Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries) Share this | Hansard source

Minister Truss, incompetence and negligence are simply no defence in this matter. There is one simple proposition at the heart of this whole scandal: if the government did not know of the kickbacks to Saddam Hussein’s regime and if its officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and in the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry had no knowledge of the matters relating to this scandal, why don’t you simply open up the terms of reference of the Cole inquiry so that they can come before it and you can come before it to tell what you know—

See this speech in context