Fed: Ministers at the AWB inquiry - much ado about nothing

AAP General News (Australia)
04-14-2006
Fed: Ministers at the AWB inquiry - much ado about nothing

By Doug Conway, Senior Correspondent

SYDNEY, April 14 AAP - The PM, the deputy PM and the foreign minister. They have been
the star attractions at the inquiry into the AWB scandal, the political tall poppies,
the big names the public could at last identify with.

It took more than three months of sittings before they appeared, and when they did
it was to a rock star reception from the media.

They did little to advance the sum of human knowledge about AWB, however, saying they
could not recall seeing diplomatic cables warning of what proved to be $290 million in
kickbacks paid to the insidious Saddam Hussein regime Australia was on the verge of waging
war against.

But their appearance did underline what precious little action was taken to investigate,
let alone prevent, the bribes being paid.

John Howard became the first prime minister since Bob Hawke 23 years ago to be "invited"

to a judicial inquiry, and Mark Vaile and Alexander Downer the first ministers in over
a decade.

The Cole inquiry's tentacles were indeed reaching, in the words of Opposition Leader
Kim Beazley, "all the way to the top".

It was a turn of events significant enough to lead news bulletins for over a week,
and media outlets fell over themselves, literally, to report their appearances.

Scores of photographers, cameramen and reporters scrambled for shots and quotes on
the footpath outside the Cole inquiry building in Sydney's busy Market Street, appropriately
next door to the State Theatre.

It was street theatre, outside and, at times, inside.

Mr Vaile, the first minister into the dock, chose to run the media gauntlet, letting
it be known he would make a brief statement.

For the benefit of the nightly news, he enthused that his appearance was proof of the
"openness and transparency" of the inquiry process.

Mr Howard got on the front foot, too, announcing early in the week how happy he was
to provide a written statement to the inquiry and, if required, to attend in person.

It was required, even if only briefly.

Mr Howard spent little more than half an hour being questioned, and commissioner Terence
Cole would not allow any cross-examination.

Mr Downer, gave media the slip and entered the inquiry by a back door.

In the process, he missed some more street theatre in the form of protesters complaining
Australian aid should go to the people who needed it, rather than the dictators and henchmen
who oppressed them.

The protesters had strewn Market Street with fake Monopoly money, and fashioned themselves
in the guise of key figures in the wheat export scandal - a bearded Saddam, a foreign
minister in fishnet stockings and a bare-chested AWB executive with a plastic gun tucked
into his pants.

Until the arrival of the politicians, it was the gun-toting, hard-of-hearing Trevor
Flugge who had attracted most of the publicity.

But if the inquiry room was full for Flugge, it was jam-packed for Messrs Vaile, Downer
and finally Howard as the doyens of the Canberra press pack perched uncomfortably on narrow
window sills at the back of the inquiry room.

The style of the politicians' delivery was in direct contrast to the substance.

They all seemed particularly pleased to be there.

Mr Vaile could have been a softly spoken minister of a different sort, briefly but
patiently answering tricky questions from a Sunday school class.

Mr Downer was at times downright jovial, enjoying a chuckle about the mundane nature
of most diplomatic cables and saying he only read daily cable summaries when "I'm stuck
on a plane and I've run out of everything else to read".

The questioning was gentle in nature, if occasionally pointed in content.

Mr Vaile was asked if he had never considered picking up the phone to demand answers
from AWB, rather than simply accepting the company's denials.

He was too "snowed under", he said at one stage, and in a neat spot of buck-passing
said he had no ministerial responsibility for the UN or its corrupt oil-for-food program
in Iraq.

Over to Mr Downer.

When he learned from a ministerial submission that a Jordanian trucking company used
by AWB might have paid kickbacks of its own volition, Mr Downer wrote: "This worries me.

How were AWB prices set and who set them? I want to know about this."

But he conceded he did not get a sufficient answer.

Despite their earnestness, confidence and apparent ease, the government heavyweights
were in fact conceding they did nothing to stop Australian bribe money flowing to Saddam
Hussein, and nor did anyone else.

AAP dc/sp/mon/sp

KEYWORD: AWB NAMES (AAP BACKGROUNDER) REPEAT

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