howard govt in trouble over "wheatgate"

Although it's highly premature to suggest that Wheatgate is about to become the Howard government's Watergate, the signs are beginning to look ominous. As Hugo Kelly writes in Crikey today, "it's clear the Government is facing major – major – trouble," with reliable sources suggesting the existence of a number of "smoking cables and emails" floating around DFAT which, we understand, have found their way into the hands of the federal Opposition.


Apart from the duplicity, illegality, immorality and stupidity of an Australian government organisation paying the biggest bribe of all the bribes paid to Saddam Hussein's regime, if it all turns out to be true then what on earth would it say about the stated reasons for Australia's participation in the invasion of Iraq? Reasons that were articulately outlined in John Howard's Address to the Nation on 20 March, 2003 – which included assertions that Iraq possessed "weapons of mass destruction ... which even in minute quantities are capable of causing death and destruction on a mammoth scale"; that Iraq is run by an "appalling regime"; that Iraq "has long supported international terrorism"; that "Saddam Hussein pays $25,000 to each family of Palestinian suicide bombers who wreak ... murderous havoc"; that "I passionately believe that action must be taken to disarm Iraq"; that while "there are many dictatorships in the world ... this is a dictatorship of a particularly horrific kind"; and that "our argument is with Saddam Hussein's regime."


That's the same regime, it now appears, that was enriched by the Australian Wheat Board to the tune of some $300 million between 2000 and 2003. Which raises this rather tricky question for the government: did it know one of its instrumentalities was paying large bribes to a "dictatorship of a particularly horrific kind" at the same time as it was attacking the very same "appalling regime"?

This is how the Prime Minister ended his Address to the Nation in March 2003: "This has been a very difficult decision for the Government but a decision which is good for Australia's long term security and the cause of a safer world. Good night."


Good night, and good luck.

Wheatgate: who knew what, when?


Hugo Kelly writes:

Now that Alexander Downer has been dragged into the AWB scandal, it's clear the Government is facing major – major – trouble. We are reliably informed there are quite a few smoking cables and emails floating around DFAT. And we understand the Opposition has got their hands on some of them.

Sources tell Crikey that Downer and Agriculture Minister Mark Vaile were warned of "concerns" about the Board's activities some two years ago. It's interesting that AWB CEO Andrew Lindberg, an otherwise clever man with a good memory for detail, told the inquiry yesterday he "couldn't recall" whether he told Downer of the transport bribes – despite memos like this tending to help investigators fill in the blanks.

Now Mark Vaile is acting PM, and he has sort of – but not quite – denied the Government knew about the $300 million siphoned off to the Iraqis.

The wording here is crucial. The Minister said: "I'm not aware of any evidence that shows that the government, or government officials, did know about the transport arrangements." Not that he, personally, or his office, didn't know. That is a quite different matter, and counts for something in a government which deals in sophistry and semantics as a matter of course.

Some enterprising gallery journalist needs to put formal questions to the offices of Vaile and Downer about who knew what and when. We've started the ball rolling this morning by sending the following email to Downer's office:

Was Minister Downer or his private office aware of documented departmental concerns about the 'transport fees' being paid by AWB to the company Alia prior to the publication of the Volker inquiry into Oil for food? If so, when were they made aware of this and what was the nature of the departmental advice?

The question here is not whether they knew in precise detail about whether this money was being siphoned off to Saddam. The question that needs to answered is: if there were "concerns" raised, no matter how unspecific, did they seek more information; and if not, as protectors of our international diplomatic and trading relationships, why not?

Just passing the buck to public servants won't wash. We'll let you know their response tomorrow