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

I move:

That the Senate take note of answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by opposition Senators today.

Again, we are seeing played out the slipperiness of this government when it comes to answering questions about a variety of matters. The matter that I particularly want to address is the scandal about the AWB kickbacks to Saddam Hussein. Today in question time, I asked Senator Abetz about his performance yesterday. Just before question time, a letter from the Wheat Export Authority’s chairman, Mr Besley, was handed to the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee. Unfortunately, it was not available to me because I was not invited to the meeting, but it clearly was available to others. I asked Senator Abetz today in question time why he had not addressed that matter. I asked: did he not have a brief which dealt with the matter? Senator Abetz assiduously avoided that question. Indeed, he looked away. He looked shifty in relation to the answer to that matter. I believe he had the opportunity to say that he was not briefed on the matter but, in fact, he declined to give us that assurance.