Australia's bribery scandal surrounding banknote printing contracts looks set to further entangle the federal government's overseas trade agency, a report in a national newspaper said.
Austrade has for more than a decade backed Australian companies, including the country's Reserve Bank subsidiary Securency, in the hiring of relatives of high-ranking foreign government officials to influence deals, the Melbourne Age newspaper said.
Securency, a printer of banknotes, remains at the center of a major bribery investigation started last year by the Australian Federal Police over the firm's activities to win contracts in Vietnam, Nigeria, Malaysia and Indonesia.
The Age said it obtained confidential documents that show that Austrade knew that the agent employed by at least three Australian companies, including Securency, to win Vietnam government contracts was a close relative of senior government ministers and officials in Hanoi.
The Austrade documents from 1998 say the agent had "family relations in various key ministries'' and had a ''well-connected'' father and a ''father-in-law [who] is minister of interior.''
The newspaper said Austrade helped banknote printer Securency recruit him in 2002. The alleged fixer is alleged to have bribed to win multimillion-dollar Vietnam government contracts.
Securency, which is half-owned and overseen by the Australia's Reserve Bank, allegedly paid the suspect millions of dollars in kickbacks, including to Swiss bank accounts.
Austrade provides financial assistance to Australian exporters through the Export Market Development Grants scheme under which Australian businesses can be reimbursed for part of their export marketing costs.
But Austrade's advice and help in full knowledge of the person's contacts and relationships within the Vietnamese government could be a breach of Australia's anti-bribery laws, the report in the Melbourne Age newspaper said.
Under Australian anti-bribery laws, it is illegal for Australian companies to provide benefits to foreign officials, their representatives or relatives in order to obtain improperly a business advantage.
Federal opposition deputy leader Julie Bishop has called for a wide investigation by the police.
''These are very serious allegations that have been made against Australian government officials and agencies,'' Bishop said. ''The issues must be openly and thoroughly investigated. If the AFP indicates it lacks the power or resources to conduct a sufficient inquiry, and if it recommends a broader inquiry is needed, the opposition would support such an inquiry."
An Austrade spokeswoman said the agency is co-operating with police. "AFP has advised that releasing further information on Securency could prejudice ongoing investigations,'' she said.
But she also said Austrade didn't recommend agents for Australian companies and had no knowledge of commercial arrangements between Australian firms and their agents.
Securency, the commercial trading arm of the Reserve Bank of Australia, has been at the heart of the police's bribery investigation, which has been an embarrassment for RBA in its bid to sell its polymer banknote printing services.
Polymer banknotes were developed by the RBA, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization and the University of Melbourne for Australian currency in 1988. The highly durable notes are made from polymer biaxially oriented polypropylene and have many security features not available to paper banknotes, making counterfeiting much difficult.
In May, the Age reported that a key witness -- an employee of Securency -- in the federal police inquiry told the newspaper of a conversation he had with a middleman hired by Securency to win contracts from foreign governments. The middle man told the key witness that he intended to bribe a central bank governor from an Asian country.
The witness's diary, which he gave to police investigators, noted that the "governor would be very happy if the commission [payment] was increased."
Also, one of the most senior Securency managers allegedly told the middleman to arrange an Asian prostitute for a deputy governor of a foreign central bank.
The latest bribery allegations come as Transparency International, based in Berlin, released its 2010 annual corruption index. Australia, one of the world's least corrupt and most bribery-intolerant, retains its high ranking of eight within the 178 nation register.
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