AWB Ignorance Is Bliss For Some, But The Public Deserves Better

by Nicholas Stuart - Canberra Times

There were no surprises from the Cole inquiry last week, despite the appearance of the Prime Minister, his deputy, and one of his most senior ministers. All three were given the opportunity to admit they knew how much money AWB had been shovelling the Iraqi government. Instead, all pleaded their complete ignorance.

The inquiry is not designed to investigate the government processes that allowed AWB to channel money to Saddam Hussein. This is despite the fact that, at the very moment this was taking place, Australian forces were involved in enforcing the sanctions regime against Iraq.

Instead, the dominant image to have emerged from the inquiry so far remains the photograph of Trevor Flugge, wreathed in a stupid grin while lolling half-naked in his comfy chair, pointing a pistol at the camera. Yet the release of this picture has, effectively, derailed any linkage of the scandal to the Government.

The image has become an icon that we've used to deconstruct the mendacity and folly at the heart of AWB. It appeared to demonstrate so obviously that the company was run by cowboys; people who were operating on the edge in a world of murky legalities.

It was only subsequently that we found out how much money these people were being paid, and that they were supposedly respected members of the business community. But by then, of course, we'd already jumped to the conclusion that these people were stupid. It became difficult to get too worked up at the egregious nature of the possible crimes.

The Government has had a second tool that has seemingly assisted in allowing it to escape culpability in the public sphere. Right at the beginning of the inquiry the myth was put forward that "to do business overseas, you've got to bribe people".

Labor focused on stressing the point that bribery - particularly bribes offered directly to a regime you have just been at war with - is morally and legally wrong. However, the idea had escaped. It was no longer enough to simply assert the "sweeteners" were immoral, because the whole question had subtly changed. It now became an issue of the amount Saddam's government had received, instead of people being horrified that any money had been paid at all.

There is a beautiful irony in the appearance of the ministers before the inquiry last week. It will, in fact, provide them with a further opportunity to escape any lasting stigma from the affair. Again, the key is in the deconstruction of the event.

Commissioner Cole has stressed the point that the purview of his investigation does not run to the activities of the Government. Nevertheless, the Prime Minister can point out quite accurately, if he is not personally censured by the report, that he was prepared to front up to the inquiry.

Voters who are not following the activities of the inquiry too closely will probably assume the Prime Minister; together with ministers of his Government, have been cleared, when the question of their culpability may simply have not been addressed.

This should not be the case. If the ministers are to be taken at their word there has been a dramatic failure somewhere in the processes of either their departments or within their own personal offices.

Failure to demand some reorganisation to ensure such failures did not occur again would appear to be a tacit admission of culpability.

Since 2001, Australia's intelligence gathering operation has been dramatically expanded. There is obviously no point to any of this expenditure if it is not focused on supporting our own national interests. Supporting Australian trade - including wheat sales - is in our national interest.

However, that cannot excuse giving money to a regime with which our forces were in a continuing conflict. Intelligence should have picked this up. As all such information remains classified, it is impossible to determine exactly where such a key piece of evidence stopped being passed upwards through the system.

If Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd is not simply feigning his outrage he should be prepared to indicate how he will change our intelligence agencies to prevent this occurring again.

Ministers have the right to expect that they will be kept well informed about what is happening in the world. That means a thorough understanding and analysis of the entire way other societies work.

We have a plethora of agencies supposedly scrutinising world events. If the identity of the largest individual foreign financial donor to Saddam's regime was not picked up, the wrong questions are being asked.

However, slating home all the responsibility for these failures to intelligence allows others off the hook far too easily. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has had its reputation most severely diminished as a result of the inquiry so far. Although individual officers have appeared to act with probity, the overall processes of the department seem to have broken down.

It is depressing when the only charitable explanation for the department's activities is complete incompetence, but this seems to be the only interpretation possible.

It's to be hoped that the revelations from the inquiry will provide the (relatively) new secretary of the department with the muscle he will need to force through a rapid reorganisation. He needs to clear out some of the dead wood and bureaucracy that has caused the organisation to atrophy.

The final area that needs to be addressed urgently is the operation of the ministerial offices. It is no longer good enough for politicians to plead they were "snowed under". That's why they are provided with large staffs, operating at their personal discretion to assist them.

Australia is moving closer to the American system of government, where the public service is penetrated with political appointments. This is justifiable, as long as accountability can be assured. At the moment this appears sadly lacking.


Nicholas Stuart is a Canberra freelance journalist.