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SMOKELESS GUN

The Age’s Michelle Grattan on the great wheat scandal:

After two days of ministerial evidence to the Cole inquiry, no sign of a “smoking gun” has emerged. What we have seen instead is an amazing and alarming tale of how a large, respected Australian company could engage in illegal and scandalous behaviour that remained undetected by ministers, a government department and, indeed, for years, by the United Nations ...

The conspiracy view is that somehow the Australian Government overlooked AWB’s breaches for the sake of the wheat trade. The evidence for this, however, has not been there. For Australia to do this would have been quite extraordinary, however important sales of wheat to Iraq. For a Government that was moving to be part of the Iraq invasion to be willing to see hundreds of millions of dollars go to the Saddam Hussein regime really does stretch credulity.

This affair looks much more like a gross Government failure rather than a case of improper, or indeed illegal, behaviour.

Sounds about right.

UPDATE. Australian Wheat Board Theatre!

Posted by Tim B. on 04/11/2006 at 07:54 PM
  1. Also, throw some dirt the UN’s way and point out that this activity was pretty much the norm and Australia is one of the few nations to be actively investigating it.

    Still, the readers won’t like this article.

    Posted by HC44 on 2006 04 11 at 08:16 PM • permalink

  2. God this pisses me off. It’s the wheat boards job to sell wheat, not police the internal workings of the criminal Iraqi regime. That was the UN’s job and the UN was in corrupt collusion with the criminal Iraqi regime.

    No wheat board member accepted bribes, right? So that’s that. As for the Age’s pretend outrage, where was that when the UN presided over the single biggest financial scandal in history, the oil-for-food? Silence. Can’t have their precious Annan and his disgusting organization made to look like sleazy little crooks, can we?

    This makes me puke. The Age and SMH are jokes.

    Posted by Amos on 2006 04 11 at 08:22 PM • permalink

  3. The line taken by the ALP and most journalists leads to one conclusion: that instead of trading with Iraq, AWB should have thrown up its hands in horror and immediately blown the whistle on the rorts occurring under UN stewardship of the Scheme.  Funnily enough, none of them seem willing to follow the line of reasoning quite that far.

    Posted by cuckoo on 2006 04 11 at 08:22 PM • permalink

  4. gross Government failure...I wouldn’t even go that far!

    Posted by Brian on 2006 04 11 at 08:28 PM • permalink

  5. United Nations-typical.

    Mr D was doing his best considering the cultural differences in work ethics.

    Let’s all bribe, kinda like Meriton construction or multiplex…. which we’ve read lately or do we call it aggressive business tactics?

    What is more important that we Australians stick together for us/our country and it’s people. If we don’t look after us first then we’ll end up like Zimbabweeeeeee…

    Our farming community needs all the help it can get, and it’s BLOODY beaut wheat!!

    Posted by doleblogger on 2006 04 11 at 08:31 PM • permalink

  6. Finally, media should get over it, because they appear to be the only ones who want the “wheaty” details.

    The government gives us lots of funding (bribes,grants,whatever) and do we kick up a real fuss about the Islam-australian Opera funding? Which is a crock of artistic +++(*&^%$ NO

    Posted by doleblogger on 2006 04 11 at 08:44 PM • permalink

  7. Actually, this is that famous Aussie sportsmanship in action.

    Where’s the sport in routing undernourished, feeble enemy soldiers…?

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 04 11 at 08:45 PM • permalink

  8. Come to think of it, it’s all a verbal palava illusion this scandal thing and Saddam is going to die. In fact America is doing quite nicely from Wheat and we’re acting like Christian guilt ridden idiots who said bugger it, we’ll bribe them or agree to their work ethics, and we’ll get oil for fellow Aussies…

    So you think you’re all complaining, look at yourselves and how boring it all sounds because most of you drive four wheel drives and winge about everything!

    Posted by doleblogger on 2006 04 11 at 08:52 PM • permalink

  9. It is remarkable, how so many letter writers who were published in the Age/SMH would see Downer and Howard sent to Guantanamo and Mohammed Dawood David Hicks brought back to Australia.

    Posted by Dan Lewis on 2006 04 11 at 08:52 PM • permalink

  10. WE don’t have to act Christian for everything pleeeezzzzzzzzzz.

    Thats what funding is for.. to make it look legal.

    Posted by doleblogger on 2006 04 11 at 08:53 PM • permalink

  11. Watching Labor luminaries like Rudd try and nail John Howard on this issue tells me one thing about them.

    They are willing to destroy farmers and shareholders livelihood and profit in pursuit of political gain. Some gain.

    I guess for those who have become accustomed to sucking on the taxpayers teat have little comprehension about the hazards of business.

    Who is next?

    I vote for an outing of the N.S.W. Teachers Federation and their links to the Socialist Alliance.

    Posted by gubba on 2006 04 11 at 08:54 PM • permalink

  12. I don’t get it dan, are we all psychologically harvested to hate downer because of how the SMH writes the story?

    Geez, next they’ll winge about economy!

    Posted by doleblogger on 2006 04 11 at 08:55 PM • permalink

  13. Teachers! They destroy little minds to suit the current reality, rather than applying common sense they’re politically correct…

    Teachers are Nazi’s running their own political funded agendas….

    By the way is NSW ALP catholic party and is the Liberal anglican and the rest and is the Greens the Islamic party?

    Posted by doleblogger on 2006 04 11 at 08:57 PM • permalink

  14. LOL richard mcenroe—I’m thinking of the Aussie bug hunters on Monty Python—“A lot of people ask us why we don’t just use bug spray. Well, where’s the sport in that?”

    Posted by JDB on 2006 04 11 at 08:59 PM • permalink

  15. I think they get told or advised which party they should vote for I know one teacher who told me…

    Let’s think about it they only impart knowledge that’s it, they are not in the real world, it’s all funded and manipulated to suit their agendas…

    Make sure you say to parents the word oral communication, or agenda or in good phonetics goodness knows this must be adhd disease the kids get because of their controlling behaviour and not the childrens.

    Posted by doleblogger on 2006 04 11 at 09:00 PM • permalink

  16. Goodness knows Mac bank keeps telling the farmers to get their act together..

    That’s ok if you are a bank making lots of numbers.. but you can’t to the weather to rain….

    Posted by doleblogger on 2006 04 11 at 09:02 PM • permalink

  17. come to think of it mac bank has is in cotton, does it bribe or make up phony contracts?

    Posted by doleblogger on 2006 04 11 at 09:03 PM • permalink

  18. What’s the difference between a bribe and a facilitation fee? Anyone been able to tell us that? Had the AWB the authority to investigate the Iraqi regime, to demand it’s records, to investigate how the money was being skimmed, all in the service of doing itself out of the contract and allowing less scrupulous wheat sellers, like the already massively subsidized Europeans, getting the sale?

    The Iraqi regime was skimming, that’s news now? People who dropped poison gas on Kurdish villages were capable of stealing money? WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT. Certainly not the Age newspaper, as it gamboled with childish innocence through the flowery fields of willful ignorance, carefully diverting it’s eyes from the massive, sordid spectacle of UN corruption.

    I, like the virginal, pure-as-the-driven-snow Age, am shocked, shocked that such chicanery was going on. I declare that the AWB must pay for successfully selling our wheat to people who have engaged in genocide while the rest of the world shrugged and did business with them.

    What a digesting charade this is. Watching the leftist press suddenly ‘discover’ the oil-for-food scandal when they could finally pin it on our own people, while casting their eyes piously skyward and acting like champions of the public good makes me literally ill.

    GODAMMN SCUM.

    Posted by Amos on 2006 04 11 at 09:03 PM • permalink

  19. PS: the doleblogger is on teh drugs

    Posted by Amos on 2006 04 11 at 09:09 PM • permalink

  20. I don’t agree at all with the paying of bribes to Saddam’s Government but I do realise that its the way in which business is done.

    Will the Age engage in a shrill investigation of Australian companies giving kickbacks to Indonesian Government officials? (Indonesia being the current leftist nation of shame) An event that happens each and every day.

    Posted by Nic on 2006 04 11 at 09:10 PM • permalink

  21. This is not about paying bribes or the AWB having to police the Iraqi regime. Baksheesh is probably normal for many internatonal wheat deals.

    The AWB didn’t pay these bribes they defrauded the UN into paying them, and they facilitated the payment of these bribes to a country we were about to go to war with. Gross incomptence by the government yes, criminal behaviour by the AWB or its officers, very likely.

    As a RWDB I find the whole thing acutely embarrassing. And I’m not going to buy the broken system argument. Someone in the AWB knew what they were doing and they should be getting a holiday at Her Maj’s expense

    Posted by Dean McAskil on 2006 04 11 at 09:14 PM • permalink

  22. To calrify: You pay a bribe, good luck to you. You trick me into paying it for you and I want your a*se in gaol!

    Posted by Dean McAskil on 2006 04 11 at 09:21 PM • permalink

  23. Howard at least can sleep easy.  The left says the UN sets the moral agenda, don’t they?
    OK, Kofi is still there despite proven corruption of the key official administering his Oil for Food thing right under his nose for years.

    The AWB, in contrast, was an independent monopoly, so how can they finger anyone but its lying bosses?

    It all makes a very good case against monopolies and their accountability, including the UN….

    Posted by Barrie on 2006 04 11 at 09:23 PM • permalink

  24. If I was cynical, which I am, I would say that John Howard is playing the rope a dope game again.

    He says he understands the news cycle. So he offers a bad news story( I think this is the only enquiry running around the world) that runs for months.

    It keeps the Howard haters happy and occupied while the rest of us couldn’t give a rats.

    The National’s have become quite of late and that idiot Barnaby(what’s his last name?)has disappeared. Maybe they are worried what they will tell their constituents in the event of the loss of the single desk? 

    Downer is getting negative press, which I think is doing him a favor by possibly building sympathy in voters minds.We always like an underdog( although I’m not sure of one who wore fishnets).

    This is happening as IR law has been introduced. I know where I’d rather the attention be.

    Howard does understand the news cycle. He plays them very nicely.

    Posted by gubba on 2006 04 11 at 09:26 PM • permalink

  25. The AWB didn’t pay these bribes they defrauded the UN into paying them,

    I don’t care.

    and they facilitated the payment of these bribes to a country we were about to go to war with.

    It’s not the AWB’s fault that Saddam’s revolting little band of thieves, rapists and murderers had been allowed to go merrily on 12 years after they should have been deposed in GW1.

    THE AWB’S JOB IS TO SELL SOME GODDAMN WHEAT.

    Posted by Amos on 2006 04 11 at 09:36 PM • permalink

  26. Seems like The Times has grasped the wrong end of the stick - they claim that the Prime Minister, John Howard, will be appearing tomorrow. It also suggests that Vaile/Downer’s “performances were greeted with widespread derision by ... the public.”

    Utter twaddle.

    Posted by Ian Deans on 2006 04 11 at 10:02 PM • permalink

  27. AUSTRALIAN WHEAT BOARD THEATER,  ACT 1, Scene 1

    AWB EXEC1: Gentlemen, it’s time to sell some goddamn wheat!

    AWB EXEC2: Ask not for whom the bell tolls, because that’s the wheat sellin’ bell!

    AWB EXEC1: That makes very little sense but I enjoyed the sentiments conveyed vis-a-vie wheat sale.

    AWB EXEC 3 (thumping table in demented fashion): Wheat! Wheat! Wheat! Wheat!

    PHONE: Ring ring!

    AWB exec2 grabs it

    AWB EXEC2: What??

    PHONE: By Odin’s beard, we got wheat piling up here!

    AWB EXEC2: Yeeeehah!!

    AWB EXEC3: Whooo!

    AWB exec1 fires a pistol into the ceiling

    PHONE: No, it’s a bad thing! We have to sell it!

    AWB EXEC2 (turns solemnly to his colleges): Gentlemen, we have a new mission, we- oh wait..

    PHONE: Look, I’m thinking we can sell some of it to the Iraqis via the food program.

    (Stunned silence, then pandemonium breaks out in the board room. AWB exec 3 runs around in small circles, AWB Exec 1 stands on the desk yodeling Los Banditos Mexicanos-style)

    AWB EXEC 1: Ai yi yi yi yi yi yi yi yi!!

    PHONE: But there might be some concern that the regime will improperly-

    AWB EXEC2: Sorry can’t quite hear you-

    PHONE: —irregularities in the bidding proce—

    AWB EXEC2: Sorry say again?

    A different, red phone rings

    RED PHONE: Ring ring!

    AWB EXEC2: Sorry gotta go! (slams down one and picks up the other) Hello?

    ALEXANDER DOWNER: You bitches smell what the Rock is cookin?

    AWB EXEC2: Is it some wheat-related product?

    ALEXANDER DOWNER: Aawwww yeah!!!

    Posted by Amos on 2006 04 11 at 10:16 PM • permalink

  28. Here you go – cut and pasted from the smh.com site at 12pm.  Marr’s piece comes in at number 9 most viewed
    It would seem the ALP need to get a few school boys with iron bars being bitten by sharks to pay some bribes before anyone would be interested in the AWB.

    Most Viewed

    The most viewed articles, photos and other content on smh.com.au and related websites from midnight AEST
    1.Private schoolboys lashed with iron bar
    2.MTV sets scene with budgie smugglers and a barbie
    3.Bang on target as Stones, Sydney spend the night together
    4.Sex today: condoms and pills
    5.World-class cooking
    6.Housing market sets an example
    7.Have a life – keep the folks wed
    8.Nipper wins fight with shark
    9.Alex in wonderland, a most implausible fairytale
    10.Gilchrist steps up in Dhaka crisis

    Posted by Ralph Wiggum on 2006 04 11 at 10:16 PM • permalink

  29. Coming next, Private Schoolboy vs Shark Iron Bar Brawl Theater

    Posted by Amos on 2006 04 11 at 10:24 PM • permalink

  30. eewww.  how lowbrow…

    Posted by murph on 2006 04 11 at 10:25 PM • permalink

  31. the SMH must have some pretty stupid readers hey?

    Posted by murph on 2006 04 11 at 10:26 PM • permalink

  32. I don’t know – the yarn with that kid getting bitten by the shark was far more interesting than Marr’s prattle about the AWB.  I think it show’s the intelligence of the readers

    Posted by Ralph Wiggum on 2006 04 11 at 10:34 PM • permalink

  33. Ralph Wiggum…you’ve got it all arse about face…

    1.Ashlee Simpson lashed with iron bar
    2.MTV sets scene with condoms and pills 3.Bang on target as Stones, Private School Boys spend the night together
    4.Sex today: budgie smugglers and a barbie
    5.World-class budgie smugglers
    6.Housing market up…down…up…down…up…who gives a rats
    7.Get a life
    8.Alex wins fight with shark
    9.Gilchrist in wonderland, almost implausible fairytale
    10. Nipper steps up in Dhaka crisis

    Posted by murph on 2006 04 11 at 10:35 PM • permalink

  34. And as at 12.35pm the AWB story is out of the top 10 - Jessica Simpson went to number 7 with a bullet and pushed it out.

    It’s just like the last federal election, all the journo’s busy reporting each others opinions and no one cares.

    Posted by Ralph Wiggum on 2006 04 11 at 10:39 PM • permalink

  35. Funny, doleblogger’s outburst from #8 to #17 sounds eerily similar to 1.618’s frequent posting sprees, even down to the odd comments about banks and numbers. Long-lost siblings?

    Posted by PW on 2006 04 11 at 10:58 PM • permalink

  36. Ermm, I should’ve written “#5 to #17”.

    Posted by PW on 2006 04 11 at 10:58 PM • permalink

  37. Come on guys. What the AWB did was bloody disgraceful. They knew what they were doing and they lied and deceived Australian officials at every turn to cover up and keep the rort going as long as possible. They knew that their reputation would protect them against evidence-free allegations from competitors and others in a tough international trade. They knew that the instinctive reaction of people to those allegations would be to dismiss them as just more lies and rumour mongering seeping from a filthy stew of vested interests, secret agendas and corruption. Worst of all they didn’t even get away with it in the end.

    Sure the whole sanctions thing was a grubby farce that probably helped Saddam more than hindered him. The UN was and is corrupt. Many countries and their companies, including France and Russia, played a far dirtier game.

    But, like the hypocritical and dishonest rantings of the “left”, all that is irrelevant. We have a right to expect better standards.

    Posted by geoff on 2006 04 11 at 11:24 PM • permalink

  38. Anyhow, since when do the punters at this site defend monopolies imposed by legislation and protected by state sanctioned armed force? 

    AWB are corrupt because the basis for their existence is corrupt.

    Posted by murph on 2006 04 11 at 11:35 PM • permalink

  39. #38

    AWB are corrupt because the basis for their existence is corrupt.

    It is anti-competitive but in the circumstances where the US and EU have massively anti-competitive subsidy programs Australia has little choice but to continue the sole desk.

    Posted by lingus4 on 2006 04 11 at 11:48 PM • permalink

  40. The AWB pays Qld Rail, wholly owned by the Qld Government (“regime of Peter Beattie”) to transport its wheat to port, and then pays loading fees to load the wheat on ships; it pays the shipowners to transport the wheat to foreign countries; it often pays unloading fees in the foreign country and transport costs to transport the wheat to flour mills or storage facilities. In this respect, the Alia payments are unremarkable. It pays the multitude of inspection fees, local legal fees, taxes etc which are dreamed up by Governments local and foreign for the purpose of enriching themselves and their favourites e.g. capital city voters. It does this in every wheat-growing state and in scores of foreign countries.

    This is part of its task. Getting paid is another big part and sometimes it is unsuccessful in this e.g. during the reign of Wise Paul Keating. No doubt the AWB would be happy for it’s critics to help collect unpaid debts. Please apply at Head Office.

    Posted by MarketExpert on 2006 04 12 at 12:43 AM • permalink

  41. Lingus4

    It is anti-competitive but in the circumstances where the US and EU have massively anti-competitive subsidy programs Australia has little choice but to continue the sole desk.

    Except that the benefits of the single desk in that respect are pretty dubious.  I’m with murph on that one.

    Posted by entropy on 2006 04 12 at 12:44 AM • permalink

  42. It is anti-competitive but in the circumstances where the US and EU have massively anti-competitive subsidy programs Australia has little choice but to continue the sole desk.

    Why do they have little choice?

    AWB are pricks for the same reason that Telecom employees would laugh when a customer demanded decent service.  They consider themselves untouchable.

    Posted by murph on 2006 04 12 at 01:05 AM • permalink

  43. Amos;
    You have made more sense in this comment thread, (and have been more entertaining, loved the AWB theatre) than the Swat Womble and all the gibbering baboons who have been trying like mad to put AWB on the public radar for weeks.

    It amuses me that the ALP and their media supporters don’t seem to understand the fact that Joe Public does not care about the AWB and the way it does business.

    Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2006 04 12 at 01:06 AM • permalink

  44. #15 doleblogger
    Let’s think about it they only impart knowledge that’s it, they are not in the real world, it’s all funded and manipulated to suit their agendas…

    Make sure you say to parents the word oral communication, or agenda or in good phonetics goodness knows this must be adhd disease the kids get because of their controlling behaviour and not the childrens.


    paco, what does your incomprehensometer say about that one?

    Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 04 12 at 01:31 AM • permalink

  45. #41 & 42. Dubious value: Yeah I agree but there at least may be some value. Pricks: Yeah but we can have a single desk without this sort of bribery.

    Posted by lingus4 on 2006 04 12 at 01:39 AM • permalink

  46. Since AWB theatre has been popular, here’s a sneak preview of Private Schoolboy vs Shark Iron Bar Brawl Theater

    MONTY: Go for the head, Reggie!

    REGGIE: Aaaaaahhhhhh!!!

    LEONARD: Christ, he’s really pumping blood!

    Posted by Amos on 2006 04 12 at 01:45 AM • permalink

  47. As a Joe Public _ I agree - it seems ridiculous to pass blame on the talente (Downer, Vaile, Howard) for the mistake sof the less talented, AWB staff. The idea that responsibility stops at the top has little to recommend it if we want to keep profits as the main game. Imagine how few companies would really survive. Best to keep the dross responsible.

    Posted by Nuke_everyone on 2006 04 12 at 02:47 AM • permalink

  48. Considering the sordid history of the Hussein regime and it’s endless number of Western collaborators, apologists and financiers, I think it’s great that our media has finally sprung into action and begun a long delayed exposure of the international snake pit that propped up his rule. The German and French oil companies that slithered their way to Baghdad with bags of money, the hundreds of thousands of tons of military armor,  missiles and guns that flowed from Moscow to the tyrant’s armories so that he could murder and tyrannize his neighbors and the Iraqi populace, the nuclear reactor capable of enriching uranium thereby arming a genocidal dictator with atomic weapons, sold to him by the French, the legions of corrupt UN officials and foreign journalists, diplomatic staff and business leaders who profited off a program intended to help the Iraqi people, it’s all long overdue.

    Yes it’s good that our media have FINALLY gone after the war criminals and gangsters in the… Australian wheat board.

    Posted by Amos on 2006 04 12 at 03:15 AM • permalink

  49. Come on Amos, the AWB actions are indefensible, regardless of the motive or who benefited or whom they stung.

    Yes, the UN is a corrupt enclave of anti-democratic appeasers. Yes I too doubt whether any officers of the AWB personally benefited. Yes, Australian Wheat Farmers, the Australian economy and ultimately the Australian people have benefited by those wheat sales. But no one asked us if it was alright to defraud a fund intended for humanitarian aid to achieve those ends. In fact they went to great, and probably criminal, lengths to conceal the fact.

    So if I have a boot full of hot merchandise, very cheap, pilfered from a St Vinnies store, you’d be the man to see then. After all, my job is just to sell stuff.

    Posted by Dean McAskil on 2006 04 12 at 03:39 AM • permalink

  50. Enjoyed the AWB theatre BTW

    Posted by Dean McAskil on 2006 04 12 at 03:43 AM • permalink

  51. And MarketExpert, the issue is not that they paid bribes. That is of lttle consequence. The problem is that they didn’t pay the bribes they tricked the a UN Humanitarian aid fund into paying them by inflating invoices for recovery of the cost of the wheat. It’s simple fraud.

    And yes I’m steamed about this issue.

    Posted by Dean McAskil on 2006 04 12 at 03:50 AM • permalink

  52. Alright fine, I’ll take your point that just because others behave badly is no excuse to do the same. But the hypocrisy of the media’s selective outrage still turns my stomach.

    Posted by Amos on 2006 04 12 at 04:13 AM • permalink

  53. pity what the filth in AWB did does not turn your stomach Amos

    Posted by Nuke_everyone on 2006 04 12 at 04:34 AM • permalink

  54. Amos, your point re the Media is valid. Where were the headlines when the oil-for-food scandal broke? I may have missed it but I don’t remember a vigourous search by the MSM for the smoking gun in the UN.

    I have heard only one media commentater pull up an anti-Howard talk back caller by noting that Howard was the one who called the enquiry, so he could hardly be accused of attempting a cover up. As far as I am aware we are the only country that has conducted a judicial investigation of the issue.

    I can imagine the cesspool of fraud and corruption that would be revealed if some cheese and sausage eating countries subjected themselves to the same scrutiny.

    Posted by Dean McAskil on 2006 04 12 at 04:54 AM • permalink

  55. # 51, Dean

    Realistically, wouldn’t it have been the case that whoever the Iraqis bought the wheat from they would have required the seller to use the nominated transport company whose services were going for the nominated (inflated) price?  Because if that was the case I can’t see how it was the AWB that was tricking anyone into paying the bribe.  That was the UN, probably because certain employees of that organisation were getting slices of that pie for themselves.  And the people who were paying the bribe were the long suffering people of Iraq who had been paying many other prices for many years.

    So the wheat cost the Iraqis more than it should have.  So did being an Iraqi Kurd.  Or an Iraqi Shiite.  Or any other sort of Iraqi that the Husseins decided should suffer for their sake and/or pleasure.

    That’s how it seems to me.

    Posted by Janice on 2006 04 12 at 05:00 AM • permalink

  56. Not my words, but I got a laugh out of them:

    Cole: “So Mr. Howard, we have called you here before the “Guns for Wheat” enquiry, so you can tell us what you know about all these matters. What do you know in relation to the question of Guns for Wheat?”

    Howard: “Well, I consider myself an expert on guns, having studied all the available material over a few days in May 1996, which resulted in my setting out a strict set of detailed laws, which were introduced across Australia. I was able to
    classify all firearms into different groups, based on action, calibre, etc. I also know what type of semi-automatic .22
    rim-fire rifle a farmer can use to shoot rabbits, as well as which 12 gauge semi-automatic shotguns a farmer can use for foxes, but in both cases after exhaustive study of the characteristics, am positive that a person who is not a farmer cannot possibly be trusted to use the same firearms. Other shooters must use a lever, bolt or pump action rifle, or an under and over, or side-by-side shotgun, to shoot the same vermin, on the same property, using the same bullets. I also know, from an exhaustive analysis of figures presented to me by Gun Control Boss, Tim Costello that Sporting Shooters and Gun Collectors are the greatest threat to civil order in this country. That is why in 2002, I once again issued more gun bans to force target shooters to hand in their 40 calibre handguns, (which are really dangerous) and buy new .357 magnum handguns, which are perfectly safe. Those laws, which I prepared, also covered such detail as limits on barrel length, measured to the last millimeter, as well as defining which handguns could and could not be used for certain approved competitions. I know, for example that Guns are evil, as I have stated on several occasions. I also know from my studies, that the Glock handguns used by my personal security guards are made in Austria from an advanced rigid polymer material and have a unique auto-safety feature. So yes, I would consider myself well briefed and knowledgeable in all matters of guns, ballistics and related
    topics.”

    Cole: “Thank you Mr. Howard that is most impressive. Your ability to absorb detail and act quickly on it is admirable! Now what exactly do you know about those wheat deals?”  

    Howard: “I know absolutely nothing about that, Your Honour. I can’t possibly know everything about every cable, letter, briefing note or other communication which passes across my desk each day!”

    Posted by ausdiplomad on 2006 04 12 at 05:09 AM • permalink

  57. Wheat- big deal!
    Yawn, yawn!

    More worried about uranium to China.

    For those who have short term memory loss, let’s recap.


    Most of Australia’s wolframite in the period to 1913 was sold to the Kaiser to strenghten the steel in his battleships. Great market for wolframite. The price soared.

    Then pre WWII there was “pig iron Bob” yes Bob Menzies selling pig iron to Japan. Straight into their war armament.

    So rain on me wheat. Please!!!!! Wheat makes great nuclear warheads


    When we lose Israel (ker-boom)(thanks to the lily livered lefties we have in this country and the US who even when reality bites will still have their heads in the ground like Chamberlain) and Iran becomes a hole in the ground as a followup, the reality of uranium sales to China will then be confronted by all.


    Wolframite/ pig iron/ uranium- no-one reads history.


    Sometimes I wonder whether selling lily livers courtesy of the lefties would not be a better export market. Great meat trade.


    But as for wheat. What a sideshow.

    Who gives a stuff.

    It’s hole in the ground time in the middle east, and a few holes in the ground in the NT as we foster a bigger disaster.

    Posted by MarshallD on 2006 04 12 at 05:16 AM • permalink

  58. I’m concerned about the surge in new members whose comments are neither concise nor well thought-out. Am I alone?

    Posted by Ian Deans on 2006 04 12 at 06:08 AM • permalink

  59. Besides the commentariat nexus of the ABC/Fairfax/ALP (who might as well merge) no-one cares, and virtually everyone is bored stiff by the whole sordid affair. Since when is it the commonwealth’s job to micro-manage a private company? God forbid they ever did- there’d be more bankruptcies in Australia than Che Guevara t-shirts at an anti-war rally.

    Odd indeed that the left, that bastion of privacy and rights (snork guffaw) want the feds to stickybeak into every transaction- the bastards do far too much prying now.

    At least this should see the end of the AWB monopoly, and maybe some competitve selling in offshore markets- the AWB, like every other “privatised” ex government authority has been run by the same gormless idiots who ran it when it was a public authority- dozy bloody public servants, who wouldn’t know how to cover their tracks if they were wearing kadaicha man boots.

    Posted by Habib on 2006 04 12 at 07:46 AM • permalink

  60. you’re tight in som may ways Habib - who cares, bugger all , perhpas 5 or 6 latte sippers and thats all hey. I repeat no-one cares, I did hear someone on talkback expressing concern but that was only one and certainly no-one out where I live cares about anything really

    Posted by Nuke_everyone on 2006 04 12 at 09:15 AM • permalink

  61. We don’t care because no one personally received a boost to their bank account and because until the Left start acting like adults,caring about Australia and being bloody positive and constructive,ditto the Media -we are not gonna shoulder ANY blame for any thing any more.It only assists them to pile up more excrement to throw at us.
    The Left and their pets the media -or is it the other way around -would eat their own mothers if it would give them extra ammunitiion.Y’all shoulda heard them going on about “adrenalin rush” and no trauma experienced in the Port Arthur Massacre reportage. That’s what they all said on the Media Report on RN.

    Posted by crash on 2006 04 12 at 09:43 AM • permalink

  62. And a rounding endorsement for Socialism.

    Posted by Louis on 2006 04 12 at 09:48 AM • permalink

  63. hey crash - just who is us please?

    Posted by Nuke_everyone on 2006 04 12 at 09:52 AM • permalink

  64. Us is disgruntled taxpayers,b-o-r-e-d media consumers,the electorate who voted Howard and the Feds in four times,Australians who wanted the Iraqis to have OUR wheat (the best quality wheat are belong to us)-not of course the Bartleweet..

    Posted by crash on 2006 04 12 at 10:21 AM • permalink

  65. #35 yeah i was thinking that - 1.6whatever always sounds up to the eyeballs in substance or like someone speaking ESL.  likewise doleblogger.  twins maybe?

    Posted by KK on 2006 04 12 at 10:24 AM • permalink

  66. Amos, I’d love to produce the Australian Wheat Board Musical Theater as performed by the Islamic Sufi Opera Company, myself. But there’s some fear that the show would bomb.

    Posted by Monroe Doctrine on 2006 04 12 at 11:14 AM • permalink

  67. Okay you know what really gets me about this whole thing? Yes the AWB may have been indulging in some chicanery, skullduggery or even jiggery-pokery, but everyone else was immeasurably worse. Well so what? Just because others act like crooks is no excuse to do so yourself.

    But this is what pisses me off: the media are in the process of redefining the oil for food scandal so that it solidifies in the public’s mind as something to do with corrupt Australian officials, and everyone else is going to be just airbrushed magically out of the picture.

    When you say ‘Abu Graib’ everyone knows what you’re talking about, evil American soldiers brutalizing helpless Iraqis. For 3 decades the place was an abattoir where human beings were slaughtered and nobody cared. Ten thousand were murdered there, countless more maimed by torture.

    How many Iraqi prisoners were killed by Americans in AG? Zero. The soldiers responsible were exposed charged and convicted, not by the media, but by the US military, it was months before the moronic western media even found out. But when the name of that prison is mentioned around the world everyone knows what it means, Americans behaving badly.

    The vastly larger crimes of our enemies are white-washed out of the picture, some American, Australian or Jewish minor crooks are found and the whole thing is pinned on them, and thereby us. And they’re doing it again with oil-for-food, right now.

    And they’re going to get away with it.

    Posted by Amos on 2006 04 12 at 11:41 AM • permalink

  68. anagallis 58
    No, you’re not.

    Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 04 12 at 12:29 PM • permalink

  69. #51: You want the AWB to sell wheat cheaper? I want the AWB to sell wheat for the highest price it can get. But we can have the best of both worlds. You can go to the AWB, buy their wheat and then sell it to Iraq at a lower price. Go ahead.

    Posted by MarketExpert on 2006 04 12 at 11:42 PM • permalink

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