A Good Old Fashioned Scandal To Start The Year

I’ve had a bit of a post New Year blogging ennui while Nic is gallivanting around the US. But there is nothing like a good scandal to get things going again.

The Australian Wheat Board (AWB) looks like it paid about $300 million worth of kickbacks to the Saddam’s Iraqi regime. A better scandal to start the year you could not find and Mike Steketee’s column in the The Australian is worth reading.

But let us visit what Howard said last year:

"My dealings with the people in AWB in the past have always been some that I've found have always been a very straight up and down group of people," he told ABC radio.

"And I can't, on my knowledge and understanding of the people involved, imagine for a moment that they would have knowingly be involved in anything improper."

Howard is right about Andrew Lindberg in that he would not have knowingly become involved in a shady deal. I hear that DFAT regulars says that ole Lindy would lose his head if it wasn't screwed on. One of those lovable but forgetful types. I mean he earns $800,000 a year and has pressure. He can't be expected to remember every little thing that happened.

Given his memory lapses I have every confidence that Lindberg had no idea what was going on. Or even what he was doing. Then again his memory miraculously returns and he remembers it was the AWB that was channelling the money and not the UN’s fault as he claimed last year. And oh yeah, we misled investors as well. Loves a bit of a joke old Lindy.

Ghandi points out that while Howard deliberately made sure the terms of the commission could not investigate the government, the AWB seems intent to get the government involved. They are not going down alone.

This may make for interesting times indeed. Unless John Quiggin’s prescience from experience turns out to be correct.