Now, that is a debate for another time. But, as I said, there was nothing in the inquiry by our committee that would support such a call at this time.

There are other things I would like to say on this—and I am sure there are other senators who were going to speak. Unfortunately, I rushed into the chamber when I heard Senator Milne speaking and I do not have the report in front of me or all of my notes, so hopefully I will have an opportunity to speak on this again. Suffice to say that the report of the committee really gives a clear indication of the determinations of that committee. It is a majority committee report that I urge all senators to read, because it is only about six pages. It is very succinct, it is very to the point on the terms of reference for the inquiry and, as I said, it found almost unanimously that there was no point in wasting the resources of the Commonwealth and certainly of the Senate in further investigating this particular matter. I see another committee member in the chamber, but I understand he does not want to speak at this time. If nobody else wants to speak, I seek leave to continue my remarks later so this matter can be debated further at another time.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.