of breaching sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s regime is a proposition that absolutely no-one in the Australian community would accept—and quite rightly so. It is a completely absurd proposition.

A lot of evidence has been put to the Cole inquiry. Officers from the department that is led by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade and by me have been before the Cole commission. In none of that evidence—at none of those hearings—is there any evidence that those officers of my department have been trying to cover up.