Australia Pays Corrupt Bill

Australian monopoly wheat exporter, AWB, reveals has raised the stakes in the fallout from the Volker Report.
In new testimony a company executive has admitted that AWB not only provided inflated invoices to the UN to cover Saddam’s kickbacks, but in the end defrauded the Australian government and the World Food Program.
When UN staffs were withdrawn from Baghdad on the eve of war, the oil-for-food program was suspended, and the AWB was left wondering who would pay for the wheat already at sea, plus the contracts for one million tonnes of wheat still outstanding.
The company asked for a meeting with Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials.
On March 21, 2003, just one day after the first US-led strike on Iraq, Mr Downer said the Howard Government would buy the 100,000 tonnes of wheat stranded at sea. AusAID directed the stranded ships away from the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr towards a port near Kuwait City, and another near Aqaba in Jordan.

The problem now facing the Howard government is their blind acceptance of AWB activities. Prior to Volker’s revelations the ‘privatised’ monopoly wheat trader was considered sacrosanct in Australian agricultural circles.
In their haste to take over payment of the price inflated AWB shipments, the government was, at the very least, aware that the contracts had been approved by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).
It is bad enough that, in taking over the contracts, Australia was in effect paying kickbacks directly to a regime whom they were at war with, but it seems they were also repaying an Iraqi debt to another big corporation, BHP.
That DFAT blindly went along with this scheme, aware that the price was well above existing market rates, suggests that they, like AWB executives, had painted themselves into a corner. By the time war was engaged the deceit was too advanced to undo.
At the outset the Cole Inquiry, hobbled with restrictive terms of reference and lack of existing Federal laws on foreign bribery, was unlikely to result in prosecutions.
However, solid investigation and tenacious examination of witnesses has changed the game dramatically.
AWB executives will now be facing potential prosecution on fraud and corruption on Australian soil, of the Australian people. DFAT, neatly insulated from the inquiry, will now face real pressure to show how they gave approvals to these obvious deceits.
Hats off to Commissioner Cole, senior counsel Agius and the inquiry team. Again we point out that investigation of corrupt activities must not be controlled and determined by the political establishment.