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
3:31 pm
My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade. I refer to the Deputy Prime Minister’s sworn evidence to the Cole inquiry dated 5 April 2006 in which he stated on 43 occasions that he had no recollection of having received any of the 21 warning cables dealing with the ‘wheat for weapons’ scandal. I also refer to confirmation in DFAT Senate estimates yesterday that since the year 2000 DFAT has been able to formally audit the opening, printing, exporting—that is, moving the contents of one cable to another document—and closing of cables by an electronic cable log. Minister, did you personally check this electronic cable access log before submitting your sworn evidence to the Cole inquiry on 5 April?
Greg Hunt Flinders, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage
Did you personally check your plagiarised document before you put it on the web?
Unidentified interjection - Hansard doesn't record who said this
Honourable Members:
Mark Vaile Lyne, National Party, Minister for Trade
In response to the member’s question, I did not personally check that log. The answers that I gave to the Cole inquiry were the truth and were accurate.
John Howard Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister
Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.