If we do go to an ASIO election, Howard will have to beat not only Labor, the centre-left and the far-left, but also the far-right he scored post-Tampa. Unlike the Tampa election, One Nation, the National Civic Council and the like strongly oppose Howard’s extreme extension of state power over Australian citizens. Hold on to your hats – this debate will be amazing!

At 4.479pm yesterday the Senate passed its amended ASIO bill by 45 to 12. Only the Democrats, the Greens and One Nation opposed it, but the government voted yes so it could return to the House of Representatives and John Howard could decide how he wanted to play the game for Christmas.

Since then, it’s been up and back, but Hansard is not yet available on this phase. In this entry I publish the final speeches by the key protagonists in the Senate before the Parliament went wild, so you’re clear on the history and detail of the issues in debate, and what politicians argued before craziness took over.

The speeches make it clear that if we do go to an ASIO election, Howard will have to beat not only Labor, the centre-left and the far-left, but also the far-right he won over post Tampa. Unlike the Tampa election, One Nation, the National Civic Council and the like strongly oppose Howard’s extreme extension of state power over Australian citizens. Hold on to your hats – this debate will be amazing!

Senate Hansard, Thursday, 12 December 2002

AUSTRALIAN SECURITY INTELLIGENCE ORGANISATION LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (TERRORISM) BILL 2002

THE ALP

Senator John Faulkner, ALP Senate leader

Getting to this point on this bill has been a long and difficult process. The government introduced the ASIO bill into the House of Representatives on 21 March this year. But the bill the government introduced in March is very different to the bill we now have before us.

The ASIO bill as introduced on 21 March 2002 would have allowed adults and children to be detained, strip searched and held by ASIO for rolling two-day periods that could be extended in-definitely, even after questioning had concluded.

While detained, Australians could be denied access to people outside of ASIO and could not inform family members, their employer or even a lawyer of their detention. The proposed section 34F(8) of the bill stated:

A person who has been taken into custody, or detained, under this Division is not permitted to contact, and may be prevented from contacting, anyone at any time while in custody or detention.

Under the original bill, a 10-year-old child could have been held in detention by ASIO and strip searched.

There is no way that this bill could have been accepted by the opposition.

There is no way that this bill could have been accepted by the legal profession.

There is no way that this bill could have been accepted by ordinary Australians.

The opposition used the processes of parliament to ensure that the bill was thoroughly examined and to provide an opportunity for the many organisations and individuals with an interest in this bill to have their say. The original bill was referred to the Parliamentary Joint Committee (PJC) on ASIO, ASIS and DSD. It was also referred to the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee. The PJC on intelligence services undertook a detailed examination of the bill, including public hearings, and they produced a bipartisan advisory report which was heavily critical of the government’s bill. The report stated:

The bill in its original form would undermine key legal rights and erode the civil liberties that make Australia a leading democracy.

The parliamentary joint committee made 15 substantive recommendations that were intended to go some way towards making the bill more acceptable. At that time, the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee did not conduct a detailed inquiry into the bill, but it reserved its right to do so if the government did not accept all of the PJCs recommendations.

The government’s amendments to the bill did not adequately address the concerns of the two committees. The amendments fell well short of what the joint committee considered the minimum necessary for the bill to be acceptable. In effect, the government only fully accepted 10 of the PJCs 15 recommendations.

Even more importantly, the government still proposes that people who are not suspected of any offence may be detained in secret for up to seven days.

In contrast, under the Crimes Act, murder suspects can only be detained by police for a maximum of 12 hours. They must then be charged or released.

In fact, the government is making the absurd proposal that a terrorist suspect can only be detained and questioned for 12 hours but a non-suspect who may have information about a terrorist activity can be detained and questioned for seven days.

In light of the completely inadequate response from the government to the PJCs recommendations – and I stress that they were bipartisan findings of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on ASIO, ASIS and DSD – the opposition successfully moved at the second reading stage in the Senate that the bill be referred to the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee. The committee’s main task was to examine alternative ways of enhancing the capacity of our law enforcement agencies to counter terrorism without compromising civil liberties.

The Senate committee undertook a detailed examination of the bill in a very short time frame. In the view of the opposition, the committee members should be commended for the excellent report that they produced.

Again, it was a report with a high degree of bipartisanship on the essential elements of principle that are contained in the bill. The committee recommended a viable, alternative model for strengthening counterterrorism powers, one which the committee believes provides:

… a basis for improving and progressing the legislation, while keeping its provisions within acceptable bounds and respecting the rights and freedoms that are fundamental to the Australian community.

All the parliamentary committee considerations led to a substantially revised model for strengthening the intelligence gathering powers of the Commonwealth with regard to fighting terrorism.

At the same time that these committee considerations were under way, the opposition continued to discuss with the government the provisions of this bill with a view to resolving our differences and, if possible, reaching agreement on changes to the bill. I have to say that, while I appreciate the governments readiness to engage in these discussions, it has been ambivalent in its approach.

At times the government seemed to genuinely want an accommodation; at other times it seemed to me that it preferred differentiation.

At times it appeared to have been seized as to the urgency of the bill; at other times it seemed to have been perfectly happy to leave this bill on the back-burner.

The end result of this necessarily lengthy process of consideration and consultation is the bill that we now have before us. It is a bill which significantly enhances ASIO’s intelligence gathering capacity in relation to terrorism offences and it provides strong protections for those who are subjected to questioning.

There are those who argue that we should not be increasing ASIO’s powers at all. Let me be clear about this: the Labor Party does not agree with those arguments.

There is no question that we are facing an enhanced threat of terrorism in the wake of September 11 and the Bali bombings. We must respond to that threat. As legislators, we owe it to the Australian public to ensure that our security and intelligence agencies have all the necessary powers to detect and prevent terrorist attacks.

ASIO is our front line against terrorism. At the moment ASIO can ask questions but it cannot demand answers, and that is quite clearly a problem and it needs to be fixed. Why should we permit a compulsory questioning regime for royal commissions, the Independent Commission Against Corruption and other state crime commissions, and agencies such as the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, but not for ASIO? Why should we treat corporate crime as more important than terrorism? Quite clearly we should not do that, and that is why the opposition has looked to these models in trying to determine what a reasonable, compulsory questioning regime might look like.

The government has proposed a detention regime, and a very harsh detention regime at that – up to seven days and with the detainee potentially being incommunicado for the first two days without access to a lawyer. Why should a person who is not suspected of any offence, but who is simply thought to be able to assist with information relevant to the investigation of a terrorism offence, be treated worse than a murder suspect?

In other words, why should a nonsuspect be treated worse than a suspect? The opposition remains very firmly of the view that such an approach cannot be justified.

What are the new powers that we are giving ASIO in the bill now before the Senate? What are the new protections that we are providing to those who might be subjected to this new regime? Through amendment, the Senate has largely put in place the alternative model that was envisaged by the Senate committee.

It has a significant number of features and safeguards: compulsory questioning by ASIO officers before a prescribed authority; custody directly linked to the questioning and no detention for other purposes; access to legal representation of choice; protection for children under the age of 18; a detailed statement of questioning procedures; and the maintenance of comprehensive and proper parliamentary scrutiny of the system and of the outcomes of the system.

Each time the government has come up with a problem or a sticking point. The opposition has been assiduous in considering the issues and developing solutions consistent with the principled position it has taken on the bill. I can even say that the opposition has bent over backwards to find solutions to the workability problems raised – and raised at short notice – by the government.

As an example, the government’s constitutional issues concerning chapter III limitations on using serving federal judges were raised as a stumbling block to the workability of the questioning regime. The opposition proposed an alternative pool of judicial experience to address this issue, and then the government came up with further problems with this solution. The government says there are not enough retired judges. Senator Ellison bandied around the figure of 22. On the basis of our own inquiries to state and territory governments, we are confident that the pool of retired judges is in excess of 150.

Nevertheless, the opposition have again addressed the governments concerns and provided an appropriate and workable alternative. We urge the government to accept it. In other words, the opposition has laid our bona fides on the table and we have done that right here in the chamber during the committee debate.

We are intent on providing workable and appropriate tools for gathering intelligence on terrorism and we have bent over backwards during the Senate’s consideration of this bill to ensure that the government’s concerns – those stumbling blocks – are overcome.

We are providing powerful new tools for ASIO in their fight against terrorism. We say and strongly believe that the protections are appropriate, that the protections are adequate and that the protections are balanced.

The government will no doubt argue that the enhanced powers do not go far enough and that the protections go too far. I am sure that is what the government will say. We simply do not agree. The government might be disappointed that it has not got everything it wanted in the committee debate. We are very pleased, and I think the Australian community as a whole should be very relieved, that that is the case.

The government now has a choice: it can vote for the bill as amended or it can reject it. The government can accept the new powers that the Senate is offering for ASIO, along with the protections that the Senate is insisting upon.

Alternatively, it can reject those powers, and I suppose it always has the opportunity of using this bill politically. At the end of the day, the issue here is whether the government and this parliament act in the national interest – and for the government the issue is not only whether it acts in the national interest but whether it acts in its own perceived political interest.

I say that the solution that is being determined by the Senate is a balanced and principled outcome. I believe that the powers in this bill are tough and un-precedented. I also say that they are necessary. But when you have tough and unprecedented but necessary powers, you also need adequate safeguards and protections.

I believe that the bill, the third reading of which is now to be voted upon in the Senate, delivers both those objectives. The opposition will be supporting the amended bill and I urge the Senate to do the same.

***

THE DEMOCRATS

Senator Brian Greig

In this third reading debate on the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Bill 2002, I begin by emphasising that we Democrats abhor and oppose terrorism as much as any other Australians. Like other Australians, we are angered, saddened and shocked by terrorist attacks such as the ones we saw on September 11 and more recently with the Bali bombings. We recognise that the threat of terrorism poses new and, I dare say, complex challenges for governments around the world.

But there is no obvious way in which to address that threat effectively. As many have observed, terrorism is a threat not just to the lives of innocent civilians but also, at times, to democracy and freedom. The Democrat response to terrorism is to ensure that we seek to protect lives as well as democracy and freedom.

On 17 September last year Prime Minister John Howard said:

Wouldn’t it be a terrible, tragic, obscene irony if, in responding … to these terrible, terrorist attacks, we forsook the very things that we believed had been assaulted …

He was referring to the events of September 11. Unfortunately, in making that statement, the Prime Minister prophesised the ultimate flaws in what has become his government’s response to terrorism. We Democrats have been dismayed to see the terrible, tragic and obscene irony of that response over the past 14 months manifested principally in the suite of anti-terrorism bills we dealt with earlier this year.

The government has consistently made the case that effectively responding to terrorism requires a departure from fundamental human rights and freedoms. Since September 11, we have repeatedly heard the mantra from many politicians around the globe that the world has changed. This mantra has been relied upon to challenge the foundational tenets of our political and legal system.

The thinking seems to be that the world has changed and therefore the way we deal with the world must change too. The presumption of innocence, the right to a lawyer, the right to remain silent and the right not to be detained arbitrarily have all been threatened.

This is wrong and it is dangerous, and in many ways it plays into the hands of the very people seeking to destabilise our accepted way of life and general stability and security. If the aim of terrorists is to cause fear and uncertainty then we must not let their presence and activities induce a climate of fear and uncertainty in our own day-to-day lives, causing us to abandon the very legal protections that we acknowledge as being important to the essence of freedom and democracy.

I take the opportunity to record the Democrats’ great disappointment that this bill is even being considered at a time when there is a complete absence of an Australian bill of rights or at least a charter of rights. This legislation clearly illustrates that the rights and liberties of Australians are not inalienable but may be overridden by clear legislative intent.

Australia is now one of the only remaining common law countries which lacks a bill of rights, and there is no reason which justifies Australians being exposed to potential derogations of their fundamental human rights and freedoms when the citizens of other common law countries are not.

Two months ago today, Australia was confronted with the tragedy and sorrow of the Bali bombings, in which so many innocent lives were lost. In the wake of that incident, it became clear that Australia needed to examine and assess its intelligence capabilities in order to effectively combat terrorism in our own immediate region – although, of course, this bill was introduced prior to 12 October.

The Democrats are acutely aware of the need to ensure that Australia’s intelligence agencies operate effectively in order to protect the safety and welfare of the Australian community. As legislators, we have a responsibility to act in the best interests of those whom we represent. Often this involves a delicate balancing between competing interests.

I am sure MPs would acknowledge that we have all received countless emails and letters from people expressing their very serious concerns regarding this legislation and the severe effect that it will have on the rights and civil liberties of all Australians.

I say all Australians because the legislation does apply to all Australians, not just those suspected of involvement in terrorist activities. The scope of this bill is perhaps its most disturbing flaw. I believe the government has failed to demonstrate why it is necessary for Australians to be seized, dragged away and questioned by ASIO, when citizens of other nations are not subject to such draconian powers under comparable legislation.

It seems to me that the tragedy of Bali has united all Australians in our resolve to fight terrorism and prevent further attacks, particularly in our own region. I do not believe that either the government or the opposition, despite being asked on numerous occasions, has provided any compelling arguments or reasons as to why such power is necessary in Australia when it has not been considered necessary in comparable jurisdictions such as the United States and the UK.

Of course, we must consider appropriate arrangements for the detention of terrorist suspects and for the questioning of those involved in terrorist activities. However, the government has yet to make out its case for extending such arrangements to all Australian citizens.

I believe that an honest assessment of this legislation should lead to the conclusion that it is not ordinary, everyday Australians who are at issue here. There is no evidence to suggest that Australian citizens would be unwilling to assist ASIO or any intelligence or law enforcement agencies in the gathering of information relating to terrorism. The fact that the government finds it necessary to detain us incommunicado and threaten us with imprisonment if we do not answer questions is very worrying.

My understanding of the Australian people leads me to believe that such powers are entirely unnecessary and unjustified and, indeed, offensive to many within the Australian community.

Of course, there are a number of other concerns associated with this legislation, despite the significant improvements that I will acknowledge have been made over the past few days. These include the fact that the right to silence is removed; there is only a limited use immunity in relation to information provided by the person; foreign nationals detained under the act will be prevented from contacting their embassy during detention; and police powers are vested in an intelligence agency, raising serious questions about accountability implications.

Where does that leave us? At the end of 2 days of debate and discussion in the chamber we have a bill that, I would argue, effectively changes ASIO from an intelligence service into an investigative police power and in some way sees ASIO become a secret police without the accountability or experience of, arguably, the Australian Federal Police or the newly formed Australian Crime Commission.

The constitutionality of the legislation is suspect and potentially breaches the separation of powers. The introduction of this legislation takes place, as I said, in an environment in which there is no bill of rights.

The legislation applies to all Australians, regardless of whether they are suspected of terrorism, and in this respect is more far-reaching than legislation that has been enacted or proposed in either the UK or the USA.

There is no right to silence and no privilege against self-incrimination. A detainee would bear the burden of demonstrating that they did not have the information ASIO is seeking, thereby effectively reversing the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. The government has failed, I believe, to demonstrate why the legislation is required and has failed to show where existing criminal laws and policing powers are inadequate to deal with terrorism and suspected terrorists.

Most of all, I think it is worth noting yet again and I do not think we can say this often enough – that the full effect of this legislation, if it were to become law, would be to enable non-suspects to be immediately detained just because they might have information relating to terrorism. I have to pose the question: What is the point of that?

I would like to quote Professor George Williams, whose contribution to this debate was significant. He said:

Despite the many amendments that have been made to the bill, it remains rotten at its core.

On that basis, and in defence of what we believe are appropriate civil liberties and freedoms and the protections for those, we Democrats will oppose this legislation.

***

THE GREENS

Senator Kerry Nettle

I take this opportunity to speak to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Bill 2002, which is an extraordinary and, as others have said, an unprece-dented piece of legislation for this parliament to be discussing. The Australian Greens do not believe that this piece of legislation has the balance right between the security concerns of this country and the individual freedoms of Australians.

It is a piece of legislation that goes far beyond similar legislation in comparable countries. It is a piece of legislation in which there remains a fundamental flaw – that being the ability to detain people not even suspected of being involved in criminal activities.

If this piece of legislation were designed to deal with people who were about to commit a terrorist offence then the argument could be put that it would be very close to what was appropriate. The Greens say that it would not be so appropriate as our current criminal justice system in that it goes beyond that by extending the period of time under which people can be detained and questioned. It places further restrictions on the ability of people detained under this legislation to have access to a lawyer, and it extends the power of ASIO, which has previously been just an intelligence gathering organisation.

This piece of legislation is not just for dealing with people who are about to commit a terrorist act; it is also designed to entrap citizens who are ordinarily going about their business and who are not suspected of being involved in any criminal or terrorist activity.

In that light we can clearly see how unprecedented and extraordinary this piece of legislation is and how it goes far beyond the basic tenets of our legal system. As we have said before, the Magna Carta itself says that people should not be detained unless they have come before a court and are found on reasonable grounds by that court to be guilty or suspected of being involved in a criminal activity.

This piece of legislation goes far beyond that and in doing so represents an abrogation of our civil and political rights. The amendments that have been made fiddle around the edges of what is a fundamentally flawed piece of legislation. They improve significantly the ambit claim that was originally put forward by this government in the post 11 September climate. This piece of legislation, in its entirety, really draws on the atmosphere of fear and suspicion that has been created in the post 11 September climate. It tries to use that atmosphere of fear to push throughthis undermining of our civil liberties.

The Australian Greens oppose this piece of legislation because, even after the amendments put forward by the opposition, it allows for innocent people to be taken off the street without warning, to be interrogated in secret and to be jailed for five years if they refuse to answer questions.

These measures establish a very serious precedent in Australian law, one that goes well beyond any comparable country’s response to the worldwide terrorist threat. The powers that ASIO and the AFP already have clearly are sufficient to allow them to do their jobs properly and these laws as such are an unnecessary and dangerous attack on Australias civil rights.

The government and the Australian Labor Party have failed to make the case for extending these powers to capture non-suspects. Even in the course of two full legislative committee inquiries they have failed to make that case. Throughout those inquiries we heard from numerous prominent legal professionals and organisations about the ways in which our current criminal justice system allows us to deal with the current terrorist environment.

The implications in this legislation are wide reaching for all citizens: for journalists, for political activists, for politicians and for members of the community who are under suspicion for a variety of reasons. These implications are extremely serious. This power to arbitrarily detain is a blunt weapon in the fight against terrorism and it is not in keeping with a country that values its civil and political rights.

The amended bill allows for people not suspected of being involved in a terrorist act or in a terrorist group to be detained without warning for questioning and detention. The proposals put forward by the Australian Labor Party allow for that questioning and detention regime to continue well beyond one day of detention and indeed without a time limit for that detention and questioning regime.

This amended bill allows, where there is any refusal to answer a question, for a punishment of five years imprisonment.

This bill is unprecedented and unnecessary and demonstrates a fundamental abrogation of our civil and political rights in this country. As such the Australian Greens will not be supporting this bill.

***

ONE NATION

Senator Len Harris

I would like to commence my contribution to this third reading debate by clearly indicating that One Nation will not be supporting the legislation, even in its amended form. I clearly indicate to the chamber and to the people of Australia that, had it not been for a combination of the opposition and the cross-benchers, this bill would be considerably worse in its impact on the rights of innocent Australians.

In contributing to this debate, I would like to quote from a letter from the Law Institute of Victoria. In a letter to me on 1 August, they wrote:

The Law Institute of Victoria urges you to vote against this bill in its present form. It is the institutes opinion that the government has not demonstrated that existing powers held by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation – that is, ASIO – are inadequate to meet any potential security threat. This stance is put forward in particular by the Institute’s Young Lawyers Section Law Reform Committee.

In the alternative, we urge you to insist on the implementation of the recommendations of the Joint Standing Committee on ASIO, ASIS and DSD report and of the Senates Legal and Constitutional Committee report tabled on the fifth of June.

If we then go further to the submission by the Law Council of Australia, again to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee, we move to the concerns relating to the unconstitutionality of the bill:

The Law Council of Australia respectfully adopts the following warning given by Justice Kirby on 11 October 2001against potential excess in the adoption of an anti-terrorism lawa (It is referring to the rejection by the Australian people of a proposal, by way of referendum on 22 September 1951, to add a new section – that is, section 51 – to the Constitution to legislate with respect to communists and communism.)

It goes on to quote:

Given the chance to vote on the proposal to change the Constitution, the people of Australia, fifty years ago refused. When the issues were explained, they rejected the enlargement of federal power. History accepts the wisdom of our response in Australia and the error of the over-reaction of the United States. Keeping proportion. Adhering to the ways of democracies. Upholding constitutionalism and the rule of law. Defending, even under assault, the legal rights of the suspects. These are the way to maintain the love and confidence of the people over the long haul.

We should never forget these lessons … Every erosion of liberty must be thoroughly justified. Sometimes it is wise to pause. Always it is wise to keep our sense of proportion and to remember our civic traditions as the High Court Justices did in the Communist Party Case of 1951.

If we look at the report of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee entitled Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Bill 2002, we see that two issues of constitutionality were raised, and I will speak briefly about the first one, the constitutionality of the executive authorising the detention of a person who is not a suspect. The committee says:

In their correspondence to the Committee, Professor Williams and Dr Carne contended that the High Court’s comments in Chu Kheng Lim v Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs (1992) 176 CLR 1 raised doubts about the administrative power to detain Australian citizens not involved in or suspected of a criminal offence, save in a relatively limited set of identified and exceptional circumstances.

So we have these eminent professors raising the probability of constitutional challenges where the government implements the ability to take into detention a person who is not suspected of an offence.

If we look at the progression of the bill, we see that, when the bill entered this chamber, it would have – for the first time I believe – eroded the civil and constitutional rights of the Australian people in a way that no other legislation that I have seen has.

The opposition moved a sunset clause to the legislation, which was passed, so at least we have at this point in time the confidence to know that this legislation will cease to have effect at the time of its sunset.

There are definition changes to the act of terrorism. The government itself brought in an amendment to ensure that a search of a person, whether a strip search or frisk, would be carried out by a person of the same sex.

The governments amendments relating to former judges were defeated and the alternative opposition proposal was put forward. We have seen quite a considerable number of amendments moved to the legislation but the legislation itself, even in its amended form, carries great concern for the innocent Australian citizen.

I have no reservations, and neither does One Nation, about the powers in this bill being used against a person who intends to carry out or who has carried out a terrorist activity against Australia and its citizens whether that be here in Australia or anywhere in the world.

This debate is not about stopping the government using its powers to protect Australians. The debate is about protecting the rights of the innocent Australian. It is no reflection on this government. The concern that One Nation has is not for our present political system or the form of political process that we have in Australia today.

Had it not been for the sunset clause, this legislation would have stood until repealed and that would have presented Australians with the greatest danger. Had this sunset clause not been in place, this legislation could have been used in subsequent years by a person or persons not having the greatest intent for the benefit for the Australian people. It could have been used politically against political opponents within Australia. I clarify those words by saying that there is no inference whatsoever that any present political party in Australia would want to do that. In passing legislation in this chamber, if that legislation does not have a sunset clause we have to take that into consideration.

As I have previously quoted from one of our eminent High Court judges, there are times when we need to pause and think through the ultimate process that this legislation could be used for.

At all times in this chamber we are, I believe, so involved with the legislation that we are working on at the time that there is insufficient ability to go back and look at the impacts of the legislation that we have passed. We could use the example of the deregulation of the dairy industry. Has this chamber reassessed the impact on the dairy industry – whether it has been positive or negative? No, it has not; it has not had time to do that.

In conclusion, One Nation places on the record that it is not our intent in any way in opposing this legislation to assist any person that has any intention now, had in the past, or will have in the future to carry out an action that is detrimental to the Commonwealth of Australia or the Australian people. Our concern in opposing the legislation is based on the impacts on Australia’s innocent citizens.

***

THE COALITION

Minister for Justice Senator Chris Ellison

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Bill 2002 is a very important bill for Australia and one which is essential for ASIO if it is to look after the security of this country. The bill is aimed at intelligence gathering and is essential for an agency such as ASIO in dealing with any threat of terrorism.

The government’s position on this bill has always been emphatically clear. I reject totally any statement by the opposition that we have in some way been ambivalent. The statements by the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General have made it very clear that we need this legislation to give our intelligence agencies vital tools to deter and prevent terrorism. This is a bill that we need to look after Australia’s interests. We have not wavered from this position, and we do not intend to do so now.

Unlike the opposition, which has ducked and weaved the difficult questions on this bill, we are serious about protecting the Australian community. The opposition has itself been divided on this bill, whereas the government have demonstrated time and time again our commitment to community safety.

We have been emphatic that the ability to question and detain, in strictly limited circumstances, for the purposes of intelligence gathering to prevent and deter terrorist activity is fundamental to this bill. That is something we have stuck to throughout the whole course of this bill and the inquiries and debate on it.

Let us make no mistake: this bill is designed to enhance the capacity of authorities to combat terrorism and to prevent and deter terrorist activities. It is designed to enable the collection of information about potential terrorist attacks so we can better prevent them before people are hurt or killed.

There is no greater human right than to be able to live one’s life without fear of attack, harm, assault or even death from a terrorist activity. In fact, the greatest breach of human rights is that which we see perpetrated by terrorist organisations in the world today. We have always said that we recognise that this bill is extraordinary – it is designed for extraordinary circumstances.

What we have here is a regime which gives our intelligence agencies the ability to gather that crucial intelligence but which maintains those safeguards that can preserve the interests of the individual.

The government have repeatedly said that we will not entertain proposals that render the bill impotent or unworkable. That is why we voted against the amendments moved by the opposition and the minor parties. We certainly cannot accept amendments that would render the bill unconstitutional either. The opposition’s amendment in relation to sitting state and territory judges would do just that.

The opposition amendments go to matters of fundamental principles that we cannot accept. We are forced, however, into aposition where we have to support the bill asamended to ensure that we can take it back to the House of Representatives and undo the damage that has been done. We do not do so lightly, because the opposition’s amendments, as I said, go to the heart of the bill and fundamentally change the nature of what the government have proposed.

The amendments proposed make the bill, at best unworkable and, at worst unconstitutional. Our advice is that there is a significant risk in appointing sitting judges as prescribed authorities and that this would be unconstitutional, regardless of whether they be state, territory or federal judges. This advice was confirmed as late as last night and conveyed to the opposition in confidential discussions. We also sought specific advice on the oppositions amendment today in relation to prescribed authorities which again confirms our position that the opposition’s amendment will render that part of the bill unconstitutional.

Under the opposition’s amendment, which was passed with the assistance of minor parties, sitting state and territory judges will be performing functions under Commonwealth legislation that would give federal executive functions to state judges. Our advice is that there would an unacceptable risk that this would be held to be incompatible with their judicial functions and hence be unconstitutional. The risk is not just an arguable one but a significant one. In the face of such a significant risk and on the basis of advice available to it, the government cannot support the amendment in this form,and I outlined that to the Senate previously.

In my earlier remarks, I mentioned that the government’s original proposal was to have AAT (Administrative Appeals Tribunal) members perform the role of prescribed authority and not judges. I would like to clarify my remarks and correct the record. The bill, as originally drafted, did not make a distinction between the role of issuing and prescribed authorities. Under that proposal, the prescribed authority could both issue warrants and preside over questioning, although they need not have done both. The original bill provided that AAT members and federal magistrates could perform this role, but the bill and the explanatory memorandum made it clear that the role of the prescribed authority was conducted as persona designata. I stress that a previous statement that also included federal judges as prescribed authorities was incorrect. Where the record has to be corrected is that we did have federal magistrates in that role. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on ASIO, ASIS and DSD expressed concerns in relation to this. The committee acknowledged that the High Court in Grollo v. Palmer had decided that the issuing of a warrant by the judiciary is permissible provided that the judiciary exercise the power in a personal capacity. The committee, however, was also concerned about the possibility that federal magistrates presiding over questioning could go further than the decision of Grollo v. Palmer would allow. Under the government’s original proposal, the person who issued the warrant need not have been the person who presided over the questioning. Federal magistrates could confine themselves to just issuing warrants. The parliamentary joint committee recommended a splitting of the roles so that judges issued warrants but AAT members presided over them. The government accepted the concerns and amended the bill in accordance with the recommendations of the parliamentary joint committee. We sought our own advice on the constitutionality of the amended provision. The result was a splitting of the prescribed authority function into issuing authority and prescribed authority. The government accepted that, by splitting the functions, the governments concerns were addressed and the constitutionality of the bill was assured. The opposition, however, has proposed amendments that contradict the parliamentary joint committees recommendations. The government’s advice on the opposition’s proposals in relation to sitting state and territory judges is that they pose an unacceptable risk and would be unconstitutional. I reiterate that, on that basis, we cannot support those amendments. If the opposition were serious about this bill, it would not be exposing its amendments to such risk of invalidity.

I will finish by saying that the government is deadly serious about ensuring that the security of this country is met and that there is community safety in relation to the current environment of threat. We believe that this bill is essential to ensuring that.

We have taken on board recommendations of the parliamentary joint committee and the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committeerecommenda=tions which we believe to be constructive. We have not taken on board all of those. There is nothing unusual in that. We have not cherry picked the recommendations, as alleged by the opposition. We have said that we will take on board that which is reasonable, but we will not take on board that which will render this bill unworkable and will expose it to constitutional challenge.

We urge the opposition to reconsider its position, to look carefully at the amendments that were put forward and to look carefully at the reason that we have put this bill forward. This bill has been subject to a great deal of scrutiny – no fewer than three parliamentary committees have looked at this bill. That is very unusual for any piece of legislation in the federal parliament.

This is unusual legislation, and it is very serious in its objectives, in the powers that are bestowed and in the safeguards that it contains. But one thing should be made very clear: in this current threatened environment, this bill is essential to the package of measures that we need to ensure Australia’s safety.

Today obliterated the new givens in Australian politics. With one decision, Simon Crean has set the political clock back to the Tampa and decided to go to war with John Howard on Australian values

Our values: Crean -v- Howard and Carr

 

by Margo Kingston

Today obliterated the new givens in Australian politics. With one decision, Simon Crean has set the political clock back to the Tampa and decided to go to war with John Howard on Australian values.

Simon Crean is transformed from grey shadow to crazy brave warrior. John Howard set the same trap for him as he set for Beazley last year and Simon Crean said no. Kim Beazley backs him in spades.

After Tampa, Howard rushed into Parliament the most vicious, anti-democratic legislation ever brought before it. It removed any accountability for anything the government and its officials did in dealing with boat people. As an enraged Beazley pointed out, it would have allowed officials to murder boat people without redress.

Kim Beazley said no. John Howard cleaned up the bill a little, and Beazley – in fear of losing the imminent election on a wave of anti-boat people sentiment – said yes to the Pacific Solution. He became an uncomfortable me-too boy, giving Howard permission to lurch further and further out of control, culminating in the false election claims that children were thrown overboard, that SIEV-X sank in Indonesian waters, and that terrorists were on board the boats.

Labor has been running scared ever since, culminating last week in Crean’s decision to reaffirm the Pacific Solution despite the certainty that it would split the ALP.

But this morning, after an endless night of frantic negotiations, Crean called Howard’s bluff.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Bill 2002 would allow detention without arrest of any Australian the government thinks might have any information about terrorism. Innocence of any crime is irrelevant. The debate this year has been about safeguards to this extraordinary new power – a power which is traditionally the hallmark of a police-state.

There have been many inquiries, and Liberals on them inquiries have sharply criticised the bill’s excesses and forced amendments, only to see the Government go even further after the Bali bombing.

Last night the Senate passed its version of the bill, adding safeguards to protect the innocent. Overnight, Howard accepted a couple of its amendments and rejected the rest. He sent it back to the Senate, which rejected it, and the House of Representatives rejected the Senate again.

Howard thus fulfilled the first half of the Constitution’s requirements to force a double dissolution election in three months. He will send the bill back in the exact form in which the Senate last rejected it and if Crean holds his nerve and rejects it again, Australia will go to a civil liberties election in the context of the war on terror.

The last time John Howard threatened a double dissolution election was on the eve of Christmas 1997, when the Senate rejected his Wik bill. There were four sticking points. That time round, the Senate called his bluff around Easter 1998, and Howard backed off on a race election only after Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party won eleven seats at the Queensland election in June.

This time there are three sticking points:

* Howard wants children as young as 14 to be subject to the new law, Labor wants people under 18 exempted,

* Howard wants detention for up to seven days, Labor detention for up to 20 hours, and

* Howard wants no lawyer allowed to sit in on the interrogation for the first 48 hours of detention, then a lawyer chosen from a pool chosen by the government; Labor wants legal representation from the beginning of detention, chosen by the detainee.

The detail will soon get lost. At the double dissolution election Howard would run the populist themes which won him the 2002 election. He would feed people’s fear to argue that drastic curtailment of our liberties is necessary in a time of war, and feed fear of other Australians who don’t look like the majority. The assumption on which his campaign would rest is that Australians can and must trust the government to do the right thing in these dark times.

Crean, just like Beazley would have had he not succumbed to Howard on Tampa, would have a herculean task., He must convince the Australian people that our terrorist enemies will have won the war if in fighting it we lose the very freedoms we are fighting to maintain. He would argue that John Howard cannot be trusted with these powers. One of the weapons he could use – if he dared – if that the government lied to the Australian people about children overboard to win power, and would do anything to maintain it.

Crean would have to explain to the Australian people that the essence of our way of life is the rule of law – that the certainty of abuse of State power against the innocent, proved over and over again by history, is addressed by insisting that we are ruled by laws, not men. The judiciary – independent of government and owing its duties to the law and the citizen, not government – are the bulwark of the rule of law. The right to legal representation when detained by police or other instruments of state power is essential to our freedom.

These are complex arguments, easily overrun by scare campaigns, false propaganda, appeals to prejudice and the screams of shock jocks.

And Crean must, in the end, convince Australians that he can be trusted to lead the nation in this time of crisis – to fight the war on terror as hard as Howard, but to do it in a way that enhances our trust in him by fiercely protecting as far as is possible our liberties and freedoms.

The risks are so high they are almost incomprehensible. If, God forbid, terrorism strikes in our country over summer, John Howard is almost certain to claim – regardless of truth – that it’s all because he didn’t have his ASIO bill the way he wanted it. Crean’s answer will be that he could have had his bill, with proper safeguards, but chose to endanger Australian lives to win an election.

If the challenge was not great enough already, Crean carries a crippling burden inflicted by the most senior Labor Premier in Australia. Bob Carr has just rushed through draconian new police powers with no safeguards whatsoever to protect citizens against their abuse, and justified them on the basis that anything goes in the war on terror.

John Howard – who can rightly say that his bill contains some safeguards – was super-quick to taunt Crean with Carr’s betrayal of core Labor principle. “Under the Labor bill, passed in NSW, the NSW police have the power to stripsearch children between the age of 10 and 18 years without a warrant … (but) with the authority of Michael Costa, the police minister,” he said. “If the Labor Party were really serious and consistent, why didn’t it attack and disown the Carr government – that happened in NSW without a murmur.”

Carr wants to win an election in March with fear and loathing. So might Howard. Crean must fight on two fronts.

It is almost unimaginable that Simon Crean would cave in before February 4, when Parliament resumes. If he did, it would be the end of his leadership. Get set for the most important, high-stakes election in the lifetime of most Australians.

***

By the way, an election next Easter would mean that Howard, if he won, would have to put off his retirement decision for at least one more year. For the sake of the country, of course.

Hi. Tonight first takes on an ASIO election from Hamish Tweedy, Sean Richardson, Damien Lawson, Robert Nicoll and Phil Clarke.

But first, how’s this for proof of David Makinson’s recent plea to Never give up your disbelief (webdiaryDec10). He scoured the net for some hot quotes and got, well, suckered. Reader Catherine M. Harding writes:

I must agree with David Makinson that “[q]uoting historical figures can be perilous” but not because this confronts “the convictions of the righteous” – whatever that might mean.

The real peril in “trawling the internet” for quotes from the “wise and not so wise” is the distinct possibility that the quotation or the attribution or both may be completely and utterly wrong. Such is the case with David’s Julius Caesar “quote”. As far as anyone with an interest in ancient Rome can determine, Caesar NEVER said it or anything like it. It does not appear in any of the ancient sources (e.g.Plutarch, Suetonius, Cassius Dio, Cicero, Lucan, Appian, Caesar etc.) and we can’t even turn to Shakespeare’s semi-fictional treatment for assistance. (For those interested in the development of this urban legend may I refer you to an excellent discussion at one of the internet’s best ancient history sites: ancienthistory )

I don’t raise this issue with the intention of embarrassing David in particular. It’s more by way of a general warning to the amateur commentators among us who like to share our views and opinions with the world. Publication demands higher standards of us. This is particularly so when we use the statements of others to support or otherwise buttress our positions. In these circumstances it’s best to follow a few basic rules:-

1. “Wishing for a thing does not make it so” (Jean-Luc Picard ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’)

2. If you don’t know, find out

3. Even if you think you know, double check with a reputable source

4. If you still can’t confirm it, don’t say it

5. Don’t plagiarise (Margo: Unless you’re Janet Albrechtsen or Piers Akerman: Their employer seems to love it!)

6. Don’t lie

7. Don’t deliberately misquote or quote out of context

Following these rules won’t guarantee against making future silly mistakes but at least it should assist in minimising them. As it is I don’t know whether David’s other “quotes” from Hitler, Einstein, Goering, Zinn, Roy, Twain or Crowley are correct or not. However, the fact that at least one of the “independent support[s]” for his position is so wrong undermines my ability as a reader to follow the internal logic of the piece.

This is a serious flaw because the mistake unintentionally throws David’s argument back in his own face: “Remember – disbelieve. We are being lied to”.

***

Herald state political correspondent Paola Totaro emailed the premier’s press secretary Amanda Lampe this question at 1.19pm today:

Amanda, Formal question to the Premier please:

Does the Premier support Federal Labor’s stand on the ASIO Bill? Thanks, Paola”

Surprise surprise, no answer.

I emailed Amanda at 5.37pm:

Hi Amanda. I request the Premier’s response to the following statement by Mr Howard in the federal parliament today, when criticising Mr Crean’s refusal to back down on his amendments to the ASIO bill:

“Under the Labor bill, passed in NSW, the NSW police have the power to stripsearch children between the age of 10 and 18 years without a warrant … (but) with the authority of Michael Costa, the police minister. If the Labor Party were really serious and consistent, why didn’t it attack and disown the Carr government, that happened in NSW without a murmur.”

Margo

Surprise, surprise. No answer.

***

Hamish Tweedy

If the arguments are framed as you have put them in Our values: Crean -v- Howard and Carr (webdiaryDec13) then these laws are obscene – and that’s without being aware of what other compromises Labor has already agreed to.

If Howard goes for a double dissolution on this I pray that he’s toast. Either we are on the eve of a destruction that we’re totally unaware of, or Governments (at least NSW and Federal) of this country are considerably more insidious than I had any idea of.

You’re seriously telling me that the PM of this country wants to able to jail 14-year olds for 7-days and then subject them to interrogation without legal representation for 48-hours and then be able to choose the lawyer for the defendant? All we will have succeeded in doing is making the terrorists appear as moderates. I can’t recall a more disgusting proposal.

The best I can hope for is that you’re like Bob Carr (a vicious and malicious liar).

***

Sean Richardson in Sydney

“Under the Labor bill, passed in NSW, the NSW police have the power to stripsearch children between the age of 10 and 18 years without a warrant … (but) with the authority of Michael Costa” – John Howard.

Why did Honest John say this? To point out the obscenity of the NSW bill? No, because he was asking the ALP to let him make his legislation more like Carr’s.

Two words: quo vadis?

***

Damien Lawson, Western Suburbs Legal Service Inc, Melbourne

While I agree with much of your comment on the political situation regarding terrorism, ASIO and the NSW legislation, I have to take issue with a couple of crucial points.

Most importantly, the difference between Labor and the Government is far less than seven days versus 20 hours of detention.

Labor’s proposal allows for 20 hours of questioning, but detention could be for far longer. Travel from the time someone is taken into custody, breaks in questioning, medical treatment, consultation with lawyers and others are not included within the 20 hours.

Therefore someone can be held for well over a day and as Kim Beazley pointed out in the early hours of this morning even a possible two to three days. This is also reflected in Labor’s proposed procedures list which includes sleeping facilities. Mr Beazley told Parliament today: “Frankly, Minister, the public will not understand the differences between us. They will not. We stand here for a regime that will ensure that people can be questioned for 20 hours. In the way in which that is framed, that effectively means TWO TO THREE DAYS DETENTION while that questioning is done.”

I agree that Labor and Crean are in a difficult position on this issue and are risking much in holding to what are significant amendments, but so they should be. As you know, no other western democracy has gone down this route, Labor’s position is far beyond what is seen to be acceptable in the US and UK and should not be acceptable here. Just because the government’s position is so terrible, should we praise Labor for being less terrible?

It is great that children will not be subject to the bill, but what about everyone else.

A lawyer while important is of not much assistance to someone innocent of any offence who is required to answer questions or face five years in prison. All a lawyer can really do in that situation is advise their client to talk.

The Greens, Democrats and One Nation are the only parties that have adopted the right approach on this bill and that is to not accept any abrogation of the principle of “no detention without charge”. Which is the same way as saying no one should be detained unless reasonable suspected of committing a crime.

This principle by the way is what should and does underly much of people’s concern in relation to the detention of asylum seekers.

***

Robert Nicoll

If Howard is able to win another election based on a fear campaign, I will hold the media just as liable for his victory – a responsible media should be able to provide the public with fair and balanced analysis, no matter how misleading shock jocks and tabloid headlines might be; the media should be able to shout loud enough about misleading propaganda and shame any Australians tempted by an underlying/primal bigotry. Thanks for your work this last year.

Margo: Heh Robert, the shock jocks and the tabloids are part of the media. The most powerful part.

***

Phill Clarke

I think it is almost unbelievable that the Howard government is proposing the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Bill 2002 at the same time as they are roundly condemned for their record on Human Rights.

Earlier this week Human Rights Watch issued their first report focussing on Australia. The prognosis was not good. The treatment of boat people and the Pacific Solution were highlighted as particularly troubling.

More information can be found here: hrwreport, hrwpress, indymedia

In an aside, I also find it difficult to believe that I saw no coverage of this report in the “mainstream” media. (Margo: What chance Crean getting his message heard?)

“Citizens need to be able to look under the skirts of their government, not the other way around.” Kate Riley, Seattle Times

 

Today will wrap up a year-long debate on the ASIO bill, which gives ASIO the right to detain people without charge for interrogation even if they’re not suspected of a crime.

Debate has raged within and between the major parties on mechanisms to safeguard citizens from abuse of power – the latest is the Senate’s decision that the legislation will lapse after three years.

As I write, the Senate is still finalising the details of the new law. Professor George Williams – who’s led the legal defence of our rights throughout the year with passion, erudition and credibility – discussed what’s happened so far in smhDec4.

I’ve spent a lot of time this year on the legislative responses to the war on terror, particularly the federal anti-terrorism bill (where a Liberal backbench revolt forced significant changes to safeguard our right to protest), the ASIO bill, and most recently the NSW government’s disgraceful Terrorism (Police Powers) Bill which Bob Carr rushed through parliament this month.

I pay tribute to the six brave souls who stood up for civil liberties and safeguards on unchecked police power in the NSW Upper House and voted against the bill because it contained no safeguards. They are Helen Sham-Ho (former Liberal), Arthur Chesterfield-Evans (Democrats), Peter Wong (Unity Party), Peter Breen (Reform the Legal System Party), Richard Jones (former Democrats) and Ian Cohen and Lee Rhiannon (Greens).

Only one of the lonely six is standing for re-election this time, the Greens’ Ian Cohen. Helen Sham-Ho and Richard Jones are retiring and Peter Breen, Arthur Chesterfield-Evans and Lee Rhiannon were elected at the last election and have another term to serve. Peter Breen’s Party is standing secular Muslim Ahmed Sokarno.

So if you vote in NSW and want the people’s rights, including yours, mentioned in the NSW parliament next term, look for Ian Cohen, Ahmed Sokarno and the Democrats on the Upper House ticket. They’re all you’ve got left.

Unlike their federal counterparts in both parties, the ALP backbench nodded and buttoned their lips and the Liberal backbench nodded and buttoned their lips. Otherwise Alan Jones would have shredded them for breakfast.

How’s this for smarmy cynicism from NSW Treasurer Michael Egan during December 5’s question time:

Lee Rhiannon (Greens): I direct my question to the Treasurer, representing the Premier. Is the Treasurer aware of the comments of the Federal Attorney-General, Daryl Williams, on ABC radio yesterday? He said:“When you look at what we have in our bill and compare it to what the NSW government is proposing in its bill you’ll see that there are an enormous range of safeguards in ours that are not present in the NSW bill.”

The Federal Attorney-General was referring to the Terrorism (Police Powers) Bill. In light of this information, will the Premier hold back on promoting the New South Wales model of fighting terrorism until it has been subject to the same proper and open parliamentary inquiries that the ASIO bill has been through?

Michael Egan: The Hon. Lee Rhiannon has been in this place long enough to realise that she should not reflect on a vote of the House or on legislation passed by the House. The legislation to which she refers has been subject to debate in this House and the other place in the past week or so. It passed through this House last night, and I think it is very balanced legislation. We live in quite difficult times and we are subject to threats that we once thought would never emerge. It is very important to have in place safeguards that balance our civil liberties with our right to be protected from harm. I think the legislation that Parliament passed yesterday achieves that aim.

***

New King Carr edict: Once legislation is passed, no member of Parliament has the right to criticise it. And don’t ignore King Bob – he’s got the police in his pocket and the judiciary out of the way if police minister Michael Costa oversteps the mark.

***

Today, Brian Bahnisch, Simon Priestley, Peter Funnell, a federal public servant who must remain anonymous and Michael Strutt comment on Carr’s disgrace, then Jozef Imrich’s selection of United States commentary on what’s happening to civil liberties over there. When you read the United States pieces, remember that at least they’ve got a bill of rights, so the Courts can intervene if Bush and his apparatus go too far. There’s nothing anyone can do to curb Carr’s excesses in NSW – he’s made sure of that. For up-to-the-minute news on the collapse of our way of life via our governments, not the terrorists, go to Zem.

***

Brian Bahnisch in Queensland

My brain is not good on legal issues, but having lived in Queensland all my life except 1964-1968 I understand what it is like to live under a strong and ruthless premier, whose power is unchecked.

I had a chat with Joh one day in the courtyard of a school library we were opening. He was a nice avuncular chap in that context, but non-Queenslanders have no idea what it was like to turn on the radio and every time risk hearing the latest outrageous comment. You had to listen and weigh up each astonishing word because his word was law. Putting down street protests was a specialty.

As a state public servant, I could not go on protests, but my younger brother, as a university student, once lost half his beard, ripped out of his face just for being there.

We suspected there was a netherworld of corrupt activity. We had one honourable police commissioner, Ray Whitrod, who tried to clean it up. He failed and left because of Joh’s interference. We had one honourable politician, Joh’s deputy Bill Gunn, who initiated the Fitzgerald Inquiry when Joh was out of town. We had one senior police officer, with residual and re-found honour, who broke the police ‘wall of silence’. Later in the last days we had an honourable Governor, who refused Joh’s request for a wholesale sacking of cabinet ministers when they finally turned against him.

When the CJC (Criminal Justice Commission) was established we profited, I think, from some honourable and generally high profile chairs of the Commission. Such persons, however, did not always handle the media well and there did seem to be some problems with how the CJC was constituted.

The whole thing became hopelessly politicised during the brief reign of Rob Borbidge as Premier, when the CJC was investigating him and his Police Minister Russell Cooper for their role in the notorious Memorandum of Understanding with the Police Union before the byelection that finally unseated Goss. These two gentlemen countered by mounting an investigation into the CJC.

This was resolved in the end by the Commissioner investigating Borbidge and Cooper resigning because he couldn’t investigate while being investigated. The CJC then had its wings clipped by the establishment of a second Commission to take over some of the CJC’s powers.

This has now been sorted by two honourable men. First Peter Beattie, whatever you may think of him, understands the need for dissent and protest. He has replaced the two commissions with a new one – The Crime and Misconduct Commission. The second honourable man is Brendon Butler SC, the last chair of the CJC and chair of the new Commission.

Vivian Schenker interviewed him on the ABC RN Breakfast Program recently. You could not imagine a more calm, measured, deliberative man. He summed up the argument put to him in hearings over the prior two days, commented thoughtfully on the issues, let everyone know how the matter would be progressed and absolutely refused to be drawn on personal views or likely positions the Commission might take.

As it happens I know the guy. We see each other on little group weekend mini-retreats in the mountains or by the sea organised by a mutual friend one or two or three times a year. I used to work with his wife in the public service.

The point is, while he has had positions of responsibility in the past, he has no great profile. He comes across as a normal, honest, straight-talking, careful garden variety solicitor. But the man is not garden variety; he’s quality.

So to our New South Wales friends, I would say that your idea of an independent person to oversee the new police powers, Margo, is a good one, and probably a high profile person would be useful at first.

Ultimately, however, it will depend on the quality of the person rather than the profile. It will also depend on the quality of the legislation and the independence of the office. Bipartisanship should be built into the structure somewhere. But finally it will only work well if you have quality politicians, who don’t try to undermine, bypass or subvert it.

The quality of the act should be such that it does not need to be rescued and interpreted by a quality person. To leave the responsibility with the Police Minister is gross stupidity and a danger to democracy. It’s times like these we need a Bill of Rights written into the Constitution.

***

Simon Priestley, Sydney lawyer

I have just read the new legislation for the widening of police powers to “combat terrorism”. I am more afraid of the new laws widening police powers to “combat terrorism” than the terrorists.

I’m most afraid of how an apparently insane Premier and a Police Minister who seems to confuse himself with the Ghost Who Walks will abuse them. Both men have shown complete disregard if not dislike for honesty/accountability/the truth – anything that may make keeping in power more difficult.

Anyone who doubts they will abuse it is either a fool or in denial of the tragic turn our society is taking. We must not forget this is the Labor Premier who gave the finger to protesting unions, stripped away more workers rights than Menzies dreamed was possible, protects insurance companies and grovels to The Parrot (Sydney talkback king Alan Jones).

If we don’t protest now we may lose the right to protest ever again.

***

Peter Funnell in Farrer, ACT

You’re doing terrific work on the terrorism/law and order/civil rights/democracy issues. I hadn’t seen all the connections till I read your stuff on NSW. Bloody hell! Have they no shame or sense of ordinary decency? Do they really believe in liberal democracy?

Where is this all going I wonder? Terrorism is a criminal matter, but what powers do law enforcement agencies need to pursue and prevent major crime that they don’t have today? There has been a push for a very long time to stretch the limits when pursuing illegal drug crime, but there has been only a limited and measured increase in additional powers. No difference here that I can see and no more threatening.

Terrorism leads to a call to enhance “security”, while illegal drug crime inspires calls for greater criminal investigative powers. The bridge between the two is the need to physically secure people and places, the sense of “war”, when in fact we are talking about gathering more intelligence and giving higher priority and resources to criminal investigation.

The very best results, the only results that matter in dealing with terrorism, is through law enforcement and intelligence agencies. If they work globally or regionally, the results compound significantly. Just look at Bali and the efforts of numerous countries around the world, as they follow the money, investigate and close down the infrastructure.

This is not “war”, it’s bloody good criminal investigation. We don’t need a lot more powers given to these investigative agencies and we don’t need to forego our civil liberties. That is completely the wrong way to go with terrorism. By calling it a “war” and linking it to military capability or objectives, the situation gets seriously out of control – for everyone involved.

My memory of these things goes back to the CHOGM conference in the mid seventies and the Hilton bombing, As a young army rifle platoon commander, I was given a set of orders – rules of engagement that were about three foolscap pages long – which had no chance of being effectively communicated to my troops ( I didn’t understand them and no did my superiors). I was also given a sand bag full of ball ammunition (which I would distribute at my discretion or on order), then, along with the other platoons and companies in my battalion, set forth in our armoured personnel carriers and took up a series of observation posts along a section of the highway to the Blue Mountains.

It was a dangerous farce, that did not sit well with most of us, as I remember it. Fortunately that situation was mitigated by some very responsible and experienced military commanders who were respectful and concerned for potential use of military force on a domestic issue. Things can and do get out of control very quickly. Democracy is fragile and people use the power available to them is my experience. Today there are more than adequate call out provisions. Nothing more is required.

What disgusts me is the Federal and NSW State Government’s disgustingly similar agendas – make people very fearful for their safety and the future to elections. Trade off democracy for an another shot at power. All Carr and Howard are doing is proving the terrorists correct and diminishing our democracy. Sickening, just sickening. Each time they do this, it becomes easier to take another liberty the next time.

***

Anon

I just want to say that I like the things you write and I share your opinion on Mr Carr and Mr Howard and their quest (or obsession) for populist authoritarianism. Dreadful phrase; appalling reality.

As for their “arguments” – more accurately described as assertions of necessity for these authoritarian moves for increased ASIO and police powers, I can only recall Pitt’s comment: “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”

Apologies for me remaining Anon. I would be unemployed by Friday if my employer even suspected I was reading your articles! (I work in the Commonwealth Government.)

***

Michael Strutt

Disclosure: I’m a social justice activist, former member of Justice Action and a regular reader of your column. This is an article I recently wrote for the Justice Action magazine ‘Framed’.

…

Demolishing Democracy – How Carr and bin Laden gave birth to the NSW police state

The Bali bombings could not have come at a better time for Bob Carr and his project to bring an end to Westminster democracy in NSW.

The parliament has long been under the control of the executive, thanks to the combination of strict party discipline and an ineffective opposition. Guideline sentencing, a timid Chief Justice and regular moral panics over ‘light sentences’ keeps the judiciary in line. The ‘fourth estate’ has been rendered impotent by a supine and sycophantic parliamentary press gallery and by the simple expedient of handing the police ministry over to most extreme right wing shock-jock in the state.

The prisons are packed and new ones being built as fast as possible, the Wood Commission reforms have been rolled back and the Ombudsman and Police Integrity Commission nobbled. A notorious prison officer has been put in charge of Corrective Services, in spite of adverse ICAC findings against him and an ‘old style’ NSW cop made Commissioner of Police, although the PIC had been told that he was the leader of the ‘Black Knights’ dedicated to blocking any reform of the NSW police.

The police themselves have more powers than at any time since the Rum Rebellion and a record number of citizens are now languishing in prison cells under conditions as abusive as any since the Nagle Royal Commission.

But how could you run a law and order election campaign from here? What is left to crack down on?

The answer came in a flash. The same flash that extinguished 87 Australian lives at Kuta Beach.

The police and military could be joined under a Homeland Security Ministry, based on the model established by George Bush following the September 11 attacks.

The draconian ASIO bill which had been stalled in Federal parliament for a year could be adapted for NSW police requirements and shoved through NSW parliament, granting Carr’s crackpot police minister unheard of powers and freedom from all judicial oversight or review.

But best of all, the war on terrorism gave Carr the perfect cover to terrorise dissenters. So he released his yapping attack dog.

Costa immediately swung into action, slandering a forum on civil disobedience as a plot to unleash violence against his police force. He went on to ensure that peaceful protesters against the WTO would feel the boot (and hooves) of NSW police aggression. Soon he had joined with the Federal Justice Minister in a Stalinist plot to silence independent media on the internet, with open publishing websites such as IndyMedia and Active Sydney copping particular vilification.

“I think with the current climate we are in we have all got to be nervous all of the time,” Costa told reporters. He is sure doing his bit to make sure we are.

The Premier himself was soon to join the fray, wielding the Bali bombing like a bludgeon against all who dared challenge him.

When Herald journalist Margo Kingston had the temerity to question the anti-democratic nature of the Terrorism (Police Powers) Bill 2002, Carr was quick to attack, falsely accusing her of blaming the Bali victims for their own deaths. Just to make sure everyone understood that his words had not been an accident, he repeated the lie later in an interview with 2GB’s Chris Smith.

“These nosey reporters”, simpered Smith, “they tend to ask questions”.

Even the International Commission of Jurists was not safe from the wrath of the rampant Premier.

When Supreme Court Justice Dowd told the Senate that anti-terrorism laws were exploiting a climate of hysteria to abolish fundamental rights, Carr was quick to demonstrate how hysterical he could get.

“Can’t John Dowd get it into his thick head that Bali occurred, that we have a problem here, that these threats are real?”, he fumed.

Terrorism is not new to NSW, it has been here for at least two hundred years – as many Aboriginal Australians can attest. Bob Carr’s new order just means that terrorism will now touch far more innocent people, not just those from marginalised and disempowered groups. In a sense, Carr has brought state terror to the masses.

So when Costa’s stormtroopers drag you from your bed, parliament remains silent, the media calls you ‘a suspected terrorist’ and the judiciary stands by and does nothing, just think of the Premier and reflect that not all terrorists are foreigners bearing bombs.

***

UNITED STATES COMMENTARY

Correction: I wrote recently that “(Nancy) Pilosi was the only Democrat to vote against the resolution authorising Bush to use military force in Iraq. She also voted against the Homeland Security Act.” WebdiaristMark White corrects my spelling – it’s Pelosi – and advises: “Plenty of Democrats voted against George W. Bush’s resolution (on Iraq). In fact, in the House, the vote was 296-133, with a majority of Democrats voting against the resolution. In the Senate, the vote was 77-23, with 21 Democrats voting no, joined by Independent Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont and Republican Sen. Linc Chafee of Rhode Island.”

***

“Homeland security” a threat to Americans’ rights

Two weeks ago THE LIGHTHOUSE reported Independent Institute research fellow Paul Craig Roberts’ prediction that the Department of Homeland Security will make its constituent bureaucracies even less accountable than they already are.

This week we report Independent Institute senior fellow Robert Higgs’ emphasis on the risk that Homeland Security will pose to Americans’ rights.

“Higgs believes that despite some intense public criticism, most people simply accept the government rationale for curtailing civil liberties until something happens to draw their attention to the limits of such policy, such as another large terrorist attack,” writes Christian Bourge, think tanks correspondent for United Press International.

“I think that will eventually cause people to question the efficacy of the measures the government has taken,’ [Higgs] said. ‘This is a situation, however, in which logic doesn’t operate and fear prevails. In the short run people always fall for this bogus promise – that the government will protect them – whether it has substance or not.”

He said that it would probably take an administration attack on a powerful person or group – something on the level of the Watergate scandal – to awaken the public to the negative impact of the policies enacted over the last year.

“As long as you attack people who are marginal, like immigrants, Muslims and people with unpopular political views, the government has a good chance of getting away with its suppression of liberty no matter how draconian,” said Higgs. “It is when (government) abuses its power and uses it against people who have the ability to fight back through official channels and the political process that something is likely to happen.”

See:

Report: Anti-terror Powers Curtail Rights by Christian Bourge (UPI, November 23, 2002) independent

Government Protects Us? by Robert Higgs (The Independent Review, Fall 2002) independent

***

Doublespeak and Internment: ‘Let It Not Happen Again’

by Kate Riley, Seattle Times

Clarence Moriwaki sees something all too familiar in the words used in the War on Terrorism.

“They call them detainees, instead of prisoners,” the Bainbridge Island man says of about 1,200 people rounded up after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “It’s the same kind of Orwellian doublespeak that they used during World War II.”

Moriwaki and Mary Woodward fretted recently over coffee after showing me the island’s old Eagledale Ferry Dock site. There a small marker commemorates the 227 people of Japanese descent, most of them American citizens, who were rounded up March 30, 1942, and taken from this idyllic island to the Manzanar internment camp in the desolate Mojave Desert. These were the very first of some 120,000 Americans who would lose their freedom in unconstitutional imprisonment lasting up to three years.

“They called them evacuees,” said Woodward, whose parents published the Bainbridge Island Review, one of the few newspapers in the nation to consistently criticize the government action. “You evacuate a burning building. These people were taken prisoner.”

Moriwaki and Woodward hope the Bainbridge story might help to remind our nation’s leaders of the risks of curtailing civil liberties. Within days of passing the Homeland Security Act, Congress also approved a bill that directs the Interior Department to study whether to establish the Eagledale Ferry Dock site under the National Park Service. The Bainbridge committee has artist renderings of a larger memorial keyed around its central message, Nidoto nai yoni. “Let it not happen again.”

The bill’s sponsor, U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Bainbridge Island, acknowledges a lesson in its success. “It’s the perfect moment, because the kinds of fear and stress that gave rise to (the internments) in 1942 are the same that we’re seeing now.”

Granted, most “detainees” rounded up after 9/11 reportedly are not American citizens, as most of the World War II prisoners were. Many were illegally in this country and reportedly have been deported. I emphasize “reportedly,” because no one can be sure. The federal government has refused to give any information on these detainees and has sought to close immigration hearings and move other proceedings from the court system to military tribunals where they can keep the curtains closed.

That gives Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, fits. “Not to say that some of these people shouldn’t be kicked out of the country,” she says, “but there needs to be some sort of way for the public to know what the government is doing.” (Margo: Carr decrees that there is no requirement for public reporting of Costa’s activities or those of his police force’s activities under the new law.)

For sure, these are uncertain, scary times that require smarter ways to flush out and apprehend enemies. But what scares me as much as the threat of a terrorist attack is the threat to civil liberties, citizen privacy and public access to government.

Astonishingly, President Bush has put a convicted felon in charge of the Department of Defense’s Total Information Awareness program. Former National Security Advisor John Poindexter, who masterminded the Iran-Contra scandal and was saved from a prison sentence for his five convictions because of a technicality, proposes to combine databases to track the dealings of American residents, citizens and otherwise, with no warrants necessary.

And you thought your grocery-store savings card was innocuous, right?

How are we supposed to trust the government won’t overstep its bounds with a convicted liar in charge?

Can Congress trust Poindexter? Can Congress protect us? Can we trust Congress?

Before the Homeland Security Act vote in the House, Inslee entered into the record a statement trying to clarify that the act was not an endorsement of Poindexter’s plan. He had proposed a bipartisan colloquy, which would have carried more weight, but Republican leadership refused.

A feisty, inquisitive press is one way that citizens have been able to keep tabs on their government and hold officials accountable. The press’ watchdog role has never been more important, but its abilities are being curtailed.

Even before the 9/11 attacks, Bush was buttoning down access to government. Under the Clinton administration, the standard for responding to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests was to disclose unless there was a good reason not to.

Under Attorney General John Ashcroft, the bent was shifted to require a good reason to disclose. The new Homeland Security Act limits FOIA access even further.

Dalglish is alarmed at the changes. “I’m afraid there’s going to have to be some really egregious behavior before Congress is going to catch on.”

That’s something Clarence Moriwaki, Mary Woodward and I are worried about, too.

Citizens need to be able to look under the skirts of their government, not the other way around.

***

In Terror War, 2nd Track for Suspects

Those Designated ‘Combatants’ Lose Legal Protections

by Charles Lane , Washington Post, December 1.

The Bush administration is developing a parallel legal system in which terrorism suspects – U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike – may be investigated, jailed, interrogated, tried and punished without legal protections guaranteed by the ordinary system, lawyers inside and outside the government say.

The notion that the executive branch can decide by itself that an American citizen can be put in a military camp, incommunicado, is frightening. They’re entitled to hold him on the grounds that he is in fact at war with the U.S., but there has to be an opportunity for him to contest those facts…

The elements of this new system are already familiar from President Bush’s orders and his aides’ policy statements and legal briefs: indefinite military detention for those designated “enemy combatants,” liberal use of “material witness” warrants, counterintelligence-style wiretaps and searches led by law enforcement officials and, for noncitizens, trial by military commissions or deportation after strictly closed hearings.

Only now, however, is it becoming clear how these elements could ultimately interact.

For example, under authority it already has or is asserting in court cases, the administration, with approval of the special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, could order a clandestine search of a U.S. citizen’s home and, based on the information gathered, secretly declare the citizen an enemy combatant, to be held indefinitely at a U.S. military base. Courts would have very limited authority to second-guess the detention, to the extent that they were aware of it.

Administration officials, noting that they have chosen to prosecute suspected Taliban member John Walker Lindh, “shoe bomber” Richard Reid and alleged Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui in ordinary federal courts, say the parallel system is meant to be used selectively, as a complement to conventional processes, not as a substitute. But, they say, the parallel system is necessary because terrorism is a form of war as well as a form of crime, and it must not only be punished after incidents occur, but also prevented and disrupted through the gathering of timely intelligence.

“I wouldn’t call it an alternative system,” said an administration official who has helped devise the legal response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “But it is different than the criminal procedure system we all know and love. It’s a separate track for people we catch in the war.”

At least one American has been shifted from the ordinary legal system

into the parallel one: alleged al Qaeda “dirty bomb” plotter Jose Padilla, who is being held at a Navy brig, without the right to communicate with a lawyer or anyone else. U.S. officials have told the courts that they can detain and interrogate him until the executive branch declares an end to the war against terrorism.

The final outlines of this parallel system will be known only after the courts, including probably the Supreme Court, have settled a variety of issues being litigated. But the prospect of such a system has triggered a fierce debate.

Civil libertarians accuse the Bush administration of an executive-branch power grab that will erode the rights and freedoms that terrorists are trying to destroy – and that were enhanced only recently in response to abuses during the civil rights era, Vietnam and Watergate.

“They are trying to embed in law a vast expansion of executive authority with no judicial oversight in the name of national security,” said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, a Washington-based nonprofit group that has challenged the administration approach in court.

“This is more tied to statutory legal authority than J. Edgar Hoover’s political spying, but that may make it more dangerous. You could have the law serving as a vehicle for all kinds of abuses.”

Administration officials say that they are acting under ample legal authority derived from statutes, court decisions and wartime powers that the president possesses as commander in chief under the Constitution.

“When you have a long period of time when you’re not engaged in a war, people tend to forget, or put in backs of their minds, the necessity for certain types of government action used when we are in danger, when we are facing eyeball to eyeball a serious threat,” Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson, who leads the administration’s anti-terrorism legal team in the federal courts, said in an interview.

Broadly speaking, the debate between the administration and its critics is not so much about the methods the government seeks to employ as it is about who should act as a check against potential abuses.

Executive Decisions

Civil libertarians insist that the courts should searchingly review Bush’s actions, so that he is always held accountable to an independent branch of government. Administration officials, however, imply that the main check on the president’s performance in wartime is political – that if the public perceives his approach to terrorism is excessive or ineffective, it will vote him out of office.

“At the end of the day in our constitutional system, someone will have to decide whether that [decision to designate someone an enemy combatant] is a right or just decision,” Olson said. “Who will finally decide that? Will it be a judge, or will it be the president of the United States, elected by the people, specifically to perform that function, with the capacity to have the information at his disposal with the assistance of those who work for him?”

Probably the most hotly disputed element of the administration’s approach is its contention that the president alone can designate individuals, including U.S. citizens, as enemy combatants, who can be detained with no access to lawyers or family members unless and until the president determines, in effect, that hostilities between the United States and that individual have ended. (Margo: Bob Carr hasn’t even taken responsibility for the awesome new police powers under his new laws – instead his out-of-control police minister Michael Costa will decide when and where to declare a state of emergency and who to target for strip search and home and vehicle invasion with no accountibility to the public or the courts.)

Padilla was held as a material witness for a month after his May 8 arrest in Chicago before he was designated an enemy combatant. He is one of two U.S. citizens being held as enemy combatants at the Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. The other is Yaser Esam Hamdi, a Saudi Taliban fighter who was captured by American troops in Afghanistan and sent to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, until it was discovered that he was born in Louisiana.

Attorneys are challenging their detentions in federal court. While civil libertarians concede that the executive branch has well-established authority to name and confine members of enemy forces during wartime, they maintain that it is unconstitutional to subject U.S. citizens to indefinite confinement on little more than the president’s declaration, especially given the inherently open-ended nature of an unconventional war against terrorism.

“The notion that the executive branch can decide by itself that an American citizen can be put in a military camp, incommunicado, is frightening,” said Morton H. Halperin, director of the Washington office of the Open Society Institute. “They’re entitled to hold him on the grounds that he is in fact at war with the U.S., but there has to be an opportunity for him to contest those facts.”

However, the Bush administration, citing two World War II-era cases – the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding a military commission trial for a captured American-citizen Nazi saboteur, and a later federal appeals court decision upholding the imprisonment of an Italian American caught as a member of Italian forces in Europe – says there is ample precedent for what it is doing.

Courts traditionally understand that they must defer to the executive’s greater expertise and capability when it comes to looking at such facts and making such judgments in time of war, Bush officials said. At most, courts have only the power to review legal claims brought on behalf of detainees, such as whether there is indeed a state of conflict between the United States and the detainee.

In a recent legal brief, Olson argued that the detention of people such as Hamdi or Padilla as enemy combatants is “critical to gathering intelligence in connection with the overall war effort.”

Nor is there any requirement that the executive branch spell out its criteria for determining who qualifies as an enemy combatant, Olson argues.

“There won’t be 10 rules that trigger this or 10 rules that end this,” Olson said in the interview. “There will be judgments and instincts and evaluations and implementations that have to be made by the executive that are probably going to be different from day to day, depending on the circumstances.”

The federal courts have yet to deliver a definitive judgment on the question. A federal district judge in Virginia, Robert G. Doumar, was sharply critical of the administration, insisting that Hamdi be permitted to consult an attorney. But he was partially overruled by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, based in Richmond.

The 4th Circuit, however, said the administration’s assertion that courts should have absolutely no role in examining the facts leading to an enemy combatant designation was “sweeping.” A decision from that court is pending as to how much of a role a court could claim, if any. The matter could well have to be settled in the Supreme Court.

Secret Surveillance

 

The administration scored a victory recently when the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review ruled 3 to 0 that the USA Patriot Act, passed by Congress shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, gives the Justice Department authority to break down what had come to be known as “the wall” separating criminal investigations from investigations of foreign agents.

The ruling endorsed the administration’s view that law enforcement goals should be allowed to drive Justice Department requests for special eavesdropping and search warrants that had been thought to be reserved for counterintelligence operations. But the court went further, agreeing with the administration that “the wall” itself had no real basis in pre-Patriot Act law. Instead, the court ruled, “the wall” was a product of internal Justice Department guidelines that were, in turn, based partly on erroneous interpretations of the law by some courts.

There is no clear line between intelligence and crime in any case, the court said, because any investigation of a spy ring could ultimately lead to charging U.S. citizens with crimes such as espionage.

The decision overruled an earlier one by the lower-level Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, in which seven judges sharply criticized past Justice Department misstatements in applications for permission to do secret surveillance.

Administration officials say that the ruling permits what is only sensible — greater sharing of information between federal prosecutors and federal counterintelligence officials.

Thanks to enforcement of “the wall” by FBI lawyers, they note, pre-Sept. 11 permission to search Moussaoui’s computer was not sought, a crucial missed opportunity to prevent the attacks.

In practical terms, the ruling means that the attorney general would still have to convince the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that he has probable cause to believe that a given subject of a wiretap or search is an agent of a foreign terrorist group, a standard that is not dissimilar to the one required for warrants in ordinary criminal cases.

Yet civil libertarians say that targets of such investigations who end up being ordered out of the country or prosecuted would lose a crucial right that they would have in the ordinary criminal justice system – the right to examine the government’s evidence justifying the initial warrant.

“So the government starts off using secret surveillance information not to gather information upon which to make policy, but to imprison or deport an individual, and then it never gives the individual a fair chance to see if the surveillance was lawful,” Martin said.

Michael Moore was kind enough to publish my piece on the United States’ new national security strategy on his website, and I’ve had a steady stream of hits from the United States ever since.

Yesterday, US citizen M.K. Harrison responded to Manifesto for world dictatorship (webdiarySept22). After her piece, David Spratt suggests you check out the unsavoury history of US undersecretary of state Richard Armitage, who’s visiting Australia on Friday to straighten our backs on Iraq.

Before that, Sue Bushell discusses Moore’s book Stupid white men, relating the censorship surrounding the publication of his book to the dearth of coverage of the SIEV-X controversy. (The Senate this week passed a motion urging a judicial inquiry into SIEV-X, with another motion asking the government to extradite boast organiser Abu Quassey from Indonesia to face homocide charges on the go. For the details, go to sievx).

To end, responses to David Makinson’s year-in-review opus Never give up on your disbelief from Mike Lyvers, an American in Queensland, and Sean Hosking.

It’s the end of another big, bad year. Late Night Live finishes for the year this week, and I had a go at a year-in-review last night. In the run-down to Christmas, I’d like to publish your highlights and any 2002 quotes that have stayed in your mind. Who’s your Australian of the year? Mine is Michael Kirby.

Webdiarist Cathy Bannister didn’t need to be asked, and today her end-of-year piece, including a poem for the Bali dead.

But to begin, drought-stricken NSW had great rains yesterday, and Webdiarist Merrill Pye celebrates.

***

Merrill Pye in Pyrmont, Sydney

On the way home tonight to my inner-suburban plot (with its proudly browned-off patch of lawn under the Hill’s Hoist, well-mulched tiny herbal bed and shaded bowl of water for thirsty wildlife), hopping over the flooded gutters, wading through the sheets of water across driveways, I let my tears mingle with the drops driving under the hat brim.

A heart overflowing thankfulness at the steady, soaking downpour fought with a deep upwelling pain at seeing those gushing streams flowing across the hard concrete and asphalt down through the stormwater drain to lose themselves in the salt of the harbour.

How I would have loved to see those streams flowing down into dams and through channels to replenish the soil, bathe the yearning roots and let the green come through again.

The original title of Dorothea Mackellar’s My Country was Core of My Heart:

Core of my heart, my country!

Her pitiless blue sky,

When, sick at heart, around us,

We see the cattle die –

But then the grey clouds gather,

And we can bless again

The drumming of an army,

The steady soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!

Land of the rainbow gold,

For flood and fire and famine

She pays us back threefold.

Over the thirsty paddocks,

Watch, after many days,

The filmy veil of greenness

That thickens as we gaze…

The opal-hearted country,

A wilful, lavish land –

All you who have not loved her,

You will not understand –

Though Earth holds many splendours,

Wherever I may die,

I know to what brown country

My homing thoughts will fly.

***

Cathy Bannister

I wrote this poem some time ago for the parents of Bali bombing victims, but by the time I was finished it was way too late to publish. It might be worth putting in some yearly wrap?

After September 11 last year, I think the left fell into a deep depression en masse. That sort of shock takes 6 to 12 months to get over. While depression can inspire some people to greatness, the vast majority are knocked into useless turpitude, so it’s no wonder that the left has been so bloody useless this year. Thank heavens for Carmen Lawrence – let’s hope she is the catalyst for huge change.

Anyway, here’s my poem.

***

An epiphany

That sweet moment which is

Not mere realisation

Not fresh thought gelled or distilled

But a watershed,

As sudden and shocking as the earth shifting,

As waking in a room flooded

at war

or on Mars,

Might come the moment your baby’s

Head hits your perineum

And you wonder, lucid in exquisite agony, how this child will ever be born

without tearing you in two,

Or perhaps, in the confused, weary, long dark hours that first night home

alone,

With the tiny, fragile, needy parasite crying in sheer terror, craving the

womb and lonely,

And you realise you must fight the exhaustion of the previous days’ labour

that there is no choice

that you must rise

and tend her.

A father might be captured the first time he lock eyes with his baby,

Or the first time he holds this delicate little person, his child, with arms

too large and clumsy,

Or maybe sometime later, when he throws his body between the baby and an

indifferent world

and breaks something.

For parents in a moment know that they are nothing, and the child is

everything,

That without a moment’s thought, your would give your own life to save your

child.

*

So for eighteen years, give or take a few, you tend, you shape, you nurture.

You raise, you punish, you support, you love,

you are punished, exasperated, bewildered and elated.

And eventually, reluctantly, you try to let go.

But, you never can. Not really. Not ever.

I can’t imagine losing a child.

Losing a child is not like losing a limb

There are no prosthetics

For that gaping wound,

where your love,

everything you have lived for,

so large a part of your soul,

has been ripped out,

They say you can learn to live again,

Gradually, moments will open,

When you can step outside into the glorious Australian Spring

And see the vivid blue through the golden wattle,

And breath the fresh air.

They say the pain dulls with time.

So, for what it’s worth, I feel for you

Who have lost children.

May you find solace and peace.

***

Sue Bushell

Regarding Tony Kevin’s piece about the reticence of the media to pick up on further SIEV-X disclosures (SIEV-X: Not the news, webdiaryDec9), I wonder how susceptible the Australian media is to a sustained public campaign demanding more information. One lone voice may not make a difference, but a flood of them might be impossible to ignore.

I have just finished reading the introduction to the UK edition of Michael Moore’s Stupid White Men. It is truly inspiring. With 50,000 copies of Moore’s book due to roll out of the warehouse on September 11, 2001, publisher ReganBooks (a division of HarperCollins) got cold feet after the terrorist attacks and refused to publish the book unless Moore agreed to rewrite at least 50 per cent of it and pay them $100,000 to reprint the books already printed.

“We can’t release the book as it is written. The political climate of this country has changed,” they told Moore, who understandably refused to make the suggested changes, including toning down his criticisms of George Bush.

Moore’s book might never have been published unless a librarian called Ann Sparanese, whom he had never met, but who happened to hear him speak about his plight one day, got on the Internet, writing a letter to her librarian friends and posting it on a progressive site devoted to librarian issues.

In response, thousands of people sent hate mail to HarperCollins, who eventually bowed to the pressure and agreed to release just the 50,000 copies in the warehouse as is, but refused to promote the book in any way. They assured him that would be the only print run.

Within hours of those 50,000 copies hitting bookstores, they sold out. By the next day Stupid White Men went to number one on the Amazon.com best-seller list. By the fifth day it was on its ninth printing. It shot to number one on the New York Times bestseller list and every other list in the country. It was months before people could be assured of going into a bookstore and buying a copy.

There has still not been a single ad for the book and Moore has appeared on only two broadcast shows – one that comes on around 1 am and the other at 7 am. But copies of that book, and a Penguin international edition, keep rolling of the presses.

Might not a campaign directed at editors of Australian newspapers achieve similar things?

Margo: My brother Hamish Alcorn recommends Turning the World into Hell?, a piece on the media by David Cromwell in Zmag. Unfortunately you need to subscribe to read it. A quote: ‘To be corrupted by totalitarianism’, George Orwell once warned, ‘one does not have to live in a totalitarian country.’ Instead, ‘the mere prevalence of certain ideas can spread a kind of poison’ that makes critical commentary on the status quo all but impossible.

***

M.K. Harrison

While I can’t find fault with anything you wrote in your article Manifesto for world dictatorship, I do want to make points that you didn’t.

Not all of us “Americans” consider ourselves supreme power of the world. In fact, many of us are quite embarrassed by what we have become and how we are presented to the world by our hideous head Dubya Bush.

You call us Americans. In that respect, I must say you are as guilty as “we” are. We are but one country in the Americas. We are US Americans. How self-serving it is to refer to ourselves as Americans while ignoring 54 other countries in the Americas, not to mention 549,028,570 people who live in the Americas and who aren’t residing in the United States.

Unlike most countries in this world: we don’t know politics, we haven’t a clue about geography, we only read headlines. This leads to a population who believes what the press says and what our leaders tell us. We hear how wonderful and generous we are to others. We just don’t hear – or perhaps listen – to the motivation behind our so-called generosity.

For years we have paid for the military of other countries, allowing those countries to (sometimes) pay for their own childcare, healthcare and elderly care. We are full of pretence that we are looking after the peoples in the countries where we have a heavy military presence.

In the meantime, we have shelters full of children, parents and grandparents who have no one to care for them. Certainly not our country! It is much easier to ignore these people under our noses – not to mention the fact that we have all of you to worry about.

We ridicule others for their lack of human rights and compassion and all the while we kill based on the color of one’s skin or sexual preference. How many countries other than the United States have a Hate Crime Bill? How many others need it? Let’s not forget how compassionate we are – after all, aren’t we the people who manufacture cattle, swine and fowl for human consumption at an alarming rate and in an inhumane fashion?

Certainly there is a method to our madness. We need oil so we have to do whatever is necessary to get it, right? I mean really…. can you honestly see citizens of the US driving electric cars – how glamorous is that? Have you ever seen a Mercedes-built Smart Car here? I don’t care if it is a MB – where is the luxury? Will my neighbors know it is a Mercedes or will they think I couldn’t afford a big car?

We need food – after all we do consume more food than any of you! We get hungry feeding the world. Oh, have you heard that we consume more food per capita than any other country? Take into consideration our high numbers of houseless and hungry people and you find a whole heap of hungry, glutenous Christians here.

What did you say? Our treatment of animals and humans? We can’t be concerned with our fellow citizens when we are trying to rule the world! We have higher incidents of animal abuse and human abuse than anywhere – yet!

We need to help you with your problems first!

Our lack of knowledge of politics and/or geography…. well, see, we live in our own little world. The Canadians are friendly folk who really cause us no problems. Those darn Mexicans can get on our nerves when they constantly try to cross the border into our country. But other than that, what do we need to know?

Australia is in the same boat – you are basically on your own. We aren’t like those unfortunates who live in countries the size of our States who have to keep up with the politics of neighboring countries just to know if they are safe or not. Besides all of them know geography because if you are in Greece and you want to drive to France – you better darn well know how to get there! And with all those Evil countries so close together and near Europe – well, you would be a fool not to know exactly where Hussein is.

Dubya Bush knows so it must be important.

Most of us know the names of all of our States! It is those pesky US territories that confuse the hell out of us. But they are out of sight and out of mind so we don’t think about them.

We don’t think too much of anyone – but you know that. I am just not sure you understand why we don’t. Our leaders (as scary as they are) are taking care of all of that. We don’t need to worry our pretty little heads about it. Yes, we will send our sons and daughters over somewhere filled with evil people and there will be some of our children who won’t make it home alive…. but, it isn’t our fault! Our leaders are just trying to keep this world peaceful by starting a war. If everyone would just behave as we do, we wouldn’t have these problems, now would we?

After everything we have done for this world now we find out we aren’t loved! That will keep us busy long enough to not look at the fact we don’t love each other or our own country.

It hurts us deeply that you don’t like us – you really don’t like us. When we put your best interest in front of ours constantly and consistently, how could you think so little of us?

Is it because we hardly know you exist until:

1) you do something that pisses us off or

2) you have something we want and is rightfully ours anyway?

Having lived outside US America (and loving every second of it) I have experienced the jealous looks, petty backstabbing, and unkind remarks just because I am from the US. I recited at record speed names of countries and their locations, I exhibited my dry wit at every given occasion, I name-dropped world leader’s names – even those who aren’t from the US. I made apologies for all of my people when in fact I can’t tolerate most of my fellow Americans………… It isn’t easy being me.

But back to you not honoring, respecting, admiring and loving us. We just don’t get why you don’t willingly let your world revolve around us – we do!

You must keep in mind: United States equals US: It’s all about us!

We aren’t forcing our policies and beliefs on you – we are sharing them – because we are right. Always have been, always will be. Just ask us.

***

David Spratt in North Fitzroy, Melbourne

Richard Armitage, US Under Secretary of State to Colin Powell, will be in Canberra this Friday, presumably to sell a war, not that it needs much selling with the present government. To get an idea of Armitage’s colourful past – Vietnam, Operation Phoenix, Indochina heroin trade, Irangate/Contras, etc, go to progressivereview.

My interest? I am an activist in the Victorian Peace Network, a broad-based coalition opposed to war on Iraq. (see vicpeace)

By the way, on first strike: Anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Miama have long used the United States as a base for planning and executing acts of terror against Cuba, including the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner, killing 73. Does Mr Howard support Cuba striking Florida first? Or India striking at bases in Pakistan where Kasmiri militants may be based? Or Israel striking at Iran, which supports Hezbollah? Or New Zealand striking at France to derail a subversive plot hatched in Paris to bomb a Greenpeace ship in a New Zealand port? Or Iraq to strike at Washington because it ‘becomes aware’ of a reported CIA plan to assassinate its leader? In the name of the ‘war on terror’ are we in danger of making the world even more insecure? By labelling political opponents as terrorists (as Margaret Thatcher labelled Nelson Mandela) could the ‘war on terror’ become transformed into a war of the rich and powerful against the poor but resource rich? Isn’t that precisely the sleight of hand that underlies George Bush proposed war on Iraq?

***

Mike Lyvers in Queensland

I just read David Makinson’s latest and feel compelled to make a few comments.

David wrote: “You don’t put out fires with gasoline, and you don’t stop violence with bombs.” Dumb, David. Germany and Japan have both been peaceful, nonviolent countries ever since they were bombed to smithereens in WWII.

David laments the fact that the left offers no alternative to the war on terror or the temporary detention of boatpeople, yet he fails to offer any specific suggestions himself. (I sincerely would like to here them, if he has any.) He then presents a Tolkeinesque parable of the terror situation which suggests that the problem is somehow related to the distribution of wealth.

Oh really? Does David think bin Laden spent his $600 million dollar fortune on weapons to kill the infidels as a means to distribute wealth more fairly? I can’t believe David thinks that. So what is he trying to say then?

David was quite accurate when he noted that the Sept. 11 attacks presented a problem that cannot be understood within the current left/right political framework of the west. Al Qaeda represents an ultra-right-wing philosophy with roots not in any modern conception of social struggle but in the Koran’s admonition to the faithful to wage Holy War on the infidels.

Some on the (western) right recognize this, perhaps because it is not so different from their own fundamentalist religious leanings.

The left, however, has failed to acknowledge it, instead conjuring up other motives that have nothing whatsoever to do with Al Qaeda. Thus David asserts that the statement, “They hate us because we are free” is a lie, but he fails to recognize that religious fanatics do indeed hate those who are free to disagree with them, who flaunt a lifestyle they despise and consider satanic, and who – like David – advocate DISBELIEF (which is punishable by death under Islamic law).

Those of us who are non-religious find it difficult to grasp the mindset of religious fanatics. But we should recognize what they are all about, however alien their way of thinking is to our own.

I’m no apologist for Dubya the Dunce (I voted for the other guy), and do NOT think the war on Iraq is justified unless the U.S. government has solid incriminating information showing a clear link with Al Qaeda (in which case Dubya and his fellow morons should reveal this information to us all immediately). But David’s arguments are naive at best. Both he and John Wojdylo are too fond of abstractions for my taste.

Keeping the arguments in real-world, down to earth terms would do wonders for them both. Offer real-world solutions to real-world problems. John does: attack Iraq and take out Saddam. David – any suggestions?

***

Sean Hosking

Thanks to David Makinson for one of the most honest and powerful pieces I’ve encountered in Webdiary.

In some ways the difference between the positions of David and John Wojdylo reminds me of an argument I used to have with my brother about the Indian spiritualist Krishnamurti. Krishnarmurti argued strongly against the black and white rationales and childlike ideologies around which we construct our lives, and saw politics and organised religion as nothing more than futile power games. Only through personal reflection and self knowledge could one go beyond the transitory interplay of crude emotions and flawed reasoning in order to approach something verging on the truth.

This was seen as a process rather than an end in itself, rooted in an ethic of enlightened self consciousness. At no time did one individual have the right to preach to another (apparently Krishnamurti wasn’t preaching, he was just thinking aloud).

Being a political animal I took issue with this view on a pragmatic rational level, arguing that it bordered on self-obsessive navel gazing and that it didn’t account for those times when practical reality necessitated expedient political action.

“What happens if a nuclear bomb is about to be dropped on us?” I would say. “Your passivity would condone the use of nuclear weapons.” My brother would reply that he didn’t want to die in a nuclear explosion, but that it was a stupid question. In other words, as David Makinson emphasises, he refused to engage with the contrived logic of the question.

At the time I had enormous difficulty coming to terms with his perspective. I still do. But in another sense I can see where he was coming from. He was attempting to extract himself from the narrow insular logic, crude slogans, simple solutions, and inevitable realities which he saw constituted so much of modern society. I was doing my best to wake him up to reality as I called it.

It is often the case that anybody who holds to an ideal will do so in the face of a barrage of pragmatic realists, each posing their own barbed hypothetical questions designed to expose the fundamental naivity/stupidity/hypocrisy of the position held. We live, after all, in one of the most conformist ages in history – the age of reason as we like to call it. The disaster scenarios prophesied in such reasonable arguments will range from everything from personal ostracism to nuclear obliteration. It’s no wonder that a look of mild consternation came over his face when ever my self righteous face homed into view, ready to assail him anew with a vigorous display of logical gymnastics.

This is not to say questions of this kind shouldn’t be posed, particularly in the current climate (John’s contributions on the subject have certainly got me thinking). It’s just that such questions, despite their veneer of clinical rationality, often come with their own extra-rational baggage.

In regard to the present debate all proffered scenarios – war, peace, and the innumerable options that experience tells us almost always loiter unheralded between any two given extremes – involve leaps of faith, assumptions, possible inherent contradictions and risks.

Those advocates of war with Iraq have based their arguments on a range of assumptions about Saddam’s nuclear capacity and his willingness to use it. The threat of this they are likely to have weighed up against the long term implications of a fractured and vengeful middle east.

Those against war may be making similar assumptions and leaps of faith in regard to Saddam’s capacity and/or commitment to peace.

Others may be just thinking about the oil.

Whatever the perspective, in the absence of hard evidence the values of the individual (and the assumptions through which these values are often expressed) will, to a large degree, determine the approach – and these values are as much present in the pragmatists as the idealists.

This is not withstanding the fact that in making this argument you run the risk of arriving at one of those bleary-eyed post positions where everybody’s wrong and everybodys right at the same time (cos its all relative man). In this case the protagonists may be so high on relativity that they won’t notice whether there has been a large explosion or not.

Alternatively we could play the game of good old Aussie two-up as advocated by our prospective great war time leader J Winston Howard. To be nuked or not to be nuked – that is the question. Reality, in relation to any contrived proposition, is generally a question of one or the other.

We could all – doves and hawks alike – have a big party and take bets on whether tomorrow will be the end of the world as we know it or just another tedious day listening to our deputy sheriff tell us that it will soon be the end of the world as we know it unless we go a shooting with uncle George.

On the other hand, possibility and the number of options attendant to it is theoretically infinite. David’s point about the need to remain critical, to disbelieve, is well taken. Discovering new avenues of possibility hinges on our ability to constantly question the inevitabilities that politicians regularly throw up at us – the you’re either with us or against us war cries.

To paraphrase William Pitt: Inevitability is the language of tyrants and the creed of slaves. To remain critically alert at the risk of offending the Miranda Devine’s and Bob Carr’s of the world one of the most positive things we can do. Modern civilisation, from Socrates up, is founded on it.

An ethically-oriented critical perspective poses questions, seeks deeper levels of understanding and in doing so exposes options. Realistic options, some of which would possibly not involve such things as innocent civilians being blown up.

In this sense it might not be sacrilegious to explore in depth the reasons for terrorism, including a critique of the Western world’s relationship with the Muslim world. This could form the basis for redefining the relationship between the two perspectives.

It would be a long and complex process and would definitely not lend itself to easy slogans such as the war on terrorism, good versus evil, they hate our freedoms or he tried to kill my Dad.

All in all, in the absence of incontrovertible evidence predicting our imminent destruction (in which case it will probably be all the way with George) it is our basic values in tandem with our critical faculties which will guide us.

To advocate for peace is not to deny reality, but to hold out on the idea that the simplistic either/or formulas which we are constantly offered are only a very small component of a much wider reality. So I suppose my brother was right …kind of.

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

 

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

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

***

David Makinson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

by David Makinson

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

Left, right, left, right

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

Never give up your disbelief

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

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

Your disbelief is your only defence.

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

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

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

* They threw their children overboard.

* They tried to sink their own boat.

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

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

* Saddam and Osama are in cahoots.

* They hate us because we are free.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

So what does Iraq Watch have to say?

A couple of extracts:

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

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

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

BRIEFING BY ARI FLEISCHER, PRESS SECRETARY, WHITE HOUSE

September 25, 2002

Excerpts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

***

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

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

Rumsfeld: I didn’t address that.

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

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

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

Rumsfeld: I hope so! (Laughter.)

***

Another gem:

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

Rumsfeld: Right.

Q: Is Iraq providing al Qaeda safe haven?

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

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

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

***

And another:

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

***

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

Remember – disbelieve. We are being lied to.

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

***

SIEV-X: Not the news

by Tony Kevin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

Transcript of press conference by Dr Carmen Lawrence

Parliament House, Canberra, Thursday December 5, 2002

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Otherwise, why bother?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Question: (inaudible)

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

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

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

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

Lawrence: Absolutely

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lawrence: I do. I do. I don’t see –

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Question: (inaudible)

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

Question: What’s your opinion of Julia Gillard?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Question: Do you accept that (inaudible)?

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

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

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

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

Question: (inaudible) the baddies?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lawrence: Yes I am.

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

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

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

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

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

Question: Has there been a Caucus vote?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Question: (inaudible)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Question: (inaudible)

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

Thank you very much.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Margo Kingston

November 29 2002

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The opposition has bowed out of its democratic responsibilities.

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

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

Stop press: Sensational new developments on SIEV-X: The federal commissioner of police seeks immunity from answering questions on whether the AFP fitted tracking devices to asylum seeker boats. Go to sievx for the latest.

Today, a suggestion to ensure the Carr government does not abuse the sweeping new police powers it wants to rush through Parliament in the run-up to the election. Then readers comment on the chador controversy, the political climate, and the Carr/Kingston thing. A piece by Annabel Douglas-Hill on how the Philippines leadership handled similar protests to last week’s WTO march is a highlight.

The NSW parliament is off next week then back to pass Carr’s police bill before parliament is adjourned until after the election, so there’s no time to waste if you want to have your say. I’m especially interested in legal analysis of how far Carr could go under the new powers, and how the Opposition and the Greens could overcome a Carr vilification campaign if they seek amendments.

You can read the Terrorism (Police Powers) Bill 2002, at nswgov.

A good website to consult is Zem at zem. The author says he’s “a software developer from Sydney, Australia, who works in the telecommunications industry. He used to live in Melbourne. His real name is no dark secret, but has been omitted from this site as a courtesy to his employer.” Zem details developments in “cryptography, censorship, copyright, thought crime”, and there’s been a hell of a lot of them since September 11. His first take on the Carr bill is at zemcarr.

It’s vitally important that the public get involved in the short time available. Remember the multitude of problems with the federal government’s anti-terrorism bills earlier this year, and the fact that before a Liberal backbench revolt the government wanted to extend the ambit of “a terrorist act” to political and industrial protests. These problems came to light in a Senate inquiry rushed for time due to a government-imposed deadline. Carr has ruled out even a quickie inquiry.

For examples of the dangers we face if an unscrutinised, uncontested Carr bill is passed, see Come in, Big Brother, May 1, webdiary, Liberalism fights back on terror laws, May 8, webdiary, Payne and gain, May 29,webdiary and ASIO: Right beats might, again!, June 5, webdiary

***

Who will balance the power in Carr’s new terrorism law?

by Margo Kingston

In times of national crisis, most particularly when we face fighting a long war, it is imperative that the people trust the government. This is because we must accept a compromise of some of our fundamental human rights and liberties in the cause of effectively fighting the enemy.

A united, strong nation is a bedrock requirement for success in war. It is conceivable that conscription could be necessary, so it is vital that enough of our young people are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for the country they love.

Leadership in such times is about uniting the people against a common enemy. The antithesis of leadership at such times is to divide the nation and crush those who sometimes disagree with government policy – especially in this war, where the enemy could, in rare vases, be within.

We have a problem. Trust in our key institutions – government, big business, the professions, and the media – is low. It has been breaking down for some time. It is now the duty of the leaders of our key institutions to work hard to rebuild and maintain the trust of the people as we prepare for war.

Bob Carr has a problem. This week he released his “Terrorism (Police Powers) Act 2002”, which he demands be rushed through parliament without any inquiry the week after next to grant police sweeping new powers to search and interrogate citizens. The person he wants to oversee and endorse the police use of these powers, on behalf of the people of NSW, is police minister Michael Costa.

Yet the integrity of his government is under extreme pressure, as the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) inquiry into the Oasis development exposes the seedy networks of closed-door influence and power of his government. Carr has refused to stand down the minister accused of soliciting a bribe of $1 million to buy safe passage for the development, Mr Obeid, and refused to act on Mr Obeid’s serial breaches of his legal requirement to disclose his pecuniary interests. In suburbs of Sydney and the towns and cities along the NSW coast, residents disempowered from any say in development are frustrated and angry, many taking to the streets to protest.

In the last two weeks, in an effort to take the heat off, Costa – without evidence – accused intending protesters against the WTO meeting – students, church people, environmentalists, unionists – of condoning and sponsoring violence. He tried to close down a seminar in Parliament house on the history and role of civil disobedience. He oversaw the banning of a street march in the city, which turned peaceful protesters into lawbreakers. He brought in mounted police and hundreds of other police into the CBD, along with many media representatives, then – despite a remarkable absence of violence in the heated atmosphere he created – demonised them yet again as violent criminals.

NSW citizens feel fear, uncertainty, and insecurity as the threat of terrorism on our own soil mounts. The last thing a responsible government should do is hysterically inflame these feelings by turning people against each other through the demonisation of innocent citizens. Its job is to reassure all citizens that their safety is in good hands and to foster a climate of trust in its good faith.

The way I read Mr Carr’s police bill, the WTO protests would have been, by Costa’s own words last week, “a terrorist act” triggering permission for police to search and interrogate all those involved. Imagine the games he could play with that if Labor was looking bad in the polls.

Costa just needs to say that a political march or industrial protest “creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public”, as he did last week. That makes it an “action”. “A terrorist act” is an action done “with the intention of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause”, and of “intimidating the public or a section of the public”. Yep – Costa banged on about that last week, too.

The escape clause for protests is “advocacy, protest, dissent, or industrial action” not intended “to create a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public”, or “to cause serious harm that is physical harm to a person”. There’s no way last week’s protest would fall within this exemption: Michael Costa accused protesters over and over of wanting to that do just that – without proof – for days before the protests took place.

It gets worse. By Costa’s own words, if this bill had been law two weeks ago he could have declared – through the police – the seminar in parliament house a terrorist act. On November 1, Costa told Parliament the seminar, hosted by Greens member Lee Rhiannon and approved by Upper House president Meredith Burgmann (Labor) would “teach people how to cause problems for our police and members of the community as they go about their business”. His claim was untrue, as the seminar proved, but that makes no difference.

Carr is in election mode. All efforts are directed towards winning in March 2002. He and Costa have proved beyond doubt they are willing to do whatever it takes. In these circumstances, to entrust the oversight of sweeping new police powers to Costa is a recipe for disaster. Too many innocents could be hurt, even destroyed, for political advantage. Our society could be divided so bitterly that our capacity to fight the war could be compromised.

Carr cannot seriously expect the people of NSW to go along with sweeping new police powers without responsible, trusted, oversight by a person with long experience, deeply-held values, unimpeachable integrity, excellent judgement, and above all independence from partisan politics – particularly just before an election.

His game plan is to bluff the opposition, the Greens, the minor parties and the independents in the Upper House into passing his laws or risk relentless vilification as irresponsible risk-takers with the safety of NSW residents. It is imperative, for the sake of innocent people who could be crushed, and the war effort, that the opposition forces in this state call Carr’s bluff.

My suggestion is this. Oversight of the new police powers should be vested in an experienced, independent person who the people of NSW trust. If our core protections against the abuse of government and police power must be suspended – which they must – then the people must feel supremely confident that their interests are being fully protected.

The names that come to my mind are:

* The NSW State Governor, Marie Bashir,

* The NSW Lieutenant Governor and Chief Justice of the NSW Supreme Court, James Spigelman,

*. The former Hight Court chief justice Sir Gerard Brennan, now chancellor of the NSW University of Technology,

* The former NSW Chief Justice, Sir Lawrence Street,

* The former Governor Generals Sir William Deane and Sir Ninian Stephen.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the people of NSW could discuss over the next week whom they wanted to entrust with the awesome responsibility of protecting them against terrorism AND abuse of State power? Perhaps the NSW Opposition will have the courage to call Mr Carr’s bluff and give the people of NSW the chance to trust again.

***

Tim Dunlop was a tragic loss to Webdiary when he left to blog at roadtosurfdom. This week, just before my run-in with Carr, he wrote a called “The false logic of the blame-the-victim accusation”. In it, he points out that while the right terrorises people who suggest that poverty is part of the cause of the rise of fundamentalist terrorism, the right makes the same suggestion when promoting the virtues of globalisation post September 11. Right-wing columnist Michael Duffy did it last week, as do the Americans when lauding the advantages of free trade deals. Much online discussion has ensued at Tim’s site. I recommend it.

It’s the end of a long week, and still Bob Carr has not met his public commitment to me on Tuesday that: “I will deliver you that quote” – the one he said proved that I blamed the Bali dead for the bombing. He has also not replied to my letter of Tuesday night enclosing everything I wrote on Bali and inviting him “to find one instance where I have blamed the Bali dead for the bombing, or said that Australian tourists in Bali provoked the bombing”.

Thus my only personal experience of Carr is that he cannot be trusted to keep his word, or to justify serious allegations against a citizen of NSW. If you can’t trust the Premier, you can’t trust the government.

***

OUR WEEK

Annabel Douglas-Hill in Laguna, Philippines

It’s a nightly treat to read jottings in the SMH online in this part of the world. Allow me to comment on Carr and his actions from the point of view of an expatriate.

His recent attack of you was childish and abusive and I was embarrassed for him for having lost control and showing anger in public, which in Asia entails a loss of face. My concern with Mr Carr is that he has not fully thought through his demand for increased surveillance, increased police rights and his refusal to allow the WTO dissenters to march.

He might feel he is doing the right thing by the State by being tough and dictatorial in a time of crisis and fear, but even President Arroyo, after starting tough when she first came to power under a violent and restive public, allowed her people the right to march on the 400 strong CGIAR meeting in Manila a fortnight ago.

Even though many of the visiting delegates are fighting against world poverty and economic inequality and a fair amount of CGIAR aid comes to the Philippines, she did not allow economic or terrorist pressures to prevent a fair debate by both sides. Ten points to Arroyo, Nil to Carr.

In the Philippines I am living under a more controlled and guarded lifestyle than in Australia, but no more so than in many other places of the world. You can get blase about seeing uniforms en masse, although North Korea might hold a shock for me still.

It has not missed my notice that there is a lack of respect for uniform in a country where so many people are authorised to carry guns, and wear uniforms and badges. We have had colleagues held up and their cars stolen by gangsters disguised in Army uniform, so that I sometimes wonder if I would stop my car if ordered to do so by anyone in uniform. Maybe through my fear of a drawn out kidnapping I would run them down and ask questions afterwards.

This distrust of uniform would not be unusual in an Australian migrant from a country where the police or army had been experienced as corrupt.

This sounds like an enticement for a police state, and perhaps it is due to over-exposure to uniform, but I no longer bat an eyelid when an armed guard opens the door for me to MacDonalds, or when a man walks jauntily down the street with a rifle slung over his shoulder.

Do we want a similar situation to develop in Australia, as it has shown a disturbing tendency to do over the last few years? Or shall we stomp our colonial feet bravely down in our Blunstones and set an example for the rest of the world to follow? Shall we decide to grow up, stop calling each other names when we hold opposing viewpoints, listen carefully to the views of our majority Muslim neighbours and instil some sanity into the world?

This includes demanding some respect from the USA, which has shown itself urgently in need of some honest advice and moral direction. This approach to terrorism is not appeasement but maturity.

What Carr must understand is that too much of a show of security will dull our respect and reliance on the uniform as a symbol of good. Does uniform have due respect in China, in North Korea, in Iraq?

If the police are allowed to behave as terrorists, even if they are given the right to break into a suspect’s home without a warrant, we will learn to distrust all uniform.

If people cannot march or attend conferences peacefully while under police protection or debate alternative points of view, how can I hold my home country up as a symbol of free speech and democracy to the Asian world?

***

Mr Mercurius in Summer Hill, NSW

I was going to give Fred Nile’s speech all the attention it deserves (none), however the predictably poll-driven, wedge-driven response of our Prime Minister, and the supportive comments Fred’s speech attracted inHerald ‘Have Your Say’ today (see ‘PM’s veiled comments on how Muslim women dress’, smh) gave me pause to reflect on the following:

* This is a week which saw law enforcement given unprecedented search-and-arrest anti-terrorism powers; against terrorist threats which according to Fred Nile extends to women wearing the chador.

* When Religion (of any persuasion) and State (of any persuasion) get together, they are a terrifying, and virtually unstoppable force.

* ‘Mainstream’ Australians really do hate anybody who looks different, acts different, dresses different or sounds different. Really. Hate. There’s just no point pretending otherwise any more.

* The fear and loathing driving political discourse in this country will serve only to perpetuate the terrorism it purports to be ‘at war’ with, and condemn the next generation of Australians to living with the fear, and the reality, of more murderous attacks.

* More than ever, we need to stand united in our diversity. The terrorists want to drive us apart, we must stand together.

* Those who talk about ‘integrating’ into society, about ‘you’re in our country, be like us’ etc are thinking like the terrorists. It is the same world-view that says ‘everybody must be like me, do what I do, believe what I believe. Or else.’

To paraphrase a great quote from the twentieth century:

“When they came for the asylum seekers, I did not speak up because I was not an asylum seeker. When they came for WTO protesters, I did not speak up because I was not a WTO protester. When they came for the journalists, I did not speak up because I was not a journalist. When they came for the muslim women in their chadors, I did not speak up because I was not a muslim woman in a chador. And when they came for me, there was nobody left to speak for me.”

***

Martin Williams

For all of your comments about Carr and Costa, most of which I support, I still think the main game is being played elsewhere. For all of Carr’s excesses, at least he and others can’t be accused of cosying up to the rapidly evolving stupidity of Fred Nile.

Which is more than can be said for John Howard, who in these worrying times has decided to return to some effective, familiar old tactics:

Howard knows damn well that Nile has been flinging his own fundamentalist take on religion in other people’s faces for decades, yet refuses point blank to assure Muslim women that the cloth they wear won’t be branded illegal! Result: Muslim women face the fear of a Taliban-style legal imposition which prevents them from leaving their houses WITH these clothes on instead of without. Insane, no?

You’ve got to hand it to Howard: he’s good. Render the floated prejudice potentially respectable and name the target in a vague, obscurantist way and observe the response; if the response is negative then one can withdraw without having pushed too far. But if the response is supportive then go in for the kill. Quite like the old Chinese Communist tactic used when introducing policy or commencing a purge.

Shades of Asian immigration, Pauline Hanson and Tampa once more. In short, I do not trust John Howard to adequately defend this country from terrorists because he appoints bona fide incompetents to key ministries and is passionately committed to playing these dirty little political games of defending risible kooks like Nile (now disowned by Bishop Robert Forsyth, interestingly) and courting Nile’s followers no matter how absurd or offensive or frightening their utterances. This is at the expense of spending all his energy fortifying the entire Australian community to stand together in repelling terrorist elements.

Sadly, this kind of thing – unifying statesmanship and symbolism – has never been his forte, nor his priority for that matter. And it is clear now from his comments today that he is incapable of adapting himself to what is required in the national interest at the moment it is most needed.

His preparedness to comment on the role of Muslim dress off the top of his head, so ignorantly and so glibly – now an indispensable Australian characteristic, this – could only be interpreted by Australian Muslims as patronising, at best.

If I were Muslim, I would be incensed. But you can be sure that average Muslims – especially women and girls – will do what they have to do to get through these days: cop it sweet, keep the head down and the mouth shut.

It doesn’t augur well.

***

Hamish Tweedy

I can’t believe there is someone getting around calling himself Reverend espousing such vile bilge. The man is in parliament and obviously has no idea what the place should stand for. Surely one of the things that most people love most about this country is our freedom, however when attacked it seems to be one of the first things we are willing to give up.

***

Doug Wilson in Marsfield, NSW

Rev Nile,

Following your suggestion that the headdress of women should be removed, I feel that I must point out that people can hide weapons in other types of clothing so perhaps we should just follow these guidelines that I came up with:

Raincoats. Items can be concealed within them and henceforth should be banned (sorry to the people in Melbourne who have purchased these, but they are a risk).

Umbrellas. Swords or powders can be concealed in hollow umbrellas, so these will be banned as well. We encourage the women out there to not wear any hairstyles that will be messed up in the rain since you can’t wear a raincoat as well.

Hairstyles. Items such as guns or knives could potentially be hidden in longhair or hair that is quite “large” (think Marge Simpson). Thus maximum hairlength should be no more than 2 inches.

Dresses and pants. Items such as guns, explosives or other harmful materials could be concealed in these. Thus everyone must wear tight fitting shorts to ensure that nothing is contained within them.

Large winter coats. Much like the raincoats above, these should be banned. From henceforth in the winter everyone will just have to suffer.

Long sleeve shirts, sweaters and the like. Someone could conceal knives or other weapons within. So everyone should be made to wear t-shirts or more preferably muscle shirts to prevent this.

Any boxes or bags. These of course could contain bombs and thus should be banned as well. Everyone should have to carry everything in their hands.

I’m sure that if everyone followed these guidelines then we wouldn’t have to worry about any dangerous items being carried about on our cities. Here’s a $.50 piece Mr Nile, go and buy yourself a clue.

***

Helen Smart: Bob Carr on 2GB, November 19: “Margo Kingston, reportedly from – purportedly from the Sydney Morning Herald, who I cannot deal rationally with. …”. (Snort) Well, Bob, you did say it!….

Kate Carnell in Canberra: Bob Carr’s comments were totally out of line – pay no attention!!!

Kathryn Davy (first timer): I’m shocked and deeply concerned by Bob Carr’s behaviour. I have voted for him in the past, but I am so moved to anger by this that he will never get my vote again.

Kathy Kang: Carr’s treatment of you makes my stomach turn. It’s the last straw. I’m now in no doubt that we’re governed by thugs, and I don’t think he’s even ashamed of it. But even thugs cannot snuff out the lights of hope for a future democracy that is worthy of the name.

***

Tony Krone in Sydney

The Premier is racing to an election and his treatment of your questioning is appalling, particularly as he is proposing such far reaching legislation. So much for accountability. The Premier’s rush to judgment on Bali reminds me of the ‘children overboard’ nonsense put out by the Howard government. The press is here to question – good on you for representing that ideal.

***

Noel Hadjimichael

I have refrained from making a webdiary public comment on the Carr business. However, I make the following observation:

Election Victory Landslide = Strong Mandate = Power = Deals = Arrogance = A Retreat from Principle = Laziness = Voter Disillusionment = More Arrogance = Byelection Problems = Blame the Victims = Blame the Media = Voter Revolt = Government by smear and deceit.

Orwell was right … just too early in his analysis.

***

Kylie Ann Scott in Haberfield, NSW

All I can say is that I hold grave fears for our state. I hold grave fears about Bob Carr, his tactics, his politics and the ancient Roman-style mechanisms that he uses.

We are dealing with a very deliberate, media savvy man knowledgeable in how to manipulate the masses here. We need to begin to look very closely at his words, his actions, his right hand men, and his mouth pieces.

And Question, Question, Question. We need to be very precise in those questions, because it is in the details that his blustering and fear mongering can’t work.

I could not believe what he did to you, and I felt your astonishment at his behavior. And later I felt angry. How stupid does he think we are? Keep asking precise questions on the detail.

***

Gillian and Paul Sloan in Sydney

Just finished your piece on your interview with Carr: Now another two Labour voters are lost. Where do we turn? It’s not Ernie Page’s fault (our local member for Coogee) but the NSW state government looks so ugly. Do they think fear, violence, abuse and ugliness will attract us? Is their policy to scare us into voting for them? Who is Carr talking to when he abuses you and treats us like we’re pig ignorant?

The content of the SMH and the discussions in Webdiary are part of the information sources we use when we discuss issues with friends and family – all are frustrated at the limited content we get from any other media source. Related to this is that we all notice we watch so much less TV!

***

Meagan Phillipson

I agree with Peter Gellatly about your run-in with Bob Carr – it was unwarranted and baseless for Carr to act in such a manner. Ergo sum, he is the one with the problem (or something to hide?) so don’t let it reflect badly on you. And like with all bullies, I also think the best way to treat such behaviour is to throw it back in their face – so it would be right to wear the incident like a badge of honour.

Being a literal person, I’m thinking you should wear this honour in the form of a t-shirt along the lines of the infamous “Free Winona” shirts. I can see it now – a t-shirt emblazoned with the words; “Bob Carr thinks I am a parody of a journalist”)

***

Grant Harcourt

I admire your courage in the face of such frightening stupidity. I’ve read about the press conference incident with a mixture of despair, outrage and fear (come to think of it, most of the news these days engenders that reaction). In this situation, Carr is using the victims of the Bali bomb for his own political gain. By behaving the way he did, he evaded your question about Labor’s links to developers – very handy and utterly disgusting.

I’ve been tardy in attending protest rallies of late – that despair is pretty powerful – but Carr’s appalling and unaccountable behaviour, against a backdrop of increasing attacks on what remains of our democracy, has reignited my desire to protest and be involved. Thanks for providing a dissenting voice within the mainstream.

***

Nigel McGuinness

When I travelled to Bali many years ago I was uncomfortable being the Aussie there. But then I often felt that way in places where westerners spent time in third world tourist spots. It is simply a question of the discrepancy in wealth. The rich have their desires met without regard to local sensitivities. And of course the average local not in the tourist service industry gets none of the rewards and is often resentful.

This resentment is the root cause of a lot of problems. However this fact cannot be mentioned at the moment. To discuss causes is jumped upon by the hawkish in spirit as an attempt to get into appeasement.

Worse, as Bob Carr is doing now, is to accuse the contemplative of treason. No matter. Way of the world.

Interestingly, Bob Carr on Lateline this week said closer relations between the mainstream and muslim Sydney were being actively fostered and could be called “an anti-terrorist measure”. He thus admits that bad relations lead to resentment which can turn the murderous to terrorist action. So it just depends on which way around you put the argument!

Don’t get upset – all the leaders are on an adrenalin rush at the moment because they’re not having the usual discussions on bottom lines with treasury and are getting breathless briefings from spies and generals. They’re all on a high. They know they must act well to safeguard the population etc and fear they’ll stuff up, so they err on the side of the tough guy. They want to be Guliani (and their cheerleaders just want to rat on someone).

Anyway, Africa is where the real issues are. Let the “war” here play out and hope nothing bad happens. There ain’t much to do about it otherwise, I reckon.

***

Ken McLeod in Sydney

Dear Mr Carr,

As a member of the ALP, I am deeply concerned that your behaviour of late seems to be tending towards fascism rather than being true to our humanitarian roots. For example, your attack on Margo Kingston (“What happened in Bali was the murder of innocent Australians not people who were guilty because they were celebrating in a 3rd world country as you argued in the Sydney Morning Herald”) has all the hallmarks of Goebell’s tactics, such as:

– tell lies about anyone who queries your behaviour;

– remember that the bigger the lie the more likely it is that people will believe it;

– assign sinister, untrue, motives to them, (preferably Jewish, but any intellectual elite will do);

– never answer questions;

– use the machinery of State to overpower anybody who stands in your way;

– never forget that nobody remembers losers;

– and never, never, apologise.

How about you prove me wrong and prove that you are a real man and apologise to her.

Ken McLeod, ALP membership 020519

***

Bhavika Haviez

The point here is not what he accused you of – that’s between you and him – but why didn’t he answer your questions? Why did he keep bringing up the Bali bombings instead of answering the real questions about the new counter-terrorist powers being introduced in the State?

I don’t think these powers are a bad thing, but I would like our politicians to be accountable and at least answer the questions being presented to them. If they are so sure that what they are doing is right, they should have no difficulty.

This whole episode, and various other pieces of news I have been reading, seem to be showing that under this wave of fear politicians have just not been accountable for their actions, at both State and Federal levels.

First, there is no viable opposition from federal Labor. When met with opposition from the Labor party, such as Latham/Emerson, the media have just hacked into their language and presentability, instead of realising that some sort of opposition, in whatever un-mannered form it may take, is being presented.

Second, politicians feel they can use a climate of fear as a reason for almost anything. Terrorism is a valid threat, but should not be used whenever politicians need an excuse to legitimate their own agenda.

There are several important issues for our government to debate, and who will debate these? John Howard certainly can not hold a debate with himself, as he is presently being allowed to do. My concern especially at this point is the war on Iraq so obviously being prepared for.

Do we not have a right to question our politicians movements? Are not our politicians supposed to be representing us? I do not have 100% faith and trust in politicians but I do live in a democracy. In a democracy asking questions is a basic right. Australia as a nation cannot progress until it realises it is a nation in its own right, and can make its own decisions. It is not a shadow of the US, only an ally.

***

Rowan Cahill

Bob Carr is right: You are not the sort of journalist wanted around the place. You ask challenging questions, and do not fawn in the face of power; you seem to think journalism is something more than rewriting government press releases, more than accepting CNN at face value. And as for Robert Fisk, what would he know?

No, the sort of journalists Carr and Howard want are those prepared to believe Osama is under every bed and who have no problems with the erosion of civil liberties. After all, the definition of democracy is ‘a reluctant trip to a polling booth every few years’; it is not an ongoing, daily commitment.

Don’t forget that Bob Carr has this long weird love affair with American history, and possibly wears the stars and stripes on his undies; I just wonder when he’ll come up with a local version of the Patriot Act. Or maybe he’ll have his legal apparatchiks whip up a draft for Howard to rush into Federal law.

Just a warning Margo. If you keep going the way you are, then maybe it won’t be too long before you are in an interrogation room, without an lawyer, in a seat previously warmed by a kid abducted on the way home from a local mosque, with maybe an ASIO quack injecting you with instant confession serum. Better pack your bag.

***

David Davis in Switzerland

What in the hell is going on down there? Carr is out of his tree and I feel sorry that you had to put up with such offensive behaviour.

I well remember the remarks you made re tourism and Western influence in Bali. I remember at the time reading it and thinking, “Well that isn’t my reaction”. On reflection, I thought that it was unfortunate that so often the interpretation is that we Westerners are always wrong and always the victimizers of all other cultures (of course often we are, but not always). That was the extent of my reaction. If I had interpreted your remarks to mean that those murdered by the terrorists were to blame, I would have been disgusted and would have stopped reading Webdiary. Clearly they were not to blame and no sane person has suggested that. I haven’t read that anywhere.

It is divisive and wrong to start picking apart the way people should react or what they should say. In any case ever since Bali happened, I haven’t seen you write a single sentence that was offensive or inappropriate, and I have read everything.

In fact, exactly the opposite aspect struck me. You were very supportive and extremely patriotic. I thought it was perfect. You may recall some even accused you of “mawkish sentimentality”. So what is the Margo Kingston reaction to Bali? Is it “blaming the dead” or “mawkish sentimentality”? It’s neither but I’d rather you be accused of the latter than the former.

None of this makes any sense. I smell a rat.

There are a lot of dots around Sydney and you seem to be connecting a few and highlighting others. The highlighted dots await connection! Clearly this makes you unpopular and perhaps threatening. In a sense the Carr reaction is flattering. You are getting under their collective skins and under his in particular.

I respect you even more because you have long identified yourself as left of centre and could not possibly be a more harsh critic of the PM. Right after Bali, you complimented him. This proves a somewhat open mind.

I don’t know if it is Carr arrogance or desperation. It probably doesn’t matter because in politics either one of these things is death at the polls. I’m now convinced that he is finished.

Can I start writing up the synopsis for the Sunday after the election? You know how it goes. We have seen this write-up before. “In a last minute upset, the highly successful premier was defeated by the dark horse. Some put it down to the Premier’s arrogance which grew during his term in office and….blah blah blah.”

The remark that you are a parody of a journalist is in itself amusing. Saying over and over that you blamed “the Bali dead” and then wrapping it up with “you are a parody of a journalist” – what does that make him? I reckon it’s got to be a caricature of a cretin. Whichever way you look at it, reality is lost in this kind of process. We are left with parodies and caricatures.

If the Premier feels comfortable in drawing outrageous conclusions, I’ll end with a quote from history. A history we are taught to never forget. “The bigger the lie, the more likely it is to be believed” (Joseph Goebbels – Ministry of Propaganda). Probably it also helps to repeat a lie. They tell you that in the second lecture of Propaganda 101. So if I were him and it comes up again, I’d come out swinging and just repeat it. Of course Margo blamed the victims. We know that and she should be discredited as a result of it. Say it over and over and suddenly it becomes true.

The disconcerting aspect is that it is hard to know whether to laugh or to be scared. I’m leaning towards being scared. We are definitely in deep trouble and you don’t have to look far to see more and more evidence of this changed environment.

PS: A bit of history. Remember the hand that signed the paper? He signed the paper to allow the various toasters (high rise apartments) at East Circular Quay to be constructed. This was when he was Environment Minister. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. In the dying days of the Unsworth government, Bob Carr put that millstone of East Circular Quay around our collective necks. It’s pretty bloody easy to say “I set aside this national park and that national park” in areas no one cares about anyway. He’s always been Bob the Builder and one of his biggest accomplishments was even before he took office as Premier – those hideous buildings right next to and virtually overshadowing the Opera House, the greatest building of the 20th century. Never forget who did that. Bob the Builder. Don’t believe the sensible sun hat and “oh, but I don’t drive” routine.