prof. paul kerrin ..., page-4

some facts on flugge and wheat trade I'm surprised and not a little disappointed that your continual attacks on the single desk are now taking on all the the signs of a thoughtless and boring crusade with no ability to present any logical national imperative other than your short term fantasy that you might personally profit from the destruction of single desk.

Certainly a sign that wheat farming isn't retaining much in the way of intellectual power amongst some younger farmers. Would have expected better Aaron.

Just to balance the story up for the very very few HC members who are interested in this debate at an intellectual level I have attached an excellent article from todays Age in Melbourne. In backgrounding the outstanding career and long term commitment of Trevor Flugge (West Australian farmer - i thought all WA farmers loathed the AWB ? Perhaps only the unsuccessful ones ?) it also notes the very interesting nature of our two major international competitors in the wheat trade which yellowcake mischieviously has failed to mention.

1/ The Canadian wheat board (CWB) is also a single desk.

2/ The US Wheat industry is backed by a comprehensive range of Export enhancement schemes (read SUBSIDIES).

Either would have given their eye teeth to cut Australia out of the Iraq market - probably on the same terms as Australia ultimately proceeded - Australia simply had better long term relationships. The US certainly has form in that regard with the international oil company formally headed by the now US Vice president D!ck Cheyne having been involved in a rash of scandals in Iraq and being the single largest recipient of US funds.

At various times the Australian wheat exports have accounted for 20% of Australian exports with Iraq our single largest market and most profitable.

Volume of posts does not make up for reasoned content mate. Give it away. The US wheat lobby has spent 25 years trying to destroy the single desk. You still haven't advanced one single creditable suggestion as to why they (the US wheat industry upon who'se behalf you are arguing your point) want to help Australian farmers.

Cheers,

Who is the man behind the gun?
By Russell Skelton
February 26, 2006

Architect of kickbacks or astute graingrower just doing the job? Trevor Flugge, a central figure in the AWB fiasco, will appear before the Cole Inquiry this week. It should be interesting.

RUTHLESS grains negotiator, favoured son of the National Party, the smiling man caught on camera posing bare-chested with a revolver in a shabby Baghdad hotel room.

Trevor Flugge is all these things and more, much more.

At 59, the West Australian wheat farmer, restaurant owner and leading identity in Perth's business establishment has emerged as the central figure in the biggest scandal to engulf the Howard Government in recent years: the AWB bribes for wheat fiasco.

Mr Flugge was a chairman, board member and later a consultant when the illicit scheme operated by AWB (formerly the Australian Wheat Board) officials determined to circumvent the United Nations food-for-oil program. Close to $300 million was stuffed into the pockets of Saddam Hussein and his henchmen to secure hundreds of millions of dollars in wheat sales.

Many believe Mr Flugge was the driving force behind the kickbacks, and the Cole inquiry into the AWB wheat scandal has heard plenty of evidence from several senior AWB employees that he knew of the kickbacks and either approved them or turned a blind eye. When Canada asked for an inquiry into AWB's dodgy deal-making Mr Flugge, then chairman, denied any wrongdoing.

But a former AWB senior manager, Mark Emons, recalled speaking to Mr Flugge in detail about the bribes paid to Iraq as "trucking fees". Mr Emons said Mr Flugge was determined to accommodate the Iraqis "so that our business does not come under threat from the US or CWB (the Canadian Wheat Board)".

Mr Emons said the AWB had two choices, either pay the bribes or let the sales go. Mr Flugge, he said, opted to pay.

When Mr Flugge steps into the witness box this week the inquiry — now entering its closing weeks — will hear for the first time his version of events.

Few doubt Mr Flugge's commitment to promoting Australia's wheat industry and his efforts to preserve the lucrative Iraqi market. What is open to serious question is his judgement and the methods he approved to secure sales that in some years accounted for close to 20 per cent of all Australia export sales.

And if anybody can tell the inquiry exactly what the Howard Government and its ministers knew of the kickback scheme, it will be Mr Flugge. Just what, if anything, he told Mark Vaile, the then Trade Minister, about the kickbacks may well decide the credibility of John Howard's repeated claims that he and other ministers knew nothing and were kept in the dark by numerous officials who did know or had their suspicions.

There are other issues about which Mr Flugge will be cross-examined this week: his involvement with the British Ronly Holdings, a company that not only employed his daughter but was used as a conduit to pay the bribes to Alia, the Jordanian company set up to receive so-called "trucking fees"; and why the AWB claimed the bogus trucking fees as tax deductions.

Trevor James Flugge is not just some "agri-bureaucrat", as his old nemesis Liberal MP and former minister Wilson Tuckey recently labelled him. He is a high-flyer in the wheat industry, well connected to the top echelons of National Party. His standing with the Howard Government was such that he was enthusiastically appointed by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer to serve with Iraq's provisional government as an agricultural adviser, for which he received more than $670,000 in fees and expenses. From all accounts, he used his brief time in Baghdad to keep Australia's wheat flowing into Iraq, while helping rebuild the agricultural industries. It is also believed he helped rehabilitate one of Saddam's old cronies once favourably disposed towards Australia.

Mr Flugge has been an influential player in the wheat industry for more than a decade. He is described by friends and close business associates as a "straight shooter". They say Mr Tuckey's animosity towards Mr Flugge can be explained by the fact that Mr Flugge stood unsuccessfully for the National Party against him in the WA seat of O'Connor in the 1980s. Mr Flugge has been a strong advocate of the AWB's single-desk policy, which has alienated a small, vocal group of Liberal MPs including Mr Tuckey and WA graingrowers wanting to sell their grain on a free market.

Mr Flugge has, through his lawyer, declined to be interviewed for this article on the grounds that it would be inappropriate for him to comment on matters before the Cole inquiry.

Even though Mr Flugge has his critics, he also has supporters. A wheat farmer and former chairman of the WA's Co-operative Bulk Handling grain pool, Robert Sewell, believes Mr Flugge has become the scapegoat. "What exactly is the crime here? Mr Flugge did what it took to keep selling wheat to Iraq. If the AWB had not been doing this, somebody else like the Canadians or the Americans would have been.

"Trevor Flugge is a highly respected grain grower for over 25 years and has given over his life to the industry. He worked hard to keep the wheat going and even put his life at risk travelling to Iraq."

Mr Sewell believes that abolishing the AWB's single-desk policy would open the door to bribe making because it would be impossible to monitor the activities of 20 companies against one.

He concedes the most damaging issue to emerge at the Cole inquiry was the claim that AWB officials claimed the bogus transport fees to Alia as tax deductions. "That is a completely different matter, that cannot be justified," he said.

A past president of the National Farmers Federation, Peter Lee, echoes many of Mr Sewell's views, pointing out that the Canada, Australia's strongest competitor in the international market, maintains a single desk. "Trevor Flugge was going head to head with the Canadians in a highly competitive environment. He has been around a long time and he knows what the market is all about."

Mr Flugge's business interests are not confined to the world of wheat. Apart from an interest in his family's agricultural business, AGF Farm, he has interests in an upmarket eatery, the Goose Cafe, a big retail vehicle outlet and several board memberships that earn him the best part of $500,000 a year. He sits on the board of Wesfarmers, the Perth-based conglomerate and 18th-biggest company in the country, holding shares worth $160,000 and receiving directors' fees of $166,000. He earns another $160,000 on the boards of IBT Education and ZBB Energy Corporation and picks up another $113,890 in directors fees from Australian Wool Services.

All that amounts to an impressive CV, although his performance before the Cole inquiry may well cloud his previous business achievements. What Mr Flugge will tell the Cole inquiry is far from clear. He make take the "Lindberg" defence (Andrew Lindberg was a former chairman and director), claiming he knew nothing and could not remember being told anything. Mr Flugge told the UN inquiry in March last year that he knew nothing about the kickbacks.

For the Howard Government the Cole inquiry is becoming increasingly dangerous. It has supported Mr Flugge, even though senior officials in several departments issued plenty of warnings over several years — as Cole has systematically documented — that AWB business practices were at best highly dubious. In the face of a blizzard of tip-offs, internal reports, and even a personal word from UN inquisitor Volcker, John Howard and his ministers did nothing.

And in all their public comments the Prime Minister, Alexander Downer and Mark Vaile have been careful not to criticise Mr Flugge. This week we may learn why.

THE FLUGGE FILE
Who Trevor James Flugge
Born February 1, 1947

Principal occupation Katanning farmer, WA
Joined AWB 1984
AWB chairman 1995-2002

Busness interest Shareholder/director of Wesfarmers. Chairman of Australia Wool Services.

March 2002 Loses the chairmanship of AWB after being voted off the board by A-class growers. Appointed AWB consultant after the vote.

2002 Travels to Baghdad with AWB chairman Andrew Lindberg to rescue an Australian wheat deal.

April 2003 Appointed as an agricultural consultant to the provisional government of Iraq for 12 months. Paid more than $600,000.

March 2005 Flugge denies to the UN Volker inquiry that he knew about the AWB's alleged kickbacks to Iraq.