Some of Australia’s top corporations, including BHP Billiton, Thiess and Leighton Holdings, could be brought before a Senate inquiry into foreign corrupt practices.
Labor senator Sam Dastyari told the Senate under parliamentary privilege on Thursday night that he has evidence to implicate a number of senior business figures in corrupt behaviour and will shortly move to establish an inquiry into the matter.
The probe will also take in the role of the Australian Security and Investment Commission (Asic) and the Australian Federal Police in tackling foreign bribery claims.
“Tonight I shall name persons associated with Leighton Holdings, Leighton Offshore and mining contractor Theiss. Let me be clear: I am not proposing an inquiry simply into Leighton, but Leighton serves as a powerful case study for foreign corrupt practices and how the powerful can exploit the system,” Dastyari said.
The senator outlined a number of allegations.
He said he had documents from a whistleblower that kickbacks “were paid to Leighton staff to divert steel from the construction of a barge in Batam … to build another barge for the Adani Group” in Gujarat, India.
“The memorandum states that approximately $500,000 Singaporean dollars worth of high tensile steel was procured but not required for a barge – the Eclipse – that Leighton was contracted to build.”
Dastyari said he also has a “transcript of a memo handwritten by another former Leighton CEO, David Stewart, that alleges Leighton paid millions in bribes via an NSC. An NSC is a nominated sub-contractor, which appears to be the preferred method of funnelling kickbacks.”
“Leighton employees Barry McCalla and Alan Fenwick allegedly witnessed bribes and corruption,” he said.
Other documents “suggest that Leighton’s subsidiary was paying Indonesian commandos and paramilitaries to do their dirty work during an industrial dispute with indigenous workers”.
“As part of the inquiry that I will propose, I will invite those named to present their side of the story but, I hasten to add, after consultation with law enforcement agencies I intend to use every power available to me through the Australian Senate to ensure that the allegations of corrupt behaviour by Leighton Holdings are properly aired,” Dastyari said.
“The scope of this issue is so large and the concerns are so many that, when you look at Leighton Holdings and BHP and start talking to the law enforcement agencies, the attorney general’s department and other relevant parties, we are going to find that it is even bigger, and needs and deserves to be explored,” he said.
Dastyari said that concerns that BHP Billiton was engaged in bribery before the 2008 Beijing Olympics also needed to be addressed.
The Labor senator said he wanted the inquiry to look at the powers of different agencies in tackling corruption overseas by Australian companies. The inquiry has the backing of the Greens a number of crossbench senators.
Dastyari points to the Australian Wheat Board oil for wheat scandal as an example of Australia’s poor track record on stamping out foreign corruption practices.
