Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade. Deputy Prime Minister, following your government’s approval of the AWB’s new contract arrangements with Iraq on 2 November 2000, which gave the AWB the green light to continue funnelling money to Saddam Hussein—

Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh!

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, that is what has happened; that is exactly what happened, and you know it.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Griffith will come back to his question, and he will also address his question through the chair.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was talking about the letter that gave the AWB the green light to continue funnelling money to Saddam Hussein. In the ‘Dear Trevor’ letter back to Mr Flugge a few weeks later, did the Deputy Prime Minister formally confirm that he had directed his officials to ‘maintain their closed dialogue with the AWB’ in order to keep him apprised of developments in the trade with Iraq? Can the Deputy Prime Minister confirm that Trevor is dear and well known to him as the former National Party candidate for the federal seat of O’Connor?

Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I just make a couple of points—

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Griffith’s question was heard in silence. The minister now has the call.

Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I just make a couple of points in response to that question and the assertions that were made in it. Firstly, I make the point that, all through this entire process, the objective of our government has been to look after the interests of Australia’s wheat growers. They come first and foremost in this process in terms of getting into the markets of the world.

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So you’re happy to fund suicide bombers to do it?

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Melbourne will withdraw that.

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a lot of glass jaws! I withdraw, Mr Speaker.

Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am trying to respond to the member’s question. I am sure he wants an answer. First and foremost has been exercising our responsibilities as a government to the wheat growers of Australia, to get their export product on the markets of the world. The other part of the question was with regard to the structure of contracts. The structure of contracts was purely a matter between AWB and the United Nations. The third point I want to make is that—and the member for Griffith, seeing as he has been an avid reader of a lot of the correspondence and the documentation that has come forward in this inquiry, would realise this—in every bit of correspondence there was a warning to AWB to be compliant with the conditions of the UN sanctions program.