Is that the sound of a passing buck whistling on by?

Prime Minister John Howard appeared at the Cole Inquiry this morning and it appears to have been a damp squib affair. Any Australian who thinks its government is astute, on-the-ball, accountable and transparent has surely been proved wrong in evidence given to the Cole Inquiry by Howard, Downer and Vaile. While Miss Eagle does not wish to prejudge Cole's findings, she does not have great confidence. AWB is almost certain to bear the brunt of any findings with the likelihood of the distant and uninvolved (as far as the Cole Inquiry has been concerned) UN getting some opprobrium. As Mike Steketee says, "if no minister is to be held to account, that points to something very rotten in our system of government. "

Miss Eagle believes that time is an element that is frequently discounted. The three ministers along with Commissioner Cole and Counsel Assisting the Inquiry, John Agius SC, have their actions or lack of action exposed through this Inquiry. Miss Eagle likes the old Buddhist saying -"you may forget your actions, but your actions don't forget you".

Downer: perjury, misleading or fiddling the truth?

Kevin Rudd says that Alexander Downer has denied reading a cable in relation to the AWB oil-for-food scandal which he formerly admitted, in Parliament, to reading. More information please, Kevin. Miss Eagle wants to know did Downer mislead Parliament or did he commit perjury at the Cole Inquiry? It may not be proper to ask if he is fiddling with the truth.

Downer: Innate, primate, or Sergeant Schultz.

Are they born this way? Or is it a learned response? Y'know Governance 101 - Subtitle: See no evil, hear no evil, read no evil. Or is it just too much television: the Sergeant Schultz response - I know noth-ing. And it appears it is not just Alexander Downer, Australia's Minister for Foreign Affairs with responsibility for matters relating to the UN and the oil-for-food scandal, but all those bureaucrats in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Whichever way it becomes ingrained into political and bureaucratic personnel, we have seen the art form at work before - in the Children Overboard affair.

And the one time the Department queried anything, they asked AWB if they did it and they said no. What thorough-going investigators they are! Police don't take a suspect's word for it that they are innocent. Immigration officers don't take new arrivals' words that they are genuine refugees and asylum seekers. But the word is taken of a corporation whose personnel support the incumbent government when it denies breaching international law and indulges in breaches of Australian corporate law. What a difference a white collar and designer tie makes!

The next questions are - who reads and actions memos? How would they know if their houses were on fire?

Vaile sells out Australia's integrity, Australia's good name

What price can be put on integrity, reputation, and good name? They are priceless. Once integrity is besmirched, reputation downgraded, and a good name has become a byword, it is difficult - in fact, well nigh impossible - to make up the ground that has been lost. So it is with Australia following the AWB bribes and kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime. Australians have been and are shamed by the actions of AWB's gun-totin' cowboys - gun-totin' cowboys who were buoyed with the confidence of Australia's Howard Government.

Australia's Deputy Prime Minister, Mark Vaile, made that quite clear in his evidence to the Cole Inquiry yesterday. He didn't read the cables. He didn't ride shotgun on his department. He didn't double-check with his department. He didn't require an investigation to be carried out into the probity of AWB. He bought the flim-flam lock, stock and smoking barrel and then he dished it out - through the Ambassador - vouching for AWB with the solid backing of Australia's integrity, Australia's good name, Australia's reputation.

Read Mark Vaile in his own words here.

Vaile, venality and vacuity

His written statement addressed 21 diplomatic cables about suspected irregularities in AWB contracts, and 21 times he said: "I have no recollection of receiving or reading this cable."

This is the summation of Mark Vaile's evidence given to-day at the Cole Inquiry into the oil-for-food scandal uncovered by the United Nations which showed AWB, Australia's single-desk wheat seller, was the biggest subscriber, through bribery sometimes known as 'facilitation fees', to Saddam Hussein's coffers.

It appears from to-day's evidence that - if the Cole Inquiry's Terms of Reference allowed it - it would be possible to draw a conclusion that Mark Vaile, Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, Minister for Trade and Leader of the National Party (a rural rump agriculturally based party), has been negligent in his administration of the Department of Trade.

The sort of support the AWB expected of and was provided by the AustralianGovernment was something worthy of Australia Inc dogma and politics. Tim Costello - CEO of World Vision, aid activist and brother of Australian Treasurer Peter Costello - suggested at a public meeting in Melbourne yesterday that official government aid money was diverted from AusAid to the benefit of AWB in its dealings with and in Iraq.

Now the taxpayers of this country, the defence forces of this country who have been sent to the mess of Iraq, those who expect ethical and responsible governance require answers. At this point of the inquiry, those of us on the outside looking in are left to think that Ministers including the Prime Minister and their Heads of Departments were asleep at the wheel at best and complicit or negligent in their attitudes to malfeasance at worst.

Oh, and by the way, Vaile's evidence carried a sting in its tail. A desperate throw of the dice, perhaps? A little insurance? He mentioned that he had no ministerial responsibility for the United Nations or its oil-for-food program in Iraq. The person who has will be next cab off the rank, to-morrow.

Tim Costello: AusAid, Flugge and AWB

Tim Costello, speaking at the Melbourne Town Hall, 9 April 2006

The heat is on and so is the game at the Cole Inquiry

"The heat is on" says the song and, now that Ministers have to make statements to the Cole Inquiry into AWB's dealings with Iraq on wheat contracts, things are hotting up. Last night, the Prime Minister on the 7.30 Report said

it stands to reason that if Cole finds that Downer or Howard were told by AWB that it was paying kickbacks and we did nothing about it, it would be game over.

Kevin Rudd and people associated with him have been sitting in the inquiry keeping count. To-day, Kim Beazley said in the House of Representatives that the Cole Inquiry had been told of 27 occasions when the Australian Government had been told of AWB kickbacks to Iraq. Beazley then declared the game "on".

Miss Eagle thinks that perhaps The Hon Terence Cole AO QC is miffed or at least Counsel assisting the Inquiry, John Agius SC, is. Miss Eagle thinks he is miffed at Howard's hide in the Kerry O'Brien interview last night. Then the "game over" attitude blew out courtesy of Beazley to-day to "game on".

It is clear that Howard is not going to volunteer a further extension of the Terms of Reference to the Inquiry and Cole, who appears to be the essence of propriety, is not going to stretch the situation beyond the norm to pointedly request an extension of the Terms. But Cole is not only a man of integrity. He is a man of intelligence. He has played his cards as they have come but in a well prepared and searching way. The mountain of evidence requires ministerial input before the Inquiry. So it begins with the obvious suspects - Alexander Downer, Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Mark Vaile, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade.

Miss Eagle will be using her eagle eyes to see if the Downer and Vaile statements exhibit ministerial and departmental self-justification and to assess the accuracy and alertness and overall quality of their individual (surely they would not collude) memories.

The heat is on. The game is on. Bring it on!

Smoking guns become a cannonade at the AWB kickback inquiry

Is amnesia in the workplace contagious? Is John Howard suffering from the same failure to recall as Trevor Flugge? He is keen to tell us that there are lots of cables come to his office and that he doesn't see them all.

Well, Prime Minister - Miss Eagle never imagined that you did. You see, you always - well, almost always - look pretty relaxed. None of that ageing in office that she remembers with Malcolm Fraser. And when you are filmed at your desk, it is clear that you adhere to a "clean desk" policy so it has always been reasonable to assume that the cables and correspondence are piled high on someone else's desk.

So whose resonspibility was it to read the cables - and remember they were sent not only to you but to quite a number of ministers? Pass the buck all you like - but in the end it has to stop with you, Prime Minister.

Of course, if office policy has been one-remove-deniability as it appeared to be in the children overboard scandal and no-responsibility-taken as with the great variety of immigration malfeasance, then how are you ever going to see a cable alleging impropriety even if it is the only cable ever received.

You are responsible for setting the pace, Prime Minister,

not only in your office but for the whole-of-government.

AWB and bribes

I haven't posted on the AWB bribery scandal before. It is big, it is complex, it is unfolding. It seems wise to wait - particularly when one hopes that a Government who has turned a blind eye might actually get targetted with some convincing evidence. However, that retired partygoer, Redness, at I'm Over It has drawn my attention to this ad. Get Up! Go see for yourself.