JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister in June 2003 you, your Foreign and Trade Ministers, the heads of your Departments, ASIO, all received a cable from your diplomats in Baghdad warning that the Coalition Provisional Authority believed all contracts under the Oil-for-Food Programme contained kickbacks. What did your Government do with that warning?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that was all explained yesterday in the commission by Zena Armstrong from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. She explained in some detail the way in which it was dealt with. I mean that particular cable would have been amongst hundreds that I receive every week and I don't have recall of it having been brought to my attention and that would not be surprising. You see there seems to be an assumption that I spend all day and Mr Downer spends all day reading the hundreds of individual cables that come from all over the world. The reality is that those cables come in and those that have a particular urgency and should be brought to my attention are brought to my attention, but the great bulk of them aren't even though they are, according to the records of the system, copied to my office. I mean that is the way we work and what happened in this case was that it was analysed by Zena Armstrong of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade as she explained yesterday and she did not believe the assessment that had been made by the Coalition Provisional Authority. She accepted the assurances that had been given by AWB, she has been quite upfront about that, I am sure perfectly honest and perfectly correct. So in answer to your question what did the Government do about it; Zena Armstrong on behalf of the Department explained yesterday what was done about it and I repeat what I said on Lateline the other night. The first time this thing really came onto my radar screen was early in 2005 when my Department came to me and gave me a note and said, look, Mr Volcker is very unhappy with the co-operation he is receiving, he believes he has evidence that AWB paid kickbacks. I gave immediate instructions that there should be total transparency and cooperation with the Volcker Inquiry and I instructed Mr Vaile, or requested Mr Vaile, to write a letter in very unambiguous terms to AWB saying, you have to co-operate in full with Volcker. And right up until then, in fact right through last year, indeed until Cole started, AWB was vigorously denying having paid the kickbacks.
JOURNALIST:
So you don't think it is implicit in that cable that there is a warning that all contracts included kickbacks and somebody in your Government should have investigated further?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think what is in that cable was what was in that cable and the response of the Government; the response of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which is the action department on this, was as outlined by Zena Armstrong. Now that is something that will be assessed by Mr Cole, it is all part of the inquiry. I mean this business of having a mini-inquiry through the media every time a cable is revealed with out the context of that cable being provided is ridiculous.
JOURNALIST:
Would you independently of the Cole inquiry make you own assessment of how your ministers acted and responded to this matter?
PRIME MINISTER:
Gillian, I have got an inquiry, I have great confidence in the legal forensic skills of the commissioner and I am not going to make any response to that sort of question until after the inquiry has been completed. But let me say, I have great confidence in Mr Downer, I have great confidence in Mr Vaile, they are both very outstanding ministers.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister there are reports this morning your Government is about to sign off on a billion dollar plan to tackle the mental health crisis what can you tell us about that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I can tell you we are going to do something on this issue, we will in partnership with the states, we expect the states to carry their share of it, and the states have got plenty of money, the states have got direct responsibility and any idea that the states can just flick pass this to the Commonwealth is wrong. But we will put money into it, it is a problem, it is an issue where national leadership is needed. Now I am not going to go into figures at this stage, but we will be putting more money into mental health. But importantly, we will be doing things to make the system work better. We are paying a very heavy price for the de-institutionalising policies of 30 or 40 years ago which followed the Richmond report in New South Wales. What happened was that everybody said, get mentally ill people out of institutions, that was in theory a good thing but there was no community support mechanism put in place of the institutions. Many of them don't take their medication, they therefore end up in crisis and some of them end up sadly committing crimes and innocent people suffer.
JOURNALIST:
Now you're off to North Queensland this morning, what will the Federal Government being saying it can do for those people who have lost farms and homes, a lot of people who weren't insured?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Gillian the first thing I am going to do is listen to the people. I will be meeting the banana growers, I'll be meeting the community leaders, I'll be meeting the sugar cane people and after I have listened to the people I will then have something to say about Commonwealth support. Obviously we will put in, put money into helping people get back on their feet, there are some existing programs, we'll do it in partnership with the state of Queensland, Mr Beattie will be meeting me, we'll work together. This is a partnership it is not something where I expect the state to carry all burden anymore than Mr Beattie should expect that the Commonwealth should carry all the burden. It is a joint effort and we will do it together. But I do want first of all to listen to people, they need help to get back on their feet, they need, in some cases they will need assistance with day-to-day living because their total livelihoods have been destroyed, businesses will need help to clean up and restock. There are all sorts of ways in which Government can help, but the assistance effort to date has been outstanding. The police, the emergency services, the army, everybody in true Australian style is working together to try and help their fellow Australians who have suffered so much.
JOURNALIST:
Now banana crops have been virtually wiped out. Will you be letting in any Philippines imports to cover the shortfall on the domestic market?
PRIME MINISTER:
Let me get a full assessment of the situation. All sorts of things have to be on the table, we also of course have to make absolutely certain in all of these things, and I am not directing this at the Philippines particularly, that our quarantine regulations are maintained, very important thing for this country, we must not ever relax our quarantine standards because once you do that and something gets in, you never recover.
[ends]