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

My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. After 10 years as foreign minister and as the minister responsible under Australian law for enforcing UN sanctions against Iraq, does the minister accept any responsibility whatsoever for his department’s failure to have in place any systems or procedures in relation to how its staff should proceed in response to allegations relating to the breach of sanctions, as concluded in this, Commissioner Cole’s report?

Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The people responsible for the breach of UN sanctions and for deceiving both my department and the United Nations—not according to the Labor Party, but according to Commissioner Cole—are the executives of AWB Ltd. We condemn, in any circumstances, all of those people—and it happens from time to time—who endeavour to defraud or mislead the Commonwealth in the process of breaking the law. That is why, following the Volcker inquiry, with which we cooperated, we established the Cole inquiry—because we wanted to get to the heart of this matter. As I explained on the radio this morning, we have nailed this by establishing what happened—and it would not have happened if it had not been for an independent inquiry. There are 66 countries and some 2,200 to 2,300 companies referred to in the Volcker report—

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Macklin interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition is warned!

Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and we are the only country that has established a report of this kind. The responsibility lies with the people who broke the law, and the government has addressed that.

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

Mr Speaker, on relevance: not one word of that was relevant to the question he was asked.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister has completed his answer.