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

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the Prime Minister’s refusal yesterday to expand the Cole commission’s terms of reference. Will the Prime Minister now confirm that, if these rorted terms of reference remain in force, the inquiry will have no power to conclude whether the foreign minister did his job in enforcing UN sanctions against Saddam Hussein; no power to conclude whether the foreign minister properly exercised his functions under the Customs (Prohibited Exports) Regulation; no power to conclude whether the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Minister for Trade or the Prime Minister himself responded competently to the 27 sets of warnings received about this scandal; and no power to determine what the $300 million was used for by Saddam Hussein in military purchases and in the subsidisation of suicide bombers prior to the war? Prime Minister, haven’t you designed a cover-up that would make Richard Nixon proud?

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