House debates Questions without Notice
Oil for Food Program
Kevin Rudd Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security
2:35 pm
My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister. Is the Deputy Prime Minister aware of this report, prepared by the United States Department of Defense, dated September 2003, which evaluated 759 contracts under the oil for food program and which found that food commodity contracts were the most consistently overpriced? Is the minister aware that AWB Ltd is named in this report as a supplier with overpricing on a 500,000-tonne contract to the tune of $14.8 million? If the minister’s excuse for not acting before was that the AWB was not mentioned by name, what is his excuse for not acting on the basis of this report, where the AWB is explicitly named?
Mark Vaile Lyne, National Party, Minister for Trade
There are obviously any number of inquiries and reports being done, but the Volcker inquiry was done into the oil for food program. As soon as the Volcker inquiry is completed, we instituted the most important inquiry, and that is the Cole inquiry.
Unidentified interjection - Hansard doesn't record who said this
Honourable Members:
David Hawker Speaker
Order! The minister will resume his seat. Before I call the Leader of the Opposition, I point out that there is far too much noise in the chamber.
Kim Beazley Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition
Mr Speaker, my point of order goes to relevance. This is a year-plus before the Volcker report.
Kevin Rudd Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Under the standing orders the minister is required to answer the question. He did not answer any element of that question.
David Hawker Speaker
The member for Griffith will resume his seat. There is no point of order.