G’Day. Who’s who in the AbbottHanson zoo? Antony Loewenstein has agreed to keep an eye on who emerges from where and on whose side as the Honest Politics Trust slowly opens up to public scrutiny and comment. His first report features Peter Garrett (Abbott fund supporter), Trevor Kennedy (fund donor) and Cedric Hampson QC (Hanson’s defender on appeal).
Mutual appreciation society
by Antony Loewenstein
The platitudes and and the recriminations are laced with an air of insincerity. Since the sentencing of Hanson and Ettridge and their failure to gain bail, the individuals behind the original court case are still mired in the shadows.
Weblogger and former Webdiarist Tim Dunlop had PETER GARRETT in his sights last week, after the former Oils frontman supported the actions of Abbott in 1998. So much for the left’s supposed desire for representative democracy. When a hero of the left like Garrett can come out and support a fundamentally antidemocratic movement, spearheaded by Abbott and secretive backers calling themselves Australians for Honest Politics, some serious questions have to be asked about the real motives and desires of those aiming for political office. As for those already in politics, Dunlop writes:
“Fact is, Garrett just sounds like another one of those who pretend to want wide participation in the political process but actually want to limit it to the like-minded. If he wants to rid the world of Hansonite policies, he should try and win the arguments, not endorse what looks like conservative party dirty tricks.”(Abbott’s Garrett)
Let’s examine some of the people so keen to derail the democratic process in the name of avoiding Big Party losses at the ballot box, along with the main players in the Hanson game.
TREVOR KENNEDY
Trevor Kennedy has outed himself as agreeing to “throw in” $10,000 for the fund to take on Hanson. On August 29, The Age revealed that Kennedy had no qualms about the three year jail term for Hanson and Ettridge:
“It took me about three seconds to make up my mind that I would support itv (the HPT),” Mr Kennedy said. “I certainly subscribed to the notion that getting up and denouncing Hanson as a Nazi was not necessarily going to be as effective as exposing the financial shenanigans and the lack of democracy in her organisation.” (Abbott donor: I gave gladly)
Kennedy is a former editor of Kerry Packer’s The Bulletin and head of Packer’s Consolidated Press Holdings.
In a column in Junen this year, Robert Manne detailed the backroom dealings at the ABC to replace Jonathan Shier with Kennedy:
“For the right, the most important move to “reform” the ABC came with the appointment of the hapless and hopeless Jonathan Shier as general manager. Shier must be regarded as one of the right’s more spectacular recent own goals. Following his removal there was an attempt to recover lost ground by the imposition as general manager of Trevor Kennedy of Packer media. The attempt misfired. The chairman of the ABC board, Donald MacDonald, a true conservative and thus a genuine believer in due process and the independence of the ABC, turned down Kennedy’s belated job application. An internal candidate, Russell Balding, was appointed. For the right this represented a considerable defeat.” (McCarthy’s Ghost in ABC attack)
Annabel Crabb of The Age noted in late May:
“Last year, McDonald steadfastly refused to interview ex-Nine executive Trevor Kennedy for the managing director’s job, ignoring helpful public suggestions from the Prime Minister, Treasurer Peter Costello and Alston. ‘”He’s gone native!'” was the cry.”
Clearly the Liberal Government is fond of Kennedy, despite his many years of supporting the Labor Party.
Why was Kennedy a port of call for Abbott in 1998 when passing around the collection tin to help bring down One Nation? And was Kennedy hoping to get out of his ‘donation’? Abbott and Howard claim the slush fund was completely separate from the Liberal Party, but the public support for Kennedy by members of the Howard Government earlier this year raises questions about its transparency, accountability and favours system.
Abbott suggested on the Sunday Sunrise program on August 31 that Trevor Kennedy was a long-time supporter of the Labor Party, without explaining why members of his own cabinet were so strong in advocating Kennedy’s appointment to the ABC board a few months ago:
“Trevor Kennedy is a long-time supporter of the Labor Party. One of the points that I really should make is that there are certain sections of the media and certain sections of the Labor Party who really would like to create, or to recreate, the Hanson phenomenon because for these people something like Hanson is necessary to validate their view of Australia and to validate their view of conservative politics. You see, they have this view of Australia as some kind of dark, disreputable, racist kind of country. If they can point to Hanson and say, “Look, she’s alive,” that validates them. It’s almost as if Hanson has become a sacred monster for sections of the left.”
There’s also a close association between Kennedy and MALCOLM TURNBULL, darling of the Liberal Party, former party treasurer, past head of the Republican movement and potential Liberal MP. In 1998, theSydney Morning Herald reported on the astounding success of the Ozemail computer company, launched by Sean Howard (no relation). The company caught the eye of Kennedy, then boss of Packer’s ACP in 1995. The SMH reported in early April 1998:
“OzEmail will list on the Australian Stock Exchange sometime this year. Not only has Howard got rich on the deal – on paper anyway because he hasn’t sold any shares – but so have Trevor Kennedy and merchant banker Malcolm Turnbull. Both decided to back Howard’s Internet adventure back in 1995 by spending less than $1 million each to grab a little over 15 per cent each. Those stakes are now worth on paper $55 million each. Kennedy became an investor in OzEmail after Howard ran into Kennedy’s secretary at a party. Howard mentioned he was looking for investors and was told Kennedy might be interested. Kennedy then recommended that Howard ask Turnbull to join as chairman.”
These connections prove little and they may all be interesting coincidences. But questions are invariably raised. Was Turnbull involved in any way with forming a relationship between Kennedy and Abbott? When Abbott called Kennedy in 1998 asking for money for his slush fund, was he calling as a private individual or as a member of the Liberal Party? The answer to this question is essential, as the politics and allegiances of Kennedy at the time would surely have determined whether he would have donated $10,000 to the fund. There is no suggestion to date that Turnbull has any role in the Trust.
It seems there are a number of questions that key donors, once revealed, need to answer.
1) When Abbott rang for money, was he ringing as an individual or as a member of the Liberal Party?
2) What did you see as the purpose of the slush fund?
3) Were you a member of any political party when you donated money?
4) What did think would be the effect of legal action against One Nation?
5) What did you think would be the benefits to the two major parties with the (possible) eradication of One Nation?
CEDRIC HAMPSON QC
The Queensland based Cedric Hampson QC leads the Hanson appeal team. In 1991, he worked for the Queensland’s Criminal Justice Commission, taking on Christopher Skase for alleged payments to candidates in the Gold Coast City Council elections.
He rose to national prominence with his involvement in the Fitzgerald Inquiry in the late 1990s. In February 1998, the SMH reported that Hampson was “totally free to concentrate on helping Fitzgerald get to the truth of his inquiries”.
The Queensland Bar News’ biography of Hampson in 2001 paints an intriguing picture:
“At one time or another, Hampson QC has led many of the State’s current judges and senior counsel. To be his junior is an invaluable educational experience – not only for what one can learn from his profound knowledge of the law, his finely-honed forensic techniques, and his wealth of litigious experience, but also for the courtesy and kindness which he shows to his instructing solicitors, his clients, and (above all) his juniors. Anyone who has the good fortune to work with him, or the intellectual challenge of working against him, cannot fail to benefit from the experience.
It is quite impossible to catalogue the extent and significance of Hampson’s contribution to the development of the law in Queensland and Australia, across the vast range of cases in which he has appeared at every level. A perusal of the Commonwealth Law Reports and the Queensland Reports since the early 1960s readily demonstrates, not only the huge number of cases in which he has appeared, but also the extraordinary diversity of those cases – crime, personal injuries, defamation, commercial and industrial matters, town planning cases, property disputes, and constitutional matters. One might say, as Thomas Moore said of Sheridan, that he has “run through each mode of the lyre, and was master of all.”
Highlights include numerous appearances as counsel for the Criminal Justice Commission or as counsel assisting inquiries conducted by that body – including the Carruthers Inquiry and the Connolly-Ryan Inquiry. He been counsel assisting at numerous Royal Commissions and Commissions of Inquiry, including two major inquiries into the illicit drug trade
Whenever members of either branch of the legal profession have found themselves in professional difficulties, Cedric Hampson has been and continues to be their first choice of representation. Some of the most affluent, influential and powerful members of society – along with many thousands of ordinary Queenslanders – have turned to Cedric Hampson for assistance in their time of need.
Another interesting historical coincidence is Hampson’s appearance before Justice Patricia Wolfe in 1998. Sound familiar? She’s the same judge who sent Hanson and Ettridge away for three years. In June 1998 at the Fitzgerald Inquiry, Wolfe made the following statements that show her contempt for sections of the media. In light of her recent decision against Hanson, it would appear she is not one to give in to media pressure surrounding a controversial subject.
In a biting analysis of the inquiry, SMH journo Evan Whitton wrote in 1998:
“Deputy Commissioner Patricia Wolfe appeared to suggest that certain unnamed elements of the media were the tools of the corrupt. What she said was that ‘some elements of the media’ continue to propagate certain myths. The myths she spoke of were that ‘so-called victimless crimes are little more than harmless escapades’.”