I must have lost the plot as far as the Cole inquiry is concerned. I think the actions of the AWB were rather neat, and much smarter than those of our foreign competitors. As far as I am aware, not one dollar of bribe money was received by any employee of the AWB, and in addition not one dollar was received by any Australian. Bribing the Irakis with their own money was rather neat, and certainly beat the alternative, which was to sell our wheat for less than the world price to some middleman in Lebanon who would pass it on to Iraq after extracting the kickback. The left really seem to have it in for our farmers; they can expect a solid vote from them in return.

Dear Richard, Yes indeed - a core function of ministerial responsibility is making ministers take collective responsibility for government policy.

But as I recall it ministerial reponsibility was not non-core election promise.

What we can rely on is ministerial responsibility for those ministeral responsibilties they deem to be in the best interest of ministerial sustainability.

eat your heart out Sir Humphrey.

Who recerives the cables? Do they go directly to the 'top of the tree' or lower down for study and then sent further upwards? And in their travels, are they initialled to show who sent them to whom?
So were original cables shown at the Cole enquiry, or retyped versions which do not show who received and to whom they were forwarded?
Tregenna