Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian Wheat Board wheat for weapons scandal is one which, had it occurred in any other Western democracy, would have at least ended the political careers of the ministers who presided over it—in this case, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Minister for Trade and the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. The simple fact is this: the Howard government has presided over the worst corporate scandal in Australia’s history, a scandal that has trashed Australia’s reputation in the global wheat trading market, a scandal that has seen massive deceit of our ally the United States of America and a scandal that has cost individual wheat growers thousands upon thousands of dollars. This is the stuff of political resignations by any Westminster standard of ministerial conduct, and the buck stops with the Prime Minister. If the Prime Minister is to uphold his own ministerial code of conduct, he too should resign, along with the ministers I have just mentioned, because this government’s betrayal of Australian wheat growers, Australian soldiers and the Australian people makes this government very culpable indeed.

At a time when this government was engaged in deceiving the Australian public about the search for weapons of mass destruction, at a time when the government was priming the Australian people for the possibility of a military involvement that might put their sons and daughters in the armed forces in harm’s way, government ministers and the government itself in its collective responsibility turned a blind eye to the trade in wheat for weapons. The member for Griffiths got it right in question time today: the Howard government is one of the best friends Saddam Hussein ever had.

Culpability, incompetence and negligence were not only the preserve of the government; they extended to organisations set up by the government years ago to manage export arrangements for the wheat industry. The Wheat Export Authority was charged with the responsibility of looking after wheat growers. It has failed. It has spent millions of dollars of growers’ money and it is now living high on the hog. Last year growers paid Glen Taylor $350,000—more than the Prime Minister. Recently the Grains Council of Australia recommended that an industry levy to fund the WEA could be dropped to 19c. The WEA said it could live with that, but Minister McGauran overruled them all and, as I understand it, kept the levy at 22c.

As far as the Iraq kickback scandal is concerned, it is hard to believe that the Wheat Export Authority did not examine this matter thoroughly. Officers saw a media report about alleged kickbacks to the Saddam Hussein regime. The report related to the United States defence contract audit office. But the WEA did not even bother to get the report. It asked AWB if there were any problems. An officer went to Melbourne, was shown part of the contract, was not allowed to take any material with him and wrote a file note that was not even seen by the board—and that was the end of it. This is a massive failure.

The consequences are now flowing through. Australian wheat exports to Iraq have fallen 50 per cent over the last financial year, to 715,000 tonnes. Growers cop it again. Over the same period, US exports to Iraq have increased by over 300 per cent, to 2.3 million tonnes. And now we find that, around the time that the Volcker report was to be released, AWB entered into a arrangement with its subsidiary AWI whereby AWB would be paid $100 million if the export monopoly was lost. This was to be funded out of the pool—that is, growers again would have to foot the bill. The WEA should have picked this straight up, but it did not. It almost beggars belief. And now we discover that the minister has agreed to a pay rise for WEA staff of up to 15 per cent—again, paid for by growers—to reward their incompetence. This is a disgrace. (Time expired)