EXPANDING THE AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY

I have secured access to a new and exciting kind of international market for Australian businesses.

Prior to the fall of Baghdad, the Bathist regime couldn't be relied on to provide us with favoured access to the consumer footprint that Britain had created within Iraq's borders. Instead, it selfishly (even jealously) sought to profit from the country's people and resources - while denying Australians the same opportunities.

No longer.

Our great and powerful ally, having flattened much of the country's infrastructure, is now rebuilding the nation of Iraq - and I'm pleased to be able to say that we are small stakeholders in this lucrative venture.

Let me give you an example that illustrates the potential for gain.

Before the war, Iraq had just three phone lines for every 100 people. 12 landline telephone exchanges were then knocked out during the invasion last March. But the occupying powers have overseen an inflow of foreign capital that is building new mobile telephone networks - and the owners of those networks have (what might be called) a captive market in the Iraqi people.

I guess you could call it one of the collateral benefits of precision bombing.

So to Babylon. To profit.