Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—Just over one year ago, after a request by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Australian government moved decisively to set up an open, transparent and independent public inquiry with royal commission powers. Its task was to look into the conduct of the Australian companies identified in the Volcker report, the UN committee report which unveiled corruption throughout the UN oil for food program involving 2,200 companies from 66 countries while Saddam Hussein was in power.

No other country has undertaken such an open and far-reaching inquiry. As Commissioner Cole states in the prologue to the report:

AWB has cast a shadow over Australia’s reputation in international trade. That shadow has been removed by Australia’s intolerance of inappropriate conduct in trade, demonstrated by shining the bright light of this independent public Inquiry on AWB’s conduct.

Like Commissioner Cole, government is disappointed that a major Australian company could be involved in such inappropriate conduct. Australia does not tolerate corruption here or by Australian companies in other parts of the world.

We have acted to get to the bottom of this matter. I am pleased to table the report of Commissioner Cole and, on behalf of the government, to thank him, his legal team and the inquiry staff for conducting the most rigorous, independent and transparent inquiry in the world into matters arising from the Volcker report.

Commissioner Cole’s independence under his letters patent has been clear beyond doubt. As even the Leader of the Opposition said in February:

We’re not worried about Cole. We’re not worried about his independence or his willingness to inquire ...

On this issue alone, the Leader of the Opposition has been proven correct. Commissioner Cole and those assisting him have done an outstanding job in very difficult circumstances. He has worked tirelessly through 76 days of hearings, hundreds of witness statements and tens of thousands of pages of documents.

Getting to the bottom of this matter has not been an easy task; it has taken Commissioner Cole’s inquiry a year. This followed the lengthy Volcker inquiry, which itself relied on the fall of Saddam Hussein 3½ years ago, giving access to Iraqi government documents for the first time.

The Australian government was proactive in facilitating those two inquiries. It has done all it can to assist Commissioner Cole to get to the heart of the matter. When the commissioner asked for resources, we provided them. When the commissioner requested changes to the terms of reference, we provided them—on five separate occasions.

Much has been claimed about the supposed inadequacy of the terms of reference. I reject any claim that Commissioner Cole has been hampered in his important task. As Commissioner Cole himself notes in his report at paragraphs 6.26 and 6.27:

I closely examined the role of the Commonwealth, and particularly that of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, in relation to the operation of the Oil-for-Food Programme, with particular emphasis on the Department’s role in the export of wheat to Iraq by AWB during the programme.

He goes on:

I found no material that is in any way suggestive of illegal activity by the Commonwealth or any of its officers. There was thus no basis for my seeking any widening of the terms of reference in that respect.

The Cole inquiry has been a landmark inquiry in terms of the government’s openness to forensic examination of its internal processes. That examination has extended far beyond government departments to ministers and their offices and to intelligence agencies.

Three senior ministers, including the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, gave evidence and were examined by the inquiry. A fourth minister and a former minister also provided sworn statements.

The report being tabled today finds that there is no basis for doubting the evidence provided by the Prime Minister or other current and former ministers. Commissioner Cole found in his report, at paragraph 30.241:

There is no evidence that any of the Prime Minister, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Minister for Trade or the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry were ever informed about, or otherwise acquired knowledge of, the relevant activities of AWB.

Furthermore, the commissioner found that there was no evidence to support an inference that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had turned a blind eye to the allegations.

Tabling this report is not an end to the process. Just as the Australian government acted quickly and resolutely to establish a royal commission after the Volcker report, the government will be moving quickly now it has the report.

Commissioner Cole sets out a range of findings in relation to possible breaches of Australian law by AWB and certain former employees.

As recommended, the government will establish a task force of relevant Australian government agencies to consider possible prosecutions in consultation with the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions. The Prime Minister is writing to the Victorian Premier to invite the participation of the Victoria Police and the Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions in this process.

In addition, the government will introduce legislation and seek its passage in this sitting fortnight to facilitate access by the task force to the many documents held by the Cole commission. This will also help responses to future commissions.

Commissioner Cole has also recommended a number of changes designed to strengthen Australian law, in particular in relation to the domestic enforcement of UN sanctions and the conduct of future royal commissions. The government will move speedily to consider Commissioner Cole’s recommendations.

I would like to add a word of caution. Although the government is moving quickly and decisively, it may take time for the independent agencies involved in the task force to thoroughly consider all of the relevant material before commencing any prosecution.

This is appropriate. Government agencies should only take actions to investigate and prosecute citizens or companies when they have a proper basis for doing so. Thanks to Commissioner Cole’s inquiry, we now have a basis for making proper, informed decisions about whether persons or companies can and should be prosecuted for possible breaches of Australian law.

Again, the government thanks Commissioner Cole and his team and the legal inquiry staff for this thorough and important report. I table the report.

Peter McGauran (Gippsland, National Party, Deputy Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House take note of the document.

I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the debate.

Leave granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent Mr Beazley (Leader of the Opposition) speaking for a period not exceeding 8 minutes.

Question agreed to.

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

This is a shameless government. Its members are here saying with pride and boasting to us: ‘We were not criminally culpable; we were merely incompetent and negligent.’ They were incompetent and negligent in the face of the worst federal scandal in living memory, in which $300 million went to the back kick of Saddam Hussein on their watch—$300 million subsequently turned by Saddam Hussein into war-making capacities and then used on Australian soldiers and others immediately after that.

They scuttle away from the accountability that they should have allowed themselves to be subject to in the terms of reference that went to Mr Cole. As was pointed out repeatedly by the commissioner in correspondence with us, there was no capacity for the commissioner to find as to the stewardship of these ministers for the responsibilities they had—critical responsibilities that impacted not only on Australian honour and Australian wheat farmers but also on the position of our allies and the soldiers of both our allies and others domestically in Iraq, who have found themselves having to confront the consequences of that money flowing through Saddam Hussein, ultimately, in all probability, to at least one part of an insurgency.

That the government should look at this finding with pride shows us how low public standards have sunk in this country, how low public accountability has fallen in this country, under this appalling government. This cynical government deceived the Australian people about why it took us to war in Iraq. This negligent government allowed 300 million Aussie dollars to go in bribes to Saddam Hussein—the very dictator it sent our troops to fight. This tricky government tricked up an inquiry to get its ministers off the hook. And now this arrogant government is going to the Australian people and saying, ‘It is not our fault.’

Not even the rorted terms of reference that this commission had can cover up the facts of the ‘wheat for weapons’ scandal. Firstly, Australia’s monopoly wheat exporters bribed the Saddam regime to buy Australian wheat. Secondly, Alexander Downer and Mark Vaile’s department approved the contracts that contained the bribes. Thirdly, the government was warned 35 times about the bribes, whether it chose to regard those warnings as well based or not. Fourthly, the ministers chose to ignore those warnings. Fifthly, having chosen to ignore those warnings of sanctions busting, Mr Howard then told us we had to go to war because sanctions on Iraq had failed. That was his reason for going to war in Iraq—the wrong war. But, when our brave troops got to Iraq, the bullets fired at them had been paid for by the Australian government. In the final disgrace, the government rorted the terms of reference of the commission supposed to investigate all of this.

I want to place this not simply in the context of the argy-bargy of Australian political debate. One thing that is not noted by many Australians, but is noted by me since largely they are deployed from my electorate and occasionally from Sydney, is that, while all this was going on—as the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Trade were not doing their job ensuring that the sanctions regime was being properly applied in relation to the activities of the AWB; and, whether they were being actively being misled or not, they were not doing their job—young Australian men and women were enforcing sanctions in the gulf at risk to their lives. For years and years—all through these years—young men and women were enforcing sanctions, doing their job.

Contrast the actions of Australian service personnel with the worthlessness of their political masters who sent them there and then cynically refused to put themselves anywhere near a serious inquiry during all those years of this area of sanction busting which should have set red lights flashing in the minds of every Australian minister as it set them flashing in the minds of ministers when we were in office. Take Gareth Evans. The fact that AWB may have shamelessly misled all those who made inquiries of it does not excuse this government. The best you can say from the evidence that was presented to the Cole commission is that their efforts at inquiry were ‘once over very lightly’.

But they cannot stop misleading. It comes to them so naturally. We got more of it again in the Attorney-General’s statement here today. Let me identify one part of that:

The Australian government was proactive in facilitating those two inquiries.

Proactive in facilitating the Volcker inquiry, was it? Let me quote from the opinion of Mr Volcker on how proactive the Australian government was. On 7 February 2005 the Australian Ambassador to the UN met with Mr Volcker, the head of the UN inquiry. Volcker was blunt in his assessment of Australia’s lack of cooperation with the inquiry, saying the IIC—that is, his inquiry—had encountered a problem with Australia’s cooperation. Australia, he said, had been ‘beyond reticent, even forbidding’ in responding to the committee’s requests. Volcker also told the ambassador there was strong evidence the AWB had been involved in the payment of kickbacks, and he reiterated his request for Australian documents.

And then we have the evidence of 2 June, recorded in the handwritten notes of the AWB executive. He had the Prime Minister’s office—this cooperative, collaborative government with the Volker inquiry—assisting them with the preparation of evidence. He says the PM’s office official:

… was most probative, but at the end of the meeting he was a supporter. Keep your responses narrow, technical. Do not blame US, complain about process. AWB’s strategy would be the same witting or unwitting outcome. What the government wants from the AWB says the Prime Minister’s office is to keep narrow; be a small target.

That is the Attorney-General’s view of what enthusiastic collaboration amounts to in relation to the Volker inquiry. It is no wonder that a government which had that attitude on that occasion to the Volker inquiry should have a similar attitude in making absolutely certain that the Cole commission was not clothed with the full powers to ensure that it could inquire into the negligent behaviour of ministers in administering their portfolio in that area. And, because they did not do so, whatever value there may be in this inquiry—and it will be very valuable indeed in relation to the criminal culpability of officials of AWB—as a statement of the political overview of how administration was conducted in this country, it cannot be effective because it was not properly empowered. It simply was not properly empowered, and for that the government stands condemned. In no state government in this country would those two ministers—Mr Downer and the trade minister—have survived their culpability in this regard. (Time expired)

Debate adjourned.