Downer must resign
With an increasingly farcical stream of revelations emerging from the Cole Enquiry over the past several months, surely it is time for our Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, to resign. Not only does this man represent us all to the governments of the world, but he does not seem capable of reading diplomatic cables or significant letters highlighting things going wrong.
It is expected that the Enquiry will find AWB complicit in bribery to the former Iraqi regime, yet Mr. Downer and his government wants to hold up the investigation, and the Prime Minister refuses to extend the Terms of Reference lest his democratically elected government be held accountable for its actions. This is disgusting, hypocritical and disheartening.
The Department of Foreign Affairs had a legal and moral obligation to keep an eye on AWB in Iraq, and failed miserably. Since being caught out it has done nothing but run around like a chicken with its head cut off. We owe our farmers, the Iraqi people and our international reputation more than this. At the least, Alexander Downer must go.
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From today's Oz:
