Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Finance and Administration (Senator Minchin) to a question without notice asked by Senator O’Brien today relating to the Australian Wheat Board and the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme.

My question was regarding the AWB debacle and this government’s miserable performance in relation to AWB. Despite the confected rage of this government—and of Senator Minchin, in particular, in answer to my question—there can be no hiding from the fact that this government has effectively been an effigy of the three wise monkeys in relation to AWB. They have heard no evil, they have seen no evil and they have spoken no evil. In fact, when they have had an opportunity to actually do something, they have put their hands over their ears and closed their eyes. They have done everything possible to avoid taking action and disclosing to the public—or to themselves, for that matter—just what AWB was up to.

In June 2003, when the American wheat industry was talking about corruption and suggesting that bribes were taking place, I put out a press release that said, ‘We haven’t seen any evidence, but Mr Vaile and Mr Truss should investigate this matter.’ What did they do? Nothing. Of course, when the Wheat Export Authority was exposed, by a Senate committee on which the government had a majority, as a paper tiger with limited power—limited power that Mr Truss and Mr Vaile had known about—we found that the government had known about the difficulties since the year 2000 and had done nothing. So, when the game was over, they were prepared to act.

Did they, when they had the chance, do anything about the Wheat Export Authority, which has been exposed by their commission of inquiry as absolutely useless? No. They left it in power. Wilson Tuckey, the member for O’Connor is right. He said, ‘The dogs have been barking about corruption for years. A number of people who were not Liberals were constantly out in the marketplace saying it was the way you did business in the Middle East.’ Senator Joyce is still saying that. That is what the National Party was saying within the coalition party room for all of those years. That is why nothing was happening.

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Heffernan interjecting—

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Heffernan is drawing my attention to the fact that he has also said that that is the way that business is done in the Middle East. I am not sure if he is saying that that is why the Australian government condoned it. But let us face the facts.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is a most serious reflection upon a senator—Senator Heffernan.

John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I hear what you say, Senator McGauran, but I did not take it that way.

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At least Senator Heffernan knows which party he wants to be in. Senator McGauran has had a lot of trouble in that regard. The point has been made that, since Senator McGauran joined the Liberal Party, they have done worse in Victoria than the National Party has—whose vote has actually gone up. But let us not touch upon that. What we are talking about is the absolute incompetence of this government. It is no excuse to say that the nobbled Cole commission of inquiry, with its limited terms of reference, could say anything about the incompetence of this government. Of course it could not.

You only have to look at Steve Lewis’s column in the Australian yesterday where he says that, because the government has control of this Senate, they are not going to be asked the questions that they should be asked. They could not have been asked those penetrating questions at the Cole commission of inquiry because the commission had no power to investigate how incompetent this government was, what they really knew and what they did about it. In fact, when the three wise monkeys of this government appeared before the inquiry, there were very great limitations on the questions that could be asked of them. We now know that, certainly in respect of Mr Vaile and Mr Downer, they made sure that they saw no evil, because they would not read anything; and they heard no evil, because they would not listen to anything; and, of course, they did not say anything that had anything to do with the wheat export corruption, because they claimed they knew nothing about it.

Time will tell whether or not that is true, but the fact is that the Cole commission of inquiry was nobbled from the start. It could not do its job because its terms of reference were limited. In effect, what Commissioner Cole said was that he could not inquire into matters other than those specifically contained within the terms of reference. It was immaterial whether the government was incompetent or not; that was beyond the terms of reference of the inquiry. So here we have a government that is prepared to hide behind its own nobbling of a commission of inquiry. It is prepared to try and attack the opposition and say how terrible we are for attacking this government for incompetence. But everyone in the public knows that this government, in relation to AWB, was totally and utterly incompetent. It missed every signal. It closed its eyes, it closed its ears and it did nothing. (Time expired)

Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Labor Party is trying to trivialise and drag down what has been a very serious and important inquiry into one of the greatest scandals that has ever involved Australian business. It is a very sad thing that this has occurred, and I think that the Labor Party is behaving in a very irresponsible and quite disreputable manner in attacking the government in this way. The truth of the matter is that Labor has not been able to substantiate accusations of misdemeanour by the Prime Minister, other ministers, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, our ambassadors or anybody else in the Australian government.

The truth of the matter is that the full nature of the oil for food scandal only became apparent after the fall of Saddam Hussein 3½ years ago. The toppling of the Hussein regime gave the United Nations access to Iraqi government documents for the first time and led to the UN setting up the Volcker inquiry on 21 April 2004. It is a matter of record that the Australian government cooperated fully with Volcker and urged AWB to do likewise. The simple matter is that nobody believed that a great Australian business organisation like AWB—

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is absolutely corrupt.

Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are right. Nobody believed that a great Australian business organisation like AWB would be engaged in corrupt practices. Nobody believed that because we believe that Australian businesses act in an ethical way. There is no doubt at all that the findings of the Cole commission of inquiry exonerate the government. AWB systematically misled not only the Australian government but also the United Nations. The Volcker report unveiled corruption throughout the United Nations oil for food program involving no fewer than 2,200 companies from 66 countries while Saddam Hussein was in power. But even though there were 66 countries involved, only one country set up a commission of inquiry, and that country was Australia.

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What do you want, a medal?

Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I think we do deserve a medal. We do deserve to be praised. We do deserve to be recognised for acting in an ethical and responsible manner and for looking into the facts of what AWB had done. That has been done through the Cole commission of inquiry, and now the government will move on into a second phase of dealing with the outcome of the Cole commission of inquiry.

One of the approaches Labor seems to use is that this is the end of the matter—that the government has closed the book on this issue. In fact, the tabling of the report is just the end of stage 1 of this matter. The Howard government will establish a task force of relevant Australian government agencies to consider, in consultation with the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, possible prosecutions. Furthermore, the government will introduce legislation and seek its passage in this sitting fortnight to facilitate access by the task force to the many documents held by the Cole commission of inquiry so as to enable prosecutions to proceed.

Commissioner Cole has recommended a number of changes to strengthen Australian enforcement of United Nations sanctions and the conduct of future commissions of inquiry. The government will move speedily to consider those recommendations of Commissioner Cole. Like Commissioner Cole, the government is disappointed that a major Australian company could be involved in such inappropriate conduct. Australia, let me say, does not tolerate corruption—here or in any other part of the world. That is something we as Australians have every reason to be proud of.

Let us look at Labor. We have been told that a couple of Labor MPs told the Australian Financial Review that in private, in the Labor Party caucus room, Kim Beazley conceded that he did not expect the opposition could claim any government scalps. So this is just a beat-up by the Labor Party. It is a fairly disgusting exhibition of gutter behaviour and of larrikins in the street trying to besmirch a very responsible commission of inquiry and a very responsible government. I think you should all be ashamed of yourselves. You should respect the outcome of this inquiry and the integrity of the government in dealing with this matter so speedily. (Time expired)

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The defence that has been mounted by Senator Eggleston reminds me of Bart Simpson. He is surveying the wreckage around him and his response is: ‘I wasn’t there. I didn’t do it. Nobody told me. I didn’t see it. It wasn’t my fault.’ But this issue is far more serious than that.

Senator Eggleston has just attacked the Labor Party again. Let us remember that it is this Liberal-National coalition that is in government and has been in government for 10 years. It is this Liberal-National Party coalition government that determined to send our troops into Iraq. You can talk all you like about the other 65 countries, and you can say as much as you like about the fact that you set up an inquiry, but the fact of the matter is that this government, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, in particular, and the minister responsible, Minister Downer, were asleep at the wheel all through this scandal.

They were happy to make decisions to send troops into Iraq and they were happy to assert that there was evidence of weapons of mass destruction, but now they are saying: ‘We did not know. No-one told us. We were kept in the dark about the greatest corruption scandal in the history of governance in this country.’ Yesterday in question time, Mr Howard said, in answer to a question:

I have found over the years that the best friends the wheat growers of Australia have are members of the Liberal Party and members of the National Party.

What a statement!

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With friends like that—

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With friends like that, yes, who needs enemies? The problem is that, when it came to AWB, Saddam Hussein was not really the enemy. Whilst this government had the stewardship of trying to ensure honesty and integrity in the export marketing of our wheat, we had a situation where it was full of scandal. The share price of AWB has collapsed and the company effectively is going to have to be wound up or disappear or whatever because the administration of the wheat export industry is a joke. We actually recommended to this government back in 2003 that the Wheat Export Authority should be wound up because the growers had no confidence in it.

This is a scandal of monumental proportions. I have sat in this parliament now for 10 years. I heard members of the now government when they were in opposition—and they still do it today—try and blame the Labor Party because when we were in government there were some scandals, such as the meat substitution situation with AQIS or the Midford situation with Customs. On those occasions the Labor Party took responsibility. We said, ‘Yes, these things happened on our watch and we have to fix them up.’ But what is the position of the government now? They conveniently want to ignore the history of this scandal up until Commissioner Cole’s report on Monday. They now somehow want to claim some credit, some high moral ground, and award themselves a medal, as Senator Eggleston said, because they established an inquiry. The fact of the matter is there would never have been the need to have an inquiry if the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Minister Downer had been doing their job. Mr Cole himself acknowledged that when he said:

The critical fact that emerges is that DFAT did very little in relation to the allegations or other information it received that either specifically related to AWB, or related generally to Iraq’s manipulation of the Programme. DFAT’s response to the information and allegations was limited to seeking AWB’s assurance that it was doing nothing wrong.

They asked the question: ‘Is anything corrupt going on here?’ AWB said no, and they said, ‘Oh, well, that’s all right; we’ll accept that and go off.’ But that sort of scrutiny was totally inadequate. It is not the sort of scrutiny that even this government have applied to other issues, but why did they apply it to this issue?

We know now that the ‘best friends’ that Mr Howard talks about may be people like Trevor Flugge, a person who has a long history of association with the National Party and is even a former candidate for the National Party. For once I actually agree with Mr Tuckey in his criticisms. The government cannot escape responsibility. It was under their stewardship that this gross scandal occurred. The fact is that the Liberal and National coalition parties are not the best friends of the wheat growers; they are the best friends of the best friends that Saddam Hussein ever had. (Time expired)

Ross Lightfoot (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to correct something quite reprehensible that the previous speaker, Senator Forshaw, said. He said that AWB would be wound up. That is totally incorrect. Let me put it into some perspective, because it is very important that this sort of information about Australian companies is not given any sort of credibility. The AWB wheat arm—the selling arm, the overseas export arm—is small by comparison with the rest of the assets and businesses of AWB. For instance, Landmark in AWB is by far its biggest employer. AWB is also concerned with finance, with the large retail sector, with farming and with other industries.

Senator Forshaw’s erroneous comment only adds to the misinformation that the Labor Party has been peddling over this very important issue. It seems to be an integral part of the Labor Party that it does not matter what you say as long as you say something that some people are going to believe. I think the only people who will believe the words that Senator Forshaw uttered this afternoon will be the Labor Party people who are going to vote for him anyway. The other people are going dismiss and find quite abhorrent the comments that Senator Forshaw made here today.

We must remember that the most decent, moral and hardworking people in the world are Australian farmers. No group of people in any other industry have the moral backbone that Australian farmers have. All those words that have been spoken here this afternoon on the other side, trying to bring down AWB as a company, only have a bad effect, a negative effect, a disastrous effect, on farmers in Australia—and significantly, I must say, in Western Australia. The biggest shareholders in AWB are farmers.

There is something else I want to say in the very short period I have left—the time always seems too short in these debates on motions to take note of answers to questions. Labor said that there is no joy with the ministers or the Prime Minister. What Commissioner Cole found is that no blame whatsoever can be pointed at the Prime Minister or at any of the Prime Minister’s ministers, either cabinet ministers or outer ministry ministers. No blame can be pointed at them. There is no question that I would rather take Commissioner Cole’s words—his printed words, the words of an eminent judge, a man who has given his life to the law—over the words of those people on the other side who have given their lives to the trade union movement, as commendable as they think that might be. You cannot speak against someone who has that authority and respect and who is an integral part of the system of Australia, which props the whole of Australia up.

Do you know that Mr Beazley actually had briefings on AWB sometime ago, Mr Deputy President? Did the opposition blow the whistle then? Of course they did not. Mr Beazley had the same briefing as the government had on this. Was the whistle blown then by anyone in the Labor Party? No, it was not. They sat on it. They as an opposition sat on their hands, and now we are suffering because they failed as an alternative government. They failed the people of Australia. They failed abysmally.

I think back to those days in the late eighties of the piggery. Remember the piggery scandal? What about that? What was that? The Prime Minister of the time was mixed up in one with of the greatest scandals leading to self-profit of any Prime Minister of Australia. That was absolutely disgusting. I think again of Centenary House. You ripped $43 million above what the rental value was—

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I ask that that statement ‘you ripped money’, meaning the members of this side of the parliament, be withdrawn. That is a gross misrepresentation. I also remind the Senate that there were two royal commissions that found that there was no case to answer by the Labor Party.

John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order.

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I took it personally, Mr Deputy President.

John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Forshaw, I do not care how you took it; there is no point of order. Senator Lightfoot, you have 36 seconds to go.

Ross Lightfoot (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. That is very generous of the clock. I will wind up by saying this: I do not support what happened with that $290-odd million that was paid out in bribes. I do not support that at all. I also do not support the fact that AWB is penalised by the United States and the European Union when they pay billions and billions of dollars in annual subsidies to their farmers that our farmers do not get. If you are going to have a level playing field, the United States and the European Union should remove subsidies. Then perhaps some of these gross misdeeds that have happened, and that undoubtedly have happened to AWB, will be put to one side. (Time expired)

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of answers given today by Minister Minchin about the Howard government’s disgraceful handling of the AWB wheat for weapons scandal. What a pathetic performance it was. It is clear to me that the minister is still shaken by the heated meeting in the government party room yesterday and that his nerves have not quite recovered. You can understand why his nerves would be so shaken, given the considerable tension within the government ranks over this issue.

On the front page of the Australian newspaper today is an article telling us that Mr Alby Schultz MP launched into an expletive-laden attack on Senator Joyce in which he is reported to have told Senator Joyce that he had ‘slit the throats of better animals than you’. Though, to be fair, the West Australian reported that Mr Schultz said that he had ‘cut’ the throats of animals worth more than Senator Joyce. It is possible that in their haste to spill their guts to the media the National Party leakers may have got the exact wording of the exchange mixed up. The report then went on to say that Senator Joyce offered to take the conversation with Mr Schultz outside, until that renowned gentleman and peacemaker, Senator Heffernan, intervened. I have to be honest with you: for what it is worth, I would have had my money on Senator Joyce. After all, you can imagine that Senator Joyce is a bit sensitive about the prospect of so many of his National Party stooge mates facing jail.

Once upon a time in WA we used to call crooks ‘colourful Sydney racing identities’. I think a better name nowadays could possibly be ‘disgraced, failed Nationals candidates’. There is gun-toting Trevor Flugge, former director and chairman of AWB, who was paid over $900,000 out of the AusAID budget for a few months work in Iraq. He is a former National Party candidate. There is Darryl Hockey, AWB’s government relations manager, who is a former adviser to the last National Party leader, the member for Gwydir. They are part of the dirty dozen. They all have deep National Party ties, and what a pack of crooks they are. But do not take my word for it. The member for O’Connor had this to say:

If our side—

and by that I think he means the Liberals and not their coalition partners, The Nationals—

is guilty of anything, it’s of trusting a mob of agri-politicians—all of which have close connections with the National Party.

There you go. I would not have a clue what is up with these right-wing numpties who like to travel around the Middle East toting their guns and getting their photos taken. It is a shame that Senator Lightfoot has left the chamber, because I would like to hear his response to that. He may be able to inform us at a later date.

What the Cole inquiry uncovered was a systematic failure by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for which its minister, Alexander Downer, must take primary responsibility. You can imagine the likes of Mr Downer’s grandfather, one-time Senator Sir John Downer, being somewhat disappointed at his grandson’s cavalier disregard for the Westminster doctrine of ministerial accountability. Sorry for bringing up such an archaic concept. I know it has been a long time since senators in this place have seen this doctrine in action. Foreign Minister Downer’s grandfather may have told him that the doctrine of ministerial responsibility is important because it motivates ministers to closely scrutinise the activities within their departments. They probably even taught Foreign Minister Downer about it at Radley College.

But, sadly, this idiot son of the aristocracy has no regard for the Westminster doctrine of ministerial accountability, despite the fact that he was the decision maker responsible for approving 41 AWB contracts with Iraq over a five-year period. Under the Customs regulations, Mr Downer was required to satisfy himself and to certify that exports to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq did not breach Australia’s obligation to uphold UN sanctions against the regime. He did not, and now he wants an apology. Boo-hoo! Foreign Minister Downer should be the one to apologise. He should apologise to Australia’s wheat farmers, who have lost valuable markets because of his incompetence. He should apologise to Australian taxpayers, who subsidised AWB’s $290 million kickback to Saddam Hussein’s regime to the tune of $90 million. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.