Senator COOK(12.45 p.m.) —I seek leave of the Senate to make a personal explanation on the grounds that I have been misrepresented.

Leave granted.

Senator COOK —Last night on the Jana Wendt Witness program an item was screened concerning the John Bertrand America's Cup research and development syndicate. The allegation was made that taxpayers had paid millions of dollars for a yacht race and that somehow I, who at the time was minister in charge of the industry portfolio, had participated in a cover-up of this matter. I have been misrepresented previously on this matter and to my certain knowledge so has Mr Bertrand, and he may well take his own action.

For my explanation I will give the facts of the matter. No cover-up of any sort occurred. It is true that there was some controversy in the tax concession committee of the Industry Research and Development Board, the committee that approves syndication, and that related to the nature of the reports the syndicate had given and the timing of the arrival of those reports. It was sorted out when Price Waterhouse was appointed by the Bertrand syndicate to take care of that business for it. It then complied. The tax concession committee voted to grant recognition to the Bertrand syndicate and registered it as a proper syndi cate, and the Industry Research and Development Board endorsed that decision.

As to my role in this, I had none. The reason is quite obvious. The IR&D board and the tax concession committee are statutorily independent of the government and therefore of the minister. I had no role in directing their determination of any of the affairs before them. That is their obligation.

The parallel situation is that of the Treasurer and the tax commissioner. The Treasurer cannot direct the tax commissioner in the conduct of his collection of tax. In a parallel situation, at that time I could not—and absolutely rightly, in my view—direct this board to take action which could confer a monetary reward on a particular company. And I did not. If I had done—the implication of last night's program was that I should have—I would have acted improperly and ought to have been dealt with accordingly.

A further allegation in this program was that I had received a letter from the board asking me to act, and that has been repeated on a number of occasions. The fact is that I did not. The fact is that some members of the tax concession panel wrote to me asking me to take sides in an issue that the panel were dealing with. As I have said before, this is a statutorily independent body and it is entirely inappropriate for a minister to do that. And I did not do that.

The committee itself never wrote to me on this matter, and the committee itself, as I have said, fully endorsed the syndicate as an appropriate syndicate. Not only did they do that, but the tax commissioner, who in matters of taxation has the final say and does not delegate his powers, also granted the concession to this body.

A further misrepresentation concerns remarks by me that I had appointed former Commissioner of Taxation and distinguished Australian ambassador to the OECD, Mr Trevor Boucher, to chair the tax concession committee, which I had done, and Mr Boucher's resignation. The nature of the last report was to infer that he had resigned in relation to the matters that were the subject of the report—i.e. the syndicate. I am advised that Mr Boucher resigned because this government cancelled syndication, thus removing the task that he had to do. He had no purpose in fulfilling that position, and he resigned for that reason.

A further implication is that public servant Mr Alan Evans had to be shifted as a consequence of this. I am advised that the correct circumstance was that, as a consequence of a change of government, a change of structure within the department flowing from the appointment of a new secretary to the department and a downsizing of staff numbers in the department meant a transfer of some officers. That was the reason for Mr Evans's change of occupation within the department.

This is an example of misrepresentation. I would trust that the Witness program would show the same responsibility that the Seven Network has shown in its news service in ensuring that corrections to the record have been made in the news reporting, which they have to this day done. I would hope that the Witness program would follow suit and correct the record where it has misled the Australian community.