Senator FAULKNER (Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (3:06 PM) —I move:

We know that the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Downer, in his talks with the New Zealand High Commissioner, told the high commissioner, Mrs Lackey, that he did not want the issue he was discussing—whether ships and other presence would stay in the Gulf if United Nations processes broke down—canvassed publicly. On the 7.30 Report last night, Kerry O'Brien quoted the Downer document in this form:

So Kerry O'Brien asked Mr Downer, `What other presence?' Mr Downer said:

But of course Mr Downer was wrong again. Unfortunately for Mr Downer, the memo says, `and other presence.' And of course this is typical of Mr Downer and it is typical of ministers in the Howard government. Either Mr Downer is trying to deliberately mislead Australians or he is a buffoon—or both.

On preparations for the war last year, Mr Downer again last night told the 7.30 Report:

He went on:

We know that that is complete nonsense from Mr Downer. Of course we know that Mr Downer sees himself as some sort of home-grown aristocrat. He obviously regards the rest of us as pretty dumb. He thinks that we will accept that high-level work on military engagement with Iraq was not going on throughout this period. We know that Mr Howard met President Bush in June last year. Four days after Mr Downer talked to the New Zealand High Commissioner on 28 October last year, Mr Howard and Mr Bush met in Mexico. The day after that, Senator Hill and Mr Downer were at the AUSMIN talks in Washington. This was all happening and I am sure, if it was possible, it would be at the forefront of Mr Downer's mind.

Mr Downer should have been absolutely briefed to the eyeballs on this issue. There is no doubt that the government was gearing up to go to Iraq when this conversation with the New Zealand High Commissioner happened. Senator Hill said it all when, less than a month later on 21 November, he was asked in estimates hearings by Senator Evans about ADF contingency planning, and he said:

So planning for the deployment was well under way using US thinking, not UN thinking. Mr Downer has been so badly exposed on this. The real point here of course is that Mr Downer did not want this to become public. It is okay to talk to the New Zealand High Commissioner about these matters, but never take the Australian people into your confidence. Why not? Because that is standard operating procedure for the Howard government—cover up; never take the public into your confidence; operate in a sneaky and Nixonian way. That is Mr Downer's method. That is the Howard government's method. If you have a choice between a conspiracy and telling the truth, they will pick the conspiracy every time.