Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

BHP used to be known as the ‘Big Australian’. After the revelations of the pattern of events and behaviour revealed at the Cole inquiry, it now might be known as the ‘Big un-Australian’. Events at the Cole inquiry reveal a pattern of dubious behaviour by this leading Australian based company. BHP’s first negative behaviour I would highlight was outlined in the weekend Sydney Morning Herald, which reported that in 1996 BHP tried to undermine President Clinton’s efforts to stop Iran’s nuclear program—those efforts have not borne fruit, but this grave issue was in the public mind even then. BHP was going to develop some of Iran’s gas fields. It was only legislation in the US Senate that stopped this attempt to undermine the international consensus that Iran should be prevented from developing nuclear weapons.

Second, we had this very dubious shipment of wheat sent in 1995 by an offshoot of BHP that was staffed by former executives of BHP—Tigris Petroleum. It can only be described as a $5 million bribe through a shipment of wheat to Saddam Hussein which was designed to open up possibilities for BHP to gain access to the Halfayah oilfields in then Saddam controlled Iraq. Many people throughout the Western world have been critical of the French company Elf Aquitaine and some of the Russian companies for their collaboration with Saddam Hussein, but here we have an example of an Australian company desiring to deal with and prop up the Saddam regime. Another revelation from the Cole inquiry was that in 1997 BHP was going to offer Saddam a $100 million soft loan to help him through the period of economic sanctions. This thankfully did not proceed.

This kind of corporate short-sightedness in supporting corrupt regimes by making bribes to countries like that controlled by Saddam obviously fails even to understand those companies’ own narrow interests. Of course the new Iraqi government now say they will no longer deal with the Australian Wheat Board but instead purchase American wheat. It is the same with BHP: why would the new Iraqi democracy ever give them access to their oilfields when they see that BHP were trying to bribe Saddam Hussein? It is very short sighted and very un-Australian. (Time expired)