Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Resources. Documents I have with me contain evidence of coal quality fraud by three companies regarding Australian exports to South Korea. When I first raised this issue with you last year, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission initially told me it would investigate. But since then no agency has contacted me, the whistleblower involved struggled to even get a meeting with the ACCC and only TerraCom is being investigated. Minister, is your government trying to cover up these obvious coal crimes?

Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Clark for his question. I can assure you that this government is not interested in covering up anything at all, least of all accusations such as this. I also want to thank the member for Clark for his advocacy for whistleblowers across Australia. I admire him for his strong sense of social justice and I thank him for his tireless work in protecting our nation against corruption and misinformation. My office has engaged with the member, perhaps not on the matter you are raising today but on other matters in relation to alleged misconduct in coal quality testing. I can assure the member that I do take these allegations very seriously. I will have to look into the matters that you have raised and the lack of involvement in relation to the ACCC. Of course, I will do that, and my office will undertake to do that, straightaway.

It is a serious matter. There are allegations of coal quality testing misconduct. They are being looked into, and we'll make sure that all of these are looked into, as they should properly be. What I would say is that anyone with information on this should go forward to the ACCC. From what the member has said, it sounds as though that has happened. They might not have had the response they needed to have. I will make sure—and I will speak with the Treasurer, of course, about undertaking to ensure—that a response, and a fulsome response, is given, because it's very serious. The export of coal is very important to this country's economy, especially to that of the eastern seaboard, and it will continue to be a provider of energy security for our trading partners, so we do need to have confidence that the testing of that coal is undertaken in a proper manner.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Clark?

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Speaker, I seek leave to table the documents I referred to in my question.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is leave granted?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is not granted. I don't know what the legal consequences are of tabling documents of that nature, with respect to the investigations. But I think the minister's answer directs us to the other issues that'll be dealt with.