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This changes things a little:
AWB agreed to pay bribes to corrupt Iraqi officials, deciding that it could explain the deals to the Howard Government after the Iraq war, according to evidence before an inquiry into the scandal.
Counsel John Agius produced an AWB memo outlining a plan to pay more than $US2 million to a man who would later become the Six of Hearts in the US’s pack of cards of “Most Wanted Iraqis”, and to discuss it with Canberra.
The money, which was to be paid just months before Australian troops went to war in Iraq, was secretly added to the price of Australia’s wheat contracts, which were then passed to the UN for approval.
The AWB memo said managing director Andrew Lindberg - who was under fire yesterday for releasing, then withdrawing, a misleading statement to the ASX - should “tell the Australian Government about the deal at the appropriate time”. It noted that “timing of such a disclosure” was unlikely to be “until after a war with Iraq”.
That would seem to leave the government in the clear. Alexander Downer said as much today in a letter to The Australian:
AWB chief executive Andrew Lindberg told the inquiry that our discussions were not specifically about individual contracts. I have nothing to hide in this matter ... People should allow the commission to reach its conclusions before making hysterical claims ...
For example:
We can be pretty confident of the following ... Both Downer and Howard knew that the AWB was paying kickbacks to the Iraqi regime
Kevin Rudd now wants Australia to repay the UN, despite the UN approving the deals:
Australia must repay money that grain marketer AWB has ripped off the United Nations, while the wheat exporter’s boss now has no option but to resign, Labor says.
He’s right about the AWB boss, though.
(Earlier links here; Cole commission transcripts here)
Pay the UN? That cesspit? I don’t think so!
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2006 01 19 at 05:35 AM • permalinkAWB were wrong. Fine. But isn’t it also hypocritical for the Left to bag a monopoly?
And does Kruddie have an opinion on everything?
Posted by WeekByWeek on 2006 01 19 at 05:42 AM • permalinkcouldn’t agree more drbob.
Meanwhile, by demanding AWB pay back the cash, the Combat Womble (thanks, CL) has managed to piss off the wheat growing shareholders. Brilliany own goal. Unless he somehow imagines the tax payer should pay for the crimes of others. Another own goal? Then again, CW does come from Qld, whuich has a long tradition of taxpayers picking up the tab for farmers.BTW, this Lindberg character seems to have adopted the Carman Lawrence defence : ” i can’t recall”.
breaking news: Alan Fels calls for the removal of AWB’s monopoly powers.
entropy: Please list the items on the tab which taxpayers have picked up for farmers in Queensland…...
Posted by Steve at the pub on 2006 01 19 at 05:51 AM • permalinkThe head of the AWB has obviously been killed and replaced by an evil “cover up for hoWARD, the eater of baries brains” clone.
And you gullible fools fell for it!!By the way we are still waiting for St Carmen to grace us with her mighty paper on the vagaries of memory she was going to write after her brilliant. “Im as dumb as a box of brillo pads” defence.
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 01 19 at 05:57 AM • permalinkSteve, Qld used to be known as the QANGO (Quasi Autonomous Non-Governemtn Organisation) State. There was a regional marketing board for just about any agricultural product (eg. The Central Queensland butter marketing board, the Central Queensland cream marketing board, and the central Queensland brush millet marketing board all once existed, and replicated across Qld, I kid you not). There were entire floors in the Department of Primary Industries where the only function was recruiting new board members, compiling the annual reports, recording the minutes of the meetings and handling the correspondence of these boards. They did not really seem to do anything effective, beyond acting as a training ground for QNP politicians. All paid for by the taxpayer (and mining royalties).
Then there are the rail freight subsidies for cattle etc.
Then there are the bailouts for the tobacco growers in Atherton (probably around $35 million for less than 200 growers) as one of the more blatant squandering of government treasure. The examples are almost endless.
Thankfully most of these rorts are well and truly gone.And I didn’t even mention the federal government funded boondoggles, such as the $2 billion dairy package that only existed to make sure the Victorian dairy farmers did not wipe out the Qld and NSW dairy farmers, and the $440 million to keep the sugar farmers sweet after the bloody yanks wouldn’t include sugar in the free trade deal (bastards!).
After that rant, I feel a bit better now. Must go and have a beer.
I hope that this entire mess is thoroughly aired, and the responsible ones punished to the full extent of the law, where criminal acts can be proven. That includes any politicians involved, if any. This sort of behaviour is not acceptable.
I do wish that blasted Rudd would shut his pie hole, though. He is muddying waters and his infantile carping and endless calls for resignation of anyone who passes wind in public is becoming very tired. Was he never toilet trained, or something?
MarkL
CanberraI’m not sure how Rudd gets the idea the UN has been ripped off. My understanding was that Iraq inflated transport fees paid by the AWB that were then funneled back to the Iraq government. How did this deprive the UN of anything? The UN wasn’t a financial party to the transactions. The kickbacks may have deprived Australian wheat growers by diverting some of their price received but AWB always claim they got above market prices anyway from Iraq.
Rudd’s call to repay the money is illogical. AWB paid the bribes in the first place. Ergo they don’t have the money to pay back. Surely Kevin couldn’t be serious and is just grandstanding!
#9 entropy please don’t forget the 15 to 5% tariffs on automotive goods and the textile, clothing and footwear industries, both of which have been substantially higher than the rebate schemes available for primary producers… pig farmers sit at around 3% of income being as a result of government programmes…
I’ve got no problems with restructure plans when moving from regulated industries through to deregulation, the environmental and social welfare costs of not having such programs would far outweigh the cost of those programs…
but I’m glad this is another blocked artery on the AWBs heart, they’ve been ripping off grain users in this country for far too long. They believ in world parity pricing only when it is higher than local prices…
during the last drought, we got wheat landed from the UK for $145/t (the first shipment for years due to the stranglehold they have on import policies), local feed wheat was over $350/t, premium wheat was only $300/t with farmers signing declarations to get it downgraded to feed quality, meanwhile they sold wheat to Iraq for $200/t…
rot in hell AWB…
pigman, I agree, everyone always tries to minimise their costs and maximise their profits. And this is also only tangental to the issue at hand.
While I don’t wish the AWB to rot in hell, I would be happy if they lost their monopoly powers. Not sure how that would help your beef with quarantine restrictions on wheat imports though.The money was ripped off the Iraqi people, who paid the world price plus the commission to Saddam. They are the ones who should be repaid.
And the suggestion that this puts the government in the clear is laughable. They had been advised as early as 2000 what was going on. Obviously AWB knew the ropes well enough not to pass on the details of a particularly corrupt deal at a time when it would be most embarrassing. But note that the intention was to tell them “at a suitable time”.
If this were a French quasi-govt company, no-one here would be in any doubt about the reality of the situation. I have no doubt that the French govt (like the US govt) winked at violations of the sanctions, though probably not on the $300 million scale of this one.
Posted by John Quiggin on 2006 01 19 at 08:17 AM • permalinkI stand in awe.
The Professor deigns to comment at the filthy RWDB site.Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2006 01 19 at 08:53 AM • permalinkWe should offer up Kevin as a sacrifice to placate the Iraqis for all the trouble he (er we) have stirred up.Serves him right for looking like John Denver anyway.
Let him try and play little sir innocent with them and see how far it gets him.
They have never heard of Swot Wombles or Wimbledom Common….# 15, I thought AWB paid the commissions. The commissions would have only been reflected in the price if AWB had anticipated the bribes and raised the price accordingly. That may have happened to a certain extent but that would bear further investigation. It seems either Australian wheat growers or the Iraqi people may have been ripped off depending on how pricing was determined.
Regardless, the word being used is repaid. The money ended up with the corrupt Iraqi government. For the money to be repaid they would have to pay it. Neither the AWB nor Australian Government has the money to repay As has already been pointed out, Australia has already forgiven much more (over A$1 billion) than the bribe amounts in old unpaid wheat export repayments from Iraq so suggesting we should do more is laughable.
As for a duty of care. The UN had
much more of a duty of care to oversee sanction contracts then DFAT (and failed dismally as the whole oil-for food thing shows). Perhaps the UN should be paying someone.
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So a privatised monopoly has apparently engaged in questionable practises to maintain sales, and therefore presumably wheat grower support for the AWB monopoly.
Part of the answer is to end the monopoly.
Simple really. As for repayment, I would have thought that the most appropriate would be from Saddam Hussein’s bank accounts directly to Australian wheat farmers.
END THE AWB WHEAT MONOPOLY.