Thursday, 19th January, 2006

Prime Minister John Howard has been around long enough to know not to set up a public inquiry without being pretty sure what the result will be. It is therefore safe to assume that nothing in the opening days of statements and evidence before the former NSW judge Terence Cole QC will have come as a surprise to the Government.

When the UN report in to corruption in its Iraqi oil-for-food program was released, Mr Howard acted quickly in commissioning Mr Cole. He realised the embarrassment that would come from the UN finding that AWB (formerly the Federal Government owned quango the Australian Wheat Board) had paid $290 million in kickbacks to the regime of Sadam Hussein. A canny PM wanted to put as much distance as possible between the aiding of the enemy and himself. The best way of doing that was to establish before Mr Cole that the board and management of AWB acted on their own in the way they handled their wheat sales.

Anything other than a public investigation would have left Mr Howard and his colleagues open to continuing charges of a cover up. Handling the politics of a lengthy military commitment in Iraq is difficult enough without having to answer the charge of hiding the fact that Australian dollars had done more than those of any other nation in paying for Sadam's weapons (of mass destruction or not). Shooting home the blame to the AWB just had to be done.

That there was likely to be some collateral damage to government officials who liased with the AWB during the period would surely have occurred to Mr Howard. He did his best by limiting Mr Cole's terms of reference but the only defence available to the AWB personnel has always been to argue that they acted always with the knowledge of their government.

How the sorry story will end up it is too soon to say but presumably Government Ministers will avoid direct involvement. Provided that is so, then the political damage is unlikely to be severe. Those voters who abhor the Australian involvement in Iraq will do so with even more vehemence. Probably the overwhelming majority will have little idea of what all the fuss is about and there will be some for whom the evidence merely confirms their belief that there are no ethics in business and very few in politics.

An exception will be in the bush where wheat growers will applaud their industry leaders for having done what was necessary to secure a major export contract.