Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aged Care, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Hansard source

The answers that the government gave today on the AWB wheat scandal simply mirrored what we heard yesterday. They were no different to what we have heard before. They are designed to hide the truth, to cloud the air and to muddy the waters. They are not designed to do what our community expects of this government and that is to come clean—to come clean about what it knew, when it knew it and what involvement this government has had in the whole affair.

Senator McGauran is wrong. Justice Cole has been given certain terms of reference, but not wide enough to ensure that the facts will be found out and known. It is incorrect to say that Justice Cole will be able to get to the bottom of it. I concur with Senator McGauran: Justice Cole is an eminent person to do the job that he has been given. But the job that he has been given does not include investigating the role of this government and the role of the bureaucracy that advised the government. That is the issue that we have with the inquiry as it stands and that is the issue that this government will not come clean with the Australian community about.

In taking note of the answers I want to also take note of the comments that Senator Abetz made. We know that in this place Senator Abetz likes to think of himself as an eloquent speaker and, in fact, wrote a column about that at some stage last year himself. Vainly, again today he was trying to be a comedian by accusing Senator O’Brien of being Inspector Clouseau. I suggest to Senator Abetz that it would have been more appropriate if some of the people on his side had been behaving a bit like Inspector Clouseau themselves—if they had been asking questions and trying to find out what was happening. That is on the points that they did not know about, but surely there were enough indications that things were going wrong to suggest that questions should have been asked. I prefer Mr Kevin Rudd’s description of the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, when he talked about them as using the Sergeant Schultz excuse of ‘I know nothing’. It is amusing but also accurate. They knew nothing because they did not want to know anything.

The themes of the answers we have heard today and yesterday are: we don’t know, we can’t remember, the dog ate my homework. This is what we are hearing from this government. It is simply not good enough for the Australian community, particularly the wheat industry in Australia, to be provided with this sort of misinformation, just a plain cover-up or denial. Senator Coonan went on to accuse the Labor Party regarding a ‘Get Senator Joyce’ campaign. I thought that was quite amusing because for us to get Senator Joyce we actually have to stand in line. There are many others on that side who are trying to get Senator Joyce. We had the spectacle of Senator McGauran’s defection last week, ostensibly because he could not bear Senator Joyce’s behaviour. He had to leave the National Party because he could not bear Senator Joyce’s behaviour. Further to the coalition’s problems are those running particularly in Queensland. Senator Boswell’s preselection has had to be deferred so that Senator Boswell can go and collect the numbers a bit more. It is a tricky time in Queensland for the coalition at the moment.