Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Would the minister advise the Senate whether he considers almost, partly or somewhat meeting only some of the nine financial action task force best practice standards is good enough. Does the minister recall promising, as long ago as 2002, that Australia would update its laws to meet the nine financial action task force best standards? That was four years ago. Are you going to meet them all to counter terrorist financing? Wouldn’t these tougher laws have enabled Australian authorities to detect the AWB’s corrupt payments sooner? Doesn’t this mean that AWB—an Australian company—was able to go on channelling money to a terrorist regime unabated because of the minister’s negligence or, indeed, inaction?