Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Previously I've ventilated in the parliament evidence of widespread fraud in the Australian export coal industry, involving testing laboratories, exporters and auditors. In essence, coal-quality reports have regularly been falsified to fraudulently meet contractual requirements, allowing inferior coal to be passed off as cleaner coal. That coal is then exported to unsuspecting countries. Now, this not hearsay. Indeed, the coal-testing laboratory ALS admitted that about half the quality certificates it issued had been 'manually amended without justification' for almost 13 years. That's a polite way of saying they faked the results. Indeed, documents in my possession do show substandard preliminary test results and then false contractually compliant results in final reports.

Alarmingly, the previous coalition government was aware of these allegations but buried them, and I'm concerned that the current government's response is also underwhelming. However, we can take some comfort from the Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee's consideration of the matter currently as it relates to consulting firm EY, and I applaud committee member Senator David Pocock for pursuing the matter just last week. To assist the House, I seek leave to table relevant material which has already been shared with senators and EY.

Leave granted.

Thank you.