Monday, 6th February, 2006

It was a new look Kim Beazley on the ABC's Lateline this evening. A much thinner face and an almost healthy glow. Perhaps more importantly much of the verbosity was gone. On a couple of occasions he even answered a question with a single and understandable sentence; and there was a genuine laugh rather than an embarrassed cackle.

Kim Beazley resumes Parliament with an issue he can understand. The Moral Rearmament upbringing has equipped him well to debate questions of ethics. But he was careful tonight not to expand beyond his wheat for guns brief. He adeptly side stepped the invitations to embark on a lecture about the general question of bribery and business to focus on the claim that if the Government did not realise that AWB was paying over tote odds for transport and handling then it was grossly negligent.

Mr Beazley sounded comfortable as he made the distinction between the bribes paid to Iraq and the backhanders which National Senator Barnaby Joyce has told us are part and parcel of the business of selling wheat. Most export transactions have nothing to do with the Government. Those that involved Iraq did because the United Nations required sovereign governments to ensure that private companies in their country complied with the rules. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was the policeman and clearly a very poor one.