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Related:  Ethanol timeline Pop-up graphic: Record of meeting between Howard and Honan

John Howard said yesterday while defending his alleged deception of the Australian people last year in Parliament over ethanol that “I look forward to the next occasion when I submit myself to the judgment of the Australian people alongside the Leader of the Opposition”.

Hey, you don’t have to wait that long. Here are his answers to the questions asked in Parliament last September, and yesterday, and the document which unravelled his decision – whether he technically misled or not – to withhold the truth about his dealings with Mr Honan from the Australian people. Judge for yourself whether he’s a truth teller or a tricky deceiver. To end, Laura Tingle’s latest expose of how quickly Howard jumped to Honan’s tune last year, published in the Australian Financial Review this morning. The Sydney Morning Herald will have a good new yarn on the scandal in tomorrow’s paper, courtesy of our own Mike Seccombe.

LAST YEAR’S HOWARD DENIALS IN PARLIAMENT OF MEETING MR HONAN

17 September, 2002

Ms BURKE: Prime Minister, was the government contacted by the major Australian producer of ethanol or by any representative of his company or the Industry Association before its decision to impose fuel excise on ethanol? If so, when? Was the government urged to take action to prevent Trafigura Fuels Australia from importing a shipment of ethanol from Brazil at a commercially competitive price?

Mr HOWARD: Speaking for myself, I did not personally have any discussions, from recollection, with any of them. I would be very surprised, in relation to a matter like this, if representations had not been made by all of the interested parties to various levels of the government – in fact, I would be quite amazed.

18 September, 2002

Mr McMULLAN: Prime Minister, yesterday, in answer to a question of whether the government had been contacted by the office of a major Australian producer of ethanol before making the decision to impose fuel excise on that product, you answered that you had no personal recollection of any such discussion. Will you now advise the House whether, in the past month, your office received any such communication, whether in person or by telephone, fax, letter, email or other means?

(Government interjections)

The SPEAKER The member for Fraser will commence his question again.

Mr McMULLAN: Prime Minister, would you advise the House whether, over the past month, your office received any such communication, whether in person or by telephone, facsimile, letter, email or any other means? If so, when?

(Government interjections)

The SPEAKER: … The member for Fraser has the call and will commence his question again.

Mr McMULLAN: Prime Minister, were you or your office urged to take action to prevent Trafigura Fuels Australia from importing a shipment of ethanol from Brazil at a commercially competitive price?

Mr HOWARD: The answer I gave yesterday was based upon recollection of personal contact with me. I cannot tell you, without checking, whether somebody in my office got a fax or a telephone call or read an AAP report.

Mr Crean: Go and check.

Mr HOWARD: I really do not know… I will be very happy to have a look at whether there were any communications. I think I may have said yesterday that it would not surprise me if there had been communications from that company. Why not? This is a democracy, after all. Let me say that this idea that there is something criminal or sinister and that a company or a citizen who believes that an event is going to disadvantage them commercially has no right to put a view to the government of the day – this idea that if they do put that view it is a crime or something sinister or corrupt – is absolutely absurd.

…Just for the record, I have been informed by the Minister for Trade that the first time he heard about it was when a lobbyist for the company that was importing the ethanol from Brazil informed a senior member of the minister’s staff at a Canberra function. I suppose we should have a criminal investigation into that as well. I will have a look. As far as I am concerned, I am quite happy to disclose to the House that I know Dick Honan. He is known to a lot of people in the parliament. He is known to a lot of people opposite. I know that and they know that I know it. I think this is absolutely ridiculous but, for the purposes of the record, I will check the faxes, I will check whether I have messages and I will also check the AAP wire – I will check it now and I will check it in two hours time as well.

19 September, 2002

In answering another question, MR HOWARD said:

This is perhaps a good opportunity, seeing as the company Manildra was mentioned by the Leader of the Opposition, to answer the question that was directed to me yesterday by the member for Fraser. The member for Fraser asked me some questions about communications between Manildra and my office. In the time available, I have had a search made and this is the latest advice I have. I put it in that conditional sense because sometimes – as the member will know from his own experiences as a minister – you are not always given the full story right at the very beginning. Bits and pieces turn up later on, and you have to be careful. That is not said negatively; it is just a fact of life.

The member asked me what communication my office had with Manildra relating to the decision to change excise arrangements for the ethanol industry. As I stated earlier, I had not spoken to Dick Honan on this issue. I have, on checking, found that a number of letters were received on this general issue – not just on ethanol but on the general issue. In fact, my office received 16 in all, from different sources, from January until now. Some of these dealt with the shipment from Brazil while others dealt with options to promote the ethanol industry more generally. My office did receive a letter from Mr Honan but that letter was not passed to me. I point out to you that I receive 2,400 letters a week and I have to say that not each of them is drawn personally to my attention…

***

THIS YEAR’S SCRAMBLE AFTER LABOR DID ITS JOB AND PUT IN A FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST

Parliament, August 11

Mr CREAN: Prime Minister, do you recall telling the parliament that you had not discussed ethanol policy with Mr Dick Honan prior to your announcement on 12 September last year – a policy which has already benefited Mr Honan’s company to the tune of over $20 million in the last year? Prime Minister, doesn’t the record now show that a meeting between you and Mr Honan did take place on 1 August 2002 and that it involved discussion of ethanol policy? Prime Minister, why did you mislead the parliament and the Australian people on this very important issue?

Mr HOWARD: The question that was asked of mein fact there were several questions asked of me – related specifically to a shipment coming from Brazil. The meeting I had with Mr Honan on 1 August did not relate to that issue. I do not believe therefore that I have misled the House, and I reject the allegation that has been made. All of the questions that I answered in this series of questions were in the context of the shipment by the company, Trafigura. I would remind the Leader of the Opposition that the series of questions commenced with a question asked of the Treasurer by the member for Fraser, and it said as follows:

My question is to the Treasurer and concerns last week’s government announcements concerning the ethanol excise. Treasurer, can you confirm that Trafigura Fuels Australia’s contract to import ethanol was excise free when it was signed?

Then there was a question asked of me by the member for Chisholm, Anna Burke, which said:

My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, was the government contacted by the major Australian producer of ethanol or by any representative of his company or the industry association before its decision to impose fuel excise on ethanol? If so, when? Was the government urged to take action to prevent Trafigura Fuels Australia …

All of these questions were in the context of the importation of that shipment from Brazil by Trafigura. They are all in that context, and it was in that context that I gave the answer that I did. I do not believe therefore that I have misled the parliament because, when I was asked these questions, I did not know of Trafigura’s importation nor indeed is it my understanding that Mr Honan knew of it. As evidence of that, on 28 August, Mr Honan wrote to me drawing attention to this shipment and arguing that a certain course of action be followed. In fact, I disclosed the existence of that letter during the series of questions I answered, so I reject the claim made by the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr CREAN: I refer to his last answer in which he claimed only to have been answering questions on a shipment of ethanol from Brazil. Prime Minister, is it not true that the question asked of you on 19 September made no reference at all to the shipment of ethanol from Brazil and that you responded by saying that you had not spoken to Dick Honan on the issue of excise arrangements for the ethanol industry? Given that you did meet with Mr Honan on 1 August to discuss ethanol policy, why do you continue to mislead the parliament and the Australian people about the discussions that you had with Mr Honan?

Mr HOWARD: I do not continue to mislead the public. The context of these questions was the shipment from Brazil. I did not know anything about the shipment from Brazil when these questions were asked nor, apparently, did Mr Honan. In fact, it is my understanding that the first time anybody in the government became aware of this was around 21, 22 or 23 August, which was three weeks after I met Mr Honan.

Mr CREAN: My question is again to the Prime Minister and I refer the Prime Minister to his answer on 19 September last year when he told the parliament:

The member asked me what communication my office had with Manildra relating to the decision to change excise arrangements for the ethanol industry. As I stated earlier, I had not spoken to Dick Honan on this issue.

Prime Minister, given that the record now shows that you did meet with Mr Honan on this very issue on 1 August 2002, why do you continue to mislead the parliament and the Australian people in saying you did not have a discussion with him on this issue?

Mr HOWARD: In answer to the Leader of the Opposition, this issue to which I am referring is the decision which was made and announced on 12 September by me, which triggered this series of questions in parliament, which of course was based on the pending importation of the shipment from Brazil.

On 12 September we announced certain arrangements which withdrew the excise exemption and introduced a production subsidy, and the pattern of the package of questions that began to be asked on 17 September sought to draw a link between that decision and some allegedly improper support for the Manildra company. The big revelation that the Labor Party is talking about was a meeting between me and Mr Honan on 1 August.

Mr Crean: Which you said didn’t happen.

Mr HOWARD: Of course it did, and that actually goes to the very nub of the issue because the answers I gave about not discussing this issue with Mr Honan were based on the fact that we did not discuss that issue, because, as the Leader of the Opposition helpfully interjects, neither of us knew about it. Therefore, we could not have discussed it.

Mr LATHAM: I will refer to his answer on 19 September last year when he advised the House that he would check whether he had spoken to Dick Honan in relation to excise arrangements for the ethanol industry; not the Brazilian boat but excise arrangements for the ethanol industry. The Prime Minister informed the House that he had ‘not spoken to Dick Honan on this issue’. Did the Prime Minister check with the departmental officer present at his meeting with Mr Honan on 1 August 2002, with the written record of that meeting dated 2 August, or with any of the seven departmental officers that received a copy of that record? Why was the Prime Minister able to find 16 letters on the ethanol issue and report those to the parliament on 19 September but was unable to find his departmentalrecord of the 1 August meeting with Dick Honan?

Mr HOWARD: As I have already indicated to the House, these questions were asked and the answers were given in the context of the shipments from Brazil. That remains the position.

Mr LATHAM: Again, I refer the Prime Minister to his answer on 19 September last year when he said that a search had been made and checks undertaken of communications between his office and Manildra. The Prime Minister assured the House that he had not spoken to Dick Honan on the question of ethanol excise arrangements. When did the Prime Minister become aware that he had in fact spoken to Dick Honan about ethanol excise and that his department had prepared a record of his meeting with Mr Honan on 1 August 2002 detailing this very fact?

Mr HOWARD: The context in which these questions were asked – and let me remind the member for Werriwa of the question asked by the member for Fraser of the Treasurer on 17 September:

My question is to the Treasurer and concerns last week’s government announcements concerning the ethanol excise. Treasurer, can you confirm that Trafigura Fuels Australia’s contract to import ethanol was excise free when it was signed? Can you also confirm that the government’s new arrangements, introduced after the contract was signed and entered into, will impose a crippling $5 million excise bill on a contract which was excise free when it was signed?

Then the first question to me on that same day, from the member for Chisholm, which elicited the comment which I continue to hold to, that I had not discussed this matter with Mr Honan, was in these terms:

My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, was the government contacted by the major Australian producer of ethanol or by any representative of his company or the Industry Association before its decision to impose fuel excise on ethanol? If so, when? Was the government urged to take action to prevent Trafigura Fuels Australia from importing a shipment of ethanol from Brazil at a commercially competitive price?

Plainly, that question was about the behaviour of the government in relation to that shipment. That is the context in which this was asked. That is the context in which I gave the answers I have given, and it is why I asserted then and I continue to assert that I have not misled the House. The whole thrust of these questions is to try and allege that by this decision we had done some kind of special favour for a particular company.

Mr Crean: That’s right.

Mr HOWARD: ‘That’s right,’ he says. You can always rely on the Leader of the Opposition to helpfully interject. He said, ‘That’s right.’ That was the whole thrust. I have demonstrated that at the time I had this meeting with Mr Honan, on 1 August, I did not know about the Trafigura shipment; neither, apparently, did Honan.

Mr Crean: You didn’t know about it.

Mr HOWARD: Once again, helpfully, the Leader of the Opposition has interjected, saying, ‘You didn’t know about it.’ I did not know about it then, and that is why the answer that I gave was palpably correct and why I have not misled the House. The strange thing about the allegation that we have meant to have done enormous favours for Dick Honan is that the two things that Mr Honan’s company wanted most of all were, firstly, for the government to mandate

Mr Latham: Mr Speaker, on the question of relevance, the Prime Minister has been going for some time now and he has not once mentioned his answer on 19 September, which was the sole purpose of the question that I put to him.

The SPEAKER: The Prime Minister was asked a question about the search for records in his office on the question of meetings with the Manildra Groupas I noted it, about dates and conversations. By any measure he is referring exclusively to Manildra exercises and is relevant.

Mr HOWARD: Continuing what I was saying, the argument is that we have done some special deal for this company. The two things that this company has advocated and lobbied – not only the government but, I suspect, also the opposition – fairly actively over the past few months are, firstly, for the government to mandate a minimum use of ethanol in a blend of petrol and ethanol, and, secondly, they have argued vigorously against the imposition of a 10 per cent cap, because they are, in fact, blending ethanol up to levels of 20 per cent. Has the government acted in response to either of those pieces of advocacy? No. The government has not mandated a minimum. The government, a few months ago, having got proper scientific advice on the matter, introduced a 10 per cent cap for ethanol. So not only does the opposition leader have his facts wrong but he has his conspiracy theory wrong as well.

Mr CREAN: My question is to the Prime Minister. In your answer on 19 September you stated:

I have, on checking, found that a number of letters were received on this general issuenot just on ethanol but on the general issue. In fact, my office received 16 in all, from different sources, from January until now.

Prime Minister, if the issue you were referring to in your answer today was simply that related to Trafigura and, as you have also admitted today, no correspondence was received by your office until about 20 August last year on that issue, why did you disclose the existence of documents going back to January but not disclose your meeting with Mr Honan on 1 August?

Mr HOWARD: I remind the Leader of the Opposition of the central reality of this issue, and that is that the context of the questions asked of me was the shipment from Brazil. Those opposite interject, but it was they who framed the questions. I did not frame the questions; the tactics committee of the opposition framed the questions. They framed the questions about an ethanol shipment, and the reason they framed them about a shipment from Brazil was that I had made a statement five days earlier and they thought, ‘Aha, this is a conspiracy between the government and Mr Honan and Manildra. He’s made this statement, and we will ask a whole lot of questions.’

Well, I am quite happy: if the opposition wants to ask me questions about an issue, I will answer those questions, and I have made it plain that the context in which I answered these questions was the context in which they were put to me, and that was in relation to this particular shipment. I disclosed particularly the existence of a letter from Mr Honan dealing with the shipment, because, quite apart from anything that may be said by the Leader of the Opposition, I had absolutely no difficulty in disclosing to the House that I had received a letter from Mr Honan on 28 August about the Brazilian shipment.

So, if he had specifically raised the Brazilian shipment with me during a personal conversation, why would I not with ease have mentioned that? In other words, if I had no reason to suppress public knowledge about the letter about the Brazilian shipment, why would I have had a reason to suppress the existence of a conversation about the Brazilian shipment? It is obvious that the discussion I had on 1 Augustwhich has the opposition salivatingwas not about the subject matter of their questioning, and it is equally obvious that I have not misled the house.

Mr CREAN: My question is to the Prime Minister. I ask: does he recall his comments in August 1995 when he said:

We want to assert the very simple principle that truth is absolute, truth is supreme, truth is never disposable in national political life.

So said the Prime Minister. But with commentators like Andrew Bolt saying that the Prime Minister has betrayed himself and the parliament by not telling the truth about his meeting with Mr Honan, isn’t it time, Prime Minister, to fess up and be man enough to admit that you got it wrong, that you did meet with Mr Honan but that you told the parliament you hadn’t?

Mr HOWARD: Even in his questions the Leader of the Opposition cannot get his own assertions correct. The fact that I met Mr Honan is not in dispute. It is not in dispute. I am not the only one who has met Mr Honan. You used to meet him fairly regularly when you were a minister in the Keating government. That is not the issue. The issue is whether what I said in parliament regarding the shipment of ethanol from Brazil was correct, and nothing that the Leader of the Opposition has said, after 45 or 50 minutes of questioning, has altered the fact that I did not discuss the Trafigura shipment in my meeting on 1 August with Mr Honan. That was the basis of what I said then and that is the basis of my continuing to reject the absurd claim by the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr CREAN: My question is to the Prime Minister. I ask: does he recall saying in his time in opposition:

The simple principle … here boils down to whether the man holding the supreme office in this country tells the truth to this Parliament or not.

If the Prime Minister really were the national leader he aspires to be, he would be big enough to come into this parliament and say, ‘Look, I’m sorry; I got it wrong.’ Why is the Prime Minister never big enough to live up to these words, never big enough to come up into the parliament and say, ‘I’m sorry; I got it wrongwrong on kids overboard and now wrong on ethanol and the meeting with Dick Honan’?

Mr HOWARD: The question of what sort of leader I am is a matter for the Australian people to judge – not the Leader of the Opposition and not me. I am very happy on all occasions to submit myself to the judgment of the Australian people and I look forward to the next occasion when I submit myself to the judgment of the Australian people, alongside the Leader of the Opposition.

***

PM’s office in ethanol paper trail

by Laura Tingle, political correspondent

Australian Financial Review, 12/08/2003

Facing repeated allegations that he had misled parliament over his dealings with the Manildra Group, Prime Minister John Howard yesterday told parliament that the company and its chairman, Liberal Party donor Dick Honan, had not got what it wanted from his government.

But new documents show the federal government last year responded within days to suggestions by Manildra that it should develop a multimillion-dollar production subsidy for ethanol to protect it from a looming shipment of Brazilian ethanol a few weeks later.

The revelation comes as Mr Howard was yesterday forced to defend repeated claims that he had misled parliament over his dealings with Manildra in the lead-up to making a decision that favoured the company last September.

But according to documents received by Labor Senator Kerry O’Brien under a Freedom of Information Act request, the government’s decision to exchange an excise exemption for a domestic production subsidy which made Brazilian ethanol imports uncompetitive fulfilled requests put to the government in August last year when news of the shipment broke.

The executive director of Manildra’s lobby group in Canberra, Bob Gordon, wrote to a number of government figures, including a member of Mr Howard’s staff, on August 21.

This was three weeks after Mr Howard had held a one-on-one meeting with Mr Honan to discuss protection from Brazilian ethanol imports the meeting he did not disclose to parliament and which is now at the centre of claims that he misled parliament.

“To the best of our ability, our industry has been monitoring, through contracts in Brazil, the possibility of fuel ethanol imports into Australia,” Mr Gordon wrote.

“Our association has, for some time, been advocating moving biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesels from the existing excise scheme to a producer credit scheme funded by fuel excise revenues.

“We have reliable advice from Brazil that a significant shipment of fuel ethanol from Brazil is scheduled to be delivered to Australia in September.

“We would be grateful for an early opportunity to discuss the issues and options associated with imports of biofuels, preferably this week.”

Other documents show that the then head of the Prime Minister’s Department, Max Moore-Wilton, spoke to Mr Honan within the following days and personally set up and chaired an interdepartmental committee to oversee the implementation of the change in policy.

Mr Moore-Wilton’s intervention had already got under way at the time Mr Honan then personally wrote to Mr Howard seeking the same policy change a letter the Prime Minister told parliament last year he had not personally seen.

Question Time yesterday was dominated by questions to Mr Howard about why he had told parliament on three separate occasions in September last year that he had not discussed the ethanol industry with Mr Honan and his company, when records now revealed the one-on-one meeting in August.

Mr Howard stuck to his defence that his answers were “in the context” that Labor had asked specifically about the decision taken in the wake of the specific Brazilian shipment, which had not been discussed with Mr Honan on August 1.

But the Opposition Leader, Simon Crean, said the Prime Minister’s code of conduct “says that if a minister misleads, whether knowingly or unknowingly, he has the obligation to come in and correct the record immediately”.

“We know why he did not want to correct the record. It was because the discussions and decisions that were being taken were to the significant advantage of a friend of his.”