Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move:

That this House censure the Deputy Prime Minister for concealing from the Parliament his knowledge of the Wheat Export Authority’s failure to provide documents relating to breaches by AWB Limited of the United Nations Oil for Food Program to the Volcker inquiry and his failure to protect the interest of hardworking Australian wheat farmers.

Leave not granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the Opposition moving immediately that this House censure the Deputy Prime Minister for concealing from the Parliament his knowledge of the Wheat Export Authority’s failure to provide documents relating to breaches by AWB Limited of the United Nations Oil for Food Program to the Volcker inquiry and his failure to protect the interest of hardworking Australian wheat farmers.

This is a disgrace. This is the worst case of corruption perpetrated by a federal government in my lifetime at least—$300 million dollars to Saddam Hussein. And this is the third time the government have refused a censure motion on this. Of all the issues that have come before this parliament in which you would think that this parliament would have some interest in holding the government accountable, this is undoubtedly the worst—and yet again they refuse a motion of censure on it.

I am going to spend a couple of minutes on process here, because the story of this government over the course of the last two weeks has been one of the suppression of inquiry in the parliament—suppression of inquiry in the Senate and suppression of inquiry in the House. They have refused to answer questions in this place. The Deputy Prime Minister has come to each question time pathetically unprepared even though he is the minister most directly responsible for all of this. The treatment of this parliament by this government has been an absolute disgrace. Question time is full of abuse for the opposition but no answers to serious questions. This parliament cannot conduct itself in this way on serious matters. If these matters are not dealt with by the Leader of the House, who connives at it, and the others who are responsible then this parliament will be turned into a joke and a laughing stock.

Those are the process issues. Let us get to the substance of the performance, of why a censure motion ought to be moved with regard to this man. Yesterday he was asked a question on whether or not the Wheat Export Authority had handed its documentation across to the Volcker committee. Remember, Mr Speaker, that the whole defence of that side of the House for their behaviour and for the fact that there is an improperly designed set of propositions being put before Mr Cole for him to find on has been that the Volcker commission has had an opportunity to consider all elements of government handling of this case. That is the substance of their argument for, to a degree, truncating the Cole inquiry.

We have asked whether the Wheat Export Authority documentation has been passed across. The head of the Wheat Export Authority has said that, no, its materials were not passed across to the Volcker committee. The pathetic excuse of the minister at the table, while not directly denying that nothing had been passed across to the Volcker committee, was that the Wheat Export Authority gave some consideration to this matter whilst the Volcker committee was sitting—as though that is an excuse. Apparently, the government only passes across documentation on a one-time-only basis. But, again, it was evaded in this place.

We asked explicit questions today too about what happened to that defence document. The Deputy Prime Minister got up, with a smirk all over his phiz, and told us, we presume, that he had that matter passed across to the Cole commission at the time it sat. We have heard something quite different from that. We have heard that they got hold of a copy of that defence document when the opposition chose to raise it in this place and not a minute before. We also understand that something like that happened too to the Treasury document in relation to this issue; they got it after it was revealed in the paper. That is strongly suggestive of what we believe in this place—that the government’s protestations that they are cooperating fully with these inquiries have very substantial caveats attached to them.

That is a serious matter. In this chamber we ought to be able to ask questions and get honest answers—and we cannot, because of the Deputy Prime Minister’s weakness and his weak performance day after day in this place, when he walks in here totally unprepared for questions that obviously will be asked of him. Only in this chamber now can this government be held accountable on this, the worst of Australia’s scandals—only in this chamber. The Cole commission of inquiry, though independent—in terms of what the commissioner is capable of finding—has a set of references that treat AWB and private officials in one way and public servants and ministers in another. They are not treated equally before the Cole commission, whatever may be the presentation of their study by this minister and this government to people elsewhere when defending the record of this government. So only in this chamber can this government be held accountable.

Day after day in this chamber, this government frustrates the holding of itself to accountability. The person at the heart of it is the incompetent, bungling Deputy Prime Minister, who should depart that job; he should leave. To think that he is the man now to fix up the problem in Iraq, remembering the last time he took that sort of job over. As we revealed here today, the consequence of the last time Mr Vaile appeared before the Iraqis or took control personally of negotiation with the Iraqis, when we were in trouble, was that Saddam Hussein got more money out of the wheat crop than did the Australian farmers. That was the last occasion on which he took up cudgels on behalf of the wheat farmers of Australia most directly, as we demonstrated today with the contract that we tabled. So this fellow has form; he has a record.

But understand this: it is a deeply held view amongst many wheat farmers in this country that the marketing of wheat should be conducted from a single desk. There is some level of disputation about it. It is a matter being considered by all political parties as to whether or not that is the appropriate way to continue. One of the defences of persisting with a single desk is that we ought to be able to use it to trade in order to break open those other markets that are closed to Australians or where our competitors are trading unfairly because of their subsidised position. It is the most important bargaining chip that Australia has.

This Deputy Prime Minister—as a result of his incompetence, along with that of his Prime Minister and the Minister for Foreign Affairs—has seriously traduced that bargaining chip. We are a source of mockery and scorn in international trade in wheat, as a result of the way in which they have operated—mockery and scorn. Now, whenever an Australian trade official raises a defence of the single desk, it will be said, ‘Well, a single desk applies to you fellows until you get into trouble, doesn’t it.’ Whenever the single desk is discussed—and it will be mentioned by those responsible for conducting negotiations or debate with us—fingers will be pointed at us and it will be said, ‘While we acted with restraint, you for six years walked in there and fed an enemy of world peace.’ That is what will be said in the course of such negotiations. You cannot escape that. They may want to escape that, but that is where they have led us.

Let me say one thing particularly to the wheat farmers of this country: the Howard government has let you down and John Howard should meet with all of you and all of your organisations—not just with the AWB—and beg forgiveness. This announcement today will be about John Howard’s political interests and not about the interests of our wheat farmers.

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