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.

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!