The Leader of the Opposition, John Hewson, questioned last night whether the governmental actions of the Prime Minister, Paul Keating, had given Mr Keating a personal advantage.
Dr Hewson was responding to a question on the ABC’s ü7.30 Report about the Opposition’s attack in the Senate in the past eight months on Mr Keating’s investment in a piggery.
Mr Keating’s office issued a statement after Dr Hewson’s remarks saying: “”The allegations tonight by Dr Hewson that I have corruptly benefited personally from government decisions is an unsustainable and outrageous slur. Dr Hewson who last week claimed factual revelations about his tax minimisation was gutter politics has tonight made a highly defamatory statement which he knows he cannot back up. He should withdraw it and apologise immediately.”
Dr Hewson said the questions asked by the Opposition in the Senate were “”reasonably legitimate questions”.
“”The Prime Minister is in Government; the Government has made decisions that may have been to his personal benefit,” he said. “”I would have thought he would have been interested in answering those questions.”
The Senate questions, mainly asked by the Opposition spokesman on the arts, Senator Michael Baume, have asserted that Mr Keating made an investment of $430,100 in a half ownership of Euphron Pty Ltd which had been revalued to $4.2 million in six weeks through Euphron’s ownership of the Brown and Hatton piggery business which was involved in a $80 million join venture with a Danish company to import Danish pigs and pig semen to produce pig products in Australia for the Asian market.
Questions in Senate were directed at several issues: whether the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service had treated the Danes favourably; whether government decisions had made the foreign investment planned by the Danes easier; and whether the piggery companies had breached Australian Securities Commission reporting requirements.
Senator Baume is being sued by Mr Keating over statements he made on Melbourne radio. According to Mr Keating’s writ Senator Baume’s statements imputed that Mr Keating had misused the One Nation for personal benefit instead of for the benefit of the Australian people.
Senator Baume has questioned the accounts of the piggery group, in particular the accounting of a loan of some $4.5 million from the previous owner, a company half-owned by former Tourism Minister John Brown.
Company searches revealed yesterday that that company has since been dissolved. Questions about the current state of the loan put to Mr Keating’s office yesterday were met with a suggestion not to publish articles questioning the piggery business.