My question is to the Minister for Trade. I refer to the minister’s instructions to Australia’s ambassador in Washington in June 2003 to go in at a senior level with the US administration to reject US allegations that the AWB had made corrupt payments to Saddam Hussein’s regime. Will the minister confirm that he instructed the ambassador to reject these allegations as ‘ludicrous, egregious, unacceptable and offensive’ and that this was consistent with AWB’s further written request to the government that same month that ‘the United States should expletive deleted off’?