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MICHAEL VINCENT: In October last year
Woodside Energy decided to provide $20,000 to the
Halabja Hospital in northern Iraq. To do this it
drew on its contacts at Curtin University.
Woodside funds the Hydrocarbon Research Facility,
managed by Professor Robert Amin, an Iraqi Kurd who
Woodside says, quote, "regularly makes charitable
donations".
The World Today has been unable to contact Professor
Amin, who the University says is unavailable for
comment today. A University spokeswoman says a
statement will be issued later.
Meanwhile, Woodside says it was the University which
gave the $20,000 donation to a representative of the
Kurdistan Regional Government, Simko Halmet, to
deliver. Mr Halmet travelled with Senator Lightfoot
to northern Iraq in January for the duration of the
Senator's trip.
The World Today does not know when the Senator and
the Australian Kurdistan Regional Government's
representative began their relationship. But in
November last year Senator Lightfoot surprised many
by declaring his support for an independent Kurdish
state, as he told Alison Caldwell.
ROSS LIGHTFOOT: I'm in support of an
independent state for Kurdistan, which operates
significantly as an independent state now, subject
to a failure, after exhaustive efforts in
establishing a federation of which Kurdistan would
be part of that federation.
ALISON CALDWELL: Why do you feel so strongly
about it?
ROSS LIGHTFOOT: Well, it's an odd thing, but
as a student of history, I have marvelled at the
survival of the Kurds, their tenacity, their
difference, their ethnic difference, their moral
difference, their religious tolerance.
I wanted to do something, you know, towards the
latter end of my career – and I've been in politics
spanning 18, 19 years now – that was worthwhile, and
the Kurds have always appealed to me as people that
need assisting.
MICHAEL VINCENT: And that support at the time
was welcomed by Mr Simko Halmet.
SIMKO HALMET: We need this kind of
encouragement from the Australian politicians.
ALISON CALDWELL: With the support that you've
received from Senator Lightfoot, do you read that as
Australian Federal Government support?
SIMKO HALMET: I believe so. I believe so. I
believe that Senator Lightfoot is very influential
into the Australian politic.
MICHAEL VINCENT: So just how influential is
Senator Lightfoot?
In mid-November, a week before he spoke to the PM
program, Woodside Energy announced that it had
signed a two-year agreement with the Iraqi Oil
Ministry to identify oil and gas projects in
Kurdistan.
And what's also interesting about Senator
Lightfoot's first trip to northern Iraq in July last
year, is that he told the PM program it was paid for
by Woodside Energy.
The World Today understands that statement has not
been challenged by Woodside, and the company has not
responded to requests for an interview today.
TANYA NOLAN: Michael Vincent reporting.
www.abc.net.au
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