House debates

Thursday, 2 March 2006

Questions without Notice

Oil for Food Program

2:06 pm

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

My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I refer to his statement to parliament on 31 October last that: ‘As far as the government is aware, the first knowledge of Alia and concerns relating to the AWB’s use of the company was in the context of the Volcker inquiry’—an inquiry which began in 2004. Why did the minister mislead parliament by using the excuse that he had not been briefed on the name of the Jordanian trucking company when it has now been revealed that for six years he had known about the fact that a Jordanian company owned by Saddam Hussein’s regime had in fact been the subject of formal UN warnings concerning that company’s dealing with the AWB? Why did the minister mislead the parliament?

Photo of Christopher PyneChristopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The honourable member would know that, if he wishes to make the claim that someone has misled the House, there are forms of the House in which to do so. Question time is not one of those forms and the minister should not have to answer that part of the question.

Photo of David HawkerDavid Hawker (Speaker) Share this | | Hansard source

The member for Sturt raises a valid point of order. I will call the Minister for Foreign Affairs, but he can ignore the last part of that question.

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

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order on your ruling. For the 25 years I have been in this place, every opposition—Liberal or Labor—has been permitted to ask and have answered a question that is preceded by the expression or the accusation that a minister has misled the House. It has only been ruled out of order when members have used words like ‘deliberation’ or have gone further and used a word like ‘lie’. Accountability in this place will be impossible if a question like that is not permitted.

Photo of David HawkerDavid Hawker (Speaker) Share this | | Hansard source

I will rule on the Leader of the Opposition’s point of order. I have indicated I will be calling the Minister for Foreign Affairs. In the earlier part of the question, as I heard it, the word ‘misled’ was also used, which I would therefore be ruling in order.

Photo of Alexander DownerAlexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | | Hansard source

First of all, I thank the honourable member for his question. I was going to make a personal explanation about this in any case at the end of question time, in response to an article along the lines of that question in the Australian Financial Review today, written by Mr John Kerin. I was asked a series of questions—which I am sure honourable members opposite would like to hear about—in one question by the member for Griffith on 31 October, and I gave a very comprehensive, although somewhat interrupted, answer. In response to that question, I said exactly this:

As far as the government is aware, the first knowledge of Alia and concerns relating to the AWB’s use of the company was in the context of the Volcker inquiry.

That is exactly right. The issue of the cables to which the honourable member refers, by the way, had been the subject of discussion and debate in the House on 3 November 2005 and in the Senate estimates committee on the same day. The opposition subsequently, this week, came into the House waving around these cables, trying to convince people up in the press gallery that there is something new here which had not been discussed right here on the floor of this chamber on 3 November.

What this episode shows is exactly what I have argued in question time over the last year—that is, the Leader of the Opposition does not do his homework, is not forensic, has not followed the issue and makes a series of empty, blustering allegations which are not based on the facts. The fact is: what I said on 31 October, I absolutely stand by.