Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

G’Day. I’ve just finished my Sun Herald column for Sunday, on public education, at the end of a another fascinating political week. It began with the shock Newspoll showing Labor neck and neck with the Coalition despite Labor’s attempts to eat its leader raw.

Howard’s defensive reshuffle underlined the government’s weakness – not that you’d have known it from the press gallery’s breathless blather – as did the adverse public reaction to Costello’s big surplus. Like, how come there’s all this money left over when public education is falling apart, our teachers are being poached by the old country, our innocents are dying through lack of attention in public hospitals and universities don’t have the money to train the nurses we need, our trains aren’t safe because our infrastructure is in disrepair and we’ve done so little to save our water that full-on crisis restrictions apply at the start of spring?

Carmen Lawrence set the hares running on Webdiary with her public education manifesto. Tonight, responses from Liberal Webdiary columnist Harry Heidelberg and regular Webdiary contributor Peter Funnell. But first, the letter from One Nation’s Len Harris to students in Queensland which at a stroke repositioned the Party and scared the daylights out of the government.

Len’s an old gold miner from North Queensland. He talks slow and has excellent manners and a good heart. I lobbied him on cross media in June with trepidation, as the last time we’d come face to face was in Longreach during the 1998 election, when we had a row on the Wik legislation.

He knew exactly what was at stake on cross media though, and we smiled at our unlikely alliance. It reminded me of the experience of a friend of mine, a member of a minor party, in 1998. She’d done a radio interview during which she praised Pauline Hanson for demanding a boost in spending on public education, only to be roundly castigated by some colleagues for sleeping with the enemy. But hell, most of us have common ground on some things – why are we so loathe to admit it and work together when we can?

Len’s bout of publicity this week was a classic One Nation story. He was on the road in Western Queensland doing a deep outback tour through Quilpie and Cunnamulla when his offsider Joyce mentioned he was getting a lot of letters from Queensland university students asking him to oppose Howard’s higher education “reforms”. Len dictated a letter off the top of his head, and the next thing he knew the students had given it to the media and, with some bemusement, praised him to high heaven for his stand. Here’s the text of Len’s letter:

Dear …

Thank you for your letter of the .. 2003 in relation to the Education Bill.

One Nation will not support the main planks of the Federal Government’s higher education package.

I oppose it on the grounds that it is not acceptable to impose on our young academics a substantive debt for the major part of their lives.

Whilst technology is now so demanding that Australia needs a better educated workforce to keep pace with world developments, students should not bear the brunt of the costs.

The Government and federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson has been “pretty bloody-minded” in tying funding increases to industrial relations reforms. This equates to holding the University to ransom to force Universities to implement Liberal Party policies.

Universities should be free to allocate public funding to sectors that the Universities believe are in the best interest of Australia and the Community.

One Nation opposes the Government’s proposal to reform compulsory union fees.

The term Compulsory Student Union Fees are being improperly used by the media. In reality, it should be referred to as student contribution. Student contributions go towards providing such things as library facilities, child care, student counselling etc.

One Nation’s position is that the services are absolutely essential for students to complete courses. They should be contributed to by all students, thus sharing the costs.

One Nation continues to vote on legislation after having consulted with the community to ensure that those decisions reflect the wishes of the majority of the people.

Yours faithfully

Len Harris

***

Harry Heidelberg

This is getting scary. I agree with Carmen Lawrence!

Education is the passport to equality. If we want justice for all, we have to educate all. Equally.

It really does seem that core Australian values are egalitarianism and the so-called “fair-go”. This sounds a lot like social justice to me, and if we are to live up to our Australian “creed” then we need to satisfy ourselves that we are not designing systems that magnify inequality.

This is not about punishing excellence. It is about raising the target for ALL.

We excel on a global basis at sport but we don’t say our broad-based sporting programs punish excellence. Not for a second. Excellence is encouraged at every turn and opportunity begs for excellence at every second turn.

Perhaps elitist schools based on religion should go back to their creed. I seem to remember something in the Bible that went along these lines: “Whatsoever you do to the least of your brothers, that you do unto me”. This is a very clear instruction that everyone, no matter what their circumstances, needs to be raised up by their fellow human being.

That’s raised up, not pushed down. Earlier religious figures, at least in the Catholic Church, realised that in geographies where they were discriminated against (eg early Australia) one of the most powerful ways to overcome sectarian disadvantage was by a focus on EDUCATION. Catholics then systematically set about to educate their young.

Paul Keating left a Marist Brothers school at 15 but he could certainly read and write. Some of these poorer schools did exceptionally well.

This is 2003 however, and we’re a secular state. At least I hope we are. We should be proud of that fact. We don’t need to resort to a religious creed to find our collective feeling. The secular spiritual roots of Australia (now there is a potential contradiction in terms) are most certainly toward egalitarianism. It goes much further than convicts and 1788.

It is why the Prime Minister sits in the front seat with his driver. It is why he wanted “mateship” in a preamble to the Constitution.

My fear is that these empty gestures will become the last remaining symbols of our shared belief in egalitarianism. Yes, we pull together in disasters. We put out fires together. We have much to be proud of. When times are good though, do we look out for each other?

Beyond the heroics and the undoubted strength of the national character, there needs to be a daily dedication to the original creed. Do we live it or do we just say it?

It’s time to decide. We are at the cross roads and now we can decide whether the original creed was crap or whether we should stick with it.

We were more civilised than our colonial masters because we were ultimately better at finding ways to “tame the savage beast of man”. We need to hold onto our roots. The good parts that said beneath our distinctive accent was a deep enlightenment that we had found a better way. We had turned our backs on class and the Old World. The Aborigines were excluded, but if you were white you would be judged in our new society not on who your father was, what your religion was or what school you went to. It became more about what you did. A kind of enlightened egalitarian meritocracy. Really. That is what it was (or is).

Advance Australia Fair.

This spirit is still there and the people who can nurture it will be the heroes of generations to come. Our society is human and as flawed as any other, but if we can energise those special original feelings we can become something even more special. We just need to turn our backs on despair and become what we always were.

In his own way, Slim Dusty reminded us of that last week. We can’t meet our impossible creed, but let’s shoot for it again.

One hundred years ago, Australia was one of the richest, most socially progressive societies on the planet. Let’s not stuff it up 100 years later.

PS: I might add that any decent rational economist not appealing to sentiment as I often do would tell you that high quality education delivered to the broadest range of citizens is a feature of successful economies. Tie it in with Knowledge Nation. We will fall behind if we don’t focus on it. There is a VERY practical need to raise the educational bar.

And another thought. The PM talks about “practical reconciliation” – we should consider “practical egalitarianism”, something beyond using the word mate a lot and sitting in the front seat.

***

Peter Funnell in Canberra

It was uncanny reading Carmen’s article in the context of a small set-to I was having with the Headmaster of my son’s school (Canberra Grammar) and the general experience my wife is having at present as a new secondary school teacher in the ACT public school system (she has made a late career change from engineering in Defence).

CGS has been running a very self serving (and self righteous) campaign to get more funding from the ACT Government. They have got together with other private schools and decided to lobby the ACT Chief Minister and Minister for Education by attaching two “postcards” to our school newsletter and entreating parents to send them off.

This got us really off side. We send our six year old to CGS for three important reasons. The public system is all too often simply not good enough, the CGS infants school on the Northside is outstanding, and we can afford to do this with one child. Our preference is not naturally for the private system, but we have one precious child and will not take a chance that he gets anything less than a good start.

Like anyone with any sense at all, we wish every school, public and private was like the one our son goes to every day. They should be! Every parent I talk to would support the public system if they could be convinced that their children would not be disadvantaged. Like us, they are lucky enough to have the disposable income to have options. This is not the society we want in this nation.

People are streaming out the public system, particularly to the lower cost private schools (often with religious origins) and the reasons are quite clear – these schools are not always the best resourced, but they are prepared to establish and maintain personal and group standards of dress, behaviour and discipline in order to give every child a chance to be educated. The lack of it is so pronounced in the public system(s) that it seriously compromises the quality of the educational outcomes for many good students and in so doing, limits their chances in life. There is of course a lot more to this, but this is a catastrophe for this nation.

I have just finished working with a large outdoor education provider and had the opportunity to speak in detail to a number of teachers from public and private school systems. The situation in the public system appears to range from good to down right dangerous, and the schools are all hopelessly under-resourced.

The teachers are impressive and hopelessly underpaid for the enormous amount of work they do. Governments exploit these important people who have so much influence on our children going forward. In terms of their operational pressure, I would put teachers and police on the same level and well beyond the rest of us.

I wrote an email to the Headmaster of CGS after receiving the ridiculous “postcards”. To date, we haven’t even got an acknowledgement. Here is the email:

Headmaster,

Today I have caught up with the latest copy of my son’s newsletter.

To my surprise, attached to it are two postcards, the explanation for which was tucked away in a section titled “Non government schools community campaign”.

I found the explanation for the campaign material disappointing and a bit thin. For example: “….parents of children in non government schools were contributing substantially to the education of their children”. Well of course we are, and we chose to do so by opting out (for whatever reason) of the public system. Talk about a glimpse of the blindingly obvious!

“All school children deserve government support for their education” – we get it now! But not enough, in the opinion of some.

If we get more funds from the ACT Government (and I rate you no chance at all), will you reduce the CGS fees? I think not Sir!

I have no problem with your advocating of a case for appropriate levels of funding. I would expect government to underwrite some quantum of the education costs which would otherwise be provided (to some amount) by government. Thus far, I have yet to hear a completely convincing case (from a public policy viewpoint) for an entirely equitable funding model.

A small point of comparison to illustrate my point (and concern). My wife teaches at an ACT High School – it’s awful, discipline is hopelessly adrift, it’s dangerously under resourced, learning is seriously compromised to the great detriment of many good students, teachers are poorly supported by their bureaucracy and occasionally placed at risk, and there are bright children there that would prosper wonderfully at CGS but are stuck at the public high school. Teachers in the public system (at least most of the ones I have met) are every bit as committed to their students as are those at CGS. In short, this public high school is absolutely nothing like CGS!

I work with teachers from several States in the public system and the story is so similar it is depressing and worrying for the future of our nation. Our pursuit of additional funding for CGS does not stand in isolation from the wider community education situation. It is not simply a “business” issue, a grab for more of the “cake”, but that’s the way it looks.

We send our son to CGS because it is everything that a place like the school in which my wife teaches is not. And that weighs heavily on my mind every day of the week. I would hope that every Australian child could have what CGS has to offer. There seems no hope of this outcome.

So choice, the option to avoid the problematic circumstances in the public system, a system in decay, comes at a price to the parents. We, like others, devote a significant proportion of our disposable income to CGS in order to avoid the chaos at places like that public school and in doing so, give our son a chance others do not have.

“Equity”, Sir, does not come into it! Let’s not pretend it does. So what is left? We have a social responsibility, an awareness, that goes well beyond the wonderful opportunities at CGS, opportunities underwritten by parents with a bit more money to spend than others. It comes down to that every time. What the government does not provide, we replace from our family resources. Who would we take it from, if not ourselves?

I will support CGS getting a fair share of the public purse (whatever that means). I am not yet convinced that the current position taken by the ACT Government is not reasonable. They were elected to make such decisions.

With all this in mind, I must tell you that while I found the “postcard” to the Chief Minister acceptable, the “postcard” to the ACT Minister for Education was offensive, bordering on childish and entirely inappropriate. It should be withdrawn.

In all the circumstances, do you really think this is the way forward to negotiate with the Minister and Government? I have no desire to join my support to other schools. I would appreciate you conveying this message to the school’s APFACTS representative.

You have my support, but please tread carefully on this issue. There is no moral high ground on this one.

 

Twilight hour. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

After scrambling her brain on joint custody, Webdiary columnist Polly Bush has plunged into the maelstrom of superannuation rights for same sex couples. The government won’t pass its super reforms for anyone if gay couples get equity on super, and this tortured debate is scheduled to resume in the Senate next week.

Valuing love

by Polly Bush

It must be an extraordinarily proud moment to walk your only daughter down the aisle. It must be rewarding to witness the exchange of vows in a house of worship, the bride glowing in a traditional white gown, the groom beaming with anticipation.

It must be an honour to give the young couple your blessing, and ultimately, it must be particularly satisfying to hand down the baton to ensure the sacred survival of the species.

Better yet, marriage doesn’t just mean a blank cheque encouraging a few young tackers on the way, but it also means you can get the best deals on offer in federal legislation.

Not that you need God’s nod of approval for that. Heck no, just a bloke and a sheila residing together in a relationship will crack that.

But dare you find yourself in the “disappointing” dilemma of not being attracted to the opposite sex, and dare you “choose” to adopt an “alternative lifestyle” (whatever that means), well then you can just kiss these same rights normal good bonking hetero folk are entitled to goodbye.

A couple of weeks ago, the Senate threw back the Federal Government’s superannuation package to the House of Representatives with an amendment that would give gay couples the same super rights as heterosexual couples.

The Labor Party finally joined the Democrats and the Greens in a move to allow the partners of gays and lesbians the automatic inheritance of their partner’s superannuation in the event of death.

Crazy stuff indeed. Superannuation rights for gay and lesbian couples have long been a sticking point for both major parties. In opposition, they both talk the talk, but when in government, the issue of equal rights suddenly gets tossed out the window.

It’s also a particular sticking point for the current Government, as the Democrats have continually blocked any reforms to superannuation by adding amendments to acknowledge same sex relationships. This is the twelfth attempt made to end discrimination against same sex couples.

While some states have legislated to recognise same sex relationships, federal amendments are needed because “the majority of lesbians and gay men will continue to be treated unequally as most super schemes come under federal law” (Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, 2002).

The Lobby group also calls for changes to taxation law, so that “when same sex partners do receive benefits they are not taxed at a much higher rate than heterosexuals”.

According to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commissions report into ‘Superannuation Entitlements of Same-Sex Couples’ (April, 1999), the issue at hand is:

The definition of ‘spouse’ in these enactments has been held to be gender-specific, recognising only heterosexual relationships where a man and woman are legally married or in a de facto relationship. The use of the term ‘spouse’ in these enactments has the effect of excluding a surviving member of a same-sex couple from receiving the benefits provided.

The Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby argues that “all that is needed is a simple definitional change to bring super law into line with many state laws”.

Indeed, definitions are at the crux of the matter. As Treasurer Peter Costello recently noted in response to Howard’s survival of the species comments:

Obviously, people have relationships and they might be long-term relationships between people of the same sex but to have a marriage, it has to be people of the opposite sex. I think that’s the right legal definition.

But ‘marriage’ is not necessarily defined as frocking up in a white puffy gown and waltzing down the aisle.

In 1992, amendments were made to the Superannuation Act to “remove exemptions for funds which operated to discriminate on the grounds of sex and marital status” (HREOC ‘Superannuation Entitlements of Same-Sex Couples’ 1999).

‘Marital Relationship’ was defined as when “the person ordinarily lived with that other person as that other person’s husband or wife on a permanent and bona fide domestic basis” (1992 Amendments, Section 8A). A ‘Marital Relationship’ was also defined as not having to be legally binding.

In 1993, the definitions of ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ were tested after the death of Robert Corva, a clerk in the Defence Department. His partner of ten years, Greg Brown took the case to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal arguing they had lived together in a marriage like relationship.

The AAT ruled:

There is no doubt that the applicant and Mr Corva had a close marriage like relationship and that they conformed to the requirements of [the Act] in all respects except for their gender. Yet the 1992 amendments, which were designed to remove discrimination on the ground of marital status, provide no redress in relation to the form of discrimination which is illustrated by this case.

If Brown had been a woman, he would be entitled to a yearly pension. Following a rejected appeal, the judges who upheld the ruling conceded that “it gives us no joy to do so”.

Like the sentiments expressed by the judges, the law gives the superannuation industry and many other groups no joy either.

In 2000, the peak industry body, the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, argued in a Senate submission that “recognition of a same sex relationships within superannuation legislation would address an area where currently a clear and difficult anomaly exists”.

So what’s holding the Government back?

When Tony Abbott was asked by Barrie Cassidy on the Insiders (ABC Television, September 21, 2003), whether he was opposed to long term gay couples having the same entitlements as heterosexual couples, he said:

I’m in favour of human rights but I’m not in favour of putting gay relationships on the same pedestal that you put traditional Christian marriage.

Mental note: be wary of any sentence that begins, “I’m in favour of human rights BUT-” And note to Tony Abbott: Should heterosexual de facto couples be put on the “same pedestal that you put traditional Christian marriage”?

When quizzed further, particularly about previously supporting equal rights for same sex couples, Abbott threw off a line about how it had been a long time since he’d thought about the issue, and “it’s not my portfolio – I’ll just leave what’s said as said”.

So much for the longevity of human rights. And just who is the Minister for Same Sex relationships – Bill Heffernan?

The portfolio Abbott was most likely referring to is Revenue, held by Senator Helen Coonan. Like Abbott, it appears Coonan has also had a change of heart when it comes to superannuation rights.

The Age political correspondent Annabel Crabb reported on September 19 this year:

Twenty-seven years ago, Helen Coonan was a fiery young solicitor, shoulder to shoulder with the gay rights movement demanding equal superannuation treatment for same-sex couples.

Coonan had worked alongside activist Peter de Waal on the ‘Tribunal on Homosexuals and Discrimination’ in 1976. De Waal told The Age:

We were very glad to have the assistance of Helen Coonan at the time, and we thought she was extremely progressive but more recently, we have revised our opinions of her.

A spokesperson for Senator Coonan said that “she was acting as a family lawyer – this is vastly different from amendments to this piece of legislation.” (Margo: After becoming a Senator Coonan, an activist moderate Liberal of many years standing, ditched her values and her “faction” for the right-wing and John Howard’s support in a Senate pre-selection battle. She was such a good girl Howard gave her a ministry, and she’s mouthed his lines ever since.)

In response, Democrats Senator Brian Greig labelled the Minister, “Coonan the Contrarian”. But alas, Coonan’s not the lone ranger when it comes to being oh au contraire.

In 1995, in Opposition, Conservative Tasmanian Liberal Senator John Watson led the Coalition’s push to give same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples.

In the late 1990s with the Liberals back in power, Labor member for Grayndler Anthony Albanese introduced a private members bill pushing to give same sex couples the same rights (Albanese reintroduced the bill for a third time in 1999 after it had lapsed twice without Government debate).

In 2000, responding to Albanese’s bill, Senator Watson wrote the Government’s report rejecting the bill.

The bill was knocked back, according to Watson, because of the oh-so-crazy argument that it would put “same-sex relationships on the same basis as heterosexual relationships”.

Worse still, the report argued the Bill would lead to the “gradual devaluation of the traditional family structure in the eyes of the law and society in general”.

Although he denied it, as Toni O’Loughlin reported in the Sydney Morning Herald on April 7, 2000, the timing of Watson’s turnaround coincided with “a preselection contest in which the stridently anti-gay Tasmanian Senator Eric Abetz is understood to have substantial influence”.

The “devaluation of the traditional family structure” as an excuse ties in nicely with Abbott’s remarks on “traditional Christian marriage”, as it does with Howard’s comments on marriage as being “about children, having children, raising them, providing for the survival of the species.”

God strike you down if you are a Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist or Moslem couple who can’t have children, or God forbid, choose not to.

The party that has never shied away from Christian family values is the National Party.

Responding to Anthony Albanese’s bill, Senator Ron Boswell sent a warning to all the young regional and rural kiddies grappling with their sexuality, when he said:

If we pass this motion today, it will send a message to all Australians young and old that mainstream society sees no essential difference between a homosexual and a heterosexual lifestyle, that society not only condones it but is indifferent to the bonds which make the typical family the fundamental unit of our society. While we in the National Party do not persecute those who freely enter into a minority lifestyle, we do not want to promote it to our children as an equally valid or acceptable way of life.

Like the ol’ traditional family excuse, God also gets a mention in this debate.

In 1999, One Nation Senator Len Harris wheeled out the Bible banter:

“Gods words clearly say to us that the acts of lesbianism and homosexuality are an abomination.” (reported by Margo Kingston, The Sydney Morning Herald, December 10, 1999).

When people (and indeed members of various churches) use the Bible to justify their homophobia, big bastard cathedral alarm bells should go off.

The main book that addresses homosexuality in the Bible is Leviticus, which says:

No man is to have sexual relations with another man; God hates that. (18: 22).

Further, it says:

If a man has sex with another man, both shall be put to death (20:13).

This old testament statement can hardly be held up as gospel for today’s world when a fair chunk of the other content in Leviticus is largely ignored and at best ridiculous. Leviticus also says it is a sin to eat pig and shellfish, to have mildew in your house, to wear two different types of cloth (hmmm, does Senator Harris wear cotton blend?), plant two different types of seed in one field, cut the hair off the sides of your head, and have tattoos.

And if you’re a woman you may as well banish yourself from society because of your period and the time it takes to be “clean” again. But hey, it’s not all bad. According to Leviticus you can buy slaves as long as they are from “the nations around you” or “the children of the foreigners who are living around you”.

Another champion of the church in the Upper House is Senator Brian Harradine.

In Mungo MacCallum’s memoirs Mungo: the Man who Laughs, he refers to Harradine as the “so-called” independent Senator, “because it has long been apparent that Harradine sees his primary role in politics as representing the views of the more conservative wing of the Catholic church”.

Harradine has been arguing that if the current amendments are passed, this would discriminate against people in dependent relationships who are not having sex:

Take two women for example. You’ve got two women living in one household, one of whom is a dependent and in another household you’ve got two lesbians. What is being proposed by those that are putting this forward is to discriminate against the two women who aren’t lesbians. Now how do you get over that? What you’re proposing for us to do is to discriminate against those two women because they’re not having sex. I think that that’s disgraceful if we’re going to be asked to do that.

While the Senator remains staunchly opposed to giving same sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples, the argument does present another can of worms.

Many single people in “interdependent” relationships would argue these relationships are just as important and just as relevant as people in sexual relationships.

The Australian Democrats, who, like the Greens, have openly gay members of parliament (yes, as opposed to closeted), have long supported reforms to give same sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples. The Democrats are also proposing an “interdependency” category in superannuation.

Senator John Cherry recently said that “the Democrat amendments will also remove the cruel taxation on superannuation benefits paid following the death of a spouse, de-facto, same-sex partner or anyone else who is emotionally and financially connected”.

Democrats Senator Brian Greig who has himself been in a long-term same sex relationship has been barracking for equal rights on superannuation for some time. Prior to the recent amendment, and only a few months ago, Greig blasted the Australian Labor Party for their lack of support on the issue:

You are no different to the Coalition. I expect anti-gay, homophobic vitriol from the Coalition – that’s where they sit. But I expect more from the Opposition.

Greig has also been campaigning on the wider issue of discrimination against gays. In 2002, he asked Senator Robert Hill:

Given that the Howard Government discriminates against gay and lesbian people and their relationships in and with superannuation, taxation, family law, the Commonwealth Public Service, the Australian Federal Police, the defence forces, immigration, veterans affairs, industrial relations, social security and parliamentary entitlements, and given that the Government and the Opposition have blocked or stymied every attempt by the Australian Democrats to remedy this situation with legislative reform, how does the minister explain the Prime Minister’s recent assertion that the Government is not homophobic?

Senator Hill’s reply was that he had “missed the last few words” of the question, but that laws were made by parliament and not government, and that Greig was part of the process.

The timing of the question coincided with Bill Heffernan’s attack on Justice Michael Kirby.

Despite Howard’s denials, the Kirby farce contributes to a healthy history of homophobia in the Howard Government years.

In the ‘Word is Out’ paper, The Howard Government: gays lesbians and homophobia (June 2002), University of Adelaide Associate Professor Carol Johnson said the main difference between the two major parties is that “while they were electorally cautious, the Labor governments were not openly hostile to gay and lesbian arguments”.

Elected on Mardi Gras night in 1996, John Howard has continually refused to endorse the festival or at least give a message of support to the gay and lesbian community.

Early in his first term, Howard said he’d be “disappointed, even upset” if one of his sons were gay. Reiterating these sentiments, he was quizzed further on his stance on homosexuality by a student on ABC youth radio station Triple J:

STUDENT: So if we had a scale with total acceptance of homosexuality on one end and total rejection and abuse of homosexuality on the other, where would you place yourself?

PRIME MINISTER: Oh I’d place myself somewhere in the middle. I certainly don’t think you should give the same status to homosexual liaisons as you give to marriage, I don’t.

“Total rejection and abuse of homosexuality” easily equates to homophobia. So while Howard denies he or his government is homophobic, these comments suggest he is partially homophobic by being “somewhere in the middle”. Is this what “conservatively tolerant” means?

And notice too how if you are in a gay relationship or partnership, it gets called something other like a “liaison”? As Catharine Lumby so brilliantly put it in the Bulletin last year, “Most of us have a life. But if you’re a gay man, you get a lifestyle.”

Also added to Howard’s list is his intervention following a Federal Court ruling finding the Victorian Government’s restrictions to fertility treatments discriminatory against single women and lesbians.

And more recently, there are Howard’s comments rejecting gay marriages. To allow gay people to marry, you would also be allowing them to have, shock horror, the same superannuation rights.

Like any phobia, homophobia is driven by fear.

In her article “Why gay marriage is a bad idea”, Janet Albrechtsen wrote in The Australian of the evils of divorce, arguing children do better when biological mum and biological dad stay together. “This is why marriage must remain special and why discrimination is not always a dirty word,” Albrechtsen wrote.

Despite Albrechtsen’s amusing musings, there is no evidence that children are worse off when brought up by people in same sex relationships.

The same day, in the Herald Sun, also owned by Murdoch, radio presenter Neil Mitchell went hard on the issue in “OK to be straight, too”, (a headline that surely must be made into a t-shirt).

Mitchell argued that “there are enough examples to make any heterosexual feel persecuted, the Prime Minister included,” citing lesbian mothers groups, the debate within the church over gay clergy and television personalities as examples.

For a gay person reading the article, it was offensive to say the least and actually made Albrechtsen’s piece look like a relatively tame walk down Oxford Street. After his spray, Mitchell ended it with “Persecution of homosexuality has finished. Now let’s understand that straight is acceptable, too.”

Uh-huh. Obviously Mitchell wasn’t aware of discrimination against homosexuals in terms of superannuation, age of consent laws, compensation entitlements, leave and other workplace entitlements, legal recognition of relationships (including marriage), and that lil ol’ issue of vilification and violence because of your sexuality.

He might have also missed the United Nation’s recent ruling that Australia had breached its international obligations after federal law had discriminated against the long time partner of a deceased WW2 veteran by denying him a pension.

The push for equal rights, whether it be regarding defence entitlements or superannuation rights, is not asking for much – just equality, simple as that.

The fear that gay marriage or gay parenting or superannuation rights for gay couples is suddenly going to rip apart John Howard’s “bedrock” that is the family is a load of rubbish. Some heterosexual couples make a mess of marriage all on their own.

What this issue comes down to is how you value people. It’s about how you value people’s relationships, and ultimately it’s about how you value love.

Sincere best wishes to Melanie Howard and Rowan McDonald in their partnership.

G’Day. Webdiary legal contributor and electoral law expert Joo-Cheong Tham argues in this piece that the Australian Electoral Commission should require Tony Abbott to disclose the donors to his Honest Politics Trust as a matter of law. The AEC still refuses to release its legal advice to date or the HPT trust deed, but is seeking new legal advice after revelations that it conducted no investigation into the trust, asked no questions of Tony Abbott, and did not take legal advice before it reversed its demand that Abbott disclose its donors. The backdown followed a letter from Abbott in 1998 claiming he could keep his donors secret. Mr Abbott did not enclose the legal advice he claimed backed his wish to keep his donors secret, and later admitted the advice was given orally and never reduced to writing. Mr Abbott will not disclose the name of his lawyer, or say whether the lawyer saw the HPT trust deed before giving his or her opinion.

Abbott’s Honest Politics Trust a Liberal Party front: Donor disclosure required

by Joo-Cheong Tham

Joo-Cheong Tham is associate lecturer in law at La Trobe University. He has written a chapter on campaign finance reform in Graeme Orr, Bryan Mercurio and George Williams (eds), Realising Democracy: Electoral Law in Australia (2003), Federation Press, forthcoming.

The continuing controversy surrounding the Abbott-controlled ‘Australian for Honest Politics’ Trust (AHP Trust) has pushed to forefront the legal question whether AHP Trust is an ‘associated entity’ under the federal disclosure laws and, therefore, obliged to disclose the identities of its financiers.

The ‘associated entities’ provisions are a relatively recent addition to the disclosure laws. Prior to these provisions being enacted, only registered political parties were subject to annual disclosure obligations. The ‘associated entities’ provisions, in essence, extended these obligations to entities which were seen to have a sufficient connection with one or more registered political party.

When passed in 1995, the ‘associated entities’ provisions defined an associated entity to mean an entity:

– controlled by one or more registered political parties; or

– which operated wholly or mainly for the benefit of one or more registered political party.

In 1999, prompted by ALP concerns over the Liberal Party’s Greenfields Foundation, this definition was enlarged to include entities which operated to a significant extent for the benefit of one or more registered political parties.

How then do these provisions apply to the AHP Trust’ The key question is whether the AHP Trust is an entity that ‘operates to a significant extent for the benefit’ of the Liberal Party.

The conjugate phrase, ‘operates to a significant extent for the benefit’, directs attention to certain features of the AHP Trust:

– ‘operates’: who controls or directs its activities’

– ‘for the benefit’:

– what is the motivation driving such activities’

– what is the objective effect of such activities and, in particular, does any advantage accrue to the Liberal Party’

On all three counts, the evidence disclosed by newspaper accounts strongly suggests that AHP Trust is an ‘associated entity’. These accounts suggest that a senior Liberal Party figure, Tony Abbott, was a trustee. More importantly, while Abbott was only one of the three trustees, he controlled the activities of the fund. Further, while the stated purpose of the trust was to ‘support legal actions to test the extent to which political entities comply with Australian law’, (see letter by Tony Abbott to the Australian Electoral Commission in Margo Kingston, ‘AEC pulls up its socks, starts serving the people’, Web Diary, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 September 2003), its activities were more narrowly focussed at funding anti-One Nation litigation. Such litigation, in turn, was directed at advancing the Liberal Party’s interests. Finally, the adverse impact of the litigation on a political competitor of the Liberal Party clearly conferred an electoral advantage on this party.

Various arguments, however, have been made against the view that AHP Trust is an ‘associated entity’.

Firstly, there are arguments that go beyond the letter of the law. For instance, it has been contended that ascribing a broad meaning to the definition of ‘associated entity’ would be undesirable as it would mean that numerous other bodies especially those which have a looser connection to the political parties would be caught by the disclosure laws.

This concern is misplaced as the relevant provisions still require that an ‘associated entity’ have a sufficient connection with one or more registered political parties. More fundamentally, it is, in fact, desirable that bodies that engage in significant political activity whether or not they have a sufficient connection with a political party be required to disclose the identities of their financiers. Such activity, whether it be by ad-hoc political campaigns, businesses or unions, clearly affect the political debate and voters’ choices. There is then a need for voters to know who is financing such activity.

Indeed, these principles are clearly recognised by the present disclosure laws. As it stands, entities that have engaged in certain forms of political activity, regardless of their connection to a political party, are subject to disclosure obligations.

There is also a cluster of textually based arguments against the view that AHP Trust is an ‘associated entity’.

It is said that the purpose of the trust was to fund litigation against other parties, in particular, One Nation and not to benefit Liberal Party. This argument is simply fallacious as both purposes can simultaneously apply. If this argument is accepted, anti-Liberal Party litigation could not be characterised as operating for the benefit of the ALP.

It has also been argued that the purpose of the AHP Trust should be fixed objectively and, in this case, by reference to the purpose set out in the trust deed, and not by the motivations brought to bear by the main protagonists.

There is, however, no good reason for narrowing the pool of evidence in this manner. When determining the purpose/s of the trust and its activities, the objective set out in the trust deed and the motivations of its controllers are both relevant. Moreover, it is dangerous to confine the evidence to the former as it will allow parties to camouflage the true nature of their activities through the veil of the trust deed.

Finally, it has been argued that the advantage flowing from the AHP Trust’s activities is too diffuse and intangible to be ‘for the benefit’ of the Liberal Party. In one form, the argument is that ‘benefit’ should be read to mean monetary benefit.

This argument is far from convincing. While it is true that the ‘associated entity’ amendments were originally aimed at fund-raising vehicles like the Liberal Party’s Free Enterprise Foundation, the terms of the definition are not so confined. The plain meaning of ‘benefit’ extends to monetary as well as non-monetary advantages. Moreover, the term should be read in the context of an Act dealing with elections. In elections, benefit to political parties can obviously take non-monetary form. For instance, a campaign attacking the Liberal Party clearly benefits the ALP regardless of the fact whether the body coordinating the campaign channels funds to the ALP.

These objections against the view that the AHP Trust is an ‘associated entity’, in fact, reveal what is at stake in this flurry of legal arguments. On one hand, there is a position that ascribes a narrow meaning to the definition of ‘associated entity’ often through strained interpretation and flawed logic. If accepted, this narrow meaning will provide ample scope to evade disclosure obligations through non-monetary political activity and legal devices like trusts. On the other hand, there is a test based on control, motivation and effect that is more firmly based on the text of the definition and truer to the reality of electoral politics. If transparency, the overriding objective of the disclosure laws, is to be advanced, the choice is clear.

J.Tham@latrobe.edu.au

 

Andy Becker, Australian Electoral Commissioner. Photo by Paul Harris.

Related:  AEC reply to Sue McDonald

G’Day. Webdiary’s intrepid Honest Politics Trust investigator Sue McDonald has received a reply to her please explain letter to the Australian Electoral Commission. The head of ‘disclosure’, Ms Kathy Mitchell, is somewhat more expansive than she was in her letter to Webdiarist Michael Hessenthaler published in Abbott slush: your ideas. Ms Mitchell’s letter to Sue is attached.

Meanwhile, law lecturer Ken Parish has endorsed the legal opinion of Webdiary’s electoral law expert Joo-Cheong Tham in Abbott’s Honest Politics Trust a Liberal Party front: Donor disclosure required that the AEC should order Abbott to disclose his donors. Surely the AEC will finally do so? After all, Abbott has said over and over that he’s “happy” to disclose if the AEC tells him too. Ken’s piece and reader comments, including a couple from me, are at Ken’s weblog troppoarmadillo.

Whether it’s structural corruption or systemic incompetence, the buck stops at the top and the top man at the AEC is the Australian Electoral Commissioner, Andy Becker.

It’s worth remembering that the AEC is not just another public service department. It is an independent statutory authority with strong investigative powers to help it enforce the law on disclosure of political donations. It’s like the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission or the Human Rights Commission – it has statutory functions to perform, laws to enforce, and an obligation to act without fear or favour. It is not subject to political direction on the performance of its enforcement obligations. Its duties are not to our political masters, but to the voters – us.

I asked Fairfax journalism trainee Bonnie Malkin for a profile of Mr Becker. Be warned – it’s not pretty.

***

Andy Becker

Andy Becker, embattled commissioner of the AEC, said years ago that he “fell into” the role of managing elections. For someone so lacking in motivation, he has done quite well for himself.

Since starting out as a returning officer in South Australia in 1967 Becker rose though the ranks to take the reigns of Australia’s most important democratic watchdog and become one of the country’s most controversial bureaucrats.

Becker first stumbled into the media spotlight in 1997 when he was backed for the job of AEC deputy commissioner by Liberal Senator and SA state director Nick Minchin, now Finance Minister and a close political ally of John Howard. It was a case of Howard finding jobs for the boys, wrote former NSW Auditor-General Tony Harris:

In 1997, Senator Nick Minchin supported the head of the State Electoral Office in South Australia, Andy Becker, for appointment as Deputy Commissioner of the AEC. Minchin got on well with Becker, whom he had known since his term as head of the Liberal Party directorate in the 1980s. The selection committee for the job, however, advised that Becker was unsuitable.

The selection committee was overruled and Becker got the job. In February 2000, with the retirement of Bill Gray, Becker was promoted to Commissioner of the AEC. His swift rise through the ranks did not go unnoticed in Parliament. In June 2000 Alan Ramsey wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald:

And on March 16, Bob McMullan, a member of Kim Beazley’s Opposition frontbench, asked the Prime Minister in Parliament: “Can the Prime Minister explain why Cabinet appointed a new head of the Australian Electoral Commission [AEC] when the evaluation panel assessed him as ‘not recommended for the position’? Can the Prime Minister confirm this applicant was evaluated at an earlier time as ‘not recommended for the position of deputy commissioner of the AEC’, yet despite this he still got the job?

In appointing this individual to the vital position of Australian Electoral Commissioner, what extra insights did Cabinet have available to it that were not available to the evaluation panel that is, the secretary of the Department of Finance and Administration, Dr Peter Boxall, the Public Service Commissioner, Ms Helen Williams, and Mr Ian Dixon, the former electoral commissioner for NSW?

Howard’s reply: “I can inform the manager of Opposition business that appropriate procedures are always followed with Cabinet appointments under my Government.”

Just two months after gaining the top job, on May 24, Becker hit some seriously stormy weather. It emerged at Senate estimates committee hearings, after persistent questioning by Labor Senator Robert Ray, that Becker had agreed to hand over to the government an electronic electoral role to be used to send more than eight million personalised letters to voters about the new GST system. Alan Ramsey wrote in June 2000:

What set the hearing alight was when, 15 minutes into the questions, Ray asked if any government agency had asked the electoral office for an electronic version of the electoral roll and its 12 million names, along with birth dates and gender of every voter in the country, and Becker replied: “In the last few weeks? The Australian Taxation Office is one.” One of his officers added that the Tax Office had made its first request in March, and then, about April 20, asked for an “updated” version.

Did the Electoral Commission know what the Tax Office wanted to do with the roll? Yes, said one of Becker’s officers. And that was? “For a one-off mailing of ATO material to electors”, the officer read from a “safeguard agreement” between the Electoral Commission and the Tax Office.

Faulkner, startled: “A mailing of ATO material to electors?”

Officer: “Yes.”

From there the heat accelerated.

 

At the time Becker told the Senate he had no idea what kind of material was to be included in the mail out. One week later he sought to correct the record of Hansard saying he had become aware in mid-April that the mail out would include a letter from the Prime Minister and a booklet. Wrote Tony Harris:

On May 31, Becker wrote to the Senate correcting some of his evidence. “Since last week’s hearing,” he wrote, “I have become aware that in Mr Carmody’s letter of 19 April he indicated that the mailout would include an information booklet ‘along with a letter from the Prime Minister’. Although the letter was addressed to me, I was not in Canberra when the letter was received … and I have no recollection of having seen Mr Carmody’s letter before last week’s hearing.”

Becker’s memory later improved, and by June evidence that he twice misled parliament on the mail out issue had come to light. The Sydney Morning Herald’s Mike Seccombe wrote:

It emerged yesterday that Mr Becker had not only seen the letter, but replied to it, mentioning Mr Howard’s covering letter.

The following month the affair turned nasty. The Privacy Commissioner, Malcolm Crompton, found that Becker breached privacy laws handing over voter’s details to the government, and his independence was in question. In Electoral roll used to help peddle new tax , the Sydney Morning Herald’s Toni O’Loughlin reported some key concerns:

Democrat Senator Andrew Murray was also concerned about the use of the electoral roll by the Tax Office to advertise the GST. “I think you would accede … that some people may perceive that the use of a mailout for a particularly contentious area of Government policy could be partisan or political,” Senator Murray said.

Becker was not prosecuted for breaking privacy laws however, as the letter had not been sent and the electronic copy of the electoral roll had been handed back to the Commission. He was found to have acted unwisely and improperly by the Senate committee hearing, quite an achievement for the reluctant leader.

***

This is Mr Becker’s press statement of September 1 on the Honest Politics Trust. Since this statement he has not communicated further with Australian voters – the people he calls his ‘customers’ and AEC returning officers call their ‘clients’.

Electoral Disclosure Obligations

Electoral Commissioner Andy Becker today clarified a number of matters related to the role of the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) and recent media coverage of the Australians for Honest Politics Trust.

When this matter was first raised five years ago, the AEC determined at that time that the group Australians for Honest Politics was not an associated entity as specified by the Commonwealth Electoral Act, Mr Becker said.

The Electoral Act stipulates that an associated entity is an organisation set up to benefit a registered political party.

Mr Becker said that when any new information came to light, it was given careful consideration, but a knee-jerk reaction to a complex issue was inappropriate.

The Commissioner emphasised the AEC’s role as an independent statutory authority and said it will consider all the issues in a measured and deliberate way.

We are charged with ensuring that the disclosure requirements of the Electoral Act are met, even when this involves seemingly knowledgeable and articulate groups.

The AEC is a politically neutral organisation charged with monitoring the disclosure obligations of all players in the political process and will do so without fear or favour, Mr Becker said.

Further Information: Brien Hallett, Assistant Commissioner Information Education & Research, Telephone: 02 6271 4477. Mobile: 0413 274 798

***

For more information on Mr Becker’s idea of doing his job, see:

1. Australian Electoral Commission in the dock: Why won’t it come clean?

2. AEC claims secret political donations no business of voters

3. AEC took Abbott’s word for it to keep honest politics’ donors secret

4. AEC chief intervenes in Abbott slush fund secrets

5. Enforcing disclosure: AEC can make Abbott give sworn evidence on slush fund

Tonight, the Western Australian connection in Abbott’s slush fund – including the plot to destroy the WA Democrats through the Courts – featuring John Samuel, Harold Clough, David Churches, Noel Crichton-Browne and John Poynton. Then there’s Tim Fischer…

Antony Loewenstein’s first report for Webdiary on the players in the Abbott/Hanson saga was Who’s who in Abbott’s slush fund zoo. Tonight, the Western Australian connection – including the plot to destroy the WA Democrats through the Courts – featuring John Samuel, Harold Clough, David Churches, Noel Crichton-Browne and John Poynton. Then there’s Tim Fischer…

***

Our anti-democratic ‘democracy’

by Antony Loewenstein

Legal experts debate the rights and wrongs of the AEC not forcing Tony Abbott to disclose donors to his quaintly titled Australians for Honest Politics (AHP) while the players and the networks of influence behind it remain in the shadows.

There appears to be a feeling, articulated widely by the Murdoch press and echoed by certain Fairfax op-ed writers, that chasing Abbott is a waste of time and that mud will never stick. Perhaps most ominously for critics of the mainstream press, numerous commentators (mainly in the Murdoch press) have suggested there is a small cabal of campaigning journalists in the (mainly Fairfax) press, determined to strike collateral damage on the Howard Government, whatever the cost.

The Abbott case is important for many reasons:

1) As articulated by law lecturer Graeme Orr in Memo to AEC: why not let the Courts decide Abbott slush fund secrets?, there are serious questions about the performance of the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC). To suggest, as Abbott has, that he wasn’t asked to disclose the donors behind the trust and therefore everything is hunky dory, ignores the AEC’s emasculation in the last 10 years. Neither major party comes out of this looking fresh, hence the current silence in parliament and the media from any ALP front or backbencher.

2) Do certain sections of the establishment media really want true accountability and transparency from our elected officials? It seems we cannot assume that a truly open democracy is their ideal political model.

3) Why has the ALP been so weak in attacking Abbott over this issue? A lack of leadership is one answer, but it’s too simple an explanation. Crean and co know full well that they have obstructed reform to the AEC over the years, so when they gain power they can conduct business not dissimilar to the Howard Government. Heard any ALP members shouting for AEC reform lately?

4) Most importantly, what connections exist between the AHP and the cabal unleashed against the Democrats in Western Australia in the 1990s? A pattern is clearly emerging of powerful forces determined to litigate away any perceived threat. It’s the perfect neo-conservative tactic – PRE-EMPTION.

5) The relative silence of most sections of the media is an issue in itself. It’s hardly a coincidence that most of the Murdoch press constantly belittle the minor parties’ interventions in our political game. It comes from a belief that our system is designed for two big players. These Big Parties rely on varying press support depending on how favourably the Parties assist the Company. It’s brutal and simple and the destroying of One Nation in Queensland through the AHP is seen as a service to this ‘democratic’ model. Hence generally favourable report cards, most noticeably from The Australian’s Paul Kelly (Tony Abbott’s holey crusade).

Western Australia – The unholy alliance of Samuel, Clough, Churches Crichton-Browne and Elliott

Big shots litigating small players are nothing new. Tobacco companies have been doing it for years and patterns have emerged of similar behaviour by leading WA figures, namely John Samuel, Harold Clough andDavid Churches.

In 1994, the Democrats were on the rise with Cheryl Kernot as leader. In 1999, Fia Cumming reported in the Sun Herald that John Samuel was instrumental in gaining financial, moral and political support for the job of unseating the WA Democrats:

When Bruce Whiteside, founder of the Pauline Hanson Support Movement (PHSM), was seeking funding in December 1996 he spoke to a senior businessman with strong Liberal connections who hinted that large sums would be arranged.

“The money will be forthcoming, but it will not be used to directly assist Hanson,” Whiteside was told. “The money will be used to clear the blockage in the Senate.” The businessman said the result would be “the decimation of the Australian Democrats”, but made it clear he could not be associated with the plans.

Pressure on Whiteside to turn the PHSM into a political party was strongest from WA and one person, John Samuel. Before the 1993 federal election, Samuel bought the company name Australian Democrats WA Division, and tried to gain control of the party then led by Cheryl Kernot.

In the 1996 federal campaign, he used his legal action against the Democrats to try to minimise the party’s Senate vote.

Sound familiar? Tony Abbott undoubtedly knew of Samuel’s pedigree and that he could rely on the businessman for discretion, money and access.

It has been suggested that John Elliott, then a highly successful Melbourne business identity and potential Liberal leader, was involved in raising money to litigate the Democrats out of existence. At the time a Supreme Court action was on foot designed to destroy the then leader of the Dems, Cheryl Kernot.

In 1996, SMH journo Paul McGeough wrote a profile on the WA political scene outlining the importance of the state in deciding the upcoming federal election. A quote by Democrat Andrew Murray rings particularly true today:

“There was no vision, no philosophy or values. They [the opposition parties] all showed themselves to be issue-or opportunity-driven. They have no views on what Australia or WA should be like in the future.”

McGeough painted a picture of an intolerant political environment where opportunists and financial heavyweights could exercise almost total control. John Samuel and stockbroker John Poynton became involved in the attempted purchase of the WA Democrats, an unsurprising move from two men used to buying, and usually getting, whatever they wanted. As McGeough wrote: “With a State election only weeks away, it was expedient to hijack an existing party rather than set up their own structures.”

Interestingly, in 1996 the WA Electoral Commission never recognised the Samuel tilt at ‘ownership’ of the Dems.

A 1998 report in The Australian portrayed Samuel as a “political agitator”, and a man whose motivations needed to questioned at every turn due to his seemingly constant involvement in litigation against any political party who threatened the vote of the Liberal Party.

Chip Le Grand and Leisa Scott wrote:

He (Samuel) has made a formal complaint to fraud squad detectives that hundreds of One Nation members, predominantly from the disbanded Peel branch in Western Australia, were “duped” by the party’s unorthodox administrative structure, in which all branch dues flowed straight into the Sydney-based company Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Ltd. As with Mr Samuel’s past high-profile forays, his motivation has come under immediate question.

One Nation national director David Ettridge yesterday told Perth radio station 6PR Mr Samuel had never been a member of One Nation and had sought to endear himself to its parliamentary leader Pauline Hanson to build a power base within the Peel branch for his own political reasons (Ed: When and how did Samuel’s relationship with Abbott begin?). In Brisbane, Ms Hanson said Mr Samuel and former Peel branch executives were themselves being investigated by police for their refusal to return $2500 in campaign donations. Mr Samuel said he was directly involved in withholding the money, but denied aspiring to hold office within One Nation.”

Within four years, Samuel had switched from a Democrats ‘supporter’ to a One Nation ‘supporter’. Samuel’s role remains unclear, but his real allegiance seems increasingly obvious. This kind of role clearly requires a pay-off (in his mind), politically, financially or for his businesses. His continued scuttling of alternative parties would surely be looked at favourably by the Howard Government.

But let us not forget Harold Clough, one of Australia’s richest men, a major power broker in the Liberal Party, and a donor to the HPT. Earlier this month, Senator Andrew Murray revealed that Clough was one of the major supporters behind Samuel and David Churches’ litigious campaign against the Democrats in the mid 1990s. Senator Murray said it appeared that a pattern was emerging, and that along with the Abbott trust fund, the Liberal Party appeared to be using the courts to eradicate potential threats.

“I think the purpose in both cases was political, not moral. It was about damaging the competition. In trade practices terms, it was anti-competitive activity,” Senator Murray said.

Back in 1996, Churches claimed that no political party funded the litigation against the Democrats, but this must now be in question. When a major donor like Harold Clough donates money to your fighting fund, how separate is he from the Liberal Party? What does he expect for his donation? And what rules of disclosure should apply to this kind of ‘transaction’?

On last Sunday’s Insider’s program Barrie Cassidy asked Senator Murray about recent revelations of the links between the WA Democrats litigation and the Abbott slush fund.

There’s a consistent pattern of behaviour. I’m less interested in the personalities, although they point to the connections, than the issue of disclosure. In the Electoral Act it says two things – under gifts and under associated entities – that if a registered political party is likely to benefit from the actions or donations of others then those donors should be disclosed. Now it is quite clear in the case of the Hanson episode that the demise of One Nation or a lower vote for One Nation, would benefit other political parties and in those circumstances, to me, it is straightforward – the donors should be disclosed.(Call for names of donors to ‘honest politics’ fund)

Another player in this saga is Noel Crichton-Browne, disgraced WA Liberal power broker and former Senator. Paul McGeough reported in early 1996 that Crichton-Browne was a key player in a political landscape where financial favours and backroom deals were order of the day. Was he involved in litigation against the Democrats?

McGeough wrote:

But the Liberals still are going into this Federal election campaign with Chilla Porter as WA campaign chairman. Porter is a close associate of the disgraced Liberal powerbroker Noel Crichton-Browne, but he’s also a professional fund-raiser, through his company Controlled Marketing.

The company’s efforts on behalf of a local charity and the Coalition State Government’s tardiness in tightening the regulation of fund-raisers have angered WA charities.

Now the Government of Premier Richard Court suffers daily from revelations on what has become known as Wanneroo Inc – an emerging web of corruption and sharp business and political practice involving key Liberals in Perth’s far-flung northern suburbs.

More interestingly, Crichton-Browne was reported in 1996 as spending a disproportionate amount of time with Pauline Hanson. An odd couple to say the least. In 1996, the SMH reported the curious pairing:

The final mystery is the former WA Liberal power broker expelled from the party last year, Senator Noel Crichton-Browne, a frequent visitor to Hanson’s office. John Pasquarelli claims him as an old friend, but refuses to answer questions about what NCB is doing there. (Margo: Crichton-Browne wrote Hanson a letter detailing his blueprint for the structure of One Nation for Hanson. It was largely followed.)

Crichton-Browne was not unique in showing favour to Hanson after her infamous maiden speech, but his previous deep involvement with the Liberal Party opens up some intriguing questions:

1) Was he acting on his own when dealing with Hanson?

2) What involvement did he still have with the Liberal Party?

3) Did any of his observations end up having any connection to the eventual litigation against One Nation?

4) What was, and is, the relationship between Samuel and Crichton-Browne, and the relationship between Abbott and Crichton-Browne?

The fact that the AEC is still refusing to force Abbott to release all the names of the donors to his slush fund means it’s hard for the Australian people to get a clearer understanding of how widely the Liberal Party used litigation to destroy its political opponents.

One possibility ignored in the eastern seaboard media is whether Tim Fisher was involved in the Abbott slush fund. WA ABC reported on August 27 that an ex-One Nation member Paul Trewartha claimed that Tim Fisher rang him in 1998 to offer support for a court case brought about partly due to the Abbott Trust Fund. Fisher denies the claims, but it suggests that National Party involvement cannot be discounted and should be further investigated (Tim Fischer denies involvement in anti One Nation campaign).

One thing is clear. We need to start asking our elected officials the tough questions and holding our so-called democratic institutions, like the AEC, to account.

It’s no longer good enough to be told, as politicians (including Howard) and some media commentators do, that it’s all part of the game. We shouldn’t accept that the Big Parties have carte blanche to squash little competitors who are ‘obstructing’ their agendas.

Democracy is not founded on principles of deception, lack of transparency and lies. Depressingly, we may well have reached a stage in liberal democracies around the world where the general public no longer believe politicians’ claims or accusations. There has always been players pulling the strings of power in Australia, and perhaps there will always will be, but we shouldn’t accept it as a given, and we need to believe we have the power to demand accountability and change.

Many have suggested that the Howard Government is one of the most private and devious of modern times. Perhaps, but let us not be under any illusions that a Federal ALP Government would have acted any differently. The virtual silence that greeted news of the Abbott trust fund in 1998 is telling. Were Beazley and his frontbenchers demanding transparency? Hardly, as the Liberals were doing the work the ALP were only too happy to support. When the Big Parties are threatened, watch the bipartisan love affair emerge.

The ability of the general public to demand greater accountability presupposes that we live in a democracy. These days, who really believes that we do?

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at Howard’s shabby performance in Question Time. I suppose I’ll analyse his “answers”, but what’s the point? He looked to camera and said his lines and thinks he’ll win over the people with lies and evasions – stuff the dishonour of it all. His craven team – none of whom raised a word of dissent to his reckless decision to go all the way with GWB – look like they sleep well at night. I hope voters hold them all to account for what they’ve done when the time comes.

Today, a piece by US economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on Bush’s brutal exploitation of S11 to crush dissent and avoid accountability for domestic policy disasters. The parallels with Howard are obvious, and Howard’s not letting up either. After Krugman and a Guardian piece on Bush’s latest poll ratings, a piece by Webdiary’s legal contributor Joo-Cheong Tham on Howard’s latest attempt to crush dissent by authorising the government to close down political organisations Howard doesn’t like without reference to Parliament.

Krugman predicts that the US presidential campaign this year and next will be very, very ugly. I predict the same for Australia’s federal election campaign this year or next. Emperor Bush’s antipodean visit to his always-say-yes-man in November is gunna be wild.

One of Bush and Howard’s only allies in the war on Iraq – although he didn’t send troops – was Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. He’s got the qualifications to join this select group, that’s for sure. Brian McKinlay recommends ‘Mussolini Wasn’t That Bad, Says Berlusconi’ in The Guardian on September 12, with the comment:

“This statement by Berlusconi, the man John Howard claimed to have “made a great friend” of while on his recent visit to Italy, is a disgraceful apologia for Mussolini which will be resented by Italian-Australians and is an insult to all Australian servicemen who fought against Italian Fascism.”

An extract:

In an interview published yesterday by the Spectator, Italy’s prime minister appeared to defend the actions of his country’s fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini. “Mussolini never killed anyone,” the magazine quoted him saying.

“Mussolini sent people on holiday to confine them [banishment to small islands such as Ponza and Maddalena which are now plush resorts].”

Italy’s fascist leader ordered the brutal 1935-36 occupation of Ethiopia, led Italy into the second world war and headed a Nazi puppet government which rounded up and dispatched Italian Jews to Hitler’s concentration camps.

The Spectator had earlier published quotes from Berlusconi that Italy’s judges were ‘mentally disturbed’ and ‘anthropologically different’ from other people. Shades of Philip Ruddock? Just like our Dear Leader and his media propagandists, Mr Berlusconi has “declared that he had no intention of being ‘politically correct’.

To end this entry, S11 reflections from debut Webdiarists Sarah Filetta and Jo Gates, regular Andrea Hamann, and a beautiful piece on the burden carried by US soldiers from a Webdiarist who needs to be anonymous on this one.

***

The ugly exploitation of Sept. 11

by Paul Krugman, Saturday, September 13, 2003

first published at iht

In my first column after the Sept. 11 attacks, I mentioned something that everyone with contacts on Capitol Hill already knew: That just days after the event, the exploitation of the atrocity for partisan political gain had already begun.

In response, I received a torrent of outraged mail. At a time when the United States was shocked and terrified, the thought that America’s leaders might be that cynical was too much to bear. “How can I say that to my young son?” asked one furious e-mailer.

I wonder what that correspondent thinks now. Is the American public – and the news media – finally prepared to cry foul when cynicism comes wrapped in the flag? America’s political future may rest on the answer.

The press has become a lot less shy about pointing out the Bush administration’s exploitation of Sept. 11, partly because that exploitation has become so crushingly obvious. As The Washington Post pointed out on Thursday, in the past six weeks President George W. Bush has invoked Sept. 11 not just to defend Iraq policy and argue for oil drilling in the Arctic, but in response to questions about tax cuts, unemployment, budget deficits and even campaign finance. Meanwhile, the crudity of the administration’s recent propaganda efforts, from dressing the president up in a flight suit to orchestrating the ludicrously glamorized television movie about Bush on Sept. 11, have set even supporters’ teeth on edge.

Yet it’s almost certainly wrong to think that the political exploitation of Sept. 11 and, more broadly, the Bush administration’s campaign to label critics as unpatriotic, are past their peak. It may be harder for the administration to wrap itself in the flag, but it has more incentive to do so now than ever before. Where once the administration was motivated by greed, now it’s driven by fear.

In the first months after Sept. 11, the administration’s ruthless exploitation of the atrocity was a choice, not a necessity. The natural instinct of Americans to rally around their leader in times of crisis had pushed Bush into the polling stratosphere, and his re-election seemed secure. He could have governed as the uniter he claimed to be, and would probably still be wildly popular.

But Bush’s advisers were greedy; they saw Sept. 11 as an opportunity to get everything they wanted, from another round of tax cuts, to a major weakening of the Clean Air Act, to an invasion of Iraq. And so they wrapped as much as they could in the flag.

Now it has all gone wrong. The deficit is about to go above half a trillion dollars, the economy is still losing jobs, the triumph in Iraq has turned to dust and ashes, and Bush’s poll numbers are at or below their pre-Sept. 11 levels.

Nor can the members of this administration simply lose like gentlemen. For one thing, that’s not how they operate. Furthermore, everything suggests that there are major scandals – involving energy policy, environmental policy, Iraq contracts and cooked intelligence – that would burst into the light of day if the current management lost its grip on power. So these people must win, at any cost.

The result, clearly, will be an ugly, bitter campaign – probably the nastiest of modern American history. Four months ago it seemed that the 2004 campaign would be all slow-mo films of Bush in his flight suit. But at this point, it’s likely to be pictures of Howard Dean or Wesley Clark that morph into Saddam Hussein. And Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has already rolled out the stab-in-the-back argument: If you criticize the administration, you’re lending aid and comfort to the enemy.

This political ugliness will take its toll on policy, too. The administration’s infallibility complex – its inability to admit ever making a mistake – will get even worse. And I disagree with those who think the administration can claim infallibility even while practicing policy flexibility: On major issues, like taxes or Iraq, any sensible policy would too obviously be an implicit admission that previous policies had failed.

In other words, if you thought the last two years were bad, just wait: It’s about to get worse. A lot worse.

***

Support for Bush and war slumps

Gary Younge in New York

Saturday September 13, 2003, The Guardian

President George Bush’s approval ratings have slumped to a lower point than they were in the week of the terrorist attacks two years ago, according to the latest Gallup poll.

With the economy haemorrhaging jobs and little sign of victory in Iraq, the CNN/USA Today poll gave Mr Bush an overall approval rating of 52%, compared with 55% in an ABC/Washington Post poll taken between September 6 and 9 2001.

His continuing downward trend in the polls suggests that the weekend’s televised address to the nation, in which he asked for $87bn for the war in Iraq, did nothing to reassure the electorate and may even have made things worse.

This summer has seen a steep decline in the president’s standing from a high of 71% approval in April, suggesting that he would face an extremely close battle if there were an election today. Asked whether they would vote for Bush or an unnamed Democrat, the president has only a four-point lead; in August it was 12.

Support for and opposition to Bush is deeply partisan, reflecting growing entrenchment among Democrats and Republicans. But of particular concern for the Bush teams, according to other polls, is the low number of independent voters (33%) who approve of the overall job he is doing.

“Taking a fall was inevitable, but he is increasingly vulnerable now,” Jaime Regalado, a political scientist at California State University, told USA Today. “The war in Iraq is showing escalating costs in money and human life and the American public is showing escalating doubts.”

In the latest poll 58% say “the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over”, down from 63% in August. More than half think things are going moderately or very badly in Iraq, while 59% believe the administration does not have a clear plan for handling the situation there.

***

How not to fight the ‘War on Terrorism’: the Criminal Code Amendment (Terrorist Organisations) Bill 2003

by Joo-Cheong Tham

Joo-Cheong Tham is an Associate Law Lecturer at La Trobe University and has appeared as a witness before parliamentary committees inquiring into anti-terrorism legislation.

Every other day the ‘War on Terrorism’ prompts a new government measure. Some of these initiatives become public knowledge. Others, however, are buried in the processes of government.

Currently before federal parliament and largely hidden from the public gaze is a measure that seeks to confer unprecedented power on the government. The Howard government has resurrected, through the Criminal Code Amendment (Terrorist Organisations) Bill 2003, a scheme that will arm the executive branch of government with far-reaching power to ban organisations.

If passed, this Bill will allow the proscription of organisations simply by virtue of the federal Attorney-General being satisfied that the organisation is ‘directly or indirectly engaged in, preparing, planning, assisting in or fostering the doing of terrorist acts’. The effect of such proscription is that membership and other forms of participation in proscribed organisations become subject to severe criminal penalties which, in some cases, can be up to 25 years’ imprisonment.

This Bill, as with many other measures in ‘War on Terrorism’, is being justified as necessary in the pursuit of terrorists. This justification of necessity, however, rings hollow.

The Bill is unnecessary simply because the government presently has the power to proscribe terrorist organisations. The Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth), for instance, presently permits the government to proscribe an organisation if such an organisation has been identified by the United Nations Security Council as a terrorist organisation. More importantly, the government has at its disposal extensive ‘backdoor’ proscription powers. Under Part 4 of the Charter of the United Nations Act 1945 (Cth), the Foreign Minister, if satisfied that an organisation is engaged in terrorist acts, can list it with the result that the assets of this organisation becomes frozen. Such freezing will invariably shut down the organisation.

Besides being unnecessary, this Bill carries serious dangers because it confers arbitrary executive power. The arbitrary character of the power to proscribe stems, firstly, from the fact that it is based on reasonably vague criteria. Secondly, it can be exercised on the basis of secret and untested evidence. Thirdly, a weak standard of proof applies with the Attorney-General only being needed to be satisfied on the balance of probabilities. Finally, the Bill provides meagre review mechanisms. The key mechanism is review under the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 (Cth). Such review, however, is likely to be ineffectual. It is limited to questions of legality and does not extend to the merits of the decision to proscribe. Further, the courts have demonstrated a traditional reluctance to examine questions of national security after an executive decision has been made.

Such arbitrary executive power risks undermining fundamental freedoms. The mere presence of such power threatens to erode political freedoms by ‘chilling’ political activity. More than this, the arbitrary nature of such power means that its exercise is liable to lead both to mistakes and abuse. In either case, fundamental liberties like the freedoms of political thought and association are put in jeopardy.

Any proposed anti-terrorism measure should be justified as being necessary in the campaign against terrorism. Moreover, it should not unduly trespass on rights and freedoms. This Bill fails grievously on both counts.

J.Tham@latrobe.edu.au

***

Sarah Filetti in London

As I sit here at my desk, I watch the news on the screens around me. It is 11 September and there are memorials on all around the world. It is the 2nd anniversary. Two years. I sit here and I think about the last 2 years, about how much has changed in the world.

For my generation, the X’ers or the Y’ers or where ever you want to put us (I am 22 y.o.), this was the end of our innocence’s. We had never know a true war. Yes there was Desert Storm, but as a adolescent growing up in Australia that wasn’t really our concern, it was too far away.

September 11, 2001 was the birth of a new world for everyone, and in particular us. No longer was life care free and happy. All of a sudden we realised that we were not indestructible, we would not live forever.

We worry now. Every time you fly you are reminded of the danger, the extra security at events, the extra security measures taken in every day life. I live in London now, and I fear that I will have to do a security check soon to buy a razor, things have gone crazy. Going on the tube every day is bad enough, without constantly being reminded that un attended baggage is a security risk, that in the case of an emergency listen to staff and be calm. Yeah right, I will be running as fast as I can out of there.

You subconsciously survey every one around you, and I know that I am always looking for ways out. When you fly you have to add an extra 30 minutes now, just for security. What happened to our trust in human kind? I have sniffer dogs patrolling the building I work in and we have nothing to do with the government.

We then turn our thoughts to nearly a year ago, to a lovely tranquil island called Bali, yes it was almost a year ago. The same feelings of hopelessness and shock came flooding back but this time, well it was stronger, it was closer to home, and although, no one I knew immediately was involved, it affected me in a way I will never forget.

Going on holidays, going to work, we are no longer safe. No longer safe to live our lives the way we chose. Things once taken for granted, like rubbish bins on a train platform, well now they are totally foreign.

What gives Osama and his sympathisers the right to destroy the lives of so many millions, no sorry billions of people? Who are they to chose what is right and wrong, who will live or die?

There are many people opposed to this war against terror saying that we are not going about things the right way. I say they are wrong. Osama has already had a victory – he has taken away our freedom and with that, our way of life. We have to fight to get that back.

I do not mean fight against the Muslims, or the Afghanistan people, they are hurting too. Their lives have changed forever as well. We need to stand together and fight. We have to show them that although we no longer feel safe in our lives, we are not going to run. That no matter how much we feel like hiding, we will stand proud and not waiver.

We will not let him continue to win…

***

Jo Gates

I’m astonished at Channel 7’s voyeuristic bad taste to mark September 11 with the programming of a show that focused on the actual attacks on the World Trade centre, and tell us (once more) why the Twin Towers collapsed.

It was a thinly disguised opportunity for Channel 7 to show the footage of impact (do we need to show it ever again?) and try in vain to grab for ratings in a timeslot that no doubt gets beaten by the NRL Footy show every week.

It seems they’ve chosen to commemorate the accomplishments of terrorism as opposed to marking the remembrance of those lost. Even the major US stations weren’t that tacky (?)

Do we need to show that again? Did anyone miss it the first time round in 2000? The more we indulge, the more I think we reflect our ignorance and seeming disregard at all other human suffering and atrocity that has gone relatively unnoticed in other countries in the past 2 years. Then again, if CNN wasn’t there to capture it live, it never happened…

***

Andrea Hamann in the United Arab Emirates

 

I didn’t even notice when September 11 came and went this year, and to be quite honest I am glad I didn’t. It is not that I don’t feel for the victims of that day, I do. It’s that I don’t feel any less for the 800,000 or more victims of genocide in Rwanda, or those of ethnic cleansing of Albanians in Serbia, or the millions of refugees stranded on borders, or no man’s lands around the world, or any other peoples in this world who slip through the safety nets of wealth and democracy. I don’t see any of those victims being honoured with a day where throughout the world everyone pauses to reflect and think of their fates, and how it was that a world community could let it happen, and continues to do so.

***

Anonymous

That he was twenty years of age and clung desperately to his mother, umbilically, made absolute sense to me. He would not have seen it that way, of course. He had flown secret missions – he couldn’t say how many – to unnamed parts of the world, in the elite US Special Forces, under the cover of darkness, parachuting in, and, in his words, “destroying everything”. The guesswork in his family was not that he had killed a man, but how many. Or had he killed civilians as well. In fact, that is what he was trained to do: to kill.

I met him personally more than two years ago. He was tough, don’t worry about that. There was something in his eyes that hurts me still, and I can see it there, now, as real as these words on the page. It was ‘an other thing’. A ‘something else’. There was in his eyes something you do not see in the eyes of a normal citizen.

Where was he, in there, I do not know. I do know he was begging to come out. We talked a little about it. He had two more years to serve, and then he was free. “Free” – his word, used easily, and without disloyalty to his country.

On parting, I had one hope in my heart for him. I hoped he would have the time to process what had happened to him.

Two months later the Towers came down. I died a little for him that day, because I knew his fate was sealed. He had been denied time.

Those who have been to America and witnessed its culture would know that it is a military country. It’s not like Australia. Friends and family in the US are either military or they’re not, that is the distinction. We don’t have that distinction, we don’t relate to each other with that in our minds.

Everywhere there, it seems, there is a military presence. It struck me, even before the world had changed, that America was living in fear. Why else the military everywhere? What were they so frightened of? Even their anthem is bound up in war.

He told me of the life he had lived, in shortcut sentences, in matters not Classified – but his telling of it was easy, as though he had it all down pat. Or was this also part of the training? He slept at an airfield, he said, and was just twenty minutes away at all times from jumping in a plane and flying off to some unnamed country and doing what he was trained to do. Twenty minutes.

No one ‘on the outside’ ever knew the mission had been flown, not even his mother. After six months of this, he and his small unit would be farmed out to try to shiver and shake it all off, even if they didn’t fly. Then it was their turn again, and it was back to the airfield to ‘live’. At night, he would be attacked by members of his own unit, invading his sleep by stealth, to keep him on his toes, and because that was what they did. Trained killers attacking.

He was beautiful though. I believe he still is. Deeply and sincerely, when it all got too sensitive, he would bung on an Aussie accent and we’d laugh. He wished to come to Australia, but when he said this, he seemed not to know how to go about it. He knew he would not fit in. We think about sunburn and shark attacks. He thought about killing people.

Amazing. Young people there from schooling years who find themselves without a civilian future are seduced into it, into the military. I happened to meet a recruiting officer while there. I’ve never met a sharper, more seductive, smooth, trained, salesman. Amazing. A struggling and uncertain youth would have no chance, and the offers of a free laptop and certain weekly wage seem designed to be just the right bait. Unemployment and risking the streets or a laptop and everything looked after? What would you choose? It’s nice and easy.. you just sign on to the military for a few short years and then you can get out, with a cash bonus, like that set of steak knives.

What the youth of America don’t know in making that decision is that once in, you can’t get out. At least, its damn hard. Hard, hard, hard. And it’s not as if the young are equipped to make the decision in the first place.

And so to my killer. We listened to some music he had made, on his computer, in his private dog box, in the compound (not under the auspices of the special forces). Dance beats, speed-drug beats, an endless mantra. The beat was his escape. But where could he run, I thought. And outside the building, swarming, were clones of him. Same haircuts, same politeness, same robotic purpose, everywhere.

And yet he was so unique. I miss him. I pray for him. I wonder what the hell has happened to him. I loved him, still do, and I hope he can feel it. In Australia I live by the sea, and I thought about that while sitting in his dog box listening to his music beat in the middle of the US Military.

People of Australia, look out upon the blue sky of your morning and be thankful. Be thankful that your street is not built with one civilian household next to a military household. Be thankful that you don’t have to deal with that force, that presence in your life. Be thankful for your children in the neighbourhood. Be thankful that they may have a better chance. Be thankful that above you in the blue sky is not a satellite eye plotting your every move, beamed back to some country electronically connected to your country’s fear.

Realise, if you will, that America is complex. Realise if you will that when you see images on the telly of American soldiers representing American interests that they may not be there by choice. Not really. nd then, if you will, look upon the leadership of the world and demand of them in your spirit that they wish for a blue sky leading only to the heavens.

Be gentle.

G’Day. I hope Labor asks John Howard in Question Time today: “What were the real reasons you ordered Australian troops to invade Iraq? Please come clean.”

His lies were clear at the time to anyone who cared to read the facts, consult the experts and exercise common sense. Is John Howard the most deceptive, short-sighted, narrow-minded, dangerous, amoral Prime Minister Australia has ever had?

I’ve been looking over pre-war Webdiaries in the light of the devastating British intelligence assessment released over the weekend. A terribly sad experience. The standout in my reading so far is this poem from Sydney doctor John Augustus published published on March 19 in Feelings on the eve of war:

SNAP!

The big eagle caught in the trap,

Feathers of failed diplomacy drifting.

Bin Laden smiling, the hapless waiting,

A swift brutal war, a fractured globe.

The terrorist wins after all.

To remind yourself of Howard’s deceptions and evasions before the war, I recommend Deconstructing JW Howard, a transcript of his last formal pre-war press conference and my analysis of the questions and answers. It was a grand performance by the press gallery – minus Murdoch’s cheerleaders, of course.

The best question then, and the one which still stands out, was from SBS Television’s Dennis Grant:

In your speech today my attention was drawn to this line where you’re talking about “people who are ready to mount the moral parapets” of this debate. Can I draw your attention to some of them? Could I draw your attention to General Peter Gration – he was CDF at the time of the last Gulf War; Major General Peter Phillips, fighting soldier in Vietnam, the National President of the RSL. On the diplomatic side, Dick Woolcott – former head of the Department of Foreign Affairs. All of them are opposed to your policy. Can you point me to a credible, non-political figure who does support your policy?

John Howard: Well, in the nature of political debate Dennis, people don’t declare and come out in favour of something that is being done, they tend to come out against something that they disagree with. And in talking about those gentlemen, particularly Peter Gration and Peter Phillips, I don’t regard everybody as everybody’s who’s been a little bit critical as having mounted the moral parapets, I don’t. I, in fact, I followed carefully what both Peter Gration and Peter Phillips have said and I don’t, you know, I don’t put them in the category of people who have branded what we’re doing as immoral and war mongering and so forth, they have reservations, they have different views about different aspects of it. As far as Dick Woolcott is concerned, well I respect his views. He, of course, was somebody who was very critical of our intervention in East Timor, now that’s his right. But in a debate like this you get a whole range of views and I’ve read what Peter and the two Peter’s have said and whilst they raise a number of questions and express some concerns, I don’t regard them as having mounted the moral parapets in the way that some others have done.

Well the question of who supports me or who doesn’t support me in the end is a judgement for the people of Australia. I regard the views of individual Australians on this as just as valuable as the views of people you’ve quoted or any people I might invoke. I mean this is something for the people to think about and the purpose of a gathering like this is for me, through this forum, to talk directly to the people of Australia. I’m interested in their views, some of them don’t agree with me, some of them do. A lot of them haven’t made up their minds and I can understand that because, as I said right at the beginning, this is the first major difficult international issue of great complexity, the world has had to grapple since the arrival of what I might call the new dispensation of which I spoke in my address.

My Comment: Howard has completely fallen apart now. By saying that in politics “people don’t declare and come out in favour of something that is being done, they tend to come out against something that they disagree with”, he’s implying that he’s decided to go to war, something he’s denied. If you take him at his word, the matter is unresolved, in which case you’d expect vigorous debate from credible people on both sides of the debate.

In any event, his claim is inaccurate. It’s a standard feature of political debate that before a decision is announced, a government lines up credible non-political figures to praise it on release. And when a government is not winning an important political debate, it’s standard practice to press supporters of its cause to go public. Howard, it seems, has been spectacularly unsuccessful in this endeavour.

The fact that he can think of not one credible non-political figure who supports his position is proof that he’s in deep trouble on the merits. To then outsource the question to the people of Australia to rack there brains over – and on a question of fact, not opinion – is breathtaking. And the fact that he gives the people this responsibility while making it clear he’s perfectly prepared to go to war in the face of contrary public opinion, shows he’s been snookered. For mine, Grant asked the question of the day.

Howard’s last doorstop before on the war is discussed in A question of legitimacy. He insisted the war was legal, a false claim exposed by Australia’s former Solicitor General Gavan Griffith QC in This war is illegal: Howard’s last top law man.

I also recommend the pre-war speeches of the father of the United States Senate, Robert Byrd, although you may cry while reading them: A lonely voice in a US Senate silent on war and Today, I Weep for my Country…

The February 5 speech of Laurie Brereton, Shroud over Guernica, is top class, as is the speech by Mark Latham on the eve of war, The march of folly. Simon Crean’s final pre-war speech hit the mark too: Australia: The war within.

For a reminder of the ideology which lead the United States and Australia to this disaster, see A think tank war: Why old Europe says no.

Need a laugh after all that? Chris Montemayor recommends clanuak for George Bush’s rendition of ‘Whatever’. “Turn up your sound! God bless!”

Here’s my Sun Herald column yesterday, with links.

Danger in striking at funnel-webs

September 14, 2003

The world spoke out against war in Iraq, writes Margo Kingston, but they were drowned out by the voice of three.

G’day. I’ll never forget February 16, 2003, when Sydney joined the world on the streets to say No to a US invasion of Iraq without United Nations support.

Three old politicians – Labor hard man Laurie Brereton, Green icon Bob Brown and former Liberal Party minister Peter Baume – led the protest shouting “No War”. North Shore matrons rubbed shoulders with parents pushing strollers and youngsters wondering which anti-war T-shirt to buy. (Sydney walks in numbers too big to ignore)

That weekend, the world’s peoples suggested that invading Iraq would make the world a more dangerous one, not a safer one, and asked their leaders to find an alternative.

But the leaders of the US, Britain and Australia knew better.

In the past week, Web Diary’s international relations commentator Scott Burchill found a quote from Harold Thorby, Australia’s defence minister in 1938: “We, the Government, have vital information which we cannot disclose. It is upon this knowledge that we make decisions. You, who are merely private citizens, have not access to this information. Any criticism you make of our policy, any controversy about it in which you may indulge will therefore be uninformed and valueless. If, in spite of your ignorance, you persist in questioning our policy, we can only conclude that you are disloyal.”

Burchill: “At least they were more honest back then.”

Before the war, when John Howard pretended he hadn’t promised George Bush he’d go all the way on a Bush nod, 70 per cent of Australians thought we shouldn’t go in without UN sanction.

Now the Americans are begging the UN to clean up its mess, Iraq looks like Vietnam and Saddam Hussein looks like he’s got into bed with his sworn enemy Osama Bin Laden. Last week, Bin Laden agreed with Bush that Iraq is the central front. In what, World War III? The Iraqi people’s suffering continues.

As we remember September 11, let’s also remember that our political elders from both sides of politics – and our military, public service, legal, church, arts and economics elders – spoke out against this war in all three pro-war nations. All were ignored.

Brigadier Adrian D’hage, Vietnam War hero and the bloke in charge of security at Sydney’s Olympics, wrote: “The [UN weapons] inspectors must be given a chance to do their job and, if that takes a year, then so be it – Iraq poses no threat to anyone while they are there. Far more distinguished soldiers than I don’t agree with this war unless it is an absolute last resort.” (The D’hage report: View from Istanbul)

On the eve of war, Labor’s Mark Latham told Parliament: “This is the march of folly and, shamefully, the Australian Government is following the United States down this path. This is the worst piece of Australian foreign policy since Vietnam.”

Web Diarist Andrew O’Connell wrote: “Growing up in country NSW, I once saw a huge funnel-web which scared the life out of me. Instinctively, I picked up a rock, took aim and threw. I hit my target, but the rock also ripped open the spider’s nest. To a 10-year-old it looked like I’d unleashed a swarm of hundreds of spiders spreading out in all directions.

“For years after I had nightmares where the spiders spewing out enveloped me, my family and everyone I knew. Ever since it’s become clear that Bush, [US Vice-President Dick] Cheney and the charming [Defence Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld have decided to invade Iraq regardless of the consequences, the same horrible dreams have come back to haunt my nights again.” (Spiders spread in all directions)

Many people who backed the war also feel betrayed and fear that the war spin – the lies told for the reasons for war – has damaged our war on terrorism.

Web Diarist Daniel Moye wrote in Faulty evidence damaging the cause that the sell-war campaign now looks like an election campaign: let’s just say whatever we need to say to win the argument and deal with the backlash afterwards.

“I support the war and see the ongoing challenges facing the West, yet I also support a vigorous inquiry into the misleading intelligence presented to justify the war. The leaders should be accountable for their actions, and if their governments fall, so be it. I appreciate the high standards that the Australian media, in particular Fairfax and the ABC, have demanded of our leaders. The cheerleading of the Murdoch press paradoxically helps the anti-war arguments by reducing the debates to a passionate brawl.” (Murdoch’s war: 175 generals on song, Murdoch: Cheap oil the prize and Murdoch’s war on truth in war reporting)

Web Diarist ‘John Nicolay’ saw the jubilation in Baghdad when Saddam’s statue fell as “a marvellous affirmation of liberal values – and of the belief that, ultimately, it’s not possible to crush the human spirit entirely”. (The human spirit)

I replied: “That test is about to begin. It will be a long, long road, with no certainty of victory. So let all of us who believe in liberal values – pro-war, anti-war, ambivalent, keep Australia out of it, only with the UN – shake hands and do our best to make John’s wish come true.”

It’s up to the people, yet again. Yet again, our political leaders have failed us.

G’Day. The leak of Andrew Wilkie’s top secret report on Iraq for the Office of National Assessments sets the scene for a sensational week’s Parliament when combined with revelations over the weekend that British intelligence warned Tony Blair weeks before we invaded Iraq that war would hurt the cause of fighting terrorism, not help it (Australia was told: war will fuel terror). That is the same message Wilkie gave the Australian people when he resigned from ONA before the war. Wilkie accused Howard of lying to the Australian people about the reasons he wanted to invade Iraq, and Howard’s been trying to destroy Wilkie’s credibility ever since.

Tonight the story so far, as told by Labor’s best Senate prosecutors, Labor Senate leader John Faulkner and former defence minister Robert Ray, and defence spokesman Chris Evans. For the defence, West Australian roughie David Johnston, who smeared Wilkie with venomous zeal without addressing the issue, and moderate NSW Senator Marise Payne, who did her best under impossible circumstances. Howard, of course, later distanced himself from Johnston’s remarks. That’s his style – play reasonable statesman to one constituency while setting the dogs loose to get the real message across.

Big problem: We now know the unstable, odious Wilkie sang the same song as Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee. What sort of man would ignore such intelligence and send us to war regardless? Maybe Andrew Wilkie is a hero.

The Debate took place last Wednesday.

Senator FAULKNER, NSW, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate

I move: That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Defence (Senator Hill) to questions without notice asked by Senators Faulkner, Ray and Evans today relating to the release of confidential documents.

I remind the Senate of the chronology of the leak of this ONA document classified Top Secret AUSTEO.

On June 19 this year, former ONA analyst Andrew Wilkie gave evidence to the United Kingdom Foreign Affairs Select Committee on weapons of mass destruction. His appearance received a great deal of publicity in the Australian media. Around this time someone – I believe from within government – accessed from ONA on a return and burn basis that highly classified, top secret AUSTEO codeword document and it was provided to Herald Sun journalist Andrew Bolt. I believe that the motivation was to discredit Wilkie.

On Monday, 23 June, Mr Bolt admitted in his Herald Sun article that he was going through the only secret report that Wilkie ever wrote about Iraq. On 9 July Wilkie wrote to the Prime Minister about his concern over this leak of classified information. The Prime Minister’s office replied almost four weeks later on 31 July, stating that Wilkie’s concerns had been flicked to the Office of National Assessments.

On 6 August ONA wrote to Wilkie stating that they had referred the Bolt article to the police. (Margo: ONA referred the security breach to the AFP on July 4.) It is now 10 September, nine weeks later, and the police still have not made up their mind whether they will launch a full investigation into this matter.

In parliament yesterday Mr Howard said, Oh well, it is all okay because no intelligence material related to national security was published, and that that was the heart of the issue. That is very cynical spin from the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister knows it.

At the heart of the issue, to use the Prime Minister’s words, is a flagrant breach of national security, a failure to investigate, covering up, using our security agencies for purposes outside their charters and passing a document that contains highly classified material – perhaps material from overseas intelligence sources without their clearance – to a journalist.

On the face of it, this is an extraordinarily serious breach of national security, covered by provisions of the Commonwealth Crimes Act. It is a crime.

As always, the government has us and them standards. If the late Merv Jenkins is suspected of leaking, the goons and the heavies come down on him like a ton of bricks, but if Andrew Bolt admits to having a classified document he is not even interviewed nine weeks later. Any other Australian would find themselves in a small dark room with a very bright light focused on their faces, but not Mr Bolt or anybody associated with this serious leak. This government has a tradition of brazenly abusing security agencies for political purposes.

We in the opposition say this: the full force of the law should come down on that person, or those persons, responsible for leaking that document and having that document or information contained within it supplied to Mr Bolt.

The full force of the law should come down on any senior member of government who was in on this dirty little fix. That is in the interests of national security, that is the task in front of this government, that is the task in front of the Australian Federal Police; and this opposition will hold the government accountable on this important matter.

***

Senator JOHNSTON (Western Australia)

This government will be accountable. This is the weakest, most pathetic beat-up that Senator Faulkner has been involved in since I have been in this chamber. He has sought to say that he believes the document was provided and he says perhaps involving foreign governments. This is an insult to our intelligence. He has not got a single, solitary, decent, respectable fact. He simply wants to protect his latest hero in this very dishonourable affair of a senior, allegedly ABC classified intelligence officer jumping ship and seeking to make a media career out of his former employment as a public servant.

How dishonourable and reprehensible, and I am very surprised that you would deal with such a person as this man is evolving to be. Who is he and what was he? He has sought to make mileage from his very respected and cloistered position as a fourth grade operative in the ONA. Briefing Channel 9 over the weekend, as he did, before he announced his resignation, he orchestrated the media. How low can you go?

And Senator Faulkner wants to champion this man as some sort of saviour of the Labor Party. He is just reprehensible. Everything that has been said of him is what he has said in The Bulletin and what he has said in the Financial Review in his very flagrant, extravagant and outrageous performances, where he has sought to orchestrate the whole thing to grab himself some sort of peculiar notoriety.

He did not even work in the Iraq section. He has gone to Channel 9 and told them before he even had the courtesy to announce to his employer that he was going to jump ship. He has orchestrated this whole thing to get some sort of grandiose self-enrichment from the process. And everything he said is contradictory. In the Financial Review of 12 March he is quoted as saying:

There is no doubt they being Iraq have chemical and biological weapons, but their program now is disjointed and limited.

So he is acknowledging that they have chemical and biological weapons. That is his story. He said in The Bulletin that Saddam could create a humanitarian disaster and he could do it with weapons of mass destruction. Talking about coalition forces, he said in The Bulletin that Iraq could overwhelm them with hundreds of thousands of refugees. This man is incongruous, inconsistent and unreliable and is the latest saviour for the opposition. It is a very sorry, sad situation.

Let us talk about the Andrew Bolt article of 13 March 2003 (incorrect – it was on June 23) when that journalist said:

More importantly, in saying why he opposes war, Wilkie not only badly contradicts himself but admits we should be scared of Iraq. He says that Iraq does not pose a security threat but then says Iraq, as a rogue state, should worry us as a potential source of weapons to terrorists.

Where is this man coming from? He is very unstable. At the very best, he is unreliable; at worst, he is flaky and irrational, and this is the person Senator Faulkner is pinning his hopes on in this beat-up.

***

Senator ROBERT RAY (Victoria)

It is almost beyond belief that the government have been so indolent on the leaking of an ONA document classified top secret. When it came to Merv Jenkins or Trent Smith, they could not have acted more quickly to send in the investigators. Countless interviews were held, phone records were searched and suspects were browbeaten. Yet we now have the circumstance of a journalist acknowledging that he had possession of an ONA document marked top secret, and the AFP are still considering whether to have an investigation – just considering. (Margo: The AFP told me the next day: “Following a thorough evaluation, the AFP moved into investigation phase yesterday.”)

It has been 48 days since the publication of extracts of an ONA document and still we do not have a full investigation. Why has the Prime Minister been asleep at the wheel?

Yesterday, the Prime Minister ran the astounding argument that he had been assured that there was nothing of a national security nature in Bolt’s article. This is just pathetic dissembling. The document is marked ‘Top secret AUSTEO’. Its unauthorised disclosure is a breach of the Crimes Act. The document is protected in its entirety. It is not okay to leak or have published parts of it that you decide have no national security implications.

ONA has in place a whole range of document-handling procedures designed to protect its material. Identifiers are placed in every document so as to trace leaks. ONA follows a return and burn policy so that every document is properly tracked. What we want to know is this: was ONA asked to provide a copy of Mr Wilkies December 2002 ONA report to any ministers office, government department or government agency just prior to the disclosures that appeared in the Herald Sun of 23 June this year?

Let us be clear about this. If a ministers office is found to have disclosed this material to an unauthorised recipient – that is, a journalist – then that minister must be sacked. It is that serious. In our Westminster system, we extend trust to ministers to properly handle security matters, but they have a duty to abide by the rules. Seeking retaliation, which the Prime Minister has asserted as a right of government, can never extend to the use of a top-secret document to

discredit a government critic.

I am not a fan of Wilkie – that is known – but I do not believe he has done anything illegal, nor have I heard anyone from the government accuse him of illegality. There is no doubt that Andrew Bolt, in quoting slabs from an ONA document classified top secret, has breached national security. Having received the document, it was his obligation to immediately return it and report the matter to the authorities.

It is now Andrew Bolts duty to put his loyalty to Australia ahead of his loyalty to the coalition government and tell us whether the ONA document was supplied to him by a minister’s office, a government department or a government agency. If he wants to argue that he is bound not to disclose his source, he should be willing to go to jail for his beliefs.

We know that most of our analysis and intelligence on Iraq comes from our overseas intelligence partners. It is given to us on the basis that it will not be disclosed. If any of the material finds its way into the hands of an unauthorised recipient, we must immediately inform our intelligence partners.

It is time for the government to front up honestly on this issue. If they know who leaked this, they should come clean, because if they try to cover it up, that would be far worse than the initial sin.

If security agencies believe they are at risk, that their political masters will leak sensitive and secret material, then they will feel inhibited in future from passing on vital information. We will all be the losers if that is the case.

Senator PAYNE (New South Wales)

I agree with all of the previous speakers on this motion to note that these are very serious matters for the Senate and I believe they are being treated as such. The Minister for Defence and Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Hill, indicated in question time that a very serious response is being undertaken by the government, that the Australian Federal Police are in the course of pursuing an investigation.

I will say – nobody else has made this observation to my recollection – I stand to be corrected – that I believe the AFP will conduct their investigation with absolute priority, with absolute diligence and with no adversion in that process to any of the political to-ing and fro-ing that goes on in this place, and I am completely confident of that.

In response to questions asked of him today, the minister also indicated that the approach taken by that investigation is a matter for the AFP. Most importantly, it is not a matter to which the hypotheses and extrapolations of the opposition can be applied with any seriousness whatsoever as they have been in this chamber today. I think it is a very unhelpful addition to the process to try to second-guess or double-guess or perhaps just creatively assume facts and options that might apply in this case and encourage ministers to respond to those in question time. It is not appropriate for ministers to comment on that investigation, particularly in reference to the operational matters occurring therein, and members of the Senate well know that.

I think the hypothetical extensions that we have been subjected to this afternoon show that the opposition is, at this point, really grasping at straws in the wind. This concerns me for a number of reasons – not just because they are hypothetical but because they are examples of what is now habitual offending; that is, the extraordinary politicisation of these issues over and above the pursuit of genuine efforts to look at matters of proper procedure, to look at appropriate investigation and to look at how the process is being undertaken. This politicisation goes way beyond that.

For example, in media reports earlier this week pertaining to another AFP investigation – the questioning of people like Abu Dahdah – I heard a politicisation that I had not heard before. Even the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, Commissioner Keelty, commented that he was being asked questions in radio interviews that pertained to operational issues. These are questions which he is simply not able to answer – and nor should he be required to. In some ways, the opposition’s pursuit, on this level, of these issues is very similar.

Senator Faulkner alleged this afternoon that there has been a failure to investigate, a covering up, and a use of agencies for inappropriate purposes – which he extrapolates as perhaps involving foreign governments, a statement which I think Senator Johnston responded to – including the passing of material to a journalist.

But the bottom line here, as the minister made quite clear in his response, is that there is an AFP inquiry proceeding. Surely that is the matter of relevance for this chamber: that the AFP are undertaking their job and their role in this process responsibly, diligently and, as I said, with the utmost propriety.

As Senator Johnston said in his remarks earlier, it seems to us that if one is so concerned about intelligence leaking, about integrity and about appropriate behaviour then one would be similarly outraged – and the opposition could employ extra mock outrage if there is any left – about the behaviour of an ONA officer in going to the media in advance of a planned resignation, briefing the media and contriving a situation around that. If you take it very seriously then I would assume that that would elicit similar outrage but apparently not.

I think we need to perhaps take a calm head in looking at these issues and take a calm head in examining them in this chamber, if that is at all possible. One would hope that in a serious parliamentary and political process – which looks at intelligence matters, which looks at security matters and which looks at matters concerning the Australian Federal Police, the ONA and all the other agencies involved – we would in fact be capable of doing that. I do not always expect the best from the opposition, and I expect to be disappointed again.

Senator CHRIS EVANS (Western Australia)

I think the previous contribution by Senator Payne is somewhat startling given that she attempts to accuse the Labor Party of the politicisation of these matters when we have just had the minister responsible in this chamber, Minister Hill, admit that Minister Downers office briefed at least one Senator prior to Mr Wilkie’s appearance before the committee inquiry in order to provide the Senator with material to discredit Mr Wilkies evidence.

So if she wants to talk about the independence of the process and the important role of that intelligence committee -a committee which I think is very important and has been entrusted with a degree of independence and authority – then I think we ought to look at what is really going on in terms of the politicisation of this process.

What we have heard is an admission that a Senator was briefed with material yet to be tabled, and at the moment it is unclear to us exactly what was contained in that material, but that material was used in an attempt to discredit Mr Wilkie’s evidence before the parliamentary inquiry.

We also have a prime facie case that somebody leaked material to Mr Bolt, a journalist, because his article claims to have knowledge of that top-secret documentation. That is where the concern is and that is why the Labor Party legitimately raises these concerns.

What I find most galling are the double standards that apply here. I raise the investigation into Merv Jenkins in Washington as a stark contrast to the government’s slowness and hesitancy in coming to grips with this matter. In terms of Mr Jenkins, within four days of agreeing to the inquiry concerning him they had an investigative team in Washington and the goons – as I think Senator Ray refers to them – were putting enormous pressure on Mr Jenkins, a loyal DIO officer and ex Army officer. He was threatened with jail and disgrace in the pursuit of their concerns about the potential leaking of confidential information.

So we see this enormous and aggressive response from the government in that case. The Blunn report said that the interview of Merv Jenkins was oppressive.

Contrast that with the governments behaviour in this case. We now have information that on 4 July ONA finally wrote to the AFP requesting that they investigate the possible disclosure of classified information. So on 23 June we had the Bolt article and then some 11 days later we had a letter – after some consultations – which sought to have that investigation launched.

But now, after nine more weeks, the minister, Senator Hill, is not quite clear whether there is really an investigation or whether they are still in a preliminary stage, having a bit of a look at whether or not an investigation may be launched. He was not at all clear about whether there is an investigation.

What we know about Merv Jenkins is that, within four days, he was in extremely oppressive interviews with officers dispatched to Washington from Australia. That was the urgency involved; that was the seriousness with which that breach was taken.

But, with the breach in relation to the Bolt article, we now have a leisurely nine weeks passing and no suggestion that anyone has been interviewed. The minister cannot really confirm whether there is going to be an investigation.

The contrast could not be more stark. There was an oppressive, urgent investigation in relation to the Merv Jenkins matter which ultimately put enough pressure on that poor man that he suicided. Yet, in the case of this very serious breach of security – this clear leaking of security information – we have this sort of leisurely, manana pace where we may be having an investigation or we may not be. Nine weeks on, what is the hurry? The minister cannot really provide any information; he is not really terribly sure.

You wonder whether the government are actually serious, whether they have any interest in getting to the bottom of this investigation and whether they have any interest in having it pursued and finding out who the culprit was, because clearly the government was involved in a campaign to discredit Mr Wilkie and clearly they are one of the most likely suspects in relation to the leaking of information to Mr Bolt. It just seems that there is no hurry and no urgency.

 

The lost boat crossing our endless divide. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

John Howard is on the ropes. His tactic to keep himself upright – telling his troops to prepare for an early election – is defensive, not aggressive. He needs his MPs to cheer him on during what could be the worst week of his political career.

Simon Crean has painstakingly built a platform for a potentially devastating assault on Howard’s fitness for office as blind press gallery courtiers rave on about Howard’s ‘golden moment’ and Bob Carr’s tilt at windmills.

Let’s start with Manildra. If the Senate does not pass legislation by Thursday to endorse Howard’s giveaways to his mate Dick Honan, his latest exercise in crony capitalism will collapse. Honan will keep his taxpayer subsidy and be entitled to a refund of $20 million in excise he’s paid the Government. Honan’s competitors could import ethanol from Brazil once again and claim compensation for their massive losses after Howard scuttled their last import attempt.

The Senate has only one condition to pass the Howard/Honan law – the release of documents surrounding the deal. Howard won’t do it. Why??? What is in those documents that is so damaging he’s willing to see his deal collapse? Mike Seccombe’s recent Sydney Morning Herald scoop on Howard using our diplomats to spy on Honan’s competitors could be a clue, as could the famous minute of the meeting between Howard and Honan before Howard ordered that Honan be protected from competition. Howard lied to Parliament about that meeting – assuring the Australian people more than once that it never took place (Howard meets Honan: You be the judge whether he lied about it and Competitive Capitalism versus Crony Capitalism: The Difference Between Labor and Liberal). He was sprung by an honest public servant who released the minutes under an FOI request, but large parts of it were blacked out. The Senate wants the black removed.

John Howard does not want the Australian people to know the truth about this matter, and it seems he’s prepared to trash the deal he said was so vital to the future of our ethanol industry to avoid them finding out.

Tony Abbott is major headache number two, and again the crux of the issue is Howard’s desire to keep the public in the dark. Abbott hasn’t been himself in Parliament since his hypocritical murmours of sympathy for Pauline Hanson saw him hit in the face with his key role in her downfall through his preposterously-named Honest Politics Trust (HPT). Exposure of his lies and the secrecy of his donors didn’t stop the heavyweights of political journalism frightening reporters off chasing the story of the inexcusable failure of the Australian Electoral Commission to fulfil its duty to voters to enforce political donation disclosure laws in the case of the HPT. Webdiary has revealed that the AEC backed down on its 1998 demand to Abbott to disclose AHP’s donors without asking him a single question, seeing his legal advice, or taking its own (AEC took Abbott’s word for it to keep ‘honest politics’ donors secret).

 

 

Labor, freaked out by hostile media reaction to its attempt to press the issue, its own guilty secrets on disclosure and threats by Howard to fight fire with fire if necessary, saw Labor leave it alone last week.

But Pauline Hanson’s letter to broadcaster Alan Jones (Pauline Hanson: truth will set me free) has lit a fire under the story at a time when the AEC is fighting to restore its credibility in the light of suggestions that Abbott could have misled the AEC about his slush fund, a criminal offence (Tony Abbott: No such thing as the public’s right to know, More questions for Abbott on honest politics trust and Dear Margo …. Tony Abbott writes).

Think about it – Pauline Hanson is in jail for three years for misleading the Queensland Electoral Commission!

In addition, Democrats Senator Andrew Murray told the ABC Insiders program today he had provided information to the AEC about similar search-and-destroy missions against his Party in Western Australia by two of the same Liberal Party players involved in the HPT. Murray thinks this will help persuade the AEC to order Abbott to disclose his donors (Call for names of donors to ‘honest politics’ fund, Tricks of the trade).

Abbott’s recent exposure as a serial liar means his credibility is shot to pieces (Now Abbott lies about lying, copies Howard’s Manildra). That means Howard’s manager of government business in the House of Representatives is a dead duck in a week when Howard will need all the help he can get. Why is it so important to keep the donors secret that Abbott is prepared to die a slow political death to avoid the disclosure of their identities?

Then there’s the really big one. The leak of intelligence whistleblower Andrew Wilkie’s top secret ONA report on Iraq to Government-friendly journalist Andrew Bolt in June began to haunt Howard last week after his government brazenly briefed government backbencher Sandy Macdonald on its contents to hit Wilkie over the head with in the parliamentary inquiry into Howard’s pre-war intelligence.

The leak of Wilkie’s report is a serious breach of security and a criminal offence which went unnoticed back in June. The Macdonald drama lifted the lid on the scandal, revealing that ONA had referred the leak to the Australian Federal Police for investigation on July 4. NINE WEEKS later, the AFP had not interviewed Bolt! The AFP now joins Australian Electoral Commission as an ‘independent’ body under strong suspicion of having been so politicised under John Howard that it no longer performs its duty without fear or favour.

I rang the AFP last week to ask when the investigation began and why Bolt had not been interviewed. The reply: “Following a thorough evaluation, the AFP moved into investigation phase YESTERDAY.” The AFP said it was also investigating the use of top secret material by Macdonald. In other words, a government MP is under criminal investigation and the leaker could well be a government staffer or minister guilty of a serious crime and a serious breach of security in a security-conscious Australia.

I was the subject of an AFP investigation many years ago when I was leaked a Simon Crean Cabinet submission. These types of leaks – unlike leaks of classified security documents like Wilkie’s – are usually ignored, because often it’s politicians doing the leaking. I was interviewed at the Canberra headquarters of the AFP within days of Crean’s referral, and said “no comment” to all questions asked because my source was confidential. But the police had good reason to interview me. I could have got the document anonymously in the mail or found it in a rubbish bin, and in either case could and would have been frank with the AFP. So why wasn’t Andrew Bolt interviewed? Two reasons spring to mind – either the police already knew who leaked it and didn’t want to pursue the matter, or had decided not to investigate at all.

This is an intolerable situation and, as other writers have pointed out, makes a despicable comparison with Australian defence force officer Merv Jenkins, who took his own life in Washington after vicious government retaliation for his failure to obey a directive not to give US intelligence contacts information on East Timor prior to the independence vote despite government-to-government agreements to do so (see Mike Carlton’s A leak by the bucketful and Michelle Grattan’s It’s no secret: let he who is without spin…).

But the significance of the Government’s Bolt play is much greater than further proof of its entrenched double standards and dangerous politicisation of Australia’s core democratic institutions. If it’s OK to leak intelligence to discredit the whistleblower, why isn’t it OK to release intelligence to refute Wilkie’s accusations that Howard lied about his reasons for invading Iraq? Why not declassify the intelligence which would prove Howard’s constant claims in arguing the case for war that invading Iraq would REDUCE the risk of terrorism, REDUCE the risk of WMDs finding their way into the hands of terrorists, and make the world a SAFER place forAustralians? Why won’t Howard disprove Wilkie’s assertions by proving his own case?

He sure needs to now. Sensational documents just released by the British parliamentary inquiry into Blair’s stated reasons for war reveal what the British Joint Intelligence Committee told Blair (and the Australian intelligence services) six weeks before the war:

“The JIC assessed that al-Qaeda and associated groups continued to represent by far the greatest terrorist threat to western interests, and that threat would be heightened by military action against Iraq,” the British parliamentary report says.

“The JIC report, ‘International Terrorism: War with Iraq’, also said there was no evidence Saddam Hussein wanted to use any chemical or biological weapons in terrorist attacks or that he planned to pass them on to al-Qaeda. “However, it judged that in the event of imminent regime collapse there would be a risk of transfer of such material, whether or not as a deliberate regime policy.” (Australia was told: war will fuel terror).

Wilkie made these very points upon his resignation from ONA before the war. Why did Howard invade? Didn’t he care about increasing the threat of terrorism? Did he judge that our security reliance on the United States was so large that he had to agree to a request from a mad president? So large that he ignored the best available intelligence and passionate warnings from Indonesia and and other neighbours that invading Iraq without UN sanction would greatly destablise the region, thus increasing the risk to the safety of Australians?

Howard’s spin is starting to turn on him in dangerous ways. Why spend hundreds of millions to invade a country of no threat to us, taking the risks of a transfer of WMDs to terrorists and the creation of new alliances between terrorist groups? Why not spend all those millions on improving our internal security to keep us safe?

Last week’s revelations that Howard took the threat of terrorism so seriously that outsourced private firms had access to areas containing crucial security information about transport and customs checks raise questions about his good faith on terror. Big questions. Our airports are still insecure. Experts have been warning for months that nothing has been done to protect trucks carrying chemicals from terrorist attack. What is going on?

There could be an early election alright, but if there is don’t see it as a sign of strength. Howard’s rainbow has faded. He’s on the run, and his best bet to preserve his regime is to go to an election before Labor gets its leadership act together.

Peter Costello announced on Thursday that he’d travel to the Middle East to meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Costello’s preparing for leadership big time. A Howard early election play could be Howard’s last card to stop Costello becoming Prime Minister by the end of the year.

The latest intelligence revelations out of Britian are in The Observer: Revealed: new doubts on Blair’s Iraq dossier

 

Serenade with a drunken assassin. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

G’Day. It’s been yet another frenzied, feverish week in Australian politics, where dots continue to be joined and political certainties continue to unravel. The aspect I’m working on – the Tony Abbott slush fund – has entered a digging-in phase. There’s been a few developments which I’ll report to you in another entry – today’s Webdiary is dedicated to your input and my responses to your questions and criticisms. Sorry I’m so far behind on reader emails – there’s a lot going on. Long time Webdiarists Robert Lawton and Hamish Tweedy reckon I’m on the wrong track with Abbott, and Robert also reckons Webdiary’s going in the wrong direction. My response has turned into an essay, so I’ll publish their critiques and my response in another entry. Otherwise, I’m drawing a line under Abbott emails sent to date, so if I’ve missed a corker please resend.

The SMH online now has an Abbott slush fund archive.

The Age political correspondent Annabel Crabb reported this week that Hanson could stand for political office once she gets out of jail even if her appeal against her conviction for fraud fails. That’s come as a big surprise to the government. See Hanson still has future in politics.

I’m still working on a list of questions to send Mr Abbott in the light of More questions for Abbott on honest politics trust and his response to that piece, Dear Margo …. Tony Abbott writes. In response to my request for reader’s questions, Mike Mackay suggests: “Why did he repeatedly tell Parliament recently that Wilson Tuckey was a ‘fine Australian’?”

Marilyn Shepherd’s questions are:

* Was John Howard or any member of his family a contributor?

* If yes, is that why Abbott won’t come clean?

* Is any member of the executive of the Liberal party a donor?

* If yes, who?

* Is any current member of the parliament for the National or Liberal party a donor?

* If yes, who?

* How much did each member of parliament give?

* What did they understand the fund was for?

* Did any donors/contributors understand that people could be put in prison?

* Did any donors/contributors believe it was a Liberal party fund?

***

Pascal Grosvenor

Margo, I’m pleased to see you naming the spokesmen for Abbott and for the AEC. Hopefully other journalists will start doing the same, then these spokespeople/spin doctors might start feeling some of the pressure personally and it will be harder for ministers, departments, etc to hide behind them.

***

Geoff Eagar

I have been a long time reader of Webdiary. Recently you published a request from a reader to reduce the political content of your site which prompted you to invite contributions from us on the theme of new directions.

I thought about this, and your job description as political online editor seemed an obstacle. Yet I must confess to feeling a little jaded with the constant stridency and intellectual conceit of many of the contributions published, however much I agreed with the sentiment. What really dismayed me was the fact that it was all talk. Lots of people seemed to have wonderful ideas about Reconciliation yet it seemed little more than talk. The chattering classes indeed.

Yet now I see a site where contributors have fired off letters to Justice Morling sparking action. A great start. But perhaps …

Howard criticises the judiciary’s activism – do we now have journalistic activism? I have no time for Minister Christ or his political God the Father who’s just been reported as having boastfully declared the History War’s over because noone’s asked Him for an Apology lately. But, journalistic activism? Is your site creating news? I hope you know what I’m getting at – Christ has created the story Himself of course, but how far can you go? If all the way, let’s go it then!

So for new directions, I’d like to nominate some journalistic activism be fired off on Reconciliation and the Apology, Aunty ABC, the environment, ending State Aid to private schools…..

***

Daniel Moye in Roseville, Sydney

In Who’s who in Abbott’s slush fund zoo Anthony Loewenstein asked the question whether Abbott was acting as a private individual or as a Liberal member? Surely it is almost impossible for a Minister of the Crown to act as a private individual in almost every circumstance. I would have thought, by definition, as a Minister of the Crown Abbott acts almost always as a public person. Surely there is only small and discreet examples where a Minister is not acting as a public person. Perhaps you could argue along those lines.

By the way, the last thing we need is Bob Carr in Canberra. He has even better spin than Howard.

***

Michael Hessenthaler

Hi Margo. I thought I’d pass on the reply from the AEC to my email on September 2 (first published in AEC claims secret political donations no business of voters).

Dear AEC

I am a customer of the AEC because I am an enrolled voter.

Could you please advise me on the status of your “further inquiries” in relation to the topical issue of Tony Abbott and your original decision that he did not have to comply with disclosure requirements pertaining to the Australians for Honest Politics Trust.

When do you envisage that you will, in accordance with your stated Corporate Goals, be transparent about the outcome of your inquiries?

Thanking you,

Regards

Michael Hessenthaler

*

AEC Reply, Sent: Tuesday, 9 September 2003 4:53 PM

Mr Hessenthaler,

Thank you for your e-mail below.

The AEC does not believe that Ms Margot Kingston’s article ‘Australian Electoral Commission in the Dock: Why won’t it come clean’ (Herald website, 1 September 2003) fully recognises the complexity of the issues surrounding this matter.

The AEC is committed to its core values of: independence and neutrality, integrity and accuracy, mutual respect, respect for the law, service and transparency. The AEC’s actions on this matter have been and continue to be fully consistent with these values.

However the AEC asks its clients to appreciate that in dealing with legislative compliance issues the AEC must give due regard to confidentiality. Unnecessary publicity may prejudice their further investigation.

The AEC has a policy of considering matters that are raised with it either directly or through public forums such as the media. The AEC treats these matters seriously and as such, must ensure that it deals with them in a consistent, considered and equitable manner.

Accordingly, the AEC does not offer comments on matters until it has had the opportunity to research and consider all information available and has come to an informed conclusion.

Kathy Mitchell

Director Funding & Disclosure

*

Michael had a strong response to my report of the interview I did with Tony Abbott on September 5 (Tony Abbott: No such thing as the public’s right to know):

Margo, whilst reading with trepidation your latest in SMH I was struck by something so obvious that I am ashamed not to have recognised it earlier – this fellow Abbott is NOT FRANK AND OPEN!

Perhaps I don’t deserve a reward for recognising the obvious. Perhaps we all think it, but I think it also needs to be addressed loud and clear with the sly politicians we have to suffer.

It struck me what a painstaking, drawn out process it is for you to have to analyse and triple-analyse everything Abbott is saying. You did some clever foot work and interviewing to get Abbott to slip on his own dirt and you laid it out so well for all us readers.

But why? Why should it have to be so painful?

As a factual investigator well versed in insurance policies and insurance law, I often faced tricky claimants trying to carefully word their answers (al la Abbott, Reith, Howard, etc) so that maybe, just maybe they can get away with their false claims. Some of them feel quite smug at how clever they are in the use of the English language.

I faced them with the obvious, that is written into law and into the policy (being a “contract” between two parties) – YOU HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO BE FRANK AND OPEN. I explained to them that I am not paid to outsmart them with trick questions, that I don’t have to play cat and mouse games, but that they must tell me the information relevant to their claim in a frank and open manner. No misleading, not double-meaning terms, no reversing sentences, no struggling with “Oh God, what did I say 12 answers ago, will this fit in or can it be misconstrued and held against me” kind of stuff.

Given that we (stupidly) elected these people that lately give us indigestion, given that they made promises and presented themselves as nice and good people, they consequently now have the OBLIGATION to be frank and open, in the true meaning of the words, when answering our probing questions. No trick fancy contorted smart-mouthed smirking replies, but frank and open answers!

Isn’t it time we reminded Abbott, Howard, etc that we are not all stupid people and that we deserve to be treated like proper people, not like Silks fighting it out in the Supreme Court. We are not paid to play cat and mouse legal games and I don’t believe you should either have to play such tricky games with a basically dishonest, immoral and objectionable fellow like Tony Abbott.

If it’s good enough for insurance companies (and later courts) to knock back claims and even prosecute claimants for fraudulent actions, why should it not be good enough for the Abbotts of this world?

I do wish, Margo, that I had the opportunity to investigate an insurance claim made by Abbott.

***

Tim Gillin in Kensington, Sydney

I know the Abbott/Hanson thing has been done to death, and I certainly don’t regard Hanson as a political prisoner as per R.J. Stove’s recent article at vdare. Hanson and Ettridge did break the law and their sentence does seem more or less in line with other punishments handed out in similar cases.

But there is a difference. The other cases seem to have been genuine internal party disputes ultimately adjudicated by the courts. In this case a major party has egged on and subsidised an action by disgruntled members of a minority party against their own leadership. We need to be concerned about the precedent here, and how it affects the rules of democratic fair play.

When public funding of election campaigns was being advocated in the 1970s, its proponents saw it as a means of enhancing democracy by promoting a more level playing field. It looks like the playing field has evolved into a mine field, and the big boys encourage the new kids to play hopscotch there.

This time it is One Nation, next time it will probably be the Greens. Maybe it’s time public funding of election campaigns was ended before democracy gets hurt.

***

Humphrey Hollins in Perth

I have just asked my local member, Liberal MP Julie Bishop, for the second time to tell me the truth about Abbott’s activities.I asked who paid his fares to Queensland whilst stalking Hanson and also whether he was working in his ministerial or electorate time or during annual leave. She refused to answer and suggested that I ask Abbott. What has happened to our democracy when ones local member refuses to answer a question?

Margo: Julie’s no friend of Abbott. She’s a moderate, and a Costello supporter. She probably doesn’t want to waste her time defending Abbott’s activities.

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Norm Martin

Margo, keep up your excellent coverage of this saga. I have a strong feeling you will eventually draw some blood. Indeed, there seems to be a lot of parallels here with the strange happenings in NSW in the 1980s. You recall the excesses of power of several politicians, magistrates, and police.

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Stephen Feneley

Poor old Tony. It’s not like Tony was trying to bring down an ideological opposite. What we have here is a factional dispute. One of Tony’s loyal staff abandons him for Pauline, so Tony sets out to get even. Tony wasn’t opposed to Pauline and One Nation, he was just pissed off that she’d stolen not only a valuable staffer but also a lot of the right of centre political ground that Tony and Howard regarded as being rightly theirs. You can just imagine them screaming: HEY THAT BITCH HAS GONE AND STOLEN OUR FEARFUL WHITE SUPPORT BASE. IF SHE DOESN’T GIVE US BACK OUR RACISTS, WE’RE GUNNA FIX HER REAL GOOD.

And then they did.

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Nick Smith in Newcastle

Margo, you have just made my day! I have been simmering at an unhealthy pre-steam level for ages now about this government I was fooled into helping elect. Imagine if all the lies they have been saying do make them accountable – what a twist that you can lie to Parliament, the Australian people, the ABC and the SMH but not the Public Service! Lie to the PS and feel the full weight of a criminal proceeding! YABADABADOO. Can’t wait to see them in the witness box. (See More questions for Abbott on honest politics trust.)

But hang on, who will prosecute? Thought it was too good to be true. Back to simmer level.

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Michael Kennedy in Bringelly, NSW

In Tony Abbott: No such thing as the public’s right to know, Workplace Relations and Public Service Minister Tony Abbott argues that “I just believe private conversations should be private.”.

Yet the Minister has hired Nigel Hadgkiss, ex Wood Royal Commission investigator and Federal Police electronic eavesdropping expert. Hadgkiss is the manager of The Building Industry Commission Taskforce that came out of The Cole Royal Commission. There has already been allegations about the unauthorised monitoring of building industry ‘private conversations’. Perhaps the Minister should put his money where his managerialist microphone is.

Margo: Website Thomson Workforce reports:

Building taskforce head Nigel Hadgkiss has been forced to defend remarks he made in an April 8 presentation to Clayton Utz in a Senate estimates committee hearing this week. Hadgkiss came under fire from ALP senators Kim Carr, Penny Wong and Nick Sherry for making references to Baghdad and equating building industry participants with rape victims. Senator Carr said the CFMEU was incensed with comments the taskforce would be crossing the Yarra and heading up Swanston Street in Melbournes CBD. The unions Victorian branch is located on the street, but Hadgkiss said there were also a number of building sites on it. “It also [includes] the town hall, but I was not trying to offend the mayor of Melbourne,” Hadgkiss told the committee. He said his comment that “tanks would be entering the city” was made in a moment of levity and was aimed at employers, not unions. The ex-NCA director said the culture of the building industry had similar characteristics to the “world of organised crime”, and some participants were “extremely frightened”. He said that like to rape victims, these were “people who will not come forward and need to have their hands held to go through the fairly traumatic experience known as the justice system”. He defended the taskforce against accusations of bias. “I have said time and time again that we are not about bashing unions,” he told the senators, pointing out that a number of current investigations were against employers.

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Jill Whittaker

I found this reported in the Christchurch press:

PARIS: Australia will take a leading role as the United States and 10 allies step up plans to intercept ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction despite a warning from China that the move could be illegal.

Then I come to the Sydney Morning Herald where Tony Abbott thinks it is OK for those seeking Honest Politicians to hide like dishonest men and that there are some things the public doesn’t need to know. Obviously Tony Abbott and John Howard don’t want Australians to feel that Australia is a more dangerous place because of their actions so have decided to leave us uninformed on the new risks they are exposing us to.

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Hamish Tweedy

Margo, is Jack Robertson’s point in Permission to lie from the print press quislings that:

* the court got it wrong and there was no fraud committed;

* politicians shouldn’t expose fraud because although uncharged they are guilty of fraud themselves;

* the Liberal Party shouldn’t expose fraud because it was self-serving for them to do so as they have adopted Pauline’s policies for themselves;

* big parties exposing fraud only further alienates people already disillusioned with the political process; or

* all four?

I’m afraid it still doesn’t make sense to me.

And finally why do you need to know the names of the donors? For instance, would it be sufficient for the AEC to confirm that the Liberal Party wasn’t one of the donors or do you need the names and addresses of the people who contributed to AHP? If having forced either the AEC or Tony Abbott into betraying assurances of anonymity, will you then publish the names and addresses and if so for what purpose?

Margo: Hi Hamish. Perhaps Jack can answer your first set of questions? Re donor disclosure, the Australian Parliament passed laws designed to create transparency of political donations so the Australian people are fully informed about who’s backing who when casting their vote. Prima facie the HPT looks like an ‘associated entity’ of the Liberal Party, meaning donor disclosure is required. That’s why the AEC wrote to Abbott requesting donor disclosure when it read about the HPT in the newspapers.

The big parties try all sorts of legal tricks to avoid their disclosure obligations to the Australian people. The AEC’s job is to try to enforce the law and discourage donor disclosure avoidance. The AEC is the enforcer of political donor disclosure on behalf of voters just like the Australian Tax Office is the enforcer of everyone paying their fair share of tax on behalf of the Australian people. The ATO is the representative of taxpayers, seeking a fair share of tax to raise the money to look after our defence, security, services and welfare. The AEC is the representative of Australian voters, seeking to keep the electoral system fair and transparent on their behalf. Because rich and powerful people try to avoid their tax and disclosure obligations, the AEC and the ATO must be vigilant to ensure that the law works to the limit of its capacity against avoidance mechanisms.

As you’ll see from my interview with Abbott at Tony Abbott: No such thing as the public’s right to know, he did not guarantee confidentiality to his donors. If the donors are disclosed then I would publish the names and quantum of the donations they made. That’s what transparency is about.

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KylieAnn Scott in Haberfield, Sydney

I couldn’t agree more with Jack Robertson’s comments about the media coverage of the Hanson issue missing the point. Even the illustrious Phillip Adams really let his listeners down the other night with his discussion with Paul Bonjiorno about the Pauline Hanson issue. I now understand why it is called ‘Canberra Babylon’ because it is covered by old time dinosaurs.

Even Phillip missed the point, missed the story. It is not about us all feeling sorry for Pauline about the fraud and the 500k, it is about the blatant disregard that Howard and Abbott have for the people of Australia by thinking that they know what is best for us and undermining the democratic process (if you could call it that) in this country. That is what will be remembered, the Underhanded Undemocratic Undermining of our right to choose for ourselves which party and policies we want to vote for in an Election.

I wonder what kind of funds have been established against other little independents and minor parties. A former National Party member turned independent comes to mind.

The Labor and Liberal Party machines and their ambitions to wipe out other parties and thus silence alternative policies and ideas has to be exposed, and the people providing fuel for these machine have to be exposed. We need to revisit just what DEMOCRACY really means for each Australian again.

No wonder both Howard and Crean’s popularity plummeted last week. We Australians don’t like either of them.

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Malcolm B. Duncan in Sydney, a lawyer

I know to my considerable personal cost the effect of litigation in the political arena. See Duncan v Moore [1999] NSWLEC 170; [1999] NSWLEC 152; [2000] NSWLEC 64. Nevertheless, it is sometimes necessary to resort to the law to affect political behaviour for the better.

While making no difference to the Labor [sic] Party, the Liberals or the Greens, my actions at least stopped Clover Moore from erecting campaign posters in Bligh at the last NSW State Election in contravention of NSW laws (until the night before the election anyway).

As to the contribution of electoral law lecturer Mr Tham in When litigation’s just another way to play politics, he and most legal commentators miss the point about the Hanson matter. The real question is whether Abbott’s indemnity for Sharples’ finding himself the subject of a costs order (and he did) constitutes either Champerty or Maintenance. Arguably it does. (See Hanson to sue Abbott?)

The gravamen of that is that they both breach the common law. That would lead to a question of when and where the offer was made, because Champerty and Maintenance have been abolished in NSW and some other states.

Nevertheless, there is Federal Court authority for the proposition that public policy would still prevent someone maintaining another person’s action for a collateral purpose.

The question then moves to whether a member of parliament (who also has a law degree) is a fit and proper person to continue to sit when he takes action which he knows or ought to know is contrary to public policy. If the Prime Minister, also a lawyer, knew of the scheme, he might be drawn into the same quagmire.

Let them contemplate that as the NSW Legislative Council debates the fate of the hapless Mr Malcolm Jones.

Margo: The Australian Financial Review’s legal editor Chris Merritt recently proved that Abbott is aware of the law on Maintenance and Champerty. Here is the text of a piece in his ‘Hearsay’ column:

Until this week’s debate about Tony Abbott’s involvement in encouraging litigation, very few people would have been aware that in some jurisdictions, this can amount to the ancient torts of champerty and maintenance. But Abbott should have known something.

On April 4, 2001, the Workplace Relations Minister answered a question in parliament concerning legal advice on the subject of champerty. While both champerty and maintenance aim to prevent people from encouraging litigation in which they have no interest, champerty is directed at cases that result in a pecuniary benefit for the tortfeasor. Maintenance requires no such benefit.

Abbott replied to a question on notice by reading a statement that had been made by his predecessor, Peter Reith. He quoted Reith as saying: “My department further advises that the funding of one party to take forward the legal action on behalf of another party could appear to be an example of champerty – the illegal sharing in the proceeds of litigation by one who promotes it, or where one party gets direct benefit from legal action undertaken on its behalf by another.

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Herbert Thornton

The more I read about the dubious legitimacy of the slush fund to attack Pauline Hanson, the more I get the impression that there has been, among various people involved in the fund – and even in the AEC – a consensus (nudge wink) that the whole operation should be concealed from public scrutiny, and thus escape legal penalty.

At this point I cannot help asking myself whether some of the people concerned committed the crime of conspiracy as defined in the Queensland Criminal Code:

CHAPTER 56 – CONSPIRACY

543: Other conspiracies:

(1) Any person who conspires with another to effect any of the purposes following, that is to say –

(f) to effect any unlawful purpose;

is guilty of a misdemeanour, and is liable to imprisonment for 3 years.”

Is it unthinkable that some of Pauline Hanson’s enemies might also be liable for 3 years jail?

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REACTIONS TO MY SUN HERALD COLUMN LAST WEEK

Barry White

I read your column in last weekend’s Sun Herald, We want convincing pollies – honest, where you write:

Have you noticed the questions journos don’t ask? Why did Abbott pull out all stops to keep his donors secret? Why didn’t he want the Australian people to know who the donors were, and why didn’t the donors want the Australian people to know?

Another question that journalists don’t ask is: Why didn’t the public servants in the AEC examine the application made by One Nation to see if One Nation’s constitution complied with the Act? I would have thought that was fundamental to doing its job. Receive applications for government monies, examine the application for compliance, check the information given and approve or reject the application.

This is what happens in every government department that receives an application from the public. You present the application they reject or approve. They don’t send you to gaol if it does not comply!!!

Margo: Hi Barry. Hanson’s party was registered federally with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), and the validity of that registration has never been challenged. Because she was a member of the federal parliament at the time, there were virtually no requirements for registration. Her problem arose in registering One Nation in Queensland for the Queensland election. Because there were no One Nation MPs in the Queensland Parliament at the time, she had to go through more hoops to register, ie she had to have 500 members. The Queensland Electoral Commission registered the party in 1997 without protest from any political party. Abbott started screaming only after One Nation did so well at the June 1998 Queensland election. He and Howard then realised One Nation could threaten their regime at the federal election due later that year, because it was now due $500,000 in public funding because of the high vote it received. Abbott lobbied the Queensland Electoral Commissioner Des O’Shea to have another look at One Nation’s registration. He did, confirmed its validity, and One Nation got its cash (it had to repay the money after Sharples later won the Court case he instigated at the urging of and with the legal help and and financial guarantee of Abbott). Des O’Shea defended One Nation’s registration in the Sharples case. See Unmasked Howard gets amnesia on Hanson for more on the political background to the Sharples case.

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Margaret Cleat

Margo Kingston is on a witchhunt and she’s aiming for the wrong target. It’s our political masters who make the rules and legislation about funding for political parties and they should be held accountable. The AEC is the only independent voice in this whole debate. Margo is simply trying to undermine their role. Perhaps she is stirring up the possum to guarantee sales of her next book? What will it be about I wonder?

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Mike Sanchez

In my many years as an avid reader of the tabloid press, I have never come across anything like the Margo Kingston phenomenon. It’s like witnessing a mental breakdown in print. Miss Kingston’s bile spewed through her pen is frightening. Her hatred of anything resembling neo-conservatism borders on manic. (The) article in the Sun Herald is like a livid, verbal coil, unsprung on the unsuspecting reader. Her pre-menstrual tension is unmercifully cast upon the reader in an un-coherent, illogical, hateful blast of verbal rubbish. No attempt made to deliver an argument, just give-em-a-piece-of-my-mind stuff. Miss Kingston needs help. In the interests of its readers, Fairfax should provide Kingston with appropriate counselling and a few years leave without pay.

John Howard

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Tony O’Hanlon

I just wanted you to know that your comments and column in the SMH give me great relief. For a while now I was beginning to think that the commercial press had become a Government instrument. Like some, I started to believe only Tony Jones, Maxine McKew and Kerry O’Brien would challenge the word of the Government. Thank you for giving me the belief and hope our country will change and once more be a great nation that we can be proud of.

Margo: See troppoarmadillo for law lecturer Ken Parish’s essay on Hannah Arendt’s essay ‘Truth and politics’.