Margo asked me for a short bio and a mugshot, so here I’m fulfilling this embarrassing duty. Bios – and mugshots, like this one of me pretending to be part of the economic elite, the mainstream order, the garb here a useful disguise that allows me to see life on the other side – just impose an image that clutters the airspace, unbalances the reception. I wish you’d forget that you saw any of this! My bio amounts to so very little anyway. Better to talk about the true landscape.

Tropical North Queensland looms large in my spirit, I have worked there on banana plantations on and off, “humping” bananas. Yes it’s painful sometimes. I travel when money permits, which means rarely, and take photographs – utterly physically exhausting to dissolve your ego and give yourself totally to the surfaces around you. To the art. A decent photo shoot is like running a marathon. I like Asia and Eastern Europe in particular, one day I’ll make it over to Italy and France. I’m not completely unknown in the photojournalism genre; some people in Melbourne and Perth might recognize a couple of my snaps. Henri Cartier-Bresson is fantastic, even today we can learn a lot from him.

I worked for a professional theatre company in Australia for a while, translating (in cohorts with the director), writing programmes etc. – contemporary foreign stuff. My words were performed. Had an average of about five bums on seats per performance, on rainy winter nights. This was the wilderness. I’ve worked as a translator for a major German newspaper, specializing in articles on philosophy, history, archeology and architecture, absolutely brilliant stuff, mostly written by specialists in the field, not journalists. The Germans have really got it together in the news media, despite the exceptions.

I love ideas and talking about them. Europe is great for that. My favorite philosophers are Albert Camus and Leszek Kolakowski. Language-wise I get by in Japan, China, Russia, Poland, Germany and Australia. And Tropical North Queensland. I love discovering a society from the inside, trekking to remote villages and talking to locals, communicating in whatever way we find, discovering other civilizations, which means individual people too. Lived in Japan for a while. Somehow I can get by even if I only know ten words of a language; and even then people tell me their life stories on our first meeting. I’ve written a few essays on cinema, one of my passions. (Something in the genes maybe my grandfather used to run a cinema.) Some have seen the light of day in Cinema Papers (Australia) and in a book published in Austria on the Russian director, Valery Ogorodnikov. I know for a fact that Vladimir Putin has a copy of that book, but ex-KGB heavies haven’t come knocking on the door yet, so he probably hasn’t read it. I occasionally lecture theoretical physics at university. The journey of the mind is the greatest journey of all. But sometimes the necessity to act cuts the journey short.

“I wish I were a writer, but all I have is how I feel about the big, scary nightmares that face us, and a growing despair that we will continue to spiral down into the blackest pit of us and them, with only hollow lies to cling to. All the while without a clue as to who are we, and who are they.”

 

Webdiarist David Makinson was honest enough to admit he wasn’t sure how we should respond to September 11, 2001. His first contribution to Webdiary came after the Bali bombing, and he’s since been locked in debate with John Wojdylo about the threatened war on Iraq. He’s been working on a detailed piece about the state we’re in, the nature of our discourse about it, and the basis for his conviction that war on Iraq would be disastrous for a while now, and today I publish the result. Thanks David. You speak for many of us.

To begin, David’s first take on the state of the world after the Bali bombing, first published in Searching for hope (webdiaryOct15).

***

David Makinson

This is an extract from a letter I wrote to a friend (of socio-political bent) last night. I usually try to be constructive, but I cannot find it in me at the moment. I think I am beginning to despair.

It surprises no-one I suppose, but it still defies belief, that commentators from across the political spectrum are using (yes, “using”) the Bali atrocity to score points off their rival pontificators. It is deeply sickening.

So now it’s definitively established to those of the right that the bleeding hearts have been exposed as fools, whilst it’s equally clear to those of the left that here is proof-positive that the macho, militaristic posturings of the right continue to rain catastrophe upon us.

I want to scream: Wake up, people! These horrible events prove neither faction right. Surely it’s obvious by now that we’re all wrong? Our romanticised assessments of what we define as good and evil, and our yearnings for the simplicity of black and white solutions, are delusions. The world lurches from futile rhetoric to ineffective response and still our people are dying.

Unnecessary deaths. Politicians and commentators of all persuasions will seek to portray their particular cause as noble because we have lost our friends. We must reject this cynicism. Be clear that these poor, poor people died for nothing – a tragic symbol of an abject failure of leadership.

Politicians failed to protect them. The experts of right and left have had no effect. We must not reward them by jumping on any of their various bandwagons. Just cry and cry and cry for the wasted victims and the torment of their loved ones.

The left says our government’s public support of the US makes us a target. We sense the truth in this. The right says that it is folly to think that a passive stance will protect us. We sense the truth in this.

The right says a military solution is the only solution. They may be correct. The left says violence begets violence, and they too may be correct. Neither group can recognise the merits in each other’s case, and so the true, far more complex solution eludes us.

President Bush said, in the seeming long ago, “You’re either with us, or you’re with the terrorists”. Wrong, George. We’re against both of you. We wonder if perhaps you deserve each other, but we’re certain we have done nothing at all to deserve you. We, the cannon fodder, oppose you. We are the innocent people of Australia, the US, Palestine, Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, the world, and we are opposed to you. It’s not as simple as us and them. It’s about all of us.

For myself, every instinct I have says we need to seek an active path of peaceful action and engagement if we are to have any chance of working through these troubles. I believe this is the test of courage we need to confront – to engage these people at the root of their grievances and hurts – both real and imagined.

I am not optimistic that we can pass this test. I fear our bravery does not run that deep. The pragmatist in me recognises that we will resort to force. We will dress this up in words of action and purpose, and imagine it a considered and effective response. We will convince ourselves it is necessary and just. It is neither – and it will not work.

It is a dark time. I fear for my children. I am conscious that I offer no solutions. Doubtless the right and the left will have many. Let us pray that somewhere amongst the dross is a kernel of constructive thought which can be built into hope.

***

Reflections on the dishonesty of debate, left or right, what Tolkien would make of things, and disbelief.

by David Makinson

I wish I were a writer. Then I could find the words that would get my message through with some approximation of what I actually mean. As it is, I struggle for expression, unlike so many of the talented people who contribute to this place. I lack their education, their wit and, occasionally, their knowledge, as some of them delight in pointing out.

It is like pulling teeth for me. And despite my very best efforts, I find I am consistently misinterpreted. So when I say no to your war, the reply is you advocate doing nothing, you seek to appease. I never said that. You did. I don’t know how to respond to your interpretation, unless it’s to defend the position you manufactured. But it’s your proposition, not mine. You defend it.

When I say I oppose unlimited mandatory detention of refugees the reply is that I have signed up for the open door brigade. I have no response other than simple denial. That’s not what I said. You made it up. If I respond you have succeeded in sidetracking the debate. Good writers seem to be able to do this at will.

I read the Devines, McGuinesses, Hendersons, Akermans, and Albrechtsons and I can only admire their skill. I wish I knew how to do this. A recent offering from McGuiness shows a man at the pinnacle of his art. WTO protesters think Bali victims deserved it. It’s wonderful. He just made it up. He said that, not the WTO protesters, but now they have to defend it. Truly, magnificently, awesome.

Yes, I wish I were a writer. But all I have is how I feel about the big, scary nightmares that face us, and a growing despair that we will continue to spiral down into the blackest pit of us and them, with only hollow lies to cling to. All the while without a clue as to who are we, and who are they.

***

A hypothesis: I suspect many of us have spent most of our lives completely asleep when it comes to matters of international politics. To our consternation, we now find ourselves at something of a loss as the world and times we live in start to slap us in the face on an almost daily basis. What’s that you say? Go back to sleep? Can’t. We wish we could. It keeps us awake, night after night.

***

The trigger for my own dormant sensibilities was the day the good ship Tampa came to the rescue of a leaking refugee boat. I think I discovered that day that I am an alien. Or living amongst aliens. Whatever – same result. “How can we not help these people?” I asked, perplexed.

“They will build a mosque next to your house and rape your children,” I was told. “You want to open up our borders to any and everyone.” No I don’t. You said that, not me. “Leave them out at sea. Push them back to Indonesia. Send them to Nauru.” You said that too.

And later – inevitably – they are terrorists. “How do you figure that one out?” I dared to ask. “You are condoning September 11!” the retort flashed back. No. You said that, not me.

It’s a great tool for those who would quash meaningful debate. Put up an absurd straw man argument and pin it to your opponents. So simple. More recently, our own Margo stood accused of blaming the Bali victims. But no, Bob said that, not Margo. But did it get Margo on the defensive? Did it ever. Even the writers themselves fall victim to the cheap trick. The politicians have learnt the writers tricks. Or perhaps it is vice versa, it matters little.

Alas, because I am no writer, I do not know how to respond to these cunningly manufactured assertions. Simple plain language rebuttals don’t seem to work, but I keep trying. In these pages I have been labelled everything from a Chamberlain to a Quisling. I am neither. Seemingly intelligent people conclude in one breath that I am a peacenik (which I am not) and in the next that I am a Nazi sympathiser (which I am not). They then seek to have me defend myself against their imagined positions (which I will not). Their arguments are so cunning they fly right above my head. Ah, I wish I could write like that.

[Aside: Just last night – not from a writer or a politician, but from someone whose opinion I value – “I sometimes think you support the terrorists.” Where that comes from, I cannot say. I certainly cannot defend the idea. No, dear. You said that, not me.]

***

Left, right, left, right

The world, we are told, has changed. No doubt this is correct. I wonder if this also applies to the world of politics. The old clarity of left and right has been looking shaky for some years now, and it starts to look as if the post September 11 world will kill it off once and for all. Certainly both right and left appear to have not a clue between them about how to deal with the global issues that confront us.

In correspondence post-Tampa with one of the right wing journalists I mentioned before, I was told that I was obviously a highly rational man, so why didn’t I accept his (very right wing) stance? I wrote back that I thought he had probably answered his own question, and the correspondence pretty much ceased thereafter. That writer’s articles continue to veer erratically between racism and bigotry.

Let’s cut to the chase. The trouble with most of the right wing positions are that they are just plain old fashioned stupid. They are self-destructive and just don’t stand up to any kind of reasoned scrutiny. Stupid and dangerous. “Ah ha! You are a bleeding heart lefty!” I hear the triumphant howls. No I am not. You said that, not me.

The trouble with the left wing, at least in the media, is that whilst they are sometimes good at diagnosing the problems, they remain entirely hopeless at proposing realistic solutions. This may (or may not) be intellectually OK, but is quite useless in practical terms. Because they propose no alternative to indefinite mandatory detention, they stand accused of opening the borders. Because they do not propose a response to terrorism they lay themselves open to the charge that they in fact advocate no response.

I think people are starting to wonder where they fit in the political spectrum. Are we of the right, or the left? I believe more and more people are rejecting both camps. Many of us despise both positions. The right is too automatic, too kneejerk, too close in its responses to the terrorists themselves. As you kill, so will you be killed. Contains circular reference – does not compute. It’s stupid for Osama Bin Laden, and it’s stupid for us. Bomb Iraq? The war on Iraq has absolutely nothing to do with stopping terrorism, you stupid, stupid bastards. The only question is whether your stupidity is sincere, which is horrifying, or contrived, which is terrifying.

The left just seems weak, bewildered and profoundly leaderless. Little wonder the right is in the ascendancy across the world. If the left truly believes in zero response to terrorism, or an open borders policy on refugees, let them say so. If that is indeed what they’re saying, then I am certainly not one of them. Those positions are almost as stupid as those of the right.

So we political refugees wonder if perhaps our new political home is in the centre. Or perhaps completely outside the traditional framework. I am certain increasing numbers of people are asking these questions. I don’t know if it even really matters, but I believe it might, because it may well provide a further push towards non-alignment in political affairs. I voted Green for the first time in the last election (admittedly out of desperation) but an intelligent independent viewpoint would certainly be attractive to more and more of us.

So what do we actually stand for? It’s very hard to find much certainty. I wonder if it is possible to define one’s position by what one clearly opposes. I am entirely clear on a number of those things. If I look at things from this perspective, I am clearly more opposed to the right wing and its bias to reaction over reason than I am to the left wing, whose bias to reason leads so often to inaction.

Why? Probably because the right wing is heavily armed and infinitely dangerous. In our times at least, the left is mostly harmless, to borrow from Douglas Adams. (The right will jump on this, pointing out exactly how dangerous the do-nothing left really is, but the proposition is weak at best).

I have been labelled recently in Webdiary as openly reflective. I think this is observant, and it has been very helpful to me in trying to sort out my head, so I thank Robin Ford. (See Seven precepts for disempowered people, webdiaryNov21.) Robin also turned me into an adjective, which is a novel experience!

The openly reflective description was not offered as a compliment, but more as a neutral perspective on the ultimate futility of the ongoing verbal stoush between John Wojdylo and myself. On that too, Robin is correct. It is advancing nothing, so I propose to stop (after one last go, naturally). I will thank John however in that he has also played a part in helping me to sort out my thinking and confirming my complete and irreversible opposition to his philosophy.

I choose to believe that he and I in fact share much common ground. We both want the elimination of terrorism and the reduction of threat across the world. I choose to believe that our dispute is not about the goals, but the tactics. I think John acknowledges this.

John and I will never agree on how to deal with these challenges, so I will continue to reject his position and his words of mass destruction as fundamentally dishonest, and he will continue to regard my arguments with contempt. (I know John denies this contempt, but John, believe me – it’s the way you tell it, mate).

John wrote recently: “Different tactics are possible, but these are just part of the same picture – of choosing either action or inaction.” I’ll try to put my position one last time, and then I’ll move on. Different tactics are possible YES. A thousand times, yes. It’s what I have been trying (and clearly failing) to say. But, it’s either action or inaction NO. A thousand times, no. This is where John’s analysis corrupts itself.

An analogy: It is bushfire season. The house has caught fire. John sets out with presumably good and brave intentions to quell the blaze, marching boldly up the driveway, tin can in hand, to douse the flames. He does not hear us chasing him, screaming for him to stop. “Stop, John! That can is full of gasoline!” The real tragedy is that because were all chasing John, none of us has the time to see if we can find a can of water or a hose.

You don’t put out fires with gasoline, and you don’t stop violence with bombs.

For the record, I agree with Robin Ford’s precepts. Robin and John are wrong about one thing however I am not in despair. I had my moments of despair post-Bali, but who didn’t? I am now focussed on hope for a brighter future, as despair will get us nowhere.

More John: “There are no “spaces between” – or third way – that we can escape into.” Wrong. It seems to me that John is the one who is in despair. Of course there are other paths we can choose to take. Always. Countless ranges of options and alternatives. If we could just for a moment stop fighting John and his ilk, we might just have the time to find the right way. In the end, John’s philosophy of it’s either bloodshed or it’s bloodshed is deeply and darkly hopeless. He offers no light, yet castigates those who would try to find the switch.

Robin, I actually hold increasing hope that reason will prevail and there will be no war on Iraq. I am doubtless kidding myself, but I earnestly hope that in my own very small way I am promoting this outcome. Some might say this is a complete waste of time, but it is born of hope, not despair, and I will keep trying.

In the end John’s position ain’t gonna change, and neither is mine, so I hereby declare peace. I will fight no more with John.

***

Incurable romantics and the Tolkienisation of the Right. (And where is Mount Doom?)

Welcome to Middle Earth. Here life is simple. There is Good, which is naturally very good and always good, and Evil, which is, as you would expect, entirely, and consistently, evil. Good stands for liberal Western democracies and freedom and justice for all. Good calls this its Values. Evil hates Good because of this.

They hate us because we are free, say the followers of Good.

Yes, say the spawn of Evil. We hate you because you are free, and it is therefore clear that we must crush you.

Of course, says Good. And because of this troublesome attitude, we will have to crush you first. And we will win.

Certainly you will win, says Evil. That is as it should be. But we will take you to the very lip of the fires of Mount Doom first, and countless supporters of both sides will be maimed and killed.

Yes. This is as it must be. Shall we begin? Slaughter of the innocents first, as ever. Your move, I believe.

Fortunately for us hobbits, we are on the side of the righteous. Middle Earth is comprised of some quite nice civilised bits, and citadels of pure evil, whose denizens hate us only because we are free. They have no other cause for their loathing. The very suggestion is treasonous, our leaders tell us. Are you sure you are really Good, because your questions make me think you might be a bit Evil, which means you are completely Evil, for there are no half measures in Middle Earth.

Also luckily for us, the citadels of pure evil are in far off places such as Mordor. But of late the Dark Lord has been sending out his Black Riders, and they are spreading evilness into the good bits of Middle Earth. This, remember, is because we are free.

This appears to be the world the right would have us believe in. Good and Evil. Pure and simple. No room for complexity, no need for shades of grey. Its black and white, light and darkness. You are with us, or you are with them. Tolkien did not need any annoying complications, or he might have added a few further plot nuances:

Who said it’s because weve got their bloody Ring? It’s because we are free. How many times do I have to tell you? That Ring is a Weapon Of Mass Destruction, got it? What’s that? We’ve got a few Rings of our own? What the hell has that got to do with the price of eggs? And who said we actually trained those nine Black Riders ourselves? Yes, I know Saruman was on our side once. And what was that about us controlling all the resources of Middle Earth? No, I don’t know why the dwarves hate the elves even though they are both Good. A fairer distribution of wealth? No special favours for our mates? Have you gone completely mad? Name, please. Did you say Gandalf the Grey? I see. Shut up, you are sounding Evil! Shut up!

Too many questions by far, but in Middle Earth you can still ask those questions, because (as you are constantly reminded) you are free. For now. In another fantasy realm, George W. Bush famously said There ought to be limits to freedom. Indeed.

Back to reality. The last few paragraphs are clearly preposterous. I imagine John Cleese as an enraged goblin. It would all be very funny if only it wasnt.

Tragically, a very large portion of the world’s population seems to think this way, and for many of them there is indeed a Mount Doom. But not for everyone is Mount Doom in Kabul or Baghdad. For many its on the other side of the planet, in a nice white neo-classical building that flies a banner of stars and stripes.

“Hah! You are anti-American!” No. You said that, not me. (And no, I am not anti-Tolkien, either).

My point: Day after day, our leaders feed us arrant nonsense. A romanticised, fairy tale world that just does not exist. These incurable romantics have a lot to answer for. I am sure they will be the death of us all in the end. Their hopelessly simplistic world view only works in fantasy. And it is deadly dangerous because even if they are sincere (and I am reasonably sure some of them are) they lay themselves open to manipulation by the hawks of the world the vested interests on all sides that will never seek a peaceful solution because, in the end, it does not suit them to do so.

And still a lot of us accept what we are told by people in authority or the media, even though we know all the while that they lie and lie and lie. More on this later. History suggests it was ever thus. It seems there is little real hope that we can fight this, but those who see what is happening have a duty to speak out or we will have no hope at all.

***

History – it teaches us nothing, it seems. Time will say nothing but I told you so, said W.H. Auden, with characteristic insight. Why do we not think? I cannot bear to see our leaders cloaking themselves in a flag as they denounce their critics as traitors. And I cannot bear to see how otherwise good people rally in blindness to the corruption that passes as patriotism in some societies. Quoting historical figures can be perilous when confronting the convictions of the righteous, but just to demonstrate that this has all happened before, I’ve included a selection of the sayings of the wise and not so wise over the ages. Just in case anyone thinks I am well read (I wish!) I found these by trawling the internet for a few minutes. If you don’t need further convincing you can skip this part.

***

Adolf Hitler: What luck for rulers that men do not think.

Julius Caesar: Beware the leader who bangs the drum of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervour. For patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and patriotism, will offer up all of their rights to the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Julius Caesar.

Aleister Crowley: The deliberate antagonising of nations is the foulest of crimes. It is the Press of the warring nations that, by inflaming the passions of the ignorant, has set Europe by the ears. Had all men been educated and travelled, they would not have listened to those harpy-shrieks. Now the mischief is done, and it is for us to repair it as best we may. This must be our motto: “Humanity First.” [Note: I understand that the hopeful Mr Crowley may have been something of a witch or a wizard or some such. Evil, no doubt, perhaps even from Middle Earth, so my critics can have a field day this one. Go for it!]

Albert Einstein: He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilisation should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is no different than murder.

Hermann Goering (at Nuremburg): Why of course the people don’t want war … But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.

Howard Zinn: Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. . . Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.

Arundhati Roy: Flags are bits of coloured cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people’s brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.

I’ve saved the best for last: This from Mark Twain, discussing American wars in the Philippines and in Cuba:

“The loud little handful will shout for war. The pulpit will warily and cautiously protest at first…. The great mass of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes, and will try to make out why there should be a war, and they will say earnestly and indignantly: ‘It is unjust and dishonourable and there is no need for war’.

“Then the few will shout even louder…. Before long you will see a curious thing: anti-war speakers will be stoned from the platform, and free speech will be strangled by hordes of furious men who still agree with the speakers but dare not admit it…

“Next, the statesmen will invent cheap lies…and each man will be glad of these lies and will study them because they soothe his conscience; and thus he will bye and bye convince himself that the war is just and he will thank God for a better sleep he enjoys by his self-deception.”

Right on the money. Truly, the more things change, the more they stay the same. But admiring Mr Twain’s skills of observation offers scant hope that human race is making any progress.

***

Never give up your disbelief

There has been much debate in Webdiary about the importance of belief. I argue that there is quite often a lot of common ground in the things we believe, but our responses to those inputs can be worlds apart. I resurrect this not to reignite that dispute, but as a convenient introduction to what I really want to talk about – disbelief. Specifically, I want to encourage it.

We are lied to all day every day. Lied to by politicians and militants of all persuasions. They are aided and abetted by a compliant and in many cases collaborative media. Does anybody doubt this? If you accept this proposition then your default position has to be one of disbelief. Disbelieve until its proved, and then disbelieve a bit more, because the proof itself must be questioned.

Your disbelief is your only defence.

I fell into this trap myself just the other day. My disbelief was suspended. I believed without hesitation that the latest Bin Laden tapes are genuine, and proof that our nemesis is still out there, plotting our downfall. Later that day someone asked me why I believed it. How do you know it’s not just a convenient ploy of our governments to keep us afraid? It is after all a time-honoured tactic of those who would lead us to war, they pressed.

I didn’t change my view. I still believe the tapes are for real, though I cannot explain why. My disbelief has failed me on this one, and I missed what in the circumstances is a reasonable question.

Interestingly, I think it is the great bulk of the middle class that most often fails, or forgets, to disbelieve. When I talk to my friends about these matters it’s clear that they have often accepted as cold facts the most outlandish of propositions. My friends are by and large very well educated and highly intelligent people (don’t tell them I said that!), but on these matters of global import they are simply ignorant. I do not use that word in a pejorative sense, but merely to describe a complete lack of knowledge. Naturally, their ignorance does not prevent them having strong convictions. Here are some of the things they have believed recently:

* They threw their children overboard.

* They tried to sink their own boat.

* We must attack Iraq because they attacked us on September 11 and in Bali and they will get us again.

* The Bali bombings justify our hard line stance on refugees.

* Saddam and Osama are in cahoots.

* They hate us because we are free.

Nearly all of these are now known to be lies of course, but in my circle of friends, each of these propositions was or is believed automatically, without question. When finally exposed as lies, the response is usually that it wasn’t that important, or it’s OK because all politicians lie.

And now we Webdiarists have our very own lie to ponder – Margo Kingston blames the Bali victims. Sorry Bob, we disbelieve.

I acknowledge that disbelief risks becoming circular. At some point we need to get to a common position and make some decisions. But we are a long, long way from that, so for now, please disbelieve. Disbelieve me too, but disbelieve.

One thing I really do want to ask people to disbelieve is the proposition that the war on Iraq and the carefully misnamed war on terror are in some way linked. The former is matter of expedience, the latter is an absolute necessity.

The true reasons for attacking Iraq lie in matters of corporations and profit, and personal ambitions. Only the romantics claim otherwise.

The reasons for eliminating terror are clear, and speak to simple self-preservation. Finding the right way to address this is possibly one of the central challenges we face. I see terrorism as something akin to AIDS – it is a deadly and virulent disease. I don’t know if this analogy is entirely apt, and there are those who would say with some justification that AIDS is a far, far greater problem, but it does take me to a place where I can say that, as with all diseases, prevention is better than cure. I think that is quite central to my philosophy, if I can lay claim to having so grand a thing.

As everybody knows, western governments have tried desperately to prove links between Iraq and September 11. Despite the application of astonishing amounts of intelligence resources, the link remains unproven. I urge continued disbelief. Iraq had nothing to do with September 11. Iraq had nothing to do with Bali. The only link between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden is that they were both sponsored by the CIA! (I heard that one on a TV show recently, and in stuck in my memory – well it would, wouldnt it?). Iraq has never attacked or threatened us in any way, shape or form. It is never likely to. Yet we threaten them.

“You are pro-Saddam!” No. You said that, not me. The man is a devil. Find him and his cronies and execute them. I’ll even pull the trigger. Just stop punishing his victims – the people of Iraq.

It’s not my usual approach I know, but I am going to adopt the practices of other webdiarists here, and provide some independent support for my position.

***

Remember Rumsfeld’s declaration that the U.S. had “bulletproof evidence” of a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda? For a bulletproof story, there certainly are a lot of holes, including a report from Czech President Vaclav Havel that suggests there is no evidence, at least of the long-rumored meeting between one of the 9/11 hijackers and an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague. (Robert Jensen, University of Texas at Austin.)

Myth: Saddam Hussein is “a man who loves to link up with al-Qaeda.” (George W. Bush). Fact: Bush is desperately trying to make a connection between Iraq and the September 11 attacks in the U.S. though none exists. As Daniel Benjamin, who served on the National Security Council (NSC) from 1994 to 1999, wrote on September 30 in the New York Times, “Iraq and al-Qaeda are not obvious allies. In fact, they are natural enemies.” An investigation by the NSC “found no evidence of a noteworthy relationship” between the two, Benjamin said. In fact, al-Qaeda militantly opposes the secular Iraqi government and Hussein’s Baath Party (Anthony Arnove.)

Obviously, one cannot prove the absence of connections. There are, however, good reasons for doubting any serious ties between the two. Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime has been ruthlessly secular and has had no love for fundamentalist groups. Al Qaeda, for its part, considers its task the overthrow of all governments in the region that are insufficiently Islamic, and certainly Hussein’s regime counts as such. (One might note that Iraq did not have diplomatic relations with the Taliban regime – in fact, the only countries that did have diplomatic relations with the Taliban were the U.S. allies Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Pakistan.)

Of course, hostile parties can sometimes be useful to one another against a common enemy, but no evidence has come to light of cooperation between al Qaeda and Iraq. Ever since September 11, U.S. officials have been frantically looking for some connection between the two.

War hawks leapt on the report that Mohammed Atta, the leader of the September 11 hijackers, met in Prague with an Iraqi intelligence agent in April 2001. The Czech government, basing itself on the evidence of one informant – a student who said he recognized Atta’s photograph as someone he had seen with the Iraqi agent five months earlier – said it was 70 percent sure the story was accurate, but the former director of Czech intelligence noted that “These informants tend to tell you what you want to believe” and the head of Czech foreign intelligence was skeptical. The FBI (which ran down “hundreds of thousands of leads”) and the CIA concluded that the report was inaccurate; they found no evidence that Atta was in Prague on the relevant date and some evidence that he was in the United States (Washington Times, 6/19/02; Prague Post, 7/17/02;Washington Post, 5/1/02; Newsweek, 4/28/02 web exclusive; Newsweek, 8/19/02, p. 10; LA Times, 8/2/02).

On September 24, 2002, the British government released a 55 page dossier laying out its case against Iraq. The evidence was said to come from British intelligence and analysis agencies, but also from “access to intelligence from close allies” (page 9). Surely this includes the United States, and surely whatever hesitancy the United States government might have about revealing intelligence information publicly would not prevent it from sharing such information with its closest ally. The dossier presented zero evidence of any al Qaeda-Iraq links

In the last week of September in the face of international and domestic hesitancy regarding the rush to war, U.S. officials again raised the specter of al Qaeda-Saddam Hussein links. Rumsfeld said he had “bulletproof” evidence tying the two together, but, significantly, he did not present any of that evidence and admits that it wouldn’t hold up in a U.S. court of law.

There was one report, charged Rumsfeld, that Iraq provided “unspecified training relating to chemical and/or biological matters”. The report apparently came from Abu Zubaydah, a high ranking al Qaeda prisoner who, according to an intelligence source cited by Newsday, “often has lied or provided deliberately misleading information.” As one U.S. official told USA Today, “detainees have a motive to lie to U.S. interrogators: to encourage a U.S. invasion of Iraq, the better to make the case that the United States is the mortal enemy of Muslim countries”.

The head of the Senate intelligence committee, Bob Graham, said he had seen nothing connecting al Qaeda and Iraq. Sen. Joseph Biden, who heard a classified CIA briefing on the matter, disputes Rumsfeld’s summary. Nebraska Republican, Senator Chuck Hagel, commented that “To say, ‘Yes, I know there is evidence there, but I don’t want to tell you any more about it,’ that does not encourage any of us. Nor does it give the American public a heck of a lot of faith that, in fact, what anyone is saying is true.” Intelligence experts inside and outside the U.S. government expressed skepticism, and a Pentagon official called the new claims an “exaggeration.” And French intelligence has found not a trace of evidence of any link. (NYT, 9/28/02; Newsday, 9/27/02; USA Today, 9/27/02; Washington Post, 9/27/02; Financial Times, 10/6/02.)

This said, there is one connection between Iraq and al Qaeda; that an attack on Iraq may well play into al Qaeda’s hands by destabilizing much of the Middle East and, in the words of former General Wesley Clark, possibly “supercharge” recruiting for the terrorist network (NYT, 9/24/02). (Stephen Shalom and Michael Albert.)

***

The above extracts are all sourced from Znet, which is unashamedly left wing, so in the interests of objectivity, I trundled over to iraqwatch.org. We are often recommended to go to this site to get the real facts. The homepage says Iraq Watch is a comprehensive web site devoted to monitoring Iraq’s progress in building weapons of mass destruction. The agenda is at least clear. It’s political leanings seem to be some little distance away from where Znet sits ( to put it as politely as I can).

So what does Iraq Watch have to say?

A couple of extracts:

1. Excerpts from previous political updates, by subject: 10-22-02, Alleged links to terrorism

There is still no clear proof of an Iraqi link to the attacks on September 11, despite media reports of meetings between the September 11 terrorists and Iraqi agents. Nevertheless, in mid-March C.I.A. Director George J. Tenet specifically declined to rule out Iraqi involvement, citing Iraq’s and Al Qaeda’s “mutual antipathy toward the United States and the Saudi royal family”.

Unfortunately for the right, this is the best they’ve got. Here’s another, this time direct from a White House briefing.

BRIEFING BY ARI FLEISCHER, PRESS SECRETARY, WHITE HOUSE

September 25, 2002

Excerpts

Q: We can go back to that in a minute. I have another question. Yesterday in the briefing, you said that the information you have has said al Qaeda is operating in Iraq. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was asked about linkages between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein this morning. He said very definitively that, yes, he believes there are. And then the President said, talking about al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, the danger is that they work in concert. Is the President saying that they are working in concert, that there is a relationship? Do you have evidence that supports that?

MR. FLEISCHER: No, the President is saying that’s the danger. The President has repeatedly said that the worst thing that could happen is for people – the world’s worst dictators with the world’s worst weapons of mass destruction to work in concert with terrorists such as al Qaeda, who have shown an ability to attack the United States. And that’s what the President has said.

Q: So why – when Rumsfeld was saying, yes, there is a linkage between the two, what is he talking about?

MR. FLEISCHER: Clearly, al Qaeda is operating inside Iraq. And the point is, in the shadowy world of terrorism, sometimes there is no precise way to have definitive information until it is too late. And we’ve seen that in the past. And so the risk is that al Qaeda operating in Iraq does present a security threat, and it’s cause for concern. And I think it’s very understandably so. If you’re searching, Campbell, again, for the smoking gun, again I say what Secretary Rumsfeld said – the problem with smoking guns is they only smoke after they’re fired.

Q: I’m not looking for a smoking gun. I’m just trying to figure out how you make that conclusion, because the British, the Russians, people on the Hill that you all have briefed about all this stuff say that there isn’t a linkage, that they don’t believe that al Qaeda is there working in conjunction in any way with Saddam Hussein. And there is a mountain of comments, both public and private statements that Osama bin Laden has made about Saddam, calling him a bad Muslim, suggesting that there would be no way that the two would ever connect. So I just – if there’s something, if you have some evidence that supports this, I’m just wondering why –

MR. FLEISCHER: What supports what I just said is that the President fears that the two can get together. That’s what the President has said, and that’s one of the reasons that he feels so strongly about the importance of fighting the war on terror.

Q: So does Rumsfeld have some information that the President doesn’t, that they are, in fact, working together now?

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, I’m going to take a little more detailed look at anything that you’ve got there. I haven’t seen a verbatim quote, so I’ll take a look at that.

***

Ducking and diving. This is the sum of Washington’s case. Despite all evidence to the contrary, the president thinks it might happen. On this basis we are asked to sign up for a war. It is obscene.

You would reasonably expect the above two websites to disagree on just about everything, but on this Iraq Watch and Znet, it seems, are in complete agreement. No proof of any links between Iraq and September 11. Case closed. Why is this even a question of debate?

***

Iraq Watch has some great transcripts of Donald Rumsfeld interviews which everyone should read. Illuminating. Especially if your sense of humour is on the dark side. Oh, what the hell – he-ere’s Donny (courtesy of Iraq Watch):

Q: Mr. Secretary, are you even cleared to say that Saddam Hussein – or there’s no intelligence that you’ve seen that Saddam Hussein has a direct tie to September 11th?

Rumsfeld: I didn’t address that.

Q: And I’m asking that. Do you – have you seen any or is there any intelligence that Saddam Hussein has any ties to September 11th?

Rumsfeld: I think I’ve probably said what I’d like to say about al Qaeda and Iraq.

Q: Mr. Secretary, can we follow up on that just a little bit? Much of the criticism, congressional and others, domestically and overseas, is that neither you nor the president have proven the case, so to speak, about a possible attack on Iraq. Do you know something that we don’t know, that perhaps you’re not willing to share with us – but do you know possibly

Rumsfeld: I hope so! (Laughter.)

***

Another gem:

Q: And on one of your other issues, you say there’s credible information that Iraq and al Qaeda have discussed safe haven, the issue of safe haven.

Rumsfeld: Right.

Q: Is Iraq providing al Qaeda safe haven?

Rumsfeld: I guess that’s a question of semantics. I –

Q: Just to talk about it doesn’t mean you do it, I guess.

Rumsfeld: That’s possible, although we know there are al Qaeda in the country, and we know they’ve discussed with Iraq safe haven. Now whether the ones that are in the country are there under some sort of grant of safe haven or not is – happens to be a piece of intelligence that either we don’t have or we don’t want to talk about.

***

And another:

…Q: (Off mike) – about – on the one point, you said, I think, that you have solid evidence of the presence of al Qaeda in Iraq, including some in Baghdad. And when you said that, I wasn’t clear what time frame you were referring to, whether or not that is current. Do you currently believe they’re in Baghdad, or are you only talking about al Qaeda in the North in Kurdish-controlled areas?

Rumsfeld: Specifically not, with respect to the last part of your question. We’re not only talking about al Qaeda in the northern part.

Q: So you currently believe there are al Qaeda in Saddam Hussein-controlled areas.

Rumsfeld: I thought I said it precisely the way I wanted to. I can’t know whether, as we sit here talking, the information that was accurate when we got it is still accurate today.

***

Last one, I promise. A chilling pointer to an upcoming attraction – Axis of Evil: The Sequel

Q: And since you – I have a follow-up. Since you were willing to lay out some of the particulars about the presence of al Qaeda in Iraq, are you willing to tell us what evidence U.S. has of al Qaeda in Iran in recent intelligence

Rumsfeld: You know, I’ve been talking about this for weeks. There are al Qaeda in Iran! There are a lot of al Qaeda in Iran. Iran is providing haven. And they’re telling their people they’re not! The government is. And they’re not telling their people the truth. And they are there. And they do not like it when we say that. But they are.

***

Selective quotes? Well perhaps, but not particularly so. Please disbelieve me go check it out for yourselves.

Remember – disbelieve. We are being lied to.

A final note: For those who like me are compelled to try to convert people to the anti-war cause, there’s some helpful material at madre

***

I am off on holiday, so this is my last offering for a little while. Compliments of the season to one and all. Stay safe.

SIEV-X will not go away, despite what you don’t read in the newspapers. After closing down the Senate inquiry into the matter, Labor and Democrats Senators are going for it again, and the plot thickens even more.

Retired diplomat Tony Kevin hasn’t stopped campaigning on SIEV-X, and nor has Marg Hutton let up in documenting all the developments on her ground-breaking website sievx, including a speech by Tony arguing that the Howard government used the pre-emptive strike option it now argues should be made part of international law during its assault on boat people last year. Tony’s speech is also at abcpublicrecord

There’s a chance the Senate will pass motions this week – the last week of sittings this year – calling for a judicial inquiry into SIEV-X and the extradition of the voyage organiser Abu Quessay when he’s released from an Indonesian jail in January.

Here’s a piece Tony wrote for Webdiary to preview the action. Webdiary’s archive on the story is in the right-hand column. The upcoming book on the Tampa by Herald journalists David Marr and Marian Wilkinson will include an interesting chapter on SIEV-X, with, I understand, new information on the matter.

***

SIEV-X: Not the news

by Tony Kevin

As you know, my principal area of public interest activism is the campaign for justice and accountability in the deaths of 353 people – including 146 women and 142 children – drowned on SIEV-X on 19 October 2001 as a result of an alleged Australian-instigated covert people smuggling disruption operation in Indonesia.

This intersects closely with the broader issues you’ve been covering over the past few weeks: The attack on civil liberties both federally and in NSW, the passivity of the mainstream media on that, the new ALP refugee policy and Carmen Lawrence’s exit from Shadow Cabinet. The SIEV-X issue exemplifies and dramatises many of your broader conclusions.

In particular, you asked on 2 December in Democracy’s watchdogs blind to the danger (webdiaryDec2):

“Has the media decided that in dangerous times it is an arm of government, whatever its flaws and whatever the dangers of abuse of power?”

I think something very like that has happened on SIEV-X, especially since the Senate inquiry report was handed down in the Senate on 23 October. Let me detail this a little, and then draw some broader conclusions at the end.

With a great sigh of relief, the mainstream media shelved the subject of SIEV-X after 23 October. They did not study the detail in the Senate Committee Report, the individual tabling statements and individual chapters by Senators Cook, Faulkner, Collins and Bartlett. They simply recorded with minimal comment the overall committee judgement that the ADF had not been negligent. SIEV-X quickly vanished from the news and commentary pages. For the mainstream media, the SIEV-X game was over.

So there was almost no reporting – certainly no analysis – of John Faulkner’s firmly expressed determination to go on pursuing the people smuggling disruption program which he had questioned so dramatically in the Senate in September; no reference to Labor Senator Jacinta Collins’ bucketing of PM boat people task force head Jane Halton’s credibility as a witness (Halton was a key witness on SIEV-X) , or of Collins’ bluntly expressed concerns about failures of compassion in the border protection operations; no reference to Andrew Bartlett’s concerns about the acres of blacked-out lines in submitted documentary evidence and about official witnesses’ shifting stories; no reference to Chairman Peter Cook’s (and other Senators’) call for a judicial enquiry into the disruption program and other issues related to SIEV-X.

Undeterred, www.sievx.com pressed on with the factual investigation of the story, as did the Labor Party Senate team.

A few weeks later the issue surfaced in the Senate again. Australian Federal Police chief Mick Keelty was closely quizzed in Estimates by Faulkner and Collins on two big sleeper issues: whether the AFP knew if tracking devices had been placed on SIEV boats, and what was happening now about the AFP’s promise in Keelty’s July evidence to seek to extradite the admitted SIEV-X voyage organiser Abu Quessay to Australia on homicide-related charges after his short Indonesian jail sentence for passport fraud ends on 1 January 2003?

On the tracking devices, Keelty ducked and weaved skilfully. First he asked for more time to get the answer, then the next day he claimed public interest immunity from answering, then the next day he called a press conference and declared that the AFP had not placed a tracking device on SIEV-X.

He thereby evaded the real questions, which were: Had the AFP given tracking devices to the 20 Indonesian senior policemen it had trained, funded and equipped as people smuggling disruption agent coordinators in Indonesia? Had any of the Indonesian police disruption units set up by these 20 agents , working with Quessay, sabotaged SIEV-X and concealed a tracking device in it, in order to track where it sank and where to find any survivors? Those important questions remain unanswered.

On extradition of Quessay, Keelty replied casually that advice from Attorney-Generals’ Department was that extradition for homicide was not possible because of the difficulty in establishing a jurisdiction on the basis of uncertainty where SIEV-X sank. (MARGO: Remember John Howard’s cast iron guarantee during the election campaign that SIEV-X sank in Indonesian waters? This would have meant no jurisdiction for Australian Courts, but we found out later Howard had no evidence at all for that claim and that all the evidence was to the contrary, that it sank in international waters.)

Instead, he suggested, AFP might be able to get Quessay out here on people smuggling charges if the Indonesians passed an anti-people smuggling law before Quessay is released on 1 January.

There was no media analysis or comment on these significant pieces of testimony by Australia’s Federal Police Commissioner – Australia’s top cop. There was no scrutiny of his claims regarding Quessay’s extradition despite this issue’s obvious importance.

Then Labor Senator Linda Kirk presented a South Australian petition calling for a full powers independent judicial enquiry into SIEV-X. She made a stirring speech. Again, no media coverage.

Then I gave two strong factually detailed speeches in Brisbane and Sydney. AAP wire service ( Nikki Todd) reported the Brisbane highlights. In Brisbane I said:

“There is increasing circumstantial evidence that two or three Australian federal police liaison officers who were running the Australian people smuggling disruption program out of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta during October 2001, are likely to know a great deal about how 353 asylum-seekers, mostly women and children, were killed by a ruthless Indonesian disruption operation that achieved its intended result the capsizing of a deliberately grossly overloaded boat with great loss of life – on 19 October 2001.

“But it would not be fair to simply blame these two or three men who did the job expected of them in their positions. Others further up the line of authority know enough of what may have happened to take care not to know more …”

There was no coverage of that speech (though a minor right-wing blogger website picked up the above quotation).

Last Wednesday in the Senate, Senator Bartlett asked two strong questions of AFP Minister Senator Ellison on the disruption program – in part drawing on Faulkner’s and Collins’ earlier questions to Keelty – and followed this up with an uncompromising statement noting that SIEV-X was a mass killing on the scale of Bali, that it happened in international waters, and that Australia had an obligation to do something about bringing Quessay to account and to answer outstanding questions about SIEV-X. Again, no media coverage at all.

What is going on here? Is this really such a minor story? Is it really so boring to readers? Is it really so hard to report intelligibly? Or is the truth that it is too frightening, too confronting of our complacent self-image? At what point do our mainstream media decide to pick up the SIEV-X story again?

This coming week, there is a good chance of further SIEV-X activity in the Senate.

Non-government parties may, to their great credit, agree to put down further public benchmarks of Senate opinion on the issues. How will the mainstream media report and comment on this? What will make it “news”?

This is where your wider diagnosis fits in, Margo. There has been a lot of interesting analysis lately by senior commentators of John Howard’s growing agenda-setting power, and of his power to get things done without wanting to know the detail of how they are done. (Carr is operating on similar lines). Both trends are important indicators of a growing “soft authoritarianism” in Australia.

In the latter regard, the children overboard photographs are often cited as an example. But this is a “safe” example to use. It takes considerably more courage to link questions about SIEV-X with discussions on John Howard’s growing power. Maybe discussion of that linkage must be postponed till more evidence is in on what was really happening in Indonesia between the AFP, its Indonesian police agents, and its undercover agents.

Possibly there is now a view in influential editorial offices that the SIEV-X and people disruption story – even if it is true – is too disturbing and confronting at a time when Australia is still digesting the tragedy of Bali, and the government is trying to build a national consensus that does not yet exist behind war with the US ally against Iraq.

Maybe the mainstream editorial view is – we don’t want to have to deal in Australia with this complication and distraction from the “war on terror”, so let’s push this aside until such time as we may have more leisure to devote some attention to it. Don’t let it grow into a big issue now, because it could become too divisive.

If true, this would explain the media’s lack of attention to SIEV-X over the past seven weeks.

I profoundly disagree with such a view. Like the WW2-era British police inspector in the excellent recent ABC TV series Foyle’s War, I believe that murder is murder whenever it happens and whoever is responsible. After all, 353 people died on SIEV-X!

I am glad to see the Senate supporting these concerns and setting an example to the rest of Australia. The evidence is building (see www.sievx.com) that SIEV-X was not an accident, and this evidence needs to be examined by an independent judicial enquiry with powers to subpoena witnesses and compel testimony from reluctant witnesses. Quessay needs to be detained as a key witness. It is precisely because the SIEV-X issue is building again at a time when we face difficult national challenges that it needs to be handled correctly and courageously under our law. Let the chips fall where they may.

Watch point: How will our newspapers handle developments in the Senate on the AFP people smuggling disruption program, Abu Quessay and SIEV-X, in its last sitting week 9-12 December before Quessay’s release on 1 January?

“It’s actually a cry from the heart for the Labor Party as a whole to gather its resources, its intelligence, its energy and its passion and to take on that man who pretends to lead this country.” Carmen Lawrence

“We have to, I guess, convince the Australian community that we’re capable of having a different kind of society. We’re actually capable of transforming ourselves and our social world. That’s always been the objective of left-of-centre political parties. If we think we’re just going to make a minor difference, I don’t know why I’d get up in the morning and frankly I’m finding it harder and harder to do so.” Carmen Lawrence

Several readers want to read the full text of Carmen’s statement to the Canberra press gallery announcing her resignation from the frontbench. Here it is, followed by questions and answers which hit the mark on many unsaid truths, including the media’s role in closing down, not opening up, public debate.

Carmen’s defiance has already inspired some ALP members to encourage her to stand for the position of president of the Party (see Left weighs push to win top party job for Lawrence, smhDec9)

***

Transcript of press conference by Dr Carmen Lawrence

Parliament House, Canberra, Thursday December 5, 2002

Thank you very much for coming here this afternoon. It won’t surprise you, I think, that I’m here to announce my resignation from the Shadow Cabinet and the Ministry. It hasn’t been a particularly well kept secret.

I informed Simon Crean before question time today, after having a long discussion with him about my reasons. I’ve obviously discussed it, too, with my family and friends and colleagues. Although there may be speculation to this effect, the decision’s not made solely on the basis of the policy decision on asylum seekers today. That clearly has been the trigger for my decision but it’s not the only reason that I’ve decided to move from the Shadow Cabinet and Ministry to the back bench.

And that’s what I’m doing – moving to the back bench.

I’ve found myself increasingly out of step with the majority of my Shadow Cabinet colleagues. That may be me, not them. I don’t find my own views and values reflected in a lot of decisions that are made by that Shadow Cabinet, And in fairness to a great many people in the Labor Party, I think that they doesn’t always reflect their views either.

The difficulty with the position that I confronted, and it’s not a new one – politicians find themselves in this position on many occasions – is that once decisions are made, I’m bound to both support those decisions and defend them in the public arena, and the condition of that is that I cannot then speak against matters about which on some occasions I feel very strongly.

Now I’m not a novice to compromise or mistakes – I’ve done both and plenty of them.

But I’ve got to the point with my colleagues in the Shadow Cabinet where I don’t believe I can continue to support and defend a range of policies, as well as, if you like, the general disposition and direction of that that Shadow Cabinet, whether you’re talking about the current decision on asylum seekers, the lack of clarity in my view, on the position in Iraq, previous decisions such as the complete agreement, initially, with the Private Health Insurance Rebate ( although I still have some hopes in that direction), funding for wealthy schools and so on.

My first experience on returning to the Shadow Cabinet over a year ago – nearly two years now – was that it had become incredibly conservative – timid, even. And I’d hoped that after the election that would change. I’m prepared, as I say, to concede that I’m the one who’s out of step. But I’m not able to continue to support and defend policies which, in my view are devised with one eye on the polls, and another on media impact.

That’s not true, I must say, of all my Shadow Cabinet colleagues or, indeed of all of my Caucus colleagues. My views are not reflected, and I think that’s true of a number of others as well, but my vote’s captured.

However, it’s not fair on my Shadow Cabinet colleagues to seek to be an exception to the rule that you don’t speak out and that you don’t dissent.

I’ve simply found that tension too great. As you know, I have, on a few occasions, spoken out – initially on the asylum seekers. At least the policy was then in development. I can no longer do that.

I’ve spoken strongly against us supporting a war on Iraq – against attacking Iraq – because that’s really what’s at issue. And I have in many respects, although you may not all have seen it, exceeded the brief of the Shadow Cabinet. I feel very strongly that that’s an issue that we’re going to confront as a community and I don’t believe that we’re speaking sufficiently clearly against the possibility that we would sign up with George Bush in some form of unilateral action against Iraq.

In my experience in recent times it’s not uncommon in the Shadow Cabinet for issues to be discussed first of all with an eye on what the public reaction is likely to be, rather that whether it’s inherently good policy. And I don’t believe that we can continue in that direction.

I believe that we need to be telling Australians a story about the sort of country w want this to be – what we hope for them – how their lives can be improved. Certainly we have to listen to the community and be aware of their needs and interests, but we can’t continually be responding to what is often the shorter term view of a section of the community who are most audible.

To develop good polices that are consistent with our claims to be progressive we have to start with a set of values and yes – even ideals – to which we aspire as political activists.

Otherwise, why bother?

They shouldn’t be for decoration either – these values – they’re not just a preamble to the policy statements. They should be embedded in it – both in terms of the decision and the language. And they shouldn’t be abandoned either at the faintest whiff of grape shot.

I’ll use the asylum seeker policy as an example. First of all, I think the mistake we’re making is that we’re playing on Howard’s turf. We’re allowing him to define the territory and the arguments.

Now I don’t share the view that Howard is some kind of political genius. He’s not. The times suit him. But he’s vulnerable. But as long as we try to argue the case on his territory, then he’s the one who’s dictating the terms about the political contest and the way it’s played out. We played along – before the last election with the moral panic surrounding the boat people, instead of getting out there and persuading Australians of a different point of view.

As a lot of you know, I hated our acquiescence on the Tampa. But a lot had gone before that. In a sense it was inevitable after so much acquiescence, month after month. Each small step in a way was barely noticeable. But the end result was that we were pushed well beyond a position that even our own members – members of the ALP – could endorse. This time, with the asylum seeker policy after twelve months, I though it was an opportunity to get it right, to rule a line under the past, as we did with East Timor. After twenty five years of wrong policy we finally got East Timor right and I pay tribute to Laurie Brereton for that.

And I thought this was as similar opportunity. There are improvements and I will concede that. But we’re in opposition. This is the time to craft the policy in the best form that we possibly can. Now was the time to signal the we really wanted to head in a new direction, the underpinning principal of which was the recognition of the equal worth of all human beings, not trying to frighten people into some idea that they threaten our territorial integrity and they are a security threat.

It’s part of our task in politics to bring the Australian community with us and not to treat them as if they’re incapable of changing their views and in fact assuming that they’re terminally bigoted. That’s not a view I can possibly accept as a member of the Labor Party.

And I guess what I’m trying to say, too, is that the way we talk about issues and people and the values that underpin our actions are often at least as important as the policy details themselves. Because ultimately people will be asking – where will you go if you’re confronted by certain decisions in Government, how can we expect you to behave given challenges that you haven’t yet thought about. And I don’t think we’re doing a very good job at outlining those directions and dispositions. So people need to look at the detail of every policy in order to decide where we might be.

The language, in my view, of toughness and of security and of threat, are not an appropriate language to talk about a policy for asylum seekers. These are people who are asking for our help after they’ve been subject to persecution, and, as we know in most cases that turns out to be the case.

Why should we confuse the very serious question of our own national security and threats to the lives of Australians with the issue of how we manage people who come here when they’re seeking asylum. They are not the same issue and yet we are going along with the view that these are somehow all tied in together. And we showed that in the way we put it together.

We’re also retaining, for instance, the linking of onshore and off shore refugee programs. We’re encouraging the idea that it’s reasonable to talk about queues. All we need do is separate them and then you’ve got the ongoing humanitarian program – managed and predictable – and then at various times an opportunity for a more generous response separate from that when there is need.

This policy clearly treats some asylum seekers as more worthy than others – whatever gloss you put on it. The Christmas Island option is seriously diminished in relation to the onshore option and yet what’s the difference between the two groups of people – one get in a leaky boat that doesn’t make it and gets as far as Christmas Island, the others get on a slightly less leaky boat and make it, as they have in the past, to Broome?

One gets the offshore processing, one gets onshore processing. One gets legal advice, the other gets none. One gets an independent tribunal – the other gets none. One gets the possibility of review – the other gets none.

And where is Christmas Island? It’s a very long way from the mainland. Are you people going to be there, watching what’s happening on Christmas Island? Are you people going to be they’re when things go wrong? Will the lawyers get there to do pro-bono work?

I’m a former Premier of Western Australia, and I know where Christmas Island is. I’ve been there and I know how difficult it is to get staff – to get staff to stay, to get people to visit – it takes a week, effectively, unless you’re wealthy enough to afford a charter.

Christmas Island is a very long way. Out of sight, out of mind, but the recommendations of our policy have one set of processes for people who go there and one on land. And these are largely matters of accident. They’re not matters of priority, they’re not matters of one group being more worthy than the other, they’re essentially arbitrary and matters of accident.

So they are a few of my reasons. They’re by no means all of them and I don’t necessarily want to go into a lot of detail about the asylum seekers issue but I will if you wish, in questioning.

I was also very disappointed on this occasion, with the process. And a number of my colleagues were as well.

There has been a lot of consultation in the wider community – true – but we knew down to the last details almost the views of the various state conferences around the country. Labor Party people told us what they wanted. They told us that they wanted to see an end to mandatory detention for the purpose of processing. Not for checking – everyone understands you need to do that. Security checking, health checking, identity checking. And in most countries in Europe that takes around a month. The people around this country that belong to the Labor Party and support it have told us very clearly that that’s what they wanted. They told us that they wanted an end to temporary protection visas because again, they’re discriminatory. You know you get a Temporary Protection Visa on the basis of how you come here, not on the basis of the merits of your case. We argue against it in the document and then retain it.

These are the issues that I think confront us as a party, and our members told us what they wanted and we haven’t listened to them. I want to move to the back bench so that I can work assiduously as a member of the Labor Party, which is a party that I joined up with a great many years ago and I’m not giving up on, to try and change direction on some of these issues.

So that I’m not silent when the decisions are made or even before they’re made.

So that I can act with colleagues – of whom there are many – to take back the heart and the soul of the Labor Party – away from those people for whom it’s good enough to get up in the morning just to think that we’re going to be slightly better managed on that day.

Most of the people that I know won’t sign up to political activism in order to get better managers. Why would we be in politics? Go and join the bureaucracy.

So my plea to the young members of the Labor Party – to the members of the party who’ve kept the faith – is that mine is not a decision to abandon the Labor Party. It’s a decision to move into a different phase of my life, to work with activists to encourage young people to join up to this great party and to try with many others – because it isn’t something that anyone could do alone, to re-capture the values that I think underpin the Labor Party.

It’s an appropriate time, on the thirtieth anniversary of Whitlam’ election.

There was a generation of the sixties of whom I was one – forgive the nostalgia – who joined the Labor Party. Not because of the details of Whitlam’s policies, but because of what he and his colleagues stood for – because of the excitement they generated about the sort of Australia we could be – after years and years of the stuffiness and the war, by the way, that took place under the conservatives.

There are people out there with similar passion. At the moment we’re not speaking to them adequately. So part of what I’m trying to do is, with others – particularly young people – to try and capture them.

The Greens can’t do it. The Greens aren’t the solution. The Greens are a third party – a minor party. It’s about the Labor Party. The Labor Party taking stock of the future, grabbing that new generation and asking serious questions about human values, about sustainability for the environment and a range of other issues that I know that they all care abut.

So I thank you all very much for your time and I want to thank a few people before I conclude. I am very sorry in many respects for my colleagues – not because my going is necessarily going to make a huge difference to them, but it may appear that I’m reflecting on them. I’m not.

This is a personal decision and I know there are plenty of people within the party who agonise every day over similar things. And some people may suggest that my position is selfish and self-interested. That will be a judgment that they make, but I really do thank my colleagues who’ve supported me today and in the past

I’ve had the best and the worst of the Labor Party, the best and the worst of politics, and a lot of people have stood beside me. That’s not a resignation speech from the party, by the way, or the Parliament, but I want to thank them for the faith they’ve shown me in getting me into the Shadow Cabinet again after a difficult period of time.

I want to thank Jo Fox from my staff. One of the things that happens when you step aside – and Jo has had this experience before and she’s not a jinx, she’s a fantastic young woman with lots of energy and commitment to Indigenous people – I know that she will find a place for herself either with another Shadow Minister or in other employment if that’s what she chooses to do. And I want to publicly thank Jo, particularly for her commitment to Indigenous people.

And they’re the other group of people to whom I want to apologise. But I will continue to work incredibly hard to influence the policy of the Labor Party now and into the future. We are not doing nearly enough on that front either. Part of the success of John Howard has been to make it extremely difficult to talk about the principles that should underpin Indigenous policy in this country. And we need a renewal of energy on that front – not just mine but everybody’s.

Because these are the most disadvantaged people and it’s not just about health and housing. It’s easy for Howard and others to point at that and say we need to do better. It’s about, again, respecting the capacity of Indigenous leadership and Indigenous people.

I get thoroughly sick of people telling us in a sense how down and out they are. The Indigenous people that I meet are powerful, potent and they want to take control of their lives. Sure there are lots of people who are damaged because of what’s happened to them over the last two hundred years, but it’s time in this community that we don’t share his views about Indigenous people, that talking about their disadvantage is not a black-arm view of history. It’s fact.

And remedying that disadvantage is a task for all of us – not just for the Labor Party, but also for every single person here and every single person in the community. So I do apologise to them for not being the shadow minister. They have been incredibly generous to me and in a sense it’s a great tragedy that there has been such a high turnover.

But I’ll continue on every issue – education, health, rights – plant breeders’ rights for God’s sake we’ve got involved in – to look at the interests of Indigenous people. It doesn’t happen often enough in Australia. There are too many stereotypes about them and it’s time we turned it around. So that basically is what I wanted to say and please feel free to ask any questions. Sorry if I’ve taken a while but it’s important.

***

Question: Dr Lawrence, as a person of influence you haven’t been able to influence the party. Why isn’t this a resignation speech from the Labor Party under Simon Crean?

Lawrence: Well I know the Labor Party pretty well and the Labor Party is essentially about a tug of war that goes on all the time, among party membership, between the various unions, with public opinion.

I find the views that I’ve expressed to you today reflected in the Labor Party among the rank and file members, so called – amongst the branches and all the state conferences that I’ve talked to you about. I actually feel more comfortable with the Labor Party and it’s values than I do at the moment with the Shadow Cabinet.

And it’s not just about Simon Crean, by the way, I’m not pointing at Simon. It’s a collective – of which I was a part. I just think we’ve lost our sense of direction in teams of those values that I’ve talked bout. It’s not terminal – it’s just that I don’t feel as if I can continue for the moment in that role and I want to play a different role in the Party.

There’s a lot of incredibly good people – energetic and faithful people – in the Labor Party. I’m not resigning from the Labor Party. The Labor Party doesn’t belong either to Gough Whitlam or to anyone else. The Labor Party is the views of its members. It’s the passion of its members and ultimately it’s the members. It’s not mine; it’s not Simon Creans, it’s not anyone else’s to play with.

Question: Really what you’re saying today is that the Shadow Cabinet under the leadership of Simon Crean – that the Shadow Cabinet as a collective is not reflecting Labor Party values, is not standing for Labor Party values

Lawrence: That’s my view. Bluntly, that’s my view.

Question: (inaudible) take on Simon Crean’s leadership?

Lawrence: Obviously that’s something I’ve thought about very carefully – not just Simon but about my colleagues. As I said, at one level it would have been easy for me to succumbed to the view that I should stay in there because I represent a certain strand of thought, that I can have a certain impact, but my experience in the last couple of years has been that that’s not true. Not that I’ve failed to make the arguments, but that it’s not possible to have that effect. In many cases the decisions are made before it even gets –

Question: Simon Crean as leader after taking (inaudible.)-

Lawrence: No, because it was true under Kim Beazley, too. And it’s not, I think, it’s not a function of an individual leader. Leaders in many respects are only as good as the people that they lead. I think that we get that wrong in Ausralian politics. I think it’s a collective responsibility.

It’s about the Labor Party at very senior level, a Labor Party that I think can do a lot better. The individual members of the Shadow Cabinet – many of them I like and respect. I’m not trying to poke a finger in the eye of Simon Crean or Kim Beazley for that matter, I just think that we’ve stepped – we’ve been taking steps to the right probably for more time than I’ve been aware of.

But it’s become, in my view, extremely difficult to sustain positions that I regard as Labor positions, and I can’t go out – I couldn’t go out there tomorrow and argue in favour of the policy that we’ve passed this morning. I can’t go out tomorrow as a Shadow Cabinet minister and argue in favour of supporting the United States if they take pre-emptive action against Iraq. I cannot do that and I shouldn’t put my colleagues in the position pretending that I can, of dissembling, of nudging the edges of getting special permission. That’s not fair on them either.

Question: Could Labor win an election with what you describe as the incredibly conservative, timid managerial style?

Lawrence: They may well. As I say, it may be me who’s out of step. I’m prepared to concede that. This may be the future of politics in Australia. As I say, you can look around and see that you’re out of step, and sometimes you’ve got to concede it could be you.

But I don’t think so. I’m hopeful enough that there are still arguments to be made in favour of a different kind of Australia where we don’t regard asylum seekers as a threat to our very existence, where we do understand the need to make good the damage that’s been done to Indigenous people, where contemplating bombing innocent civilians in Iraq is not actually taken as given.

I mean, what’s happened in Australia – I think in some of the debate about this stuff we’re prepared to accept as normal horrifying prospects, like killing fifty thousand people in Iraq, which is a possible scenario. For what purpose does that serves any interest that most of us would hold valuable?

Question: You seem to be having purer view of Cabinet solidarity than Simon Crean, who this morning said it would be OK for you to argue in public party platforms your case for change of the policy. Did he put that case to you before?

Lawrence: He did, and very generously, but I don’t think that’s sustainable and don’t think it’s fair on my colleagues if I were to go out there and say, “Well look I’ve got special permission to say that yes there’s the policy and I voted for it but I actually don’t really think it’s a fine policy I’m going to continue to argue against it.” I’m one of his inner group of shadow ministers, that’s not fair, I couldn’t do that. I mean, as I say I’ve played it as far as I could without breaking Cabinet solidarity, Simon generously offered that to me but I don’t think that’s sustainable and I think that ultimately neither does he.

Question: (inaudible)

Lawrence: How many colleagues overall? I haven’t counted but I’m certainly not alone. I’ve never been very good at counting in fact, as I’m sure some people will tell you.

Question: The Labor Party has backed you through some pretty tough times over many years and some people wanted you to resign seven years ago.

Lawrence: And I told Keating he’d have it, too, at the time.

Question: You’ve spent twenty minutes on blistering criticism of Crean, and did you take that into account how they’ve backed you in the past and –

Lawrence: Absolutely

Question: And many of your colleagues will think that you’re being a traitor by –

Lawrence: They may think that. A year ago when the Tampa decision was made, if I can just give you a feeling for this, I wasn’t alone amongst my colleagues in teetering on the brink.

When I walked into Parliament at Question Time that day, I’d actually been having lunch, which I rarely do, with one of the embassy staff – with the Irish Ambassador, because the Deputy Prime Minister of Ireland was here – a woman with responsibilities for similar areas as I had at the time. So I did a rare thing and I went out for lunch.

We were a little late getting back and I heard the stuff about the boarding of the Tampa by the SAS on the radio two o’clock news. And I walked straight into the Chamber just in time to hear our leader endorse that position.

Now on that day I didn’t actually get my bum on the seat. I walked out and I didn’t go back for two days. At that moment, like lot of other people, I was very close to pulling the pin and I decided, precisely for the reasons that you’ve described, that that would have been destructive of my colleagues, it would have damaged people who would have had nothing to do with me or my conscience.

Some people obviously don’t share those views, but I pledged at that time to myself and to others that I would do whatever I could to try and change some of those directions, not just in relation to asylum seekers.

So that’s, I hope, how I hope to pay back those people in the party . I’m not trying to destroy the party. We’re two years out from an election. But I do want the party to improve its capacity to distinguish itself from the Liberals, to play on different territory, to respect our own members for God’s sake. That’s, I think, a way for me to repay the very many people who’ve supported me.

Question: Dr Lawrence do you think Simon Crean will be the person to lead the Labor Party at the next election?

Lawrence: I do. I do. I don’t see –

Question: For what reason given your twenty minutes of (inaudible)?

Lawrence: There are occasionally rare people in politics and in public life who have characteristics that are so compelling that you say. “That’s the one”. That’s the one we want to lead us, whether it’s in the board room or in politics or wherever it may be.

But most of the rest of the time it’s a compromise. Most of the rest of the time it’s the next best. You know, if you like, the person that we can all work and live with.

I actually hate the trend in Australian politics towards the presidential style. The Labor Party leadership, as I said before, is ultimately only as good as its members. So it could be Simon Crean, it could be anybody, in my view. As long as they were reflecting the views and values of the Labor Party and did so convincingly.

So I haven’t given up on Simon Crean or anyone else for that matter. I think they’re all capable of showing the way.

John Howard, as I say, is the most deeply ordinary person that I’ve ever confronted in Australian politics and for God’s sake he’s leading the Liberal Party and everyone thinks he’s a political genius.

So without wanting to damn Simon with faint praise by making that comparison, I don’t believe that that’s the issue. I know the media love to speculate about this or that leader. Simon may or may not survive until the next election. I don’t know that , you don’t know that. Simon probably doesn’t know that. John Howard didn’t know that he was going to end up leader of the Liberal Party when he did but Simon is a decent human being and I think he’s capable of listening. He’s shown a willingness to change but we’ve still got a long way to go.

I don’t want to belong to a Labor Party as I say that’s just sort of marginally different from the Libs. If you want the original go for it – why would you want a facsimile?

Question: Which category Simon Crean fall into – natural leader or next best?

Lawrence: No I think I’ve made it pretty clear. I don’t think Simon’s one of those people who stands out head and shoulders above the crowd, but neither does John Howard. I don’t look around and see anyone like that at the moment.

Question: But Dr Lawrence doesn’t the leader have to seek the – and get the party to crystallise the values of the party and follow those values? Obviously in your view Simon Crean has not done that – has not been able to do that.

Lawrence: I won’t dissemble. I think it’s clear from what I’ve said that that’s the case. It doesn’t mean to say he’s not capable of doing it. I think what Simon needs to do is to get a wider range of advice on issues, he needs to listen to more people within his own Caucus who have different views. It’s always easy to get agreement when you only ask the people who agree with you. You’ve actually got to get a wider range of advice, so I think Simon’s perfectly capable of transforming himself and the party as long as people are willing to give him a go to do that.

But I think a lot of people will not find it a very entrancing prospect if what we’re leading toward is more of the same.

Question: Why do you believe he’s suddenly capable of transforming himself now?

Lawrence: I said he’s capable of it. I don’t know whether he will or not.

Question: Aren’t you saying that as long as the group beneath him aren’t – you’re saying that there is not the personnel in the Labor Front Bench at the moment to make a good Labor leader representing Labor values because they’re not doing that?

Lawrence: We need a lot more courage, and it’s not to say that they’re not capable of courage. We need a lot more courage. We need a wider range of opinions reflected in the decision. We need less interest, especially now, in developing these principles and policies in how you guys are going to react the next day. We need more willingness to persuade – all of those things.

There are intelligent people in the Labor Party. I think there are too many of them who have come up through the school of forelock tugging, too few who are independent of mind, but there are enough independent thinkers, creative thinkers and people of energy to transform the party in the way that I’ve described. And that’s my plea.

It’s not that the party’s incapable of transformation. But at the moment the people who are pushing the show are the ones who don’t like to take risks and they don’t like to put their heads above the parapet and they’re not willing to risk your ire.

Question: (inaudible)

Lawrence: Well that’s a possibility. I mean I agonised over that, I went to the people of Fremantle before the last election and I didn’t publicly disassociate myself with the asylum seeker policy at that time. I didn’t. I should l have but had I done so I would have been doing precisely what Matt Price (Australian journalist) alluded to, and that is blowing up a whole lot of people for reasons of my own views and values. We’re one year into a three year cycle now. Frankly by Monday you guys are going to have forgotten all of this and I’ll get on with my job.

Question: What’s your opinion of Julia Gillard?

Lawrence: Julia’s an incredibly hard worker, she’s smart and she took this policy a lot further than others might have done. So I don’t have any antipathy toward Julia.

Question: Do you have any criticism of the way she’s conducted this process though?

Lawrence: No, I think in fairness it’s not Julia. The process was again one of not taking enough varied advice internally. Simon knew that there were dissenters on this policy. And yet those of us he knew were likely to be critics didn’t get to see the policy until Sunday – in my case I was lucky, it was a privilege for me. Sunday in my case, and in the case of a couple of other Shadow Ministers with strong views they didn’t get to see it until Question Time on Monday, a seventy five page document that we then debated at four o’clock.

Now the Caucus rightly said, “Well bugger that, we’re not going to do that”, and insisted on it being delayed, but by then those of us in Shadow Cabinet had been locked into it. So that wasn’t Julia’s doing. That’s the sort of thing that has to change. We cannot go developing a whole lot of policies in that way. Howard runs his Cabinet like that, but they’re in Government so they’re content to live with it. Our troops are a lot more bolshie than that, I’m pleased to say.

Question: Mr Crean’s doing though, Dr Lawrence.

Lawrence: Well I don’t know who decided to handle it that way. I really don’t know whose decision it was, but it’s part of the fear that if we show people it will leak and if it leaks somehow the arguments will be corroded having discussed it for two weeks instead of having to discuss it for two days. It’s part of the dumbing down of Australian politics.

Why can’t we have a debate about the details in public, especially in Opposition? I know that the division is death stuff is out there, and you’ll probably construct even these events in those terms. Yes, says Matt Price, he will. But I think it’s time in Australian politics to say “Come on, come on, we cannot afford to have second-rate debates which focus on whether someone supports the leader or not”.

And Howard gets away with murder basically because his colleagues are now so totally intimidated very hard to get them to speak publicity about anything at all, even when you know that they’re totally against what he’s proposing.

Question: What.changes in Mr Crean’s office would make the process better?

Lawrence: Well I think I said to you a wide range of advice is necessary – of his colleagues, not necessarily his staff. And I think that it’s important that the party more broadly – when views are known as they are in this case – is brought into the process. I mean we had Labor for Refugees represented on the initial working group but they were told basically that their views really weren’t important.

The reality is that a failure to get this right now will simply mean we’ll have to do it all again in the middle of next year. So I didn’t understand the political strategy either, I’d have to say, of not incorporating their views in the final document. Because it just means they’ll be out there campaigning every day to try and get it right in six months time instead of having it locked away. This afternoon we could have all said, “Done and dusted, terrific, principled Labor policy, finished, all our branches are happy, it’s sensible, it’s humane and it’s workable”. Instead we’ve got three or four key holes in it and those holes are going to leak.

Question: Do you accept that (inaudible)?

Lawrence: Well it’s hard to say I mean we hold Government in every state in the country and I’m always conscious of that when I make these observations. Every state and territory government is a Labor Government, although it was clear in Victoria that there was a substantial Green vote in certain seats. So it may be that if we continue to be less than clear and less than emphatic on these things that we will lose votes to the Greens.

And I’m aware of the fact that a lot of good Labor people the last time round, including some former Labor members of Parliament, didn’t vote for us. That’s a pretty shocking thing when you discover it. And some of them have been quite open in telling anyone who’ll listen that that’s what they did. And I guess what I’m saying is that that was a wake up call then, but we don’t seem to have quite got the message yet and we’re a year into the electoral cycle. We’ve got to get the message and move on and clearly.

Question: Jenny Macklin (from) your faction is in that Shadow Cabinet room. Is she not doing enough to put the concerns that you’ve been talking about today?

Lawrence: Jenny’s incredibly hard working and loyal. I mean one of the problems with the way we operate our system is that the person who’s the deputy invariably gets, once the decisions are made within the leadership group, to defend those positions. One of the difficulties is that it’s not always possible to be clear about what her own views are. And I don’t know how you’d get around that with a deputy.

Question: (inaudible) the baddies?

Lawrence: Wouldn’t you love to know. You can figure it out, I think. I don’t want to name names because it’s not the same on every issue either And it’s not just the people in the Shadow Cabinet, it’s some in the Ministry and some outside. In some respects you may say this is a plea from the Left of the Labor Party that you’re hearing here. But I haven’t always been in the Left of the Labor Party. It’s not an ideological position. It’s about clarity of conviction and courage and a willingness to take risks as much as anything.

Question: Will you be campaigning on this and talking publicly?

Lawrence: Yes I will. I’ll be doing that and I’ll be encouraging the many members of the Labor Party who are here and in state parliaments and the members of the branches to regain control of the Labor Party – not to let it slip.

Question: Not to be (inaudible) what went through today and not to be out there doing that?

Lawrence: Yes in some respects that’s true, but we are yet to have a conference decision on this matter, and as I said it’s not going to go away. But there are other issues as well. On Iraq I intend to campaign very strongly against the Government getting involved, let alone the Opposition endorsing it.

Question: Dr Lawrence, will you be standing at the next election?

Lawrence: Yes I am.

Question: On Mr Crean and the value of leadership. Do you see that value reflected in the Parliamentary Labor Party today?

Lawrence: You can gather from what I said that it’s certainly not enough. Simon has a more consultative style than many leaders and I do give him credit for that. What I suggested about the asylum seeker policy is that it wasn’t really enough to include the critics the day before it was about to be confirmed by the Shadow Ministry.

Like others I didn’t even know what was in it. I didn’t know what sort of movement there had been. I didn’t know what issues had been decided within the strategy group, I didn’t know precisely what it was that was intended. Now I reckon if you’ve got someone that you know is going to be a critic that the time to include them is well before that. So I’d say in this case it didn’t work entirely well. But compared with other leaders, Simon has got an inclusive style. He’s a generous man, Simon Crean. I’m not having a go at his character at all. It’s a process that we’ve collectively devised which is not working well in Opposition in our third term.

Question: Are you prepared to be expelled from the Party over your stand from now on? That’s the first one, and the opposite question is do you still harbour ambitions to be a minister in a Labor Government?

Lawrence: Expelled from the party? I don’t see why that would be the case because what I’m enunciating is fair and it’s consistent with the Labor Party platform – so that would be very odd I think.

Question: Has there been a Caucus vote?

Lawrence: There has been a Caucus vote, but as Simon said this morning the members of the Caucus and indeed he said the Shadow Cabinet- and I thought that was unfair – but the members of the Caucus are entitled – as members of the party – to seek to persuade its national conference to a platform which may, for instance, include the position that there would be no mandatory detention on while processes are taking place to check the status of asylum seekers. So I don’t see why that would be a problem. I’m not going to go out there every day – and you’re not listening anyway – but I’ll be talking to people within the party and the wider community. This won’t be on every radio station every day. In terms of expulsion from the party as well, if people find me so unpleasant they want to sort of extrude me from the process that’s their business, but I doubt it. Sorry, what was the other question?

Question: Ambitions to be a minister in a Labor government?

Lawrence: Look there’s no reason why at a future time I or anyone else wouldn’t be in a position to put their hands up. Whether people would on the basis of my action today say, “We’re not going to cop that, she’s already been in and out a couple of times, it’s time for someone else”, I’d fully understand that. I don’t particularly harbour an ambition for a ministerial post if it’s in a Government where nothing much happens.

Question: But you you said that earlier – how would you describe this phase that you’re coming into? Is this the end phase of your political career?

Lawrence: Phase to me suggests in out, up down, it’s a momentum. I haven’t made a decision to leave politics, Fran.

Question: Who do you expect will get the portfolio of Aboriginal Affairs?

Lawrence: I have no idea what Simon plans to do on that. But I’ll continue to work very hard on that. One of the things that I feel pleased about having done in the short period I’ve had that portfolio is that I’ve nagged every Shadow Minister into taking seriously whatever Indigenous issues exist within their portfolios. So if we’re doing a health piece of legislation or policy I am insistent that we first check the impact on Aboriginal people and how it may adversely or positively effect them and in indeed trying to encourage colleagues to take a bigger step.

In the past ministers for indigenous affairs have typically looked at rights questions, discrimination etcetera, native title and ATSIC, and haven’t really had much involvement in those other areas. Now I intend as a back bencher to keep those questions coming. Every time someone gets up and goes through a piece legislation the question will be, “Have you thought about the impact on Indigenous people, what is it exactly and what are we proposing to do in policy terms?”

Question: Your outspoken, devastating criticisms of the Labor Party – do you expect this to be a sort of starter gun for criticism from others to gather momentum now?

Lawrence: I hope it will cause people to actually look at what needs to be done and I’ve tried to suggest what that will be. And I hope I haven’t just been destructive because that’s not my intention. My intention is to say I can’t continue in this process the way it’s going.

I do see alternatives and I spent a lot of time outlining what they might be. I have hope for the Labor party and it’s members. I want the Labor Party to succeed because Howard and his mob are very destructive and it’s precisely because they’re so destructive that I feel it’s important for the Labor Party to get up off the matt and really take him on.

And I don’t mean the day to day nit picking the Question Time in politics. I mean really take him on – contest the territory – the language, the values, John Howard’s Australia is not one that I recognise as the one I value. He has diminished all of us, John Howard and I think we should be saying that – often.

Question: Dr Lawrence if that loses votes rather than gain votes, in other words if moving to the Left would lose votes, do you still think the Labor Party should do it?

Lawrence: I don’t see why it’s moving to the left. It’s about clear values enunciated and acted upon. We have to, I guess, convince the Australian community that we’re capable of having as different kind of society. We’re actually capable of transforming ourselves and our social world. That’s always been the objective of left of centre political parties. If we think we’re just going to make a minor difference, I don’t know why I’d get up in the morning and frankly I’m finding it harder and harder to do so.

Question: (inaudible)

Lawrence: Look I know you want to see it that way but it’s not. It’s actually a cry from the heart for the Labor Party as a whole to gather its resources, its intelligence, its energy and it’s passion and to take on that man who pretends to lead this country.

Question: At the last election on the Tampa, did you tell lies to your electorate or did you just avoid the truth?

Lawrence: I avoided the truth. I didn’t speak about it. I told as many people as I could in my constituency who asked me that I would do everything within my power from that day forward to undo what I saw as an unconscionable position. So whenever I was asked I did tell them what I would do.

I didn’t put it in my newsletters, my advertising, I didn’t endorse the party position publicly, but neither did I say that I didn’t support it except when asked, when I did say that I didn’t support it. Now that didn’t reach the media but it was very clear. Anyone who wrote to me, spoke to me, emailed me – I told them clearly. And in fact that’s why I’m here today in a way, because I feel as if I haven’t kept the pledge that I made to those people at that time.

Question: Dr Lawrence would you be comfortable going to the next election as a Labor candidate if the asylum seeker policy remains unchanged.

Lawrence: That would be very difficult but I have confidence in the national conference of turning it around, you know, to think that the members of the Labor Party are going to say no to this.

Question: What do you say to the many Labor voters who actually supported Labor and on two party preferred votes it was quite close – at the last election – who actually supported the policy that Kim Beazley put forward.

Lawrence: Well as I say, in my electorate I didn’t campaign on that basis and people in my electorate – because I’m quite outspoken in local newspapers and radio – know that I don’t support it. So it may not have hit the headlines, but it’s pretty clear that most people would understand my position. If they didn’t, I apologise to them, but the reality is that most people most of the time would know my views on these issues. They’ve been consistent for a long time. I’d argued against many of the moves that the Howard Government had made before the Tampa – I didn’t endorse the policy but I do apologise to those people who feel as if they’ve been misled about my real views. And that’s part of the problem that you face in politics. I mean sometimes you swallow it and sometimes you choke on it.

Question: What’s your response to the main argument of Julia Gillard, as I understand it, for the two tiered system, which is that there needs to be a deterrent to people and people smugglers and people getting into leaky boats risking their lives.

Lawrence: Well it’s not even consistent on that point, because if you get on a leaky boat that reaches Christmas Island then you get one system, and if you get on a leaky boat that reaches Darwin you get the onshore system with some degree of a review – not ideal – but some review – an independent tribunal.

Question: (inaudible) a deterrent in a leaky boat.

Lawrence: I don’t see why. Lots of leaky boats used to get to the coast of Western Australia before they started to go to Christmas Island. The logic is not compelling in my view, and if it’s really about deterring who would you be deterring – the people smugglers or the people who get on the boat? Why punish the people who’ve already had the misfortune to fall into the hands of those bastards?

Question: (inaudible)

Lawrence: When I read the policy on Sunday. That was the trigger but as I say it’s not he only reason and colleagues who know me have known that I’ve been worried for some time. I’ve not kept it a secret from anybody.

Thank you very much.

The disempowerment of faith, Iraq, fragmentation, and the failed WTO protests

 

by John Wojdylo

I don’t see the dichotomy between my views and those of David Makinson that Robin Ford (Webdiary 21/11) does. We’re both saying that we ought to base our actions (say, on the question of disarming Saddam Hussein) on the knowledge we have, without prejudging or making inductive leaps.

In addition, though, I’m saying that if we are horrified at the blood on our hands that might be spilt if we act, then we should also be horrified by the blood that might be on our hands if we choose not to act.

There are no “spaces between” – or third way – that we can escape into.

Different tactics are possible, but these are just part of the same picture – of choosing either action or inaction.

The problem is that sometimes the will of others affects us by causing a choice to stand out from the milieu of events of lesser importance: it forces us into making a choice that actually matters.

It seems to me that another of these seminal choices is currently facing the people of NSW, where the proposed anti-terror legislation threatens to change the legal landscape and the character of the democracy.

The sticking point is not the harsh measures – I think they’re justified, given the nature of the terrorist threat – but that the police minister himself will be given too much power.

In the NSW case, while it remains true that the police minister, along with the government that appointed him, can be voted out of office – the anti-terror measures don’t ban elections – the government would be given a free pass to create mischief while in office, and extra power to manipulate the electorate towards its own ends, particularly at election time.

It has proved itself in the past (e.g. WTO protests) willing to undertake such manipulation: the precedent is there.

An important moment is upon the people of NSW: they are being asked to have faith in the State. In principle, forever.

The Australian’s Editorial (28/11) echoes this sentiment: Australians “should have more confidence in the robustness of Australian democracy”.

But the point is that an important pillar of this robustness will be chipped away by the NSW anti-terror legislation.

The choice is between strengthened democratic structure and faith in the State. I’m afraid that naivety and apathy will conspire to favour the latter.

Yet the solution is relatively simple and painless, if only the will could be found to implement it: an independent authority (e.g. ombudsman, governor) ought to make decisions such as extending the period of validity of the anti-terrorism measures.

The Iraq choice is not so easy.

Seeing complexity in everything (as Derrida urges) is not the most important thing: seeing why a situation is complicated – because we have to make a choice and live with the responsibility – is.

I’m arguing that this is where we’re at because of Saddam Hussein. I’m arguing for responsibility, and for seeing the whole of the world, not just the half of it that makes it easy for us. The half that we avoid might have profound consequences for our lives.

If the belief that we are innocent and disempowered leads us to reject out of hand the wielders of power – “we, the innocent of the world, reject all of you” (DM) – then this belief is preventing us from seeing ourselves and examining our actions, because each of us wields power.

This goes back to the question of responsibilities that accompany rights.

Far from being disempowered, Robin, too, wields power. The statement, “Wojdylo despises the reflection that Makinson holds dear”, unjustly drives a wedge in and fragments the space of the discussion. Readers may be tempted to believe that there is no common ground, when in fact there’s enormous common ground with regards to making decisions to act without prejudging or making inductive leaps. I believe that David simply hasn’t thought his position through carefully enough, and is being a little bit dishonest.

I don’t believe that questioning statements made in public and argumentation in front of an audience is inherently rude and confrontational. Are we to ban mirrors?

It seems to me that scrutiny – not only of elected leaders – is going out of fashion.

Those who forgive – and then forget – their own actions in advance (i.e. don’t think critically about what they doing) are invariably surprised to discover their role in their own downfall. They blame it on someone else instead of accepting their part.

If you like the idea of Zeitgeist, then the feeling of disempowerment may be a product of our times, of friction with modernity. Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, then, the flavour of Islam that has gained ascendancy since the 1970s also bemoans and perpetuates disempowerment, blaming all the ills of Muslim countries on America and the rest of the infidels.

The biggest-gaining religion, however, has been Christianity, due to its boom in the developing world. There, it serves as a form of empowerment partly through strict adherence to rituals that seem harsh by first world standards.

One thread that links all these manifestations of the disempowerment faith is the demagoguery of their high priests and evangelists – the inability to engage with the facts, and lack of arguments in public statements. (See below.)

David may well despair at those who have picked themselves up off the floor after being debilitated by the horror of the reality of Saddam Hussein’s existence, and who manifest a “single-minded drive” for compelling him to disarm. But he ought to feel even more despair at what Saddam manifestly intends to do when he gets hold of a nuclear device, if he isn’t stopped.

Not to mention what Saddam said he will do to Israel and unsubmissive nearby Arab/Muslim countries with his biological and chemical weapons.

Despair can also be brought on by having one’s eyes opened to the vastness of the world – i.e. by having been refuted. That’s one reason why some people believe it’s better not to know anything (“See no evil…”). It’s an expression of life on earth, but this fact alone doesn’t make it right.

It turns out that in traditional societies (e.g. Japan) that live according to the “See no evil…” edict, methods exist for incorporating new elements of reality into the consciousness – i.e. a kind of realism has been part of the thinking for a thousand years or more.

Anti-realism sets in periodically when some principle or belief cuts people off from the facts, and prevents them assimilating new ground-level details. In the 1930s, many Japanese believed that they were the Aryans of Asia and had a divine mandate (from Hirohito) to conquer their part of the world.

Even today, a standard argument one hears in Japan as to why the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour is that the US-led oil embargo forced them to seek natural resources in East Asia.

This is similar to the oft-repeated German argument that the West – especially the United States – was responsible for Hitler’s rise to power, because the humiliating conditions of the Treaty of Versailles created the preconditions for Hitler’s success in the Weimar Republic.

This faith causes people to blame everybody but themselves.

The grain of truth – no, half a grain – in the worldview that rejects world leaders and proclaims one’s own innocence is the fact that with the advent of weapons of mass destruction, a small number of despots can enslave an entire population and use it as pawns for their own ends. It has been happening in Iraq, and is happening again now with the rise of a nuclear-armed North Korea.

Those familiar with the Japanese imperialist-apologia will be disturbed to hear that cutting off a country’s oil supply has been viewed in the past as an act of war (Japan, 1941). How will the insane Kim Jong-il react?

There’s a real choice to be made – and there’s no guarantee that any choice will be the right one, or a painless one. Critics (such as Anatol Lieven) of American actions live the illusion of a simplified world where choices are made in a vacuum: choices have no context, and so all kinds of utopias are possible, and of course none are attained, for which, naturally, the US alone is to blame. (To see this, apply the “basic questions” I listed in “Saddam Hussein’s Desire for Genocide” and “Heart of Darkness”.)

The reflections we hold dear are part of reality: there’s no dichotomy here either. We wield power also through the reflections we hold dear. These have sway over us and others, and affect our actions when they are unexamined.

David is probably unaware that the call for an internationale of innocents was repeated tens of thousands of times by Young Pioneers in the Soviet Union singing cheerful, optimistic and emotionally compelling – at times very beautiful – songs approved by the Politburo.

When the Young Pioneers grew up, many turned into willing apparatchiks for a totalitarian system whose stated and operational aim was to universalise its utopian vision. They started off professing innocence, but ended up wielding terrifying totalitarian power.

Some of those who have been touched by the communist experience are acutely aware of the use that beauty (e.g. a beautiful humanitarian goal) can be put to: i.e., propaganda and manipulation.

I’m not saying David is a communist, but that in his thinking he has hit upon a well-known path. I have no idea how far along he goes in actively retracing it. I suspect hardly at all.

But I can easily imagine situations where people sharing David’s view would unjustly wield their power, because they haven’t bridged the gap between the reflections they hold dear and how to put them into practice.

It’s natural that thinking people rediscover political positions – or snippets of instincts that they haven’t yet developed into a position – that are well-known in history. I’d go so far as to suggest that no new insight is possible. Old insights are merely recycled in different permutations against a backdrop of current circumstances.

We ought to question the instincts we have, try to see where they are taking us – and delimit them from unintended consequences.

This is part of mastering the power that each of us has.

The instinct to confuse “heartfelt reflections” with truth – or the search for truth – is dangerous, especially in political issues, because we leave ourselves open to accepting ex-cathedra pronouncements and unjustified bald assertions that attract and manipulate us.

(I’m always prepared to back up anything I say, upon request.)

I want to comment on one more thing Robin wrote. I’m still quite a way off feeling “contempt” or “despisement” for David Makinson’s view, at least because he hasn’t got it right yet, and I can see that clearly. How can you despise somebody when you understand their condition?

If I felt contempt, then I could not have spent so much time and energy – e.g. reading up on Mahatma Gandhi – trying to scrutinize DM’s position. I went way outside addressing DM’s exact words to try to give readers something of value that they can take with them.

I feel this: Unscrutinized convictions manifest the tragedy of an individual’s life.

Also, I can’t believe that talking about the fatal problems inherent in Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy cannot be “enlightening”, particularly in the present context.

Surely questioning the innocence of respecting human life absolutely is one of the central issues in all of this. Actually, Gandhi’s view is just one aspect of the worldview that I seem to be dealing with over and over again.

* * *

Each protester at the WTO meeting in Sydney had power – at the very least, the power to alienate 99 percent of their target audience. Over and over again – almost with every public utterance – a wedge was driven in that fragmented the space of the discussion.

We all know what authoritarians are capable of. Why make it easy for them?

The opposite approach might well have succeeded.

Imagine if right from the beginning, protest organizers had invited police and media representatives – and anyone else who could bear witness – to attend all stages of planning. Completely openly. No secrets.

No pretending, dishonestly, that the yearning to antagonize the powers-that-be – to provoke them in order to prove a prejudged point – did not exist at all.

Imagine if the manipulators of public opinion hadn’t been aided and abetted by fragmentary thinking, and instead the community as a whole had been given the chance to embrace the legitimate core of the protest.

Another example: strengthened by the solidarity of their mates, some found the power to wear and raise the symbol of the Gulag Archipelago.

The media, naturally – as at every demonstration of this sort around the world – paid disproportionate attention to this, and the photo appeared all over Australia. Those amongst the general public who remember what that symbol means had a ready reason to ignore everything after that. The point of the demonstration was lost.

Belief in personal disempowerment and subsequent innocence – together with mindless seeking of solidarity – might well have been the central cause of the failure of the WTO protests.

I mean “failure” in the sense that the media and others were handed complete victory in marginalizing the protesters by portraying them as worthless rabble and a danger to society, while the legitimate core of the protests was ignored outside protesters’ heads.

In Sunrise of the Autocrats (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/06/25/1023864577458.html) I argued that the legitimate core consists of drawing attention to (a) the unfair wielding of power by the rich countries and (b) the need to make sure that trade deals are enforced in accordance with the law.

Especially because of the latter point, the fact that NSW police were always going to play a prominent role in the protest one way or another could have been used to advantage to sway members of the wider community. The legitimate core of the protest stands up for the law.

An obvious central platform in which people in all walks of life and the entire political spectrum could have taken part went begging: namely, GATS and the secrecy surrounding it.

It should not have been possible for a photograph – or TV news footage – to be taken without a banner addressing GATS and the secrecy surrounding it plainly in view.

The same mistakes as in every protest of this sort around the world appeared again – pushing imagined opponents away instead of inviting them in and talking and finding common ground. Instead, no message was projected out, except the one invented by the media.

Naturally, there are irreconcilable differences in the positions of the various participant groups – some want the overthrow of capitalism, while others think the WTO, and lower tariffs, can do much, much more for the world’s poor than any handouts can.

But as long as each group promotes its own view instead of reinforcing the central core, these protests will continue to be vulnerable to manipulation by powerful interest groups. The protests will continue to fail.

The cause of it is bloody-minded self-centredness, failure to see beyond yourself, that you’re not doing it for yourself or for your comrades, nor in the name of various nostalgias and utopian visions, but for the whole of our motley society. Even for the parts of it that despise, for whatever reason, the group you are from.

The entire focus should have been on getting the one message across that everybody can agree on.

Why not wear a neutral colour – white? Could have been a small boost to Australia’s clothing industry if everybody bought an Australia-made white T-shirt.

Given the nature of modern mass media, if 10 people wear red and hold red flags, and ten thousand wear white, the media will sensationalize the ten “commos”. It’s utterly predictable. So why not think, next time?

It should be obvious by now how police around the world are dealing with these protests. Those who baited police brought it on themselves and others.

Once again, instead of opening up new vistas and entering new territory, the thinking was tautological. Locked up in itself, its own complexes.

“We are disempowered in the face of a hegemony” – “we insist on this particular provocative act, because it is our right” – (and after incurring the wrath of the authorities, who acted completely predictably) “look how evil the authorities are! We are disempowered in the face of a hegemony!”

Since the goal of the protest ought to be for the good of the whole society, nobody ought to have anything to hide.

Protest organizers should have invited police and media representatives to attend all stages of planning, right from day one, before it was declared illegal. Police representatives should have been allowed to contribute to the discussion, just like everybody else present.

Get dialogue happening between authorities and protest organizers – not poisonous shouting matches, irrespective of “who started it”. Publicize the meetings, the spirit of cooperation.

Build a broad base from all sections of society – because GATS has implications for the whole of our society. There should be nothing for anybody to be afraid of.

And assure potential participants that the meeting will not be hijacked by one or another group peddling nostalgias and utopian visions. And assure participants that if treachery does happen, protest organizers will condemn those groups for breaking a pact and disassociate themselves from them for the benefit of the whole.

If the protest has to collapse because of self-centredness-induced fragmentation, then it’s just another sign that Australia is too immature a society to take personal responsibility seriously.

Authoritarianism will fill the gap. GATS, the NSW anti-terror legislation…

The crazy thing about this disempowerment faith is that people from all political persuasions believe in it. Witness the plethora of right-leaning publications decrying “leftist domination” of the media in Australia.

The right feels disempowered, burns inside and shouts down the left, setting in motion the vilest of currents against those that are not like “us”.

The left feels disempowered, and burns inside while reciting demagoguish mantras, devoid of any rational argument.

Everybody’s talking past each other.

Each side sees only themselves and their fraternal mates. Solidarity among the right, solidarity among the left. And the circus goes on.

The ability to argue the facts has gone out the window. People feel too vulnerable to reveal their mind in public. This is accompanied by a plague of demagoguery: failure to engage with the facts, and mindless sloganeering.

This, in turn, perpetuates the feeling of disempowerment.

This phenomenon is so ubiquitous that any example seems too banal. Let just one suffice: the essay, “The Push for War”, by Anatol Lieven, in the London Review of Books (3/10). The essay was enthusiastically recommended by Phillip Adams on LNL late November.

But it is atrociously written. (To see why, apply the “basic questions” in my piece, “Saddam Hussein’s Heart of Darkness”, to it.) The reader struggles to find one rational argument, one statement that is aimed at persuading the reader why they should change their mind.

Lieven’s essay attempts to reflect the reader’s desires and fears, rather than argue for a better understanding of the Iraq question. It tries to manipulate its audience by telling it what it wants to hear. It is demagoguery par excellence.

* * *

Bob Carr used exactly the same method (though in his case, the aggression was overt) against Margo, to impress supporters of “strong” government. He tried to crush her, but instead produced a gem. (She has been galvanised to articulate herself excellently apropos the NSW anti-terror legislation.)

People want to believe something, and the demagogue gives it to them.

If we were hearing poetry, that’d be fine – but on the Iraq question, we’re talking about the most important political decision that has faced humanity in many decades.

Even poetry, though, can move mountains or instigate witch-hunts.

Bob Carr, incidentally, was wrong in the demagoguery he directed at Margo Kingston. At the time Margo wrote her Bali piece, it was not clear who was responsible for the bombing. It could have been local rivalry (though I never gave much weight to this possibility).

I have seen this sort of rivalry in the old part of Jerusalem: relations between an Israeli Arab and an Armenian businessmen were at a dangerous low. The Armenian condemned the loud music – and drunken westerners – that was emanating from the Arab’s youth hostel till 3am every night as a defilement of the Holy City, and threatened reprisals. Nothing ever came of the threat, as far as I’m aware.

Without knowing the Al Qaeda/JI links, it is within the realms of possibility that a local decided to teach a rival – and all decadent westerners defiling a holy site we don’t know about – a lesson. We “decadent westerners” as a whole – not any in particular – would have been culpable, but not to blame.

Bob Carr seemed to take Margo’s Bali contemplation as a denial that Al Qaeda represents a serious threat to Australia. He thought Margo meant: “as long as we know the root causes for which we are to blame, we can reverse the threat from JI/Al Qaeda”, and this was starkly contradicted by the will for evil by the Bali bombers.

In any case, I think there was much more to his outburst: Margo had hit at least two raw nerves, with her attacking Carr’s developer links, as well as with the publishing of WTO protest material in Webdiary.

The connection with the latter is possibly the following. Paddy McGuinness – who idiotically likened the protesters to Nazis – is a good friend of Carr’s. I have a suspicion that McGuinness influenced NSW police policy towards the protesters. If Carr indeed talks to PP about these things, then I’d advise him to seek better counsel.

McGuinness despises “the inherent authority that is superior to that of the people and parliaments” (SMH 16/3/2000) which people like the WTO protesters evidently claim to have.

He believes in absolute democracy. If “the people” elect national socialists, then so be it. The “will of the people” is sacred – and our elected leaders are the incarnation of God. We must obey unquestioningly, and have faith in the State.

The Australian’s Editorial (28/11) echoes this sentiment: Australians “should have more confidence in the robustness of Australian democracy”.

But an important pillar of this robustness will be chipped away by the NSW anti-terror legislation, when the police minister himself is given the power to decide, for instance, whether the anti-terror measures are to be implemented for additional lengths of time.

The decision to extend the period should be made by an independent authority.

While it remains true that the police minister, along with the government that appointed him, can be voted out of office – the anti-terror measures don’t ban elections – the government would be given a free pass to create mischief while in office, and extra power to manipulate the electorate towards its own ends.

* * *

The clash of civilizations in Australia is not between political left versus right. It’s between those for whom the ground level details loom large and who build their cathedrals of principles from the ground up in a disordered sort of way; and those whose cathedral building blocks somehow get born into the world from transcendental heights, and are fashioned into shape through experience and questioning.

Actually the clash is not between these two ways of thinking – there’s no reason why they shouldn’t agree, since they’re working in the same reality – but between corrupted versions of them.

Corruption happens when people stop asking questions, cease engaging with the facts, but nevertheless keep wielding power. This holds in all cultures – Japan, for example, too.

Then the disordered, ground-level conscience weakens the other’s already brittle, orderly cathedral (or golden pavilion): it is vehemently rejected.

First published in ‘Carr’s new police powers’, webdiaryDec3

Once again, our media has failed us when it comes to protecting our civil rights. Everyone talks about rights and responsibilities these days, but the media has vacated the field on insisting that governments be responsible for the protection of our liberties, rather than take advantage of fear to trample them under cover of the war on terrorism.

I noticed this sad development early this year when the federal government put out its proposed laws creating the criminal offence of “a terrorist act”. A bit of it looked like closing down leaks to the media in the public interest. We jumped up and down – stories, features, editorials – and the government backed down. We then fell virtually silent on the potential for the law to create terrorists of our union picketers and political protesters, and to give the police complete discretion as to whether to charge people under normal laws or under the new, draconian provisions.

I wrote extensively on this issue in Webdiary at the time, and noted that despite the media’s lack of interest in standing up for our citizens, as distinct from its own interests, grass roots action and the core beliefs of backbench Liberals prepared to listen to the evidence of lawyers and community groups in a Senate inquiry saved the day.

Now the NSW Labor government wants to go much further than the federal law. It will countenance no inquiry. In the two weeks since Bob Carr released his proposals for sweeping new police powers and demanded that the Upper House make them law this week without any inquiry or request for public input, the media has been virtually silent, again. The opposition has not participated in a debate to draw out the issues. It looks like a fait accompli.

Is it the climate of fear since September 11, a fear intensified since the Bali bombings? Is it the stifling, dysfunctional, state of public debate in NSW? Has the media decided that in dangerous times it is an arm of government – its role to demand and foster trust in government whatever its flaws and whatever the dangers of abuse of power?

The legal profession has also failed in its role as watchdog of a healthy relationship between the state and the citizen. I think its key failing is its refusal to move from the position it takes in normal times, when the profession’s role is to focus only on protecting liberties. The argument – with which I agree – is that in the long term, our civil liberties are what makes us a democracy, and that the checks and balances of democracy are essential to preserving it. The bottom line, the truth of which is proved over and over by history, is an absence of trust in government, any government, to not abuse unaccountable power.

A new position is required in these dangerous times. In my view, it is the duty of government to do all it can to prevent a terrorist attack on our soil. If it didn’t, and people were killed in an attack, government would have no defence.

Bob Carr has two arguments which are unanswerable in the current climate. He must act to protect our safety. The matter is urgent – the federal government has told us it fears a terrorist attack here over summer. So, protection and urgency are rational, unarguable, reasons for emergency powers for police to break into our homes and search us without reasonable cause and without warrants.

To actively engage in and influence the debate, lawyers would have to move from their not-at-any-price argument to the position that in these dangerous times, maximum safeguards must be built in to the suspension of our civil liberties, to ensure trust in government, unity in defence of our way of life, and surety that our liberties will return when the danger has passed.

I don’t see how a government could successfully answer a thoughtful case along these lines. There is absolutely no justification for Bob Carr wanting to exempt his government from any legal scrutiny of its exercise of the new powers, its refusal to countenance regular public reporting of the exercise of those powers or parliamentary monitoring of its operation, or a sunset clause to enable vigorous public debate on the merits of and detail of the new laws.

No such case is being put by the media, the legal profession, or the NSW Opposition.

Here is a piece I wrote for smh.come.au on Friday.

***

Be warned; Carr’s terror law is an abuse of power

By Margo Kingston

November 29 2002

Unaccountable power always produces abuse of power. Abuse of power means innocent people get hurt. It means people lose more trust in the integrity and trust worthiness of their government, and that they come to fear it instead. The deliberate or careless fostering of fear within a fearful community facing a terrible threat to its collective security is the antithesis of leadership, and a recipe for the disintegration of our democracy.

We live in a time of national crisis, when our safety is threatened by terrorist attacks without warning. Often the first instinct of government in such circumstances is to grant itself more power and control over us and to sweep away the checks and balances which keep government honest. There are three main constraints on this.

The first is the official opposition. The second is the power of the courts – the arbiter of disputes between citizens and the State – to ensure that the State apparatus acts within the powers granted to it by the people through the parliament. The third is open, public discussion on the merits of increasing state power and the accountability expected for its exercise.

Bob Carr released his Terrorism (Police Powers) Bill 2002 last week. It is a profoundly shocking document. It lets the people of NSW down, it betrays our democracy, and it lays the foundation for State terror on innocent citizens.

Bob Carr solemnly asserts that he is deeply committed to our freedoms and liberties. If this is so, I ask: Why do you exempt the police minister from any accountability whatsoever – by the courts or anyone else – for the exercise by your police minister of the new powers you want to give him? If you were committed to the protection of our civil liberties while ensuring our safety from terrorist attacks, wouldn’t you want judicial oversight? Wouldn’t you want a citizen who believed he was wronged the right to test the validity of Mr Costa’s actions? Wouldn’t you want to be sure that the new police powers you insist are now necessary are properly exercised, and not abused?

Remember, this bill gives any police minister, at any time in the future, these powers. This is a fundamental structural change in the relationship between the citizen and the State. Neither Australia or NSW has a bill of rights. When rights and liberties are removed in NSW, there is no way back.

Mr Carr wants to give the police minister, for now the confrontational, controversial and openly divisive Michael Costa, the responsibility for authorising what are, in effect, serial states of emergency. Target areas, people, and objects can be declared, allowing police untrammeled power to break into your home or vehicle and search it, and to frisk or strip search you. Giving any minister this power, let alone one with Michael Costa’s record, is too awesome to also give him total immunity from scrutiny. It’s called absolute power.

Section 13 of Mr Carr’s bill states: “An authorisation (and any decision of the Police Minister under this part with respect to the authorisation) may not be challenged, reviewed, quashed or called into question on any grounds whatsoever before any court, tribunal, body or person in any legal proceedings, or restrained, removed, or otherwise affected by proceedings in the nature of prohibition or mandamus.”

There it is, in black and white. Michael Costa can, quite literally, do what he likes. You have no redress. Mr Carr has knocked out the judiciary as a check on power. What of the NSW opposition?

I spoke to the shadow police minister, Andrew Tink, today. He said he would not “go down the road” of commenting on Mr Costa’s record as police minister, or his actions regarding protesters against the WTO two weeks ago. He opposed requiring an independent person to oversee the police. “In the terrorist situation there has to be someone exercising the powers.The police minister is the logical office holder to do it,” he said.

His only amendment in this regard will be to make the police minister subject to the jurisdiction of the Independent Commission Against Corruption. He is otherwise happy with Mr Costa’s immunity from accountability. He said the opposition had not decided whether or not to pass the bill if his amendment failed.

Not only does Mr Carr want unaccountable police powers put in place, he doesn’t want to give the public the right to know what’s happening under them. He wants secrecy, too, another subversion of a key mechanism to maintain our democracy, that of transparency and public debate.

There is no requirement under the bill to report to parliament or the people on what authorisations have occurred, what they involved, and the results of them. Mr Carr’s lack of good faith is also proved by the fact that he wants the bill rushed through parliament next week without ANY inquiry to allow public discussion and input, and with no sunset clause.

Given that emergency powers need to be rushed through, wouldn’t a Premier deeply committed to our liberties and freedoms order an immediate parliamentary or independent inquiry to report back so considered legislation could be passed to replace the emergency laws?

No. Mr Carr wants these police-state powers to remain on the books indefinitely. I asked Mr Tink why the opposition would let the bill pass without a sunset clause to allow an inquiry. “Because I believe we face an emergency terrorist threat,” he replied. I suggested that given this, there was no reason not to pass the bill as a temporary measure now, with a sunset clause. He said he was happy with section 36. It says: “The minister is to review this Act to determine whether the policy objectives of the Act remain valid and whether the terms of the Act remain appropriate for securing those objectives”. (He is to table a report within a year of each years review.)

So, the police minister reviews himself and reports to parliament what he reckons.

Mr Tink believes this to be an appropriate way of ensuring that these emergency powers don’t stay on the books at the government’s convenience.

The opposition has bowed out of its democratic responsibilities.

We live in dangerous, frightening times. Emotions are high, prejudices aflame. There is deep division within our society on the correct approach to take to win the war on terror. The suspension of the citizen’s protection against abuse of State power may be necessary, but it is fraught with terrible dangers to the way of life we are fighting to preserve.

There are several, very basic ways to improve Mr Carr’s bill to ensure that our personal safety is protected without trashing our rights with impunity. The opposition, it seems, is too frightened to put them up or mount the case for them in the current climate. The lack of leadership in NSW has never been more obvious, or more dangerous for us all.