The defence force fights back.

 

The Government humiliated the chief of the navy last week as part of an abusive play to use the defence force as a political tool for its reelection. Now the chief of the army and the hero of East Timor, Lieutenant-General Cosgrove tells the Bulletin magazine he sympathised with “those who set out in horrible boats from Indonesia to cross all that water and who take an enormous risk”.

 

Pardon? Sympathy is out, isn’t it? Aren’t they terrorists, animals who throw their kids overboard and set fire to their boats?

 

“I haven’t spoken to any of the sailors involved. But I feel sorry for them,” Lieutenant-General Cosgrove said. “They’re doing a great job and their solace, I suppose, is in knowing, at least according to pollsters, that most Australians believe they’re doing the right thing.”

 

“Solace”, he “supposes” is that “at least according to pollsters” most Australians back the task? That’s either code for revolt or appeasement of the sailors.

 

In this issue, more responses to the question: What will you do?, more on the elite debate, and analysis of where Labor’s gone wrong and why Howard got it right.

 

I’m in Melbourne tomorrow for an election post mortem at the Melbourne press club. Back Thursday.

 

WHAT WILL YOU DO?

 

Jodie Brough

 

I loved your comment about the need to articulate a kind of migrants’ charter of adopted values. It’s absolutely what I’ve been discussing with people as this debate has taken off.

 

I think the community is entitled to feel that if people come here to make their lives, they’ll want to adopt our foundation values rather than just reap the economic benefits of living here. Sure, they’ll always be children of the place they came from but they also need to be children of Australia too. There has to be a cultural middle ground where people can have more than one facet to their identity.

 

I was musing a couple of weeks ago that I wanted in some way to reach out to new arrivals in a way that invited them to be part of our culture. A lot of white Australians don’t mean to be exclusive but they are. So of course migrants head for the comforts of ethnic communities, but it’s a form of ghettoisation. So how do you reach out? There must be a way. We need a few more Al Masris playing Rugby League and Chee Quees playing cricket. It’s stuff like that which subtly makes people re-evaluate their perceptions. Maybe I’ll start a footy school for Arab kids.

 

At least we’re talking about it. That’s what makes me less depressed than I could be. As much as I despised Hanson for her ignorance, I always thought there was a healthy element to her coming. It’s just very sad that the pall of censorship Howard accused Keating of has been replaced not by a culture of debate but by the new censorship.

 

Any sort of policy or public position that isn’t either self-centred or concerned with so-called economic reform is suspect. No wonder the gallery is furiously self-censoring. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss…

 

The problem with debate in this country is that you can’t have a debate without overreaction. We always seem to mistake debate for conflict. The media rarely helps to sponsor a rational exchange. Whenever two people from the same side of politics differ there’s mass hysteria. That’s a definite issue for the public culture of the Labor Party too.

 

So what will I do? Maybe I’ll actually join the Labor Party and start making a pest of myself. At the end of the day, I believe that only the major parties can make a real difference. It’s their responsibility. The minor parties should give the major a kick up the backside by pushing the debate around – that’s their job in the process.

 

***

 

 

Christine Evans

 

I am writing from the US, which the Fulbright commission has generously funded me to visit on the presumption that world peace is more likely if we get to know people from other countries and share our views and lives a little.

 

I am trying to make sense of the fact that the post-Sept 11 atmosphere seems more poisonous in Australia than in Manhattan, where strenuous attempts are being made to AVOID racial profiling and bigotry. I am trying to redraw my map of “home” after the deeply depressing election results – and more generally, political ugliness- in Australia.

 

Globally, I feel we are living through the first death throes of the nation state and that the ugliness and fear we are seeing is more than just racism, but a response to the vague but real perception that borders mean less and less.

 

With over 28 million refugees now world wide, our way of being “citizens” and defining our sense of belonging has to change, unless we are going to define an exponentially escalating part of the population as pariahs. And populations with nothing to lose are, of necessity, terrifying.

 

Back to `what will I do’ and the map of home. Edward Bond (playwright) says that the child maps the world in a process which also creates the child; the map and the mapmaker are one. He writes “If the map is torn, the mapmaker is torn”. My map of Australia has just been torn, but along folds that have been worn thin for a long time.

 

Another vision of maps inspired by visiting Belgrade this summer (in conversations with my Serbian theatre friends who have survived, overcome despair and offered continuous resistance to a far more poisonous political situation than ours) is one in which “home ” is redefined not as country or race or nation, but by the connective tissue one builds between points of meaning: connection points to land, music, people, ideas, cultures. The task is then to make “home” by building bridges between these starry points.

 

This sounds abstract, but as a strategy kept my theatre friends alive as people and artists for 10 years: when “home” was unlivable they worked overseas; when the regime fell they brought their international friends to visit. They refused to be as small as the degraded and shrunken politics of their country would have them be, and defined themselves as both Serbs and more than Serbs, human beings and artists with loyalties beyond their State.

 

How can I apply this way of mapping? By ways despised in the current climate in Australia; through art, conversation, imagination and trying to strengthen community. By refusing to recognize the borders of the nation state as the borders of my and others’ world.

 

For instance: I am writing a musical set in a refugee camp. Much of it takes place in the Australian desert. I hope I can get it produced in Australia as well as the US and that the music will be so seductive that even people who hate its politics will tap their feet.

 

I also visit the International Institute in Providence, RI USA, twice a week helping on a project where recent immigrants are learning English and writing a script together. I’m organizing a visit for my Serbian friends to Providence, where we will do a theatre project bringing African-American, student, and local arts communities together. Dijana Milosevic will lecture to our community on “The Role of the Artist in Wartime”.

 

These are only small things but they are attempts to redraw the map. Every day with every action, we vote for the world we believe in, which- like the notion of a country- is both imaginary and real.

 

***

 

Kerry Mills

 

Just heard you on LNL and HAD to let you know that as you were speaking about the brain drain I was on the ‘net searching for post-doctoral positions in Europe. My partner and I are both finishing PhDs in medical research at the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne – one of the most successful research institutes in Australia.

 

I’m not trying to blow my own trumpet, but Australia has just lost us. This is important because training a PhD student in medical research costs about $100,000/year in consumables etc. I’m in my 4th year so my $400,000 worth of publicly-funded training is about to be exported to Germany/Switzerland. Many scientists like us find it impossible to come BACK because there are no jobs.

 

Each year the NHMRC funds 15 – yes, 15 new postdocs. Friends of mine who want to stay here and who have been very successful can’t get a fellowship and will be on the dole within months. We have spent an average of 8 years training at university and therefore have a lot of drive and passion for our work. It is depressing beyond belief that those people who may in the future save or improve the lives of “ordinary” Australians are not valued at ALL by them. Certainly not by the federal government.

 

So, we’re off to Europe. There are plenty of fellowships there, and science and scientists are valued. Roll on the brain drain…

 

***

 

Dr Gary Williams, educational technologist, in Mundaring, Western Australia

 

I heard you on Late Night Live saying you thought the number of people leaving OZ may now increase. Thought it was time to send you my brief story as it describes my own journey through electoral indecision, then apathy, and finally a decision to leave Australia, again.

 

Excuse the number system – as a scientist I just have to be ordered!

 

1) Age 35 (in four days in fact – the tragedy of the middle 30s). Australian Citizen – whatever that means.

 

2) Had no great love of Australia (even though been here since 77) until my first job after studies. At Charles Sturt University in Albury, NSW discovered the beauty of our land.

 

3) 1999-2000 over in Hong Kong, working for one of their Universities. Decided to return as I was missing Australia and my parents. Also, makes a nice change to not actually see the air you are breathing!

 

4) This year (2001, until March 2002) working as a fulltime consultant with the HK university. Doing what I was doing while in HK, but fortunately once I explained why I had to head back to Oz we reached an agreement where I work from Perth, and my staff work over there. I project manage and develop distance education materials (Internet-based as well as paper-based, also called flexible learning). So, I’m working at a distance on distance education materials.

 

5) Since returning to Oz have been tracking the Higher Ed jobs in The Oz – as my intention was to work in Oz from 2002 onwards. Fortunately lots of possibilities in my field of work. Been keeping copies of all the possible jobs.

 

6) Never voted in any election. I am not registered to vote. A deliberate decision – decided I would vote when it was voluntary.

 

7) Due to the mid-30s crisis I decided 4 months ago to enrol to vote. First, rang the Electoral Office to make sure I was not going to face back-dated fines. I would not. So, had the forms sent out to me.

 

8) Two months of glancing at the forms as they sit in my office. Trying to work out if I wanted to enrol.

 

9) Tampa incident. Liberal reaction as expected. Labour reaction tragic – couldn’t (and cannot) believe it. Read the newspapers and listened to the radio for next month. Growing more and more despondent with the public trend.

 

10) Decided not to enrol. Basically, just lost that part of me that considered this was a nation I was now ready to fully commit to.

 

11) Election night – result close to my prediction. Can’t see things changing. Can’t see the parties – and more importantly – the people changing. Fear for the ethical future of Australia.

 

12) Come March 2002 I’ll now be travelling around the world for about three months. This will also be an opportunity to evaluate overseas job opportunities. I have skills and experience I know Aust can use. But, to stay in a country I need to feel that the nation is at least trending towards a civil society. Can’t see that here.

 

13) Conclusion: Feelings – disappointment and sadness. Sadness knowing that soon I will not be waking-up to the sounds of the Australian bush. But, a sense of expectation as I seek out a nation I can feel a part of.

 

14) Suggestion: Keep commentating on LNL – as I’ll be listening in through the Web overseas.

 

***

 

Kay Murphey

 

Just reading your article on the election loss and your worries about a brain drain of progressive thinkers….My question is “Where would they go?” Certainly not the US.

 

During my last visit to the US (visiting relatives in Dallas, Texas) I could not find any “left wing” commentary (my favourite kind) in the papers or on the TV. I spoke with a friend saying “Where are all the liberal minded people?” and her reply was that they had all retreated to the Pacific Northwest and were looking after themselves and local issues. It would seem so, as the conservatives and the more conservatives seem to be running the country (and the world).

 

I left the US when Ronald Reagan won a landslide re-election. I couldn’t escape the fact that everyone knew what they were voting for (we had seen him in action for 4 years) and they really liked it and wanted him back in record numbers. I thought I didn’t fit in there anymore and left to travel the world and eventually settled in Australia.

 

After Saturday, I do wonder where I could bolt to now. Very depressing.

 

***

 

Dell Horey

 

I was overseas for most of the campaign – and yes we did check out jobs in the UK while we were there, just in case. Nevertheless, I don’t think we will go – well maybe for a short time if it gets all too much. I can’t just give Australia up to the likes of Howard without some sort of fight.

Part of the problem is that too many of us have been prepared to sit back and leave it to the politicians to determine Australia’s future – then we can blame them when it all goes wrong. I personally don’t think the Greens are the answer, because they are less likely to straddle the competing interests in the community that Labor has had problems with.

 

Labor needs to articulate its basic beliefs and work out what Labor supporters have in common. The ALP may have come out of the union movement but it has attracted more than “the workers” for some time and this could be part of the problem for it. Previous Labor policies not only changed the nature of Australian society but also the nature and expectations of its “natural” support base. Labor policies enabled many families to have children university educated for the first time. This has led to profound changes in society, and in experiences and expectations of Labor supporters.

 

I once heard it said that Howard embodied the “old Australia” and while Keating was focussed on taking us to the future, so it was not surprising that the old guard would fight to keep us where they felt safe, with people just like them.

 

The trouble is that many of us believed that battle was over but we need to discuss what sort of Australia we want. I liked it when people of different cultural backgrounds felt safe in Australia. I find it incredibly disturbing that is no longer so. I want to have an Australia that welcomes cultural diversity.

 

THE BRIGHT SIDE

 

James Gifford

 

On election night I was as depressed as anyone, and cringed at JH’s victory speech with all that motherhood cliched garbage. Then I started to think about how lucky we are despite my view that we would have been even better off under a Beazley government.

 

1. The Howard government is the highest taxing government in Australia’s history. They are collecting more tax as a proportion of GDP that when they came to power. Sure, some of it is being given back to the wrong people (30% private health rebate) but at least they’re collecting it. Imagine how hard it would be for Labor to increase taxes had Howard seriously undermined our tax base as is the inclination of many on his side of politics.

 

2. The poor aren’t getting poorer – thanks to Bob Hawke and his family payments, the poor have done OK over the last 20 years. Sure, they could and should get a better deal and have more opportunities but it’s not too bad.

 

3. The people on the Tampa and other boats will probably end up in a developed country such as Australia and may end up being no worse off than had they been thrown in Woomera Detention Centre for 2 years under the management of that evil American private prison company.

 

4. John Howard will, most probably, make way for Costello during this term and the republic, reconciliation and international engagement will be back on the agenda. One Nation and race politics will be dead.

 

5. John Howard will try to mitigate the damage he did during the election. He knows it has caused us damage internationally and he does care about how history sees him. He won’t reverse the border protection policy but I think we’re at rock bottom and things can only get better from here.

 

6. The Greens and the Dems will have the balance of power in the Senate and Howard is unlikely to be able to do anything much in this term.

 

7. We should have the first female deputy leader of the Labor party (and if she performs well, hopefully the first female leader)

 

8. The Greens did really well and they now get federal funding, Bob got back in and he rocks.

 

We are relative creatures, always comparing what is, with what could have been. The grass is always greener. Sometimes we have to look at how lucky we are and have some sort of objective reality-check. Get over John Howard’s victory. Sure, reflect on it but then go to work to change things.

 

It can be better, but remember that it’s not too bad. The fact that Margo, Phillip and Secco still have jobs gives me faith that the bad guys don’t completely run the show!

 

A SATIRE OF US BLEEDING HEARTS

 

Heavy heart

 

By Abraham Kennedy

 

I am so heartbroken about what happened in this election that I am determined to make a difference and make this place a decent country again. Or go overseas to live. At least there’s no Australians there. Or not many, and generally not in the better hotels.

 

Yes, Australia is such a great country, or it could be. If we could just get rid of that lot who voted Coalition. You know the majority. If it wasn’t for them, boy would this be a great place. Bloody Australians; they’re so racist. They just speak in these massive generalisations about people, and put them down and call them names and make fun of them. All Australians do that. The idiots. Sometimes they’re dumber than New Zealanders.

 

And talk about politically ignorant! Australians never talk about politics in public. You never go to a cafe and hear someone just stand up and recite the Magna Carta or Edmund Burke’s address to the electors of Bristol. That sort of thing happens all the time in Europe. And parts of Africa. In Australia, no-one ever quotes Habermas or Adam Smith or Hobbes or John Stuart Mill at the Pizza Hut.

 

All Australians are interested in are selfish things like their standard of living and having a job and a future for their children. And sport of course. Bloody sport! Australia is the only country in the world that cares about sport. That million people that flooded onto the streets of Paris after the last Soccer World Cup were actually just coming out of a conference on post-structuralism. The French really respect their intellectuals, especially the ones who support communist dictatorships. I wish we were more like that.

 

Australians think democracy is all about how many people vote for something, whereas in fact it’s about what you feel in your heart, and having the freedom to criticise everything, and whether you can say sorry to Aborigines while continuing to occupy the land you took from them. (I mean, it’s just impractical to give it back, but at least we could feel bad about it and give some money to ATSIC.)

 

Democracy isn’t about voting and debating and finding things in common – it’s about knowing who’s in and who’s out and feeling bad about just about everything that happens. That’s why we have the media..

 

Aboriginal policy is a good example. We don’t want to go listening to those people like Noel Pearson who just want to try and fix things up. People like him forget that it’s not the current problems that are the problem but the reason for the problems that is the problem. It’s about knowing who to blame. How can we honestly expect things to get better if we don’t know who to blame and we don’t go on blaming them?

 

And the boat people. God, I’m so ashamed. Why can’t people just come to this country when they want to and live here with us though not assimilated to us or in the Eastern suburbs but sort of like us, but better cooks? No other country in the world has immigration controls, does it? (I seem to be able to go wherever I want.)

 

So bring em on, I say. I’m willing to go some distance West to look at them. I think it’s quite quaint and multicultural to see those women walking around a few steps behind their men, completely covered like walking letterboxes. It’s not really intolerant or sexist, is it? It’s just ethnic. Australians really have to learn to tell the difference.

 

Those of us who are tolerant and clear-thinking have a lot of work to do in the wake of this election.

 

We need to be a knowledge nation and educate people how to think. There really is a need for those of us who do know the right things to think to take pity on the ignoramuses who don’t and really correct them when they are wrong. People will only learn if their errors are pointed out to them.

 

So we need to fill as many major newspapers as we can with articles saying how stupid Australians are and simply belittle them into having better views and values. The more often we tell ordinary Australians that they’re wrong, and the more harshly we point out their failings, the quicker they are likely to learn the error of their ways. It’s just so obvious.

 

And we really need to get back to basics: the republic, a new flag, and kowtowing to Asian dictators. How do we expect to be secure in our region unless we agree completely with everything said by whomever happens to be in power? Isn’t it obvious that the suppression of human rights in our nearest neighbours is the best guarantee of own freedoms?

 

And how can we have any respect for ourselves while we continue to have another country’s Queen as our head of state and their flag in the corner of ours? We don’t want to be British, do we? (Though London is great, and the Royal garden party this year was terrific.)

 

Really, the only thing wrong with Australia is Australians. Except me. And my friends. If only everyone could be more like all of us this country could really be a tolerant, forward-looking place, and someone genuinely nice to come to during the European winter. We owe ourselves that. We deserve it.

 

Tim Dunlop is happy to pass on comments to Abraham via tinota@primus.com.au

 

HOWARD’S SECRET

 

Lee Borkman in Menangle, NSW

 

“Plausible Deniability”. That’s the secret. It takes fine political judgement to encourage all of the electorate’s ingrained racist attitudes, while still being able to claim that your policies and rhetoric are not racist.

 

John Howard has near-perfect political judgement. Without plausible deniability, people would not feel at liberty to vote for him. Australians would not vote for a politician who was openly racist. The trick is to walk like a racist, but talk like a patriot.

 

After all, when he pokes out his trembling bottom lip like that, how could any right-thinking Australian doubt his sincerity? John loves humanity, John’s heart goes out to the suffering, but John can’t allow his love to interfere with his duty.

 

By hammering that image of himself, John allows Australians to vote for him. After all, you have to leave an escape route for people’s consciences.

 

`ELITE’

 

C Crowther

 

It’s just plain rubbish to say that targeting racism is elitist, a la Miranda Devine and Paddy M and Angela Shanahan in today’s Australian: “You don’t know what its like to live in the suburbs which are the coalface of multiculturalism”. Well maybe that’s true. Maybe this liberal in southern Brisbane is no different to the northern liberals in the US who are all for civil rights but have no black neighbours.

 

But since when did the Right wing commentariat become such relativists? On every other subject, they assure us all that “right is right and wrong is wrong” and that cultural relativism is bunk from the elites. But not when it comes to race. Suddenly, its OK to be a bigot, so long as you do it in Parramatta?

 

Its the height of hypocrisy for the same people who argue that culture and circumstances shouldn’t be taken into account by a Judge when someone steals bread outside Darwin to then argue it should be used to excuse bigotry in Campbelltown.

 

If ever there was an absolute wrong in this world, its racism. If you’re hurting in Western Sydney, you’ll still hurt after you blame the Vietnamese or the Afghans. That’s an argument that was held and won decades ago. Perhaps it’s now time we won it again.

 

***

 

Bruce Tabor

 

Like you and many of your readers I have been brooding over the re-election of our local member – John Howard. I had hoped that the majority of Australians would see reason – that it is not OK to exploit racism and xenophobia to win – and reject his government’s bid for a third term.

 

When the Tampa crisis broke I had no idea it would influence the election result. When Howard, Reith and Ruddock were found to be lying about the children being thrown overboard I assumed it would be a major disaster for their re-election. I was wrong on all counts.

 

The reason I was wrong is that I have a socially progressive outlook. I assumed that truth, equity, tolerance, justice, morality and principles matter to most Australians. I was wrong, or at least wrong in my understanding of what these mean to most Australians.

 

John Howard himself spent 13 years in opposition “searching for answers” to defeat Labor. Labor had become strong because it was able to marry two major demographic groups in our society that together constitute the majority: their traditional blue collar support base and the socially progressive classes.

 

Howard’s answer was that he had to divide Labor’s support base. His economic rationalist agenda was inimical to the socially progressive classes, so he had to target the “battlers”. Labor pursued policies that the battlers were deeply uncomfortable with, such as: multiculturalism, high immigration, aboriginal reconciliation, engagement with Asia, and some forms of environmentalism.

 

Labor had pursued these with enthusiasm because its own leaders were generally socially progressives, rather than battlers. Labor’s last Prime Minister, Paul Keating was the darling of the socially progressives. The man with the big picture of how Australian society ought to be. The battlers hated him.

 

Howard’s solution to beating Paul Keating was simple: he wasn’t Paul Keating. Oh, and he would keep Medicare, the one thing battlers couldn’t live without. His solution to beating Labor since then has been utterly practical, cynical and devoid of principle: drive a wedge between the battlers and the social progressives.

 

In the 2001 election that wedge was not so much keeping out the refugees, but the tacit appeal to the battlers’ economic fears, xenophobia and outright racism.

 

Labor had a choice. It could side with the socially progressives – a fickle group that is difficult to please under any circumstances – or it could try and protect its blue-collar base. (I think you will find social progressives are divided on how to deal with the refugee crisis – I certainly disagree with your views, for example.)

 

Siding with the socially progressives would have decimated Labor – it could even have given the Coalition outright control of the Senate. Siding with its blue-collar base would minimise the loss of battlers to Howard, and the socially progressives would generally preference Labor ahead of the Coalition anyway.

 

In my view Beazley chose correctly for the long-term future of both the Labor Party and Australia. Better for the nation to retain an effective force in politics than to be slaughtered on your principles. To his credit he did not employ the tacit xenophobia of his opponents. I think he deserves more credit than you give him.

 

As for searching for answers to John Howard, I don’t know. Labor can either find a way to unite its two warring tribes, it can try and steal some of the Coalition’s demographics (e.g. country people, which it tried), or it can wait for the Coalition to stuff up.

 

Unfortunately, countering xenophobia and racism requires leadership from the government. I doubt it can be done effectively from opposition. My biggest concern is that now the race card has been played so successfully to win an election, we will see it appearing more and more in the future. Ughhh!

 

David Stanford in Paddington, Sydney

 

What a bunch of absolute whingers many of your correspondents have been . As a child you see other kids want to pick up their bat and ball and go home. These kids were the losers, because in life if you get beaten you get better, practice harder, learn more skills then beat your opponents when you have paid your dues.

 

This churlish stuff is hard to swallow: ” I am going overseas forever or for a while, I am ashamed of my country or that I am paralysed and fear the future”. Grow up and do something about it. Contribute practically to the debate. Learn empathy and thus find out why fellow Australians are voting the way they are, then you might be able to convince rather then hector them (unlike Keating).

 

Win peoples hearts and minds. Please remember that people hate being called racist ,stupid, immoral, amoral, dumb, unfeeling or inhumane, to name a few of the epithets directed at the majority. This antagonises people and drives people further to support their conclusions.

 

Keating never understood this. Howard does, and he loves it when the SMH goes front page with critics smashing his viewpoints because his polls rise instantly. Pauline Hanson learned this trick of baiting the so called elites and she reached her zenith until Howard worked it out, starved her of political oxygen and cherry picked her constituency of the disaffected.

 

The Keating cultural agenda is dead, so what’s your alternative? I suggest third way politics of the kind being employed by Blair in the UK and Schroeder in Germany. These policies are economically conservative and socially progressive, they don’t involve union stormtroopers and they do involve wide community participation, sustainable development and environmental components.

 

You need consensus politicians starting from scratch that can solve problems like Northern Ireland and take a global community perspective. Get conviction politicians not career aparatchiks and clean out the old hardheads in labor like Brereton, Ferguson, McLeay, Campbell and Crean and start again, otherwise Labor will never get in.

 

Labor’s future lies with its thinkers and radicals – Tanner, Latham, Macklin and their like – not ex union bosses. Instead of whingeing find these people and encourage them get them elected. If you get rid of branch stacking then perhaps you might encourage quality people to give it a go so that we actually have someone with substance and ability to vote for.

 

You never know – small l liberals like me might vote Labor and the blue collar workers might vote Labor again like in the Hawke era.

 

Finally, don’t listen to a word Paul Keating says. He suffers from a Napoleon complex and is detested by a large and gowing majority. It’s a pity he rolled Bob Hawke. He ranks as sore loser of the decade and he lost Labor’s heartland.

Emails to burn, too many to publish. Today, your reaction to the question: “What will I do?” after on-the-ground polling day reports.

 

I’ve just heard Howard on the 7.30 Report say for the very first time that the boat people on Nauru found NOT to be genuine refugees could be kept on the island, with our government’s financial support. The problem is, of course, that Iraq won’t accept Iraqis back and Afghanistan is at war. You’ll recall that by written agreement, we promised to get all the boat people off Nauru within a reasonable time. The goal post’s just shifted. It looks like we’re now going to pay Nauru to keep people there.

 

One liners

 

David Palmer in Adelaide: Prediction for the next federal election. Simon Crean leads the ALP to one more defeat OR Lindsay Tanner leads the ALP to victory.

 

John Clark: The people have spoken and the bile begins, led by Keating, the number one Howard hater. And why? Because Howard humiliated him in 1996 and again over East Timor. Labor is self destructing – I reckon Howard can probably win the next election as well.

 

Jock Jones: What are we to do? What has happened to this country? Who will lead us out of the conservative political desert, or is this Thatcherism OZ-style? And if it is, just maybe there is a Tony Blair somewhere out there? This is the shred of hope I’m clinging to this morning.

 

Dan Flanagan: What shall we do? Unlike you I didn’t really expect John W to be re elected. Somehow I retained more faith in `us’ than that. My grieving only started on Saturday night. What now for Labor? An unchecked NSW Labor, no Kim, what option?!

 

David Hannaford: It’s not all bad news. Pauline is finished; Campbell is unelected, and their thesis -that Australia is captive of an Lib/Lab/Media elite obedient to New York rather than to our Constitution – will be heard no more.

 

Bill Cotis: My father, a man of 70, of a Greek background, whose family first arrived in Australia in the early 1900’s, a man who has endured much racism as a child and as a young man working in London, a man who is still self employed and working hard, barely spoke a word on Sunday. For him the Australia he once knew and jokingly referred to as `God’s own country’ disappeared for ever.

 

ON THE GROUND

 

Sue Mueller

 

I was heavily involved in the ALP campaign for Robertson (north of Sydney, marginal Liberal). . We had a wonderful candidate, head and shoulders above the Liberal incumbent. We had massive swings against us in booths we would normally win. The only conclusive win in the whole of the electorate was in a total battler area.

 

We did nothing wrong, we followed the line that head office told us to follow. The Liberals outspent us by a huge margin running on issues which were questionable at best. The last days were characterised by a huge advertising blitz on Howard’s tough stand on refugees. Some members of the party described handing out how to votes at polling booths as being in the “deep south”, such was the encouragement of Liberals to vote for Howard.

 

The trouble was we had no come back. We were unable argue that most of the boat people would be found to be genuine refugees, that the notion of a queue was ridiculous as there were something like 3 million refugees in camps in Pakistan, that we took so few refugees in the first instance.

 

What were we left with? Nothing. We couldn’t defend it and we were warned by head office not to oppose it. But we all hated it.

 

***

 

Con Vaitsas

 

As I handed out my how to vote ALP fliers in a safe ALP seat, I was thinking about my decision of how I was going to vote. The woman next to us handing out the Liberal fliers was baiting us with some of the most outrageous statements I had ever heard at a polling booth.

 

She said to people helping out and voters that the refugees are rich queue jumpers who should never be allowed to land and not like her family who had to apply to come here many years ago. To people who refused to take her flyers and made remarks to her about the Libs, she shouted obscenities to them. In all the years of helping out I had never witnessed this type of behaviour of real hate. Sure there has been mud slinging and arguing points of policy, but even though you didn’t like what they stood for you wished them well as people (not for their party) at the end of the day.

 

I was feeling confident during the day as we were getting a good response. The only difference I noticed this time was that the Greens were actually getting positive responses from the public. Not once did I hear anyone say “Why don’t you go hug a tree” or something of that nature – instead some actually asked, “Is there someone from the Greens here”?

 

I had already convinced my whole family that the only honourable way to vote this time was send a strong message to the ALP. Vote Green, which we all did in both chambers. For all of us a first. And I felt good about it.

 

Obviously a lot of others in our seat of Grayndler – your seat as well Margo – did the same – the Greens received about 15% of the vote.

 

WHAT WILL YOU DO?

 

Phil Krilin

 

I cried for my country on Saturday night. I woke up Sunday morning with a new determination to keep fighting for my view of Australia.

 

I will join a political party and join a refugee protest movement. On Saturday morning my family discussed what we would do if John Howard won. I described myself as the sort of person who doesn’t join groups, preferring to get my information from a wide variety of sources. I am now joining the Labor Party, to try and make a change from within. I am joining Amnesty International to try and help make a difference.

 

I attended the Phillip Adams election special in Ipswich. I had never spoken in public before. I stood and rather inarticulately said my piece. I did so because I wanted to know I did everything I could. I woke up during that night with the question I should have asked. How do we win the hearts and minds of those who supported John Howard over asylum seekers?

 

I believe this is still a valid question. How do we win the hearts and the minds of those who supported John Howard over asylum seekers?

 

John Symons in Greenwich, Sydney, John Howard’s electorate

 

What will I do? I am 30, I have a BSc, a Dip Ed and a Master of Environmental Planning. Does that make me an intellectual? I don’t know. I certainly don’t feel particularly intellectual but I suppose I am part of Paddy McGuinness’ “chattering classes/ elites/chardonnay socialists”.

 

My wife (a Swede and an occupational therapist with 2 degrees – is she an intellectual too?) and I can’t bear the thought of being here for even more of Howard’s Australia and we are going to live in Sweden for a while, if only to get our faith back in humanity.

 

I imagine one day we’ll come back but we are just feeling so profoundly depressed about the state of affairs in Australia we have to go. I am one of the lucky ones – being married to a citizen of the EU allows me this escape.

 

***

 

Yvette Elliott in South Perth, Western Australia

 

What to do? The most important thing we need to do is bring down this intellectual elite vs rural redneck conflict. Howard is already capitalising on it with his people.

 

What you said on Radio National last week about Paddy McGuinness’s intellectual elite comments – that the intellectual elite haven’t articulated their side enough – is exactly right. The people who have picked up this prejudice against the intellectual elite do-gooders and civil libertarians (like that’s something we should be ashamed of) are simply labelling what they don’t understand, what they fear.

 

Therefore our task as the new public enemy number one is to make sure we don’t lose our human face, to show them that do gooders are so inclined because they are compassionate people, not because they are a snobby bunch of intellectuals.

 

In practical terms, we need to ring up commercial talkback radio and write as many letters as we can to the less enlightened editors of this country, in ways that show our views are born out or compassion, in ways that don’t antagonise them further. We could organise groups that focus on mass letter writing and phoning commercial radio.

 

If our leaders won’t educate them, then we have to. We need to talk to the people around us and practice articulating our explanations in ways that they can understand and relate to. But most of all, we need to understand and forgive their ignorance. Once we practice that understanding and forgiveness within ourselves, we can be sure that Howard hasn’t succeeded in turning us into little people as well.

 

***

 

C Crowther

 

My vision of Australia has died. There’s no other way of putting it except to be more personal about it and say that my vision of Australians has died too.

 

I’m not sure what I’ll do, but it will probably reflect my overwhelming reaction: more than anything else I feel lonely. I feel suddenly that I can’t identify with other people at all. I watched on saturday as people not only accepted our refugee policy, but celebrated it. How is that possible? It’s not something that I can imagine. lonely.

 

Am I overdramatising? Maybe, but commuting this morning I was looking at people around me and thinking, I don’t understand people and where does that leave me?

 

I very recently joined a party. I can volunteer at the local refugee legal service. I can email Margo. I can surround myself with the minority who think a bit like me, to remind myself And if I’m going to run up against this feeling more and more on issue after issue, I may as well take it head on.

 

***

 

Gary Malcolm

 

I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Firstly I will stop reading Webdiary and the mindless drivel contained therein. Secondly I will stop reading anything about politics for the next two years. I will also turn off talk back radio of any type, either ABC or commercial radio.

 

Why? I consider myself a fairly charitable and tolerant person. As I write this one of my siblings is visiting Japan to see his girlfriend who desperately wants to live in this country. She had to return there when her visa expired. To return here she has to fill in a thousand forms and hope like hell. I doubt she will make it and even if she gets another visa she can’t work anyway.

 

So because of this I am prejudiced. I am vehemently against illegal immigrants and queue jumpers. Oh and by the way I’m sick of being told by the likes of yourself that my morals are inferior. That’s why I voted for someone I don’t like too much at all. Because of the likes of you. But you still don’t get it do you?

 

Your ilk are responsible for the election result. You, and no one else. By the way, read Brian Toohey’s column in the Sunday Herald. It was written especially for you.

 

Margo: I have read it, and agreed. I argued the same thing in my book, published in 1999, and since. The Webdiary is a response to the problem.

 

***

 

David Boen in Coorparoo, Brisbane

 

I guess I was wishing against all hope that the latent xenophobia (and let’s face it – racism) that’s out there in Voterland would be supplanted by a bit of thought and commonsense. Silly silly me. I love watching election telecasts but by 7:30pm I couldn’t stand it any more.

 

My first thought was: “How ironic – the day before Remembrance Day Australia chose to kill off the Anzac spirit – to show the courage to meet adversity head-on with determination and without fear of anything or anyone”. I guess fear is out there and it’s understandable, but it shouldn’t be all-consuming.

 

And you have to hand it to John Howard – he has the thickest hide in town. His campaign advertising was full of “WE will decide who comes to this country….” etc.etc. – now he feigns surprise when it’s suggested that the boat people issue was what won the election for him.

 

What will I do?? I guess what Howard wants us to do – crawl under a nice doona, curl up into a tight little ball, close my eyes really, really hard and wish that those nasty boat people would just go away.

 

***

 

David Stanford in Paddington, Sydney

 

As a Liberal voter, I thought Beazley rang a very strong campaign but was poorly served by ALP strategists. I hope they don’t make the mistake of electing the unelectable Simon Crean when they have got a real potential winner in Jenny Macklin who was always their leading light in Parliament and could win an election on health and education issues.

 

For the benefit of your readers who don’t understand the term elites as it is used in the media it refers to self appointed elites i.e. Robert Manne, Philip Adams, Donald Horne, David Williamson, Hugh McKay as opposed to elected elites who have submitted themselves to the will of the people at the ballot box.

 

Many highly educated people like myself who have university degrees and consider themselves neither stupid nor intolerant take offence at continually being patronised as being dumb rednecks. This hardens resolve and rusts your vote on to a party that in this election was both incredibly pragmatic and ruthlessly manipulative. The Libs learned their tactics from Labor in the Hawke/Keating years and are not about to forget them.

 

Bob Brown was the best campaigner this election, and the Greens will get much stronger over the next decade at the expense of Labor and the Democrats. Hopefully the Libs will move back towards the centre and be more environmentally proactive (bye bye Wilson Tuckey). I don’t see much change in foreign policy until Costello arrives.

 

***

 

Colin Long

 

John Howard has created a lot of dangerous people, and I’m one of them. I have absolutely no respect for the elite of this country – the main political parties, the business `leaders’, most of the journalists, radio hosts and editors, the so-called voices of common people such as Bolt and McGuinness (and these are the real elites – the people who have privilege and the ability to have their voices heard – not the internationalist, multi-culturalist lefties like me who have been so thoroughly disenfranchised and howled down).

 

I don’t feel I have any stake in the system as it is. I view these elites with contempt. These are, I would think, dangerous ways to think. I’m sure there are lots like me out there.

 

But I won’t be leaving the country. It is about time we started to fight back against the far right revolution. We need to take to the streets at every opportunity, to demonstrate (peacefully) our resistance to Howard’s destructive agenda. No more making small targets of ourselves. Take a stand, as Bob Brown so successfully did, and fight the bastards.

 

***

 

Derek

 

Some words have unfortunately been subverted by the political process. “Elite” is one, as is “racist” and “divisive”. John Howard makes a statement or puts forward a policy or wins an election, not everybody agrees with him, so it’s “divisive”.

 

Let’s be honest though. Looking at the last 13 elections (from and including Gough in 1972), the government elected has on average attracted 51.94% of the two-party preferred vote, with Fraser’s 1975 win (in exceptional circumstances) the most popular at 55.7%. Therefore around 48% on average would prefer a different government. Division at this level is inevitable and presumably permanent.

 

I doubt that I would even want to live in a country where the government received 70% of the vote. (One could note in passing that the government in increasing its TPP vote has in fact reduced the division in Australia but that would somewhat trivialise the momentous issues that we must still deal with.) Our lower house electoral system works to create the illusion of landslides.

 

In its most positive light, divisiveness is a healthy reflection of democracy at work. That two groups can be divided by a difference of opinion and nevertheless peacefully decide on the way forward is a “good thing”. An airing of all points of view is most likely to lead to the best outcome (although I wouldn’t be so naive as to claim that this is what happens in our parliament).

 

What then are the dangers of division? Division is a “bad thing” when it becomes the defining characteristic of a group or the way in which a member of one group pre-judges or interacts with a member of another group. It’s a bad thing when one group becomes voiceless or suffers genuine and gross loss.

 

I don’t think history will judge the division over “boat people policy” as a bad thing. (Note that it never meant the end of a refugee immigration program – 12,000 will continue to flow through it, year in, year out.)

 

***

 

Jim Tsihlis in Belmore, NSW

 

I’ve spent my entire morning scanning the web engrossed with the political fall-out of the election. Though I loath to use any term coined by right-wing commentators, I do note that the “commentariat” are definitely upset by the result, and their supporters are in full swing, with one emailer on another site describing the the return of the Howard government the result of a “bigotted, small minded, uninformed, unintelligent electorate”.

 

Come on, that is a bit rough! Labor supporters have lost an election, doesn’t mean they have to spit on the nation for not going “their way”. I recall many years ago when George Bush Senior lost to Bill Clinton he got up and said to his supporters: “I know none of you a very pleased with the result, but we must step aside and show our respect for the majesty of democracy and the wishes of the people.” It was the first and only time I have heard a politician tell his people “how it is” in a democracy, and it did the man much credit.

 

In Australia it is more to the point: we are ALL FORCED TO VOTE, so generally speaking everyone has had their say, and they have basically said “status quo” They digested what both sides had to say, for good and for bad, and in that “market place of ideas” they decided to buy the Coalition product. That’s the way it is.

 

To the Labor party: Look at your Sydney heartland please!!! Why did you abandon it? Where are your people? Why are blue collar nominal union members voting for a right wing government! Doesn’t this disconnection between the proponents of social democracy and those who should follow and benefit from it shock anyone?

 

It reminds of PJK, that great son of Bankstown who preferred to live in Woollahra. That is the problem with the Labor Party today, and to put harshly but I think honestly, Margo, you represent this problem. Higher income earners within the left focusing on issues that are essentially well meant but meaningless to families mortgaged to the hilt in the western electorates.

 

On top of that, these voters are lectured to, attacked as racist, and now have to deal with your “grief” over a “lost Australia”. Oh please Margo, a little faith!

 

Frankly, social democracy means getting your hands dirty out there in the west, not caucusing with the uni-set in the east. Labor MPs have to get out there, and actually live in their electorates, and be like Jackie Kelly et al. Sure they are “twits” in the worldview of the Articulate Affluent Left,

but they are ordinary Australians who basically reflect the opinions of the electorate.

 

Take my seat of Watson, the safest Labor seat in Sydney. I have never seen Leo McLay near my electorate over the 27 years I have lived there! Where is he? He now is officially a resident of Canberra, and get this, the convenor of the ACT Labor Right! Why does he hold this seat in Sydney!? Moreover, why does Labor support his preselection each time: he has never risen to ministry, never shown the brilliance of a Mark Latham or Michael Lee, but there he is, plodding away, and occasionally falling off his bike. A mediocre representative, without any connection to his electorate, dolely anticipating his next term without effort.

 

The Labor party that should be at the heart of all working people of Western Sydney is estranged from it because the people who run the Labor Party do not venture any further west in thought or deed than Leichardt! Three million people live out there!

 

Don’t blame Australia for the election. It’s a democracy. It’s what the people wanted. Your party just couldn’t get it ideas across because it hasnt spoken to its people on an EQUAL FOOTING for a very long time. They have only themselves to blame.

 

MARGO: I have not blamed Australia. The Labor Party is not my party. I see myself as a small l liberal in philosophical terms.

 

***

 

Yolanda Newman

 

I cried on reading your piece this morning. Saturday was my first time to vote using my birth certificate name. After not inconsiderable troubles in my life I was thinking excitedly if immaturely that this was a bit of a milestone – something to celebrate.

 

It didn’t take long for those feelings to pass. Faced with the green and white papers I had the same sinking feeling I used to have when it didn’t seem to matter what you did in Queensland – union activism, street and protest marches – because Joh Bjelke Petersen was reelected.

 

I felt powerless and hopeless. I loved the Olympics even if I didn’t understand the rules and don’t play anything – the opening and closing ceremonies with their inclusivity and beautiful young people seemed to symbolise real hope and strength. The volunteers quietly sweeping here or standing there seemed to symbolise a willingness to just get on and make something work. It was a wonderful 2 weeks even if Australian journalists ignored many wins outside of Australian ones.

But now? I don’t know where to start. I have spent my professional life teaching English to migrants and refugees, I have worked in unions, I have joined political parties and been involved in various community and activist groups. I feel like giving up. Maybe I will feel better tomorrow.

 

***

 

Susan Metcalfe

 

I don’t agree with many of the criticisms of Kim Beazley. For me he symbolised human decency and the complexity of the issues we face, both in our personal lives and in the bigger issues faced by of country.

 

In spite of Kim Beazley’s seeming agreement with the government on the asylum seeker issue, I believed that his decency and intelligence would have prevailed to find humane reponses to the current situation. As much as I would have loved him to make a moral stand I do have some understanding of his impossible position between a rock and a hard place.

 

John Howard has made those who shout the loudest and with the least logic stand taller. I know from heated conversations that I have had on this issue how difficult it is to present factual and complex information to people fueled by xenophobia, racism and economic insecurity. I am still reeling from those last few days of debate on whether or not the refugees were some sort of sub- human species who abused their children.

 

It has now become elitist to have an informed opinion, to be interested in other cultures and most distressing of all to me, to feel compassion for fellow human beings. To what horrible depth have we sunk when John Howard can accuse those who have stood up for the humane treatment of asylum seekers as being elitist. He has succeeded in marginalising our humanity.

 

For the first time in my life the outcome of an election has stripped me of everything I value and taken away from me the country I had taken for granted. In the past, even if things weren’t perfect at least we always seemed to be heading in the right direction. There are many who yesterday and today seem to be asking the question you have asked.

 

I feel that because of John Howard and his re-election I have no choice but to now devote my life to fighting for those who he most oppresses and for a re-humanising of those who he has so horribly defamed. Personal issues will now have to take a back seat to restoring the integrity and rights of those who Howard continues to exploit and defile.

 

A kind of damage control will need to occur for at least the next few years. I would hope that a strong grassroots movement will emerge to counteract the Howard regime but it will be another couple of weeks I think before we can all re-group and make plans. Something has died.

 

***

 

Diann Rodgers-Healey

 

I am lost for words about the election debacle. I spent so much time being enraged about the refugee crisis and the absence of any real alternative, that I feel empty and exhausted. I knew Howard would win for all the reasons you have written about recently.

 

I like what you have written about the new `elite’ and about articulating core Australian values. The danger would if all that has emerged through this election that is racist and isolationist is swept out of sight in a quick fix manner to heal wounds of division and despair. I feel that we need to use it as a catalyst for debate and evaluation on a wide scale so that those who are leading never have the opportunity of taking us down this path again as they did this time in a roller-coaster manner that thrashed and ignored the voices of reason and human rights.

 

***

 

Gavin Mount in Canberra

 

I would have thought the first time I wrote to you I would come over all serious but I just can’t bring myself to really think about it. Like you, I lost complete faith after hearing and reading the two campaign launches. Before that, I didn’t know what would be worse – a Coalition vindicated on a xenophobic agenda, or a morally inept, poll driven Labor government vindicated by their silence.

 

On Saturday night I was playing a gig (lounge-funk band, CooCoo Fondoo) at the Gypsy Bar in Canberra. I had the unenviable task of having to get up and play music after Beazley’s speech. The only solace I could find in all of this was to dedicate the opening number – “Lady Love” (a cheesy Lou Rawls classic) -to the grandest lady of ’em all, Mama Nature.

 

The Canberra Greens campaigners had their election party at the Gypsy and I figured they deserved to give themselves all a big slap on the back – or disco twirl – for achieving such a good result.

 

What is going to happen to the green movement now? How do we `read’ Tasmania in all of this? Please suggest some mental health strategies for dealing with: a) the smug use of the word `mandate’ by our newly elected leader; b) reconciliation; c) salinity/deforestation/green house and; d) the prospect of an opposition lead by an equally shwarmy Simon Crean?

 

***

 

Jonathan Nolan in Bondi, Sydney

 

Oh what can we do?! Like you Margo the whole thing was so predictable I couldn’t even cry. I somehow fooled myself that the “small target” tactic of the Labor Party was akin to Tony Blair’s New Labour of 1997 but I was wrong and now the prospect of Crean as leader is just hopeless and I need something decent to hope for.

 

I will gatecrash a few Labor meetings to see what they are up to, to see if they have any gall to change and I mean change BIG TIME! I want to see if they have any sense of how disaffected we all are and if they plan to become a proper party for this century.

 

When Major got in for a second time I left England for a country that I thought offered hope, genuine multiculturalism and a better view of the future. I worked on the Games making presentations to sponsors and overseas visitors spouting grand statements that I now realise were untrue about the sharing, caring, inclusive, society.

 

Now I’m horrified and saddened and can see why the young here don’t even think about politics. I’ll either leave (I’ve already booked a trip for Europe and will be considering my options) or consider becoming a true Aussie – forgetting politics and just losing my head totally in sport!

 

***

 

John McCulloch

 

You ask what will I do? At the moment I’m shattered and and feeling totally gutted. Not only from the result, which like yourself I realised midway through last week, but from the way the Labor Party conducted itself through the campaign. This is not the Labor Party that I knew; it has become a hollow shell of political opportunism. No ideals, no vision, just let’s get elected by fooling the public.

 

The crunch came for me last night at work, when we were discussing the result (I work as a truck driver, very blue collar!) and a colleague said: “I didn’t vote for Beazley, the fat *%@#, all he wanted to do was give the country to the bloody Abos and to the bloody reffos. At least Howards’ going to keep the bastards in their place!”

 

That comment got the nod of approval from a majority of others. I just got up and walked out. I’m sick of arguing and defending a position that is not even supported by the party that was once entrusted to enshrine the principles of human decency. How low has this country fallen in that it now embraces the fears and xenophobia of right wing shock jocks.

 

My fear is that the marginalised will now strike out, as they have no hope, no real future and their only recourse is through anti-social behaviour, or worse, violence.

 

So what will I do? I don’t know at the moment, maybe time will give me a better understanding. In the meantime I might just pray to the better angels in our midst to rise like the phoenix and steer us to a more enlightened era.

 

***

 

David Davis in Switzerland

 

What will I do? Ride roller-coasters in Europe!

 

In the end I was most interested in seeing how close the coalition victory could come to my outlandish prediction of a margin of 20. Champagne was to be consumed regardless. We had that and then rode all the fun fair rides at the 531st Basel Autumn Fair. Then we had some heated herb wine and felt sick. Hours of election coverage, escapism, wild rides and too much booze. It was a potent mix!

 

I joined Australians Against Racism last week and will be in contacting the Edmund Rice Centre this week. It is attacking problems from different angles. I am not prepared to let go but I have no plans to come back. I’ll remain an irrelevant, carping “elite” exiled in Europe!

 

Yesterday I was in Karlsruhe, Germany looking at some of the first books ever printed at the Baden State Museum. Karlsruhe itself was one of the first cities to be built without walls. Other cities of enlightenment like Basel had walls from earlier periods but people could be free once they got inside. Walls can be physical or they can come from the heart or the head. Where ever you turn in Australia at the moment, walls are under construction or nearing completion.

 

PS: Kim Beazley’s concession speech was either utter denial, great acting or …….. I am not sure what. What if he had directed so much POSITIVE PASSION toward an alternative view on Tampa?? I reckon he could have convinced enough people to get there. A convincing rousing call to compassion and decency could have got him over the line. He could have done it. I honestly believe he could have.

 

***

 

Aden Ridgeway, Democrats Senator for NSW

 

Press statement (leadership play?)

 

After six years of this Coalition Government we now find ourselves in a similar intellectual climate to that which the members of this Government claimed existed before they won office in 1996.

 

That is one in which there is no room for debate, no room for expression of ideas and no room for difference on any topic that doesn’t accord with the politically correct government line. The political climate is charged with the destructive forces of racism and intolerance.

 

But maybe those now expressing shock at the race card turning up on the electoral table, should look a little more closely at the deck from which its being played.

 

I was elected to the Senate in 1998 after 18 months of a Native Title-inspired race based hysteria campaign whipped up by the Howard Government. Now I see those same divisive sentiments being fanned in this so-called debate about refugees.

 

I echo the concerns being expressed by many public figures including the old-guard of the Liberal party and commend their courage in calling for leadership on this issue. Never have we needed it more.

 

As an Australian Democrat Senator, I have witnessed manipulation and abuse of the legislative process that resulted in immigration legislation being passed which breached Australias international commitments to basic human rights.

 

I have witnessed a government that has been able to inflame antagonism towards all refugees by distorting the facts and painting them as potential terrorists and drug dealers.

 

I have witnessed the talk back radio test being the only the determinant of public policy, with both parties allowing themselves to be totally intimidated by perceived popular opinion.

 

This lowest common denominator policy has been the hallmark of this government’s performance and we cannot expect anything better from either of the two old parties.

 

I believe there are many Australians who want to see their political representatives take up the fight against racism in this country – whether its racism against Indigenous Australians, migrants or refugees.

Reith is absent from the airwaves today. The photo fraud, Peter, feel like explaining? After all, you released those pictures in response to doubts being expressed over the truth of the claim (see Reith transcript of interview with Virginia Trioli in Credibility overboard). It doesn’t matter any more. Another incendiary pre-election gambit – boat people deliberately set fire to a boat just to show us they’re sub-human. Reith’s office says no to releasing the video. Do you believe it? It doesn’t matter any more.

 

For posterity, some more transcripts. First Howard, then, to end, a lucid voice from an Australian elder, John Menadue, now a voice in the wilderness in a land where facts count for nothing and myth is reality. Australia will regret condemning as `elite’ the voices of scholarship, experience, and the wisdom born of deep thought about our nation’s interests. The new elite values none of these qualities. The voices of reason, young and old, across the political spectrum, have done their best. They lost with honour.

 

I didn’t catch it, but I’ve heard Tony Jones’ interview with Howard on Lateline last night was a ripper. That transcript, and Howard’s interviews today, are also published. It’s interesting that while this morning’s transcripts are on the Liberal Party’s website, the Lateline transcript hasn’t made it. The Sunrise interview is incredible – after last night admitting that the children were not thrown overboard, he’s now saying they WERE, despite the clear denials of that by Shackleton and more sailors quoted in The Australian today. Howard is now saying the NAVY gave him that advice, whereas last night he blamed the navy for failing to correct the public record. “That advice that the children were thrown overboard) was left uncorrected for a whole month,” he said on last night’s SBS Insight program. “It would have been a good idea if we’d been told this some weeks ago.”

 

Those remarks were made before Shackleton’s second statement, very carefully written, where he did not contradict his assertion that no children had been thrown overboard, or that navy had never given advice that they had. Instead, he said: “I confirm the Minister was advised that Defence believed children had been thrown overboard.” As you know from last night’s entry, his spokesman – when asked to clarify the apparent inconsistency, said “the defence department”, not the navy, had given the government the advice. He refused to say who in the department had done so except that it was “a defence adviser”, or on what basis. He refused to say what, if anything, the navy did to correct the record when Reith released photos he alleged were taken after the children were thrown overboard. He confirmed that the only time any children were in the water was “the next day, when the boat was sinking”.

 

Later that night on Insight, Howard claimed that it was hairsplitting to distinguish the navy and defence. “I think, with respect, the navy is part of defence,” he said. By today, however, the defence advice came from the navy, according to Howard. Again, he has politicised the navy and effectively questioned the word of its chief and its staff in the action. Even Ruddock was prepared to concede on radio this morning that the children had not been thrown overboard. It doesn’t matter any more.

 

Laurie Oakes in the Bulletin this week wrote a lead which chilled me to the bone. “I was speaking to a senior Liberal politician the other day, about why – according to most opinion polls – the Coalition looked to be heading for victory in the election. He was in no doubt about the reason. “There’s a lot of racism out there,” he said candidly. This was a man who has spent the previous four weeks doorknocking in the Liberal cause. He was happy to have the votes. But he added: “There’ll need to be a healing process when this is all over.”

 

That won’t be possible. If either party backtracks, the depth of that betrayal of the Australian people would spawn forces far darker and more dangerous than Hansonism. When you campaign on fundamental fears, it’s not just another broken promise. That’s the downside of the choices made by both sides at this election.

 

LATELINE, November 8

 

TONY JONES: Our interview with Mr Howard is now in two parts, the first of which ranges over the issue that has dominated this campaign – the effort to stem the flow of asylum seekers. Following that interview, and after Vice-Admiral Shackleton, the Chief of the Navy, put out a statement attempting to clarify his earlier comments, Mr Howard requested a second interview with Lateline on the issue.

 

JONES: Mr Howard, whoever wins this election, will there be a need for healing on the question of race?

 

HOWARD: No. That question is based on the inference that what we are doing on asylum seekers is racially based. I want to reject that. It’s not racially based.

 

The reason that we are adopting our policy on asylum seekers is that people seek to come here illegally. We’re not saying that we’ll allow some people to come of a particular race and we’ll reject others. If that were the case, then you would be perfectly entitled to allege or infer that it’s based on race.

 

It wouldn’t matter what country the people were coming from, we would still adopt the same attitude, if they were coming from England, or from Japan, or from the United States. People who seek to come here illegally would all be treated the same way. It is not based on race. And I reject completely the inference that the whole policy is racially based.

 

I think that’s insulting to the Government and it’s also insulting to many Australians who support the Government’s policy.

 

JONES:Alright. In spite of your intentions, most people know when there’s been a big shift in the racial climate in Australia and that appears to be one of the main reasons so many prominent people have come forward to speak out against your policy in recent days.

 

HOWARD: Well, I don’t accept that either. I don’t believe that there has been a shift in the racial climate. I really don’t. I think that is just, with great respect to people who are articulating that view, I think that is provocative in itself.

 

JONES: Alright, but listening to what they’re saying about you. “The policy is wrong.

It’s inhumane.” Malcolm Fraser. “He has manipulated prejudice to his personal political advantage.” John Hewson. “We need a new approach.” Julie Bishop. “Appealing to the worst in our natures.” Fred Chaney. “Howard is a throwback.” Ian McPhee.

 

Now, these are all people from your own party. Why are they so terribly worried about what’s happening?

 

HOWARD: Can I just say one thing about – what you have done is to unfairly quote Julie Bishop. The new approach that she was referring to was in the context of some observations – and I’ve seen the whole text of it – in some observations about an agreement with Indonesia which, of course, we all support, if it can be achieved. I think you’re being very unfair to her.

 

JONES: Well we could – “It is vital that there’s an agreement with Indonesia.”

 

HOWARD: Yeah, that’s right, that’s right. Well, I’m, I’m, I’m in favour of an agreement with Indonesia but, in the end, in the end, Tony, whenever you have a difficult issue, you’re going to have critics. And I have taken and the Government has taken a stand on this, because we believe it to be in our national interest that we send a signal that we are no longer a country of easy destination. For too long, the view was taken that we were.

 

We are in favour of taking refugees. We continue to take more, on a per capita basis, than any country except Canada. And we’ll continue to have that policy.

 

But we are not going to have people present themselves in a way that is illegal and to present themselves in a way that disrupts the normal operation of our refugee policy.

 

JONES: Alright, now you have made the point that you would have the same attitude if these were people from Britain or the United States or Japan, I think you just said. Why then haven’t you moved with equal force to track down the 54,000 people who have overstayed their visas and are now in this country illegally, according to your own immigration website, most of whom come from Britain and the United States?

 

HOWARD: Well, we continue, we continue to do all sorts of things in relation to illegal immigrants but, obviously, there are illegal immigrants from a lot of countries and not just – you say the majority from Britain and the United States – I don’t know whether that’s true or false.

 

JONES: Well, that’s what the Department of Immigration website says.

 

HOWARD: Well, I would like to get my own direct advice on that. But you’re dealing there with a situation where people have actually arrived in the country and, obviously, once people are in the country, it’s harder to find them. And that really is, is, in a sense, an argument in favour of what we’re doing.

 

I mean, once people have arrived in a country, there are all sorts of argument as to why it is difficult to ask them to go and it is far better, in our view, to send a signal that illegal immigration is not something that we’re going to accept.

 

JONES: Now, Mr Howard, I was going to ask you if you admonished Peter Reith for having suggested that there may have been a link between the asylum seekers and terrorism during these days. But then it appears that you made the same link yourself.

 

HOWARD: Well, I certainly haven’t admonished Peter Reith because all he did was to make the wholly reasonable point that, unless you have a careful screening process, you can’t guarantee that people who come here illegally may not have terrorist links. I wasn’t alleging that any of the boat people were terrorists. And what I have said is exactly the same thing that Tony Blair said when he addressed the British Labour Party conference in October. It’s exactly the same thing as the Deputy Secretary of State, Jim Kelly, said in Indonesia.

 

I find it a whole unexceptionable statement. I’m not saying there are terrorists on the boats. I’m simply saying you can’t guarantee there aren’t people who have such links, unless you have a very effective and a very strong screening process. I think that is a personal reasonable, logical statement to make. (MARGO: And we do, for the boat people. The Pacific solution is about doing the same checks overseas, not here. No checks for the overstayers. And how did the S11 terrorists get into the states? Legally. So what’s the link again, John? )

 

JONES: But, in the present climate, with our own troops committed to a war against terrorists, what could arouse people’s fears of asylum seekers more than the suggestion that they may be terrorists?

 

HOWARD: Well, Tony, therefore, what I’ve said, what Jim Kelly has said and what Tony Blair has said is – I mean, Tony Blair’s troops are involved as well. Are you saying that he’s arousing fears in Britain? I mean, look, I’ve got responsibility to ensure, as best I can, that this country is protected. And I think the people who are talking about the inflaming of passions are my critics. I don’t find, as I go around Australia, that people are inflamed.

 

I think people are angry about what happened in the United States, they are keen that we be part of that coalition, they believe we are living in more difficult, more sombre times and circumstances and they want this country to protect – this Government to protect – the country’s borders.

 

I don’t find people behaving in an irrational, racist fashion and, quite frankly, on their behalf, I resent the suggestion being made that anybody who supports the Government’s policy is in some way supportive of racism. I think that’s a wholly unreasonable remark to make about many people in the country who agree with what the Government is doing.

 

JONES: Is this another case of John Howard versus the elites?

 

HOWARD: They’re your words. I’m not putting it that way.

 

JONES: It’s a question.

 

HOWARD: The answer is no. This is John Howard in favour of protecting Australia’s borders.

 

JONES: Now, you mentioned Tony Blair and he also said soon after the quote that you quoted during the press conference there, he also said, “The world must show as much its capacity for compassion as for force.” Now, bearing in mind that many of these asylum seekers are fleeing from the very terrorist-backed regime in Afghanistan that we are fighting, do you feel compassion for them?

 

HOWARD: Look, I feel, I feel compassion for a lot of people. I felt compassion for that man who lost his three little girls. Of course I do. I’m touched by all human tragedy.

 

What we have done in relation to the burgeoning refugee problem in Afghanistan and Pakistan is to provide a lot of additional money, about $23 million, or the bulk of that $23 million, to UN agencies. We are prepared into the future to join other international efforts.

 

Of course, I feel a compassion. I’ve got to balance that with a long-term concern for the protection of our borders and the longer-term interests of the Australian community.

 

I mean, of course I feel compassion.

 

JONES: Now, you mentioned that man who lost his three little girls. In fact, there were two men, both designated as refugees, both of whom lost three little girls. One of them is being refused permission to go and visit his wife who is now grieving in Indonesia, as you well know.

 

Why did you, if you felt this compassion for him, if you were so touched by his story, why did you not let him go back to his wife with the possibility of then coming back to Australia?

 

HOWARD: Well, it raises the whole question of – I mean, there’s, there would be no difficulty if he was going to Indonesia. It was a question of his coming back.

 

JONES: That is the problem, isn’t it?

 

HOWARD: Yeah, but, I mean, if the policy – yeah but, if the policy is altered in one case, questions are going to be raised as to why it should not be altered in other cases. And, when you’re administering a policy, you have to have flexibility but you also have regard to the precedents it establishes for the future.

 

JONES: You do have to have flexibility, it was within your power, these were exceptional circumstances, you could hardly imagine circumstances more extreme. You’re a father yourself. Do you not think that Australian voters would have forgiven you for allowing that man to go back to his wife and then come back to Australia?

 

HOWARD: Well, Tony, it’s you who are choosing to put it in crude political terms like that, not me.

 

JONES: Well, I mean, were you advised? Let’s talk about the politics of it. Were you advised that the images of him going back to Indonesia would have somehow mitigated against the tenor of your campaign?

 

HOWARD: Certainly not, Tony, that’s close to being an offensive question.

 

JONES: Why?

 

HOWARD: Because it is. I never take advice on the political impact of something like that.

 

JONES: It’s not too late before the election to change your mind on this issue. Is there a chance now of you saying to him, “You can go back to your wife.”

 

HOWARD: Tony, the decision is in the hands of the Immigration Minister. Under law, it’s not in my hands. I just want to, for the record, reject your suggestion that I would seek day-to-day political advice as to the political impact of a decision like that. I do find that question being close to offensive.

 

JONES: Now, Peter Reith said today that he still has not seen the infamous and apparently inconclusive video which he claimed showed children being thrown into the sea. Should he have made it his duty as Defence Minister and subsequently as the person who was holding that position in keeping before the election. Should he have made it his duty to see that video.

 

HOWARD: Well Peter Reith said he’d been advised that the video showed that. At all times, Peter Reith and I have acted on advice in relation to this. Now, I don’t think he necessarily should have because the central issue here is the policy, the question of whether children were thrown into the water – unpleasant, emotional though that may be – it’s not directly relevant to the policy. It is, it is an issue but it’s not directly relevant to the policy. I don’t think Peter’s been at fault here. He merely acted on advice.

 

I actually had written advice from ONA which I read out at the press club and I’m quite happy to make that available to Mr Beazley. Now, we act on advice and, if the advice we get is one direction, we repeat it, if it’s another direction, well, we repeat that as well. I mean, I wasn’t up there with HMAS Adelaide. I wasn’t a direct participant in any of the events and I can only repeat the advice that I have received.

 

JONES: Well, the chief of the navy, Vice-Admiral David Shackleton says the navy did not advise the Government that a group of asylum seekers threw their children overboard.

 

HOWARD: Well, I’ve seen a wire report of what he said.

 

JONES: So have I. I’ve got it here.

 

HOWARD: Yeah, but he did go on to say that a child believed to be aged 5 or 6 was held at a railing and threatened to be hurled overboard. If that’s correct, that’s pretty reprehensible as well.

 

The advice we – advice we had and this is the first I’ve heard anything to the contrary from Admiral Shackleton and its five, six weeks since the original advice, the advice was what Mr Reith and Mr Ruddock retailed into the public –

 

JONES: Not according to Vice-Admiral David Shackleton. The advice was not that children had been thrown into the sea, not at all.

 

HOWARD: Well, Tony, all I can say is that I had written advice from ONA to that effect. I mean, if Admiral Shackleton is now saying that that written advice is wrong, then I will talk to him about that and find out the sequence of events but I’ve got to make the point that Mr Reith and Mr Ruddock and I have been saying these things in public now for some weeks and, if in fact what we were saying in wrong, in fact, then it would have been helpful if we had been told.

 

JONES: You’d regret it, having made the statements you’d made then, if it were wrong?

 

HOWARD: No, no, no. I don’t regret repeating what I’ve been told and, if I have a written report in front of me that says in plain English, it says that people wearing life jackets jumped into the sea and children were thrown into the water and this was similar to a practice that had been followed in other parts of the world, why would I regret repeating some advice I had been formally given?

 

JONES: Prime Minister, only if it proved to be wrong subsequently and the suggestion that asylum seekers had actually done this, had been out during an election campaign in this overheated atmosphere of an election campaign.

 

HOWARD: Tony I have reason to regret remarks I make which are hurtful or wilfully wrong or wilfully false. I haven’t done anything like that on this occasion. I’ve been given advice and in good faith. I’ve spoken on the basis of that advice.

 

JONES: Now, I don’t have — but you might regret the implication or the sense that it would give the Australian people about what these people were doing out there on these boats.

 

HOWARD: Tony, are you therefore saying that it’s fairly in order to hold a 5 or 6-year-old child up at a railing and threaten to throw it overboard? You surely don’t think that’s a nice thing to do.

 

JONES: Certainly not Mr Howard. I’m just asking questions.

 

HOWARD: I’m answering by posing a rhetorical question to you. You’re asking me about regrets. What? Regret for having made a statement based on advice I are had received.

 

***

 

JONES: Following that interview, and after Vice-Admiral Shackleton, the Chief of the Navy, put out a statement attempting to clarify his earlier comments, Mr Howard requested a second interview with Lateline on the issue. Here’s that second interview.

 

JONES: Who was it that convinced Admiral Shackleton to make this new statement?

 

HOWARD: I think that’s a bit offensive for him. I certainly didn’t speak to him and I didn’t ask the Defence Minister to speak to him and I’m not aware that anybody has spoken to him. I think that’s a pretty offensive question.

 

Because the statement makes it very clear that we did receive advice that defence believed children had been thrown in the water and I think it’s a bit offensive to a senior serving officer of the ADF to make that kind of remark. I certainly didn’t speak to him. To my knowledge, Mr Reith hasn’t spoken to him. I certainly didn’t ask that any pressure be put on him.

 

JONES: No-one from your office has spoken to him, obviously, in that case.

 

HOWARD: I’m not aware that anybody in my office has spoken to him. But I just want to make it clear I have not put any pressure on him and I did not ask anybody to put any pressure on him.

 

JONES: All right. Now, as you say, the statement confirms and it says, “The minister was advised that defence believed “children had been thrown overboard.” He’s not saying, though, and he didn’t say at any time in his press conference, in fact he pointedly did not say it, that any children were thrown overboard.

 

HOWARD: Well, Tony, I think, with great respect, you are splitting hairs in that we have said all along –

 

JONES: Splitting hairs as to whether children –

 

HOWARD: No, will you please, will you please not interrupt? I have said all along that the statements we have been made have been based on advice and I had ONA advice – let me remind you again from my earlier interview – which stated categorically that children were thrown in the water.

 

Now, I don’t, I don’t – I mean, there’s, we are spending a lot of time on this but of course the media is absolutely obsessed with this issue.

 

And, can I just say to you again, at all stages, the comments I made were based on advice and a belief that that advice was correct. I have no reason to believe other than that Mr Reith was given advice to that effect and the Admiral has confirmed it tonight.

 

JONES: But Mr Howard, it was your Government, it was you and your ministers, who said categorically that these children had been thrown in the water and now it appears there still is doubt as to whether that happened.

 

HOWARD: Well, Tony, I was given unconditional advice to that effect.

 

JONES: What’s your advice now from the Vice-Admiral? Is he telling you that children were thrown in the water? Because he wasn’t saying that at his press conference.

 

HOWARD: Tony, I haven’t spoken to the Vice-Admiral and I don’t intend to speak to the Vice-Admiral. It will only then be misconstrued, as your opening question indicated.

 

JONES: That was a question trying to elicit a point, Mr Howard.

 

HOWARD: No. You were inferring that somebody heavied the Admiral, yes you were. Your question had no other connotation but, anyway, let’s move on.

 

JONES: Mr Howard, it now seems pretty clear that those still pictures of the children in the sea in life jackets were taken after the boat had sunk, which was considerably later than the allegations that they were thrown into the water. Now those pictures were represented to the Australian public as pictures of children who’d been thrown overboard by asylum seekers. Was that the case?

 

HOWARD: Well, Tony, I will suggest that you speak to Mr Reith about that, because those pictures were issued by his office. I’m not suggesting, in pointing you in Mr Reith’s direction, that he’s misrepresented the situation, but it’s better that he deal with that because he knows all about the pictures and he issued them. And Mr Reith has been in the air flying back from Perth over the last few hours so it’s not been possible for me to speak to him.

 

JONES: Would you agree with this – if those pictures were taken after the boat was sunk and then represented to the public as pictures of children who’d been thrown overboard by asylum seekers, would that be a scandal?

 

HOWARD: Oh, look, I’m not going to answer your hypothetical questions.

 

JONES: But we still don’t know the answer, do we?

 

HOWARD: What? To a hypothetical question?

 

JONES: No, we don’t know the answer as to when those pictures were taken.

 

HOWARD: Well, Tony –

 

JONES: We don’t know if any children were, in fact, thrown overboard.

 

HOWARD: Tony, we do know this – that I was given unconditional advice that children had been thrown overboard. We do know this – that the Vice-Admiral confirmed that advice came from defence, of that belief. We do know this – that if you want some further information on those pictures, you should speak to the minister’s office. I have not been able to speak to him because he’s been in the air and I don’t intend to sort of guess a response on something like this. (MARGO: Despite repeated attempts by the Herald, Reith has been unavailable for comment so far today.)

 

JONES: Mr Howard, do you undertake to give us – or the Australian public, I suppose – a clear answer as to when those pictures were taken and as to whether or not any children were in fact thrown overboard by asylum seekers?

 

HOWARD: Well, Tony, I can only rely on advice, ’cause I wasn’t there and I repeat the advice I received from ONA was unconditional. There’s nothing I can add to that. I can’t make it any more firm than that and you’ve heard from the Vice-Admiral and, as far as the pictures are concerned, I suggest you speak to Mr Reith about it but, really, to ask me to go any further than that is ridiculous. I can’t because I wasn’t there and at all stages I have acted on advice.

 

JONES: There were plenty of naval personnel who were there and presumably they could provide those answers.

 

HOWARD: Well, Tony, I am not a serving officer in the navy and the question of answers to that is really a matter for the navy, the Vice-Admiral has said that Defence conveyed a belief to the minister that children had been thrown overboard. Now I would think that’s pretty categorical.

 

JONES: It’s not categorically if he was saying defence. If he’d said the navy, that might be different.

 

HOWARD: Oh, so what, the navy is not part of defence?

 

JONES: Well, it’s not clear in his statement what he’s referring to –

 

HOWARD: Oh, really, really, really, this is becoming ridiculous.

 

***

 

HOWARD INTERVIEW WITH GLENN MILNE, SUNRISE, Network 7, November 9

 

MILNE: Turning straight to the boat people Prime Minister. Isn’t it a fact that these claims about children being thrown overboard were a beat up from the start?

 

HOWARD: No they weren’t, if you are told and in my case in writing by the Office of National Assessment that children were thrown overboard and adults in lifejackets went overboard I don’t believe that’s a beat up.

 

MILNE: Shouldn’t Defence Minister Peter Reith have looked at this video? You’ve been running the entire campaign on this issue and he still hasn’t seen it, he says. That’s not believable is it?

 

HOWARD: Glenn we haven’t been running the entire campaign on a video. We have been placing a great emphasis in the campaign on the need for strong border protection laws and this issue doesn’t in any way diminish the strength of that policy or the emphasis that we have been placing on it.

 

MILNE: But what about the question of whether Peter Reith as the responsible Minister he should have looked at that video shouldn’t he?

 

HOWARD: Well Glenn you can argue that but what he said from the beginning was that he had been informed that the video showed certain things and yesterday despite everything that was said in the intro the head of the Navy, under no pressure from me, under no pressure from Mr Reith, had made the statement confirming that defence had told the minister that it was believed children had been thrown overboard. It was that statement, not the video, which was the original source of the allegations regarding the children being raised. At no stage did anybody say that the source of the story that children had been thrown overboard was the video.

 

MILNE: Well whose fault is this Prime Minister and what are you going to do about it?

 

HOWARD: Glenn the issue has not been, the issue that children were thrown over seas and that was part of advice from defence to us, that has not been in any changed by what occurred yesterday.

 

MILNE: Yes but somebody gave you that advice Prime Minister, who was it and what are you going to do about?

 

HOWARD: That advice was given to us by the Navy and that has been confirmed, it has been confirmed by the head of the Navy last night. (MARGO: That is untrue. The navy did not give that advice. The navy said it never happened. See Webdiary Circling the wagons.) You say what am I going to do about it, well it’s been confirmed. It’s been confirmed Glenn, there’s really nothing more to be done about it.

 

MILNE: But it was incorrect advice was it not?

 

HOWARD: No it was not incorrect advice, what is your basis of saying it was it incorrect advice?

 

MILNE: Well the video shows no children being thrown overboard?

 

HOWARD: But Glenn that assumes that the video covers every aspect of the operation.

 

MILNE: But do you now accept that no children were thrown overboard.

 

HOWARD: No I don’t accept that, I repeat what I’ve said earlier and that is that from that beginning we were given defence advice that children had been thrown overboard, that was confirmed in writing by the Office of National Assessment and last night the head of the Navy said in writing that the Minister was informed of the defence department, of Navy’s belief that children had been thrown overboard. Now in those circumstances you’re saying to me there’s now no evidence that children were thrown overboard.

 

MILNE: In the Australian this morning a petty officer is quoted from the Adelaide saying that the shots we can see apparently of a child being held up on a rail was not somebody preparing to throw over a child but was in fact a refugee trying to demonstrate to the Navy that there were children on board. What do you make of that, do you have any information on that?

 

HOWARD: I don’t have any information on that because I haven’t spoken to the petty officer.

 

MILNE: So the Government’s position remains that children were thrown overboard and you don’t retract your remarks that those sort of people should not be allowed into Australia?

 

HOWARD: Glenn the Government’s position remains that we were advised by defence that children were thrown overboard, we made those allegations on the basis of that advice and until I get defence advice to the contrary I will maintain that position. But in the end on something like this I can only advise, I can only repeat the advice that I have received. Obviously I’ll be talking further to defence about this issue but the fact remains that as of now the head of the Navy says that defence did advise the minister that it believed children had been thrown overboard.

 

MILNE: Kim Beazley’s accused you of lying and says it’s a question of your integrity. If you are re-elected on Saturday will you hold a public inquiry into this entire episode?

 

HOWARD: Well Glenn I’m not going to commitment myself to a public inquiry into anything on the run. I will be talking to the Navy and getting more information about this. I will certainly be doing that. I reject completely any allegation of lying by Mr Beazley, he would say that wouldn’t he the day before an election?

 

MILNE: Do you think that public attitudes to border protection would have been different Prime Minister if these people had been white Zimbabwian farmers speaking English with blonde children?

 

HOWARD: No I don’t think it would have been and I think that’s a pretty offensive remark because it infers, and you know it infers, that this policy is racial based. I’ll finish my answer because that is plainly a question implying that our policy is racial based’

 

MILNE: No Prime Minister it’s a question of community attitudes.

 

HOWARD: No, no, no, well it implies that the community is racial biased and I don’t believe the Australian community is and I think one of the great mistakes that my critics and the government’s critics on this issue are making is to allege that in some way it’s all based on race. It wouldn’t make any difference at all whether they were white or Japanese, or North America or whatever, it is a question of protecting our borders. And the debate over the last 24 hours about the incident that took place on this particular vessel really doesn’t relate in any way to the policy. The policy remains unaltered, the policy is that we are not going to allow illegal immigrants to come to this country. We will take refugees but everybody’s got to take their turn, everybody’s got to be processed in accordance with the principles laid down by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and I don’t care where they come from, that is the policy we are going to adopt.

 

***

 

HOWARD INTERVIEW WITH STEVE LIEBMANN, TODAY SHOW, Network 9, this morning

 

LIEBMANN: Can I begin by asking you whether you think it’s possible that this issue, the border security and illegal boat arrival issue, the one that looked like winning the election for you, in light of the overnight controversy, could now lose it for you?

 

HOWARD: No, I don’t think people’s attitudes on the issue is going to change because of the debate over whether children went overboard or not because what people are strongly, hold strong views about is the maintenance of strong protection of our borders. The other issue is important and emotional and I understand the interest but it really is not at the core of the debate. The core of the debate is whether the Government agrees, whether the public agrees with the line the Government has taken about deterring illegal immigration. That’s what people are interested in. And if people agree with us on that issue, well, they’ll support us. If they don’t agree with us I guess they won’t support us because they would imagine that Mr Beazley doesn’t feel as strongly about the issue as I do.

 

LIEBMANN: But who got it wrong, you, Ruddock, Reith, the ONA or the Vice Admiral, before he clarified his position?

 

HOWARD: Well, in the end the Vice Admiral did say that Defence had told the Minister that they believed children had been thrown overboard and at all times I acted on that advice. I mean, I can’t do anything other in a situation like this. These incidents happen up around Ashmore Reef and Christmas Island. I’m not there. And I was told that defence people on the spot had indicated that children were being thrown overboard.

 

LIEBMANN: Did Peter Reith mislead the public and you, should he have been a little more careful and a little less loose with his language?

 

HOWARD: I don’t believe so. I mean, if you are told that something has happened you are entitled to repeat it and when somebody doesn’t come along and say, hey Minister, we’ve got to tell you that the advice we previously gave you may not have been correct’.

 

LIEBMANN: I think, I think, correct me if I’m wrong, that somebody did say to Peter Reith, after the first report, it’s wrong, correct it or it should be corrected.

 

HOWARD: No, that’s news to me. In relation to children going overboard?

 

LIEBMANN: Yes.

 

HOWARD: No, that’s news to me. I’ll ask Peter that when I get off the programme. I mean, I would like to know and I intend to get in writing a sequence of all of the events and who told who what because I am, whatever, irrespective of the election, I’m very keen to do that and probably that will take a day or two to compile. But, look, can I just repeat again, my original statement was based on what I was told by Mr Ruddock and was told by Mr Reith. They, in turn, got the information originally from defence sources. I received an ONA report on the Tuesday, which I read out – the relevant bit I read out at the National Press Club – and that was unambiguous. I mean – and when you get a document like that I am entitled, as Prime Minister, to rely on that until it is countermanded. Now, I say again, I was told in unconditional terms by ONA that this had occurred. So, if you’re told that, heaven’s above.

 

***

 

LATELINE, November 7

 

John Menadue has been described as one of Australia’s great insiders, working for Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser and Rupert Murdoch. Whitlam chose him to head his department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. For Fraser he ran immigration and ethnic affairs. He was our ambassador in Tokyo, chief of Qantas and a director of Telstra. In a speech recently to launch Mr Menadue’s autobiography, Gough Whitlam described him as “a sacred and secular treasure”, which will no doubt reinforce, in the minds of many, his reputation as a Labor man. But, today, while savagely criticising the Prime Minister for his treatment of boat people, Mr Menadue also says Kim Beazley has “knuckled under” and shown “cowardice” rather than leadership.

 

TONY JONES: Harsh words and I think you’ll be cursed for them by the Labor Party. Why choose to speak out now, just a few days before an election?

 

JOHN MENADUE: Refugees and immigration is a matter which has concerned me for a long time. In our family, we took a Cambodian refugee as a foster daughter. Refugees have made an enormous contribution to this country.

 

I think, historically, Australia should be proud of its record on taking refugees – the Menzies government from Eastern Europe and northern Europe, the Fraser government from Indo-China and, later, the Labor governments of Keating and of Hawke.

 

It’s a proud record but I’m afraid, in recent days, the performance of the government and the ‘me-tooism’ of the Labor Party leaves me bitterly disappointed that our proud record is being besmirched by the political opportunism on refugees.

 

JONES: Now, you have used the word `cowardice’ in your document that you put out today.

 

MENADUE: It was.

 

JONES: Are you referring to both leaders of both parties?

 

MENADUE: I wasn’t referring to anyone in particular.

 

But it is claimed that the Government is showing strong leadership on refugees.

 

Frankly, it’s pretty easy to attack people who are defenceless, vulnerable, like refugees and that’s what’s been happening and I think that is cowardly behaviour by anyone who attacks defenceless people.

 

JONES: Now, as I said at the beginning of the program, there’s a long stream of people, many of them venerable people from all sorts of occupations, coming out and saying similar things. Only a few days ago, the playwright David Williamson, a lifelong Labor supporter, said he couldn’t bring himself to vote for Kim Beazley this time around, precisely because of Labor’s acquiescence. Do you feel the same way?

 

MENADUE: I feel very disappointed. How I’ll vote will be a matter for me to decide on the day. I am disappointed.

 

I’m extremely disappointed that the parties have lost touch with their constituencies.

 

The major parties are run by insiders for the sake of insiders, and they listen to focus groups in marginal electorates.

 

They do not listen to their own constituencies.

 

And, if they were listening, I believe we wouldn’t have had this appalling scaremongering that we’re getting on refugees and asylum seekers at the present time.

 

JONES: Of course, Prime Minister Howard would probably argue to that that, very precisely, he is in touch with his constituency.

 

MENADUE: I think he’s in touch with the worst that’s in each of us. I think we all are inclined to be selfish, we’re inclined to be frightened of outsiders and people that are different.

 

What we believe – I believe we need in Australia is what Abraham Lincoln described as “someone who can touch the better angels of our nature”.

 

And we all have better angels and Australia in refugee policies in the past has responded very generously and I believe that Australians would respond again with leadership.

 

And it’s a tough issue, I accept that it’s a tough issue but, unfortunately, we seem to be – have a leadership in Australia that appeals to our worst instincts of being frightened of foreigners and looking after our interests and punishing and demeaning and admonishing extremely vulnerable people.

 

JONES: Just to confirm, you’re talking about the leadership on both sides of politics.

 

MENADUE: I am, I am, yes, yes.

 

JONES: We’ve seen deep disaffection among some very senior Liberals – John Hewson, Fred Chaney, your old boss Malcolm Fraser – none of them, though, much liked John Howard in the first place. That’s what a lot of Liberals are saying right now – that this is a chance for them to come out and criticise someone they never liked.

 

MENADUE: I’m certainly hearing it, not from public figures that you’ve mentioned, but from private people I know on both sides of politics, who are extremely disturbed by the scaremongers and the frightening of the Australian community that we’ve seen over the last few weeks.

 

All I can hope is that, by raising these issues – and I don’t think we will resolve them before the election, unfortunately – is that after the election, wiser counsels will prevail in both the parties, and we’ll get back to a sensible humanitarian and decent policy on asylum seekers.

 

JONES: All right. Now, as I said at the beginning, you actually have run the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, as it was called then, are we actually, in your opinion, facing a crisis from the boat people who are coming here?

 

MENADUE: No. It is a grossly exaggerated problem. We had similar problems with Indo-China boat people coming into Darwin and the north-western parts of Australia. It was a problem. It was dealt with sensibly and carefully with cool heads. We didn’t set about to victimise and punish defenceless people. And we had, I believe, under Malcolm Fraser, a very successful refugee program of well over 100,000 people. We responded to the best instincts of Australians and, at the same time, we accepted into Australia refugees who have made an enormous contribution to this country.

 

Refugees, by their very nature, are risk-takers, they’re entrepreneurial, highly motivated and we are, I think, greatly increased in our stature and our benefits are, if we take more refugees.

 

I’m not suggesting that it should be unlimited, but the experience is that refugees that we’ve taken over the last 50 years have made an enormous contribution to this country.

 

JONES: Now, the Prime Minister is arguing that the circumstances are completely different to what they were when the Vietnamese boat people were arriving. This time around, people-smuggling is at the heart of it, that it’s essentially a criminal operation that he’s stopping.

 

MENADUE: People-smuggling is as old as refugee flows. In Europe, the Jews were being persecuted and vilified and attacked by the Nazis. If they could get money together to help some of their family out, they did it and they paid people smugglers.

 

It’s as old as refugee flows, and I believe that people in Australia, who live comfortably in their homes, shouldn’t point the finger at a father in Afghanistan who has his whole family threatened, his wife and his children, particularly his daughters, his sons conscripted to fight with the Taliban. If I was in his situation, I would seriously consider paying people-smugglers to get my children out to a better life.

 

I think it is grossly unfair to say that we should punish refugees and asylum seekers because of people smugglers. It is a gross thing to say.

 

JONES: One last question, though, because the key argument of the Government – and this seems to be accepted by both sides of politics – is that the people, the boat people are essentially queue jumpers, that they’re taking the places of people in even more desperate situations.

 

MENADUE: My experience as secretary of the Immigration Department, is there is no such thing as a queue. Refugee flows, by their nature, are chaotic and disorderly. There is no other way to describe it. They go in all sorts of directions, and whether you happen to be on a so-called queue, is sheer – it’s a lottery.

 

I remember the case – we used to open a processing centre near Khan Kane in Thailand, and we’d put out advice that we’d be there for interviewing, and thousands of people would appear in a queue. And we’d process for two or three weeks, we’d make our quota and we’d close the processing. The queue would disappear. Word would get out again later that we were coming back and the queue would appear.

 

It is a disorderly program just by its very nature, and there is no such thing, in my view, as a queue. It is in the minds of bureaucrats in Canberra, who want tidy formula and rules that try and force other people to fit into it. Refugee flows are just not like that.

THURSDAY, 4.25PM: In the first weekend of the campaign Phillip Ruddock made the amazing claim that people in a boat off Ashmore reef had thrown children overboard “with the intention of putting us under duress”. What????

The opposition didn’t do its job and demand the proof but joined the demonisation. The media tried for proof, but got none. Yesterday, after The Australian published allegations from Christmas Island residents that navy personnel on the HMAS Adelaide, the ship involved, had told them the claim was untrue. Beazley didn’t bite until cornered by Laurie Oakes at the press club yesterday, when he politely asked the government to produce the video it had said proved the claim.

Today, the release of the video, which proves nothing. John Howard runs away on AM this morning, then today at the press club, suddenly reads from a report from the Office of National Assessment which briefly mentions the claim and which he says is dated October 9, two days AFTER Ruddock made the claim. He clearly hadn’t seen the report until very recently, as you’ll see from the following quotes. Odd, since he promised early in the campaign to investigate the proof of the claim he’d already made a political meal of.

This grotesquery is as bad, if not worse than, the forged documents which sank Labor in the dying days of the 1996 election campaign. But likely as not, the people will back Howard regardless, the incident doing him no harm and maybe even playing into his hands by putting the boat people on the frontline just before election day. Such is the nation we have become.

So today, the key quotes from Ruddock, Reith and Howard, including an award-winning performance by Melbourne journalist Virginia Trioli, who had the guts to call the bluff of the defence minister on October 10. Note that in this interview, Reith categorically states – falsely – that the video proves the case. This entry ends with Howard’s running away performance on this morning’s AM program, just before the video’s release. Note he does NOT mention the ANO report in this interview.

Note that the navy is under a blanket media ban, even extending to a ban on emails from sailors. At the press club today, Howard refused to answer two questions asking whether he’d investigate the facts in the light of the new doubts over their veracity. He also refused to answer a question from Fran Kelly asking him to release the photos with the captions, which she alleged showed they did not refer to the throwing overboard allegations, as claimed by Reith. Why won’t the government produce a navy witness? This debacle is at the stage where the government is prepared to destroy the credibility of the defence force itself for political gain.

Here’s a theory. The navy sources quoted in the Australian say children went overboard because the boat was sinking, not in a evil attempt to force us to take them. We know that the day AFTER the outrage alleged by the government, the boat WAS sinking. The video released today does NOT show a sinking boat. Is another video being suppressed? On this theory, the pictures released by the government were taken the day the boat WAS sinking. Note Howard’s utter refusal to countenance going back to the navy to sort this mess out, and his utter refusal to answer Fran Kelly’s query on the captions on the photo. Why not????? will Beazley come in hard and demand real answers and to force a navy statement? My guess is no.

Sunday, October 7

Ruddock: Disturbingly a number of children have been thrown overboard, again with the intention of putting us under duress. (It was) clearly planned and premeditated. People wouldn’t have come wearing life jackets unless they intended some action of this sort.

Monday, October 8

Howard: “I express my anger at the behaviour of those people and I repeat it. I can’t comprehend how genuine refugees would throw their children overboard.”

Tuesday, October 9

Howard: A refugee flees persecution or flees a country more than anything else in the name of the future of his or her children and anybody who would endanger the lives of their children in that kind of way, I find it hard to accept. I certainly don’t want people of that type in Australia, I really don’t.

Wednesday, October 10

Howard: I was acting on advice given to me by the Immigration Minister to whom I spoke on Sunday, shortly before I made the statement, the advice I had was that he had been informed they were thrown overboard and there were life jackets. That’s what I was informed. I can’t tell you how many. As to the question of evidence as you put it I’ll make some inquiries and see what evidence can be made available.

***

Asked to release the video, Howard: I’m not going to commit myself to providing anything until I make inquiries as to what the evidence is. I have no reason to doubt what I was told. Mr Ruddock is a very careful person and the information that we were given, that he was given and I relied on, is information that seeing that you’ve asked about I will now naturally ask about it, but I’m not going to commit myself on the run to doing this or that. I will make inquiries.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI INTERVIEWS PETER REITH ON MELBOURNE ABC RADIO 3LO

Q: You’ve got some photos to show this have you?

REITH: Well, it did happen. The fact is the children were thrown into the water. We got that report within hours of that happening and I think some public comments were made to that effect. People questioned that. The reason that Philip Ruddock may not have been aware of photos is that the RAN does take photos of operations as a matter of normal course. We have not called for photos. I must say I did not question but I was told by the Navy that this had happened but given that there are people who weren’t there of course, you know, claiming all sorts of, making all sorts of exaggerated claims then we have produced the photos on the basis that the identities are not shown publicly as standard practice.

Q: And that’s why you have handed me these two photos today and of course the images can’t be seen by you but I’ll describe them for you. It’s a reasonably tight shot, I’d have to say, of one of them, three people in the water, one woman who looks like she is over 40, maybe over 50, wearing a head dress, and a younger boy, perhaps her son and it looks like a Defence Force person as well. They are all wearing life suits. Mr Reith, there’s nothing in this photo that indicates these people either jumped or were thrown?

REITH: No, well you are now questioning the veracity of what has been said. Those photos are produced as evidence of the fact that there were people in the water. You’re questioning whether it even happened, that’s the first point and I just want to answer that by saying these photos show absolutely without question whatsoever that there were children in the water

Q: Hang on a minute –

REITH: Let me just answer one thing at a time because people are making exaggerated and very unfair claims.

Q: But you are moving the question onto something else –

REITH: No. I am just answering the question. And the best way I am answering is by saying here are photos, you say it’s a tight shot, they are clear as day. A mother and her presumably son, aged seven or eight clearly in the water and clearly being assisted by a female member of the Royal Australian Navy. The second photo shows a male member of the Royal Australian Navy with a child who I would say is female because I think she has got some head dress on of some sort who looks to me four or five, a very young child and behind her a mother, presumably a mother, and a male behind her, presumably her father. Now, the first thing to say is there were children in the water. Now, we have a number of people, obviously RAN people who were there who reported the children were thrown into the water. Now, you may want to question the veracity of reports of the Royal Australian Navy. I don’t and I didn’t either but I have subsequently been told that they have also got film. That film is apparently on HMAS ADELAIDE. I have not seen it myself and apparently the quality of it is not very good, and its infra-red or something but I am told that someone has looked at it and it is an absolute fact, children were thrown into the water. So do you still question it?

Q: I am a journalist, I’ll question anything until I get the proof.

REITH: Well, I have given you the evidence.

Q: No, you have given me images.

REITH: Well, quite frankly, if you don’t accept that, you don’t accept anything I say. I mean, the fact is I have had reports from the Royal Australian Navy as to what has happened and I have advised people of that and when questioned, we have produced not only stills but I am advised, as I have just told you, that we have film on HMAS ADELAIDE. The fact of the matter is, this did happen and it was part of a clear intended response by those on the boat. These people damaged the steering of the boat so that the boat was disabled. They disabled the pumps on the boat so that the boat was unable to pump out water that invariably comes into these sort of boats. Our people saw them going overboard. They threw over the side the compass and navigation equipment. They did everything possible to make life as difficult as possible for the Royal Australian Navy and I am told when our people were on board they were extremely aggressive to boot.

…

Q: (People) want to know the truth

REITH: Yeah, well that’s fair enough but if you want to make allegations and then continue to make allegations when evidence has been produced…Look, I didn’t come in the last shower, I mean, I produced photos to you and you are still saying oh I’m just asking questions. The fact is this did happen and it is a very difficult situation and I commend the RAN people who were fantastic in dealing with these people who were clearly intent in putting themselves in harms way. I mean, the next day when the ship was submerged and sunk I am told – I cant give you proof that they sunk it. But the advice that I have is that the boat was okay, it was doing three knots, it was all okay and the next thing the boat suddenly took on a whole lot of water and these people, all of them were in the water and so, for example, a female member of the RAN well she was on watch duty 12 metres up from the water surface, she literally leapt into the water to start to save people there and then. Now, we have acted very reasonably and given that we have the evidence that I have produced to you as well as the word of members of the RAN I don’t think its fair for you to question the veracity of that. The fact is that it did happen.

Q: Will you produce the film if the questions continue?

REITH: Well, I have not personally seen the film but I dont expect the questions to continue because the fact is this is what happened, these are the circumstances. It was part of a graduated response which is the usual response in this situation. There was an earlier contact with the boat. At 4:57 Australian eastern standard time we were alongside that boat in a small vessel off HMAS ADELAIDE. They threw written warnings onto that boat and as soon as they were thrown on they were picked up and thrown back overboard by those responsible on the boat. At 7:00am four warning shots were fired well in advance of the boat.

Thursday, October 11

Asked to release the video, Howard: That’s a matter for Mr Reith to respond to. He’ll talk to the Navy about it. But there’s no doubt that this attempt that was made by some people yesterday to suggest that in some way the people went overboard because of the shots that were fired when there was a two hour ten minute gap between the firing of a quite inoffensive warning volley and the people going overboard that was a lot of nonsense and I again say that I resent the slurs that some people endeavour to cast on the behaviour of the men and women of the Royal Australian Navy.”

***

Reith’s office said the video would not be released because it was unnecessary and may have “operational security” problems.

Tuesday, October 16

Asked about speculation that people had thrown children overboard, Ruddock: “Well, there’s no speculation on it…I don’t know why Australian sailors who saw it would want to lie. I don’t know why I would put myself in a situation of reporting on something like that if it were untrue. I mean, it’d be highly risky, I think, for me to use those reports if I thought they were untrue and then have people contradicting me.”

Wednesday, November 7

Asked to release the video, Reith: Look, I haven’t had a look at it. I must say I have just accepted what I was told at the time. The video has not been produced to me. If I can see it shortly I am happy to have a look at it and a decision can be made as to whether or not it’s worth releasing. I am told that its very grainy and very imprecise but all the same I was told that it was there and I dont mind having a look at it.

***

Asked if he had a written report on the matter, Reith: “I’ve had various written reports in various aspects of it. None have particularly specified a blow by blow description.”

This morning, Catherine McGrath interview with John howard, AM

Q: On the asylum seekers issues and the HMAS Adelaide incident, you’ve authorised the release of the video today. What’s it going to show?

HOWARD: Well I have authorised it but I think people can have a look at it and make up their own minds. But can I make the point, Catherine, that the basis of my assertion about children going overboard and the basis of the assertion by Mr Reith and Mr Ruddock to that effect was not the video. The video only surfaced several days after the claims were made.

The reason the two Ministers made that claim was that they got that information from Navy sources and I’ve checked that with both of them as recently as last night. And on top of that, I was provided with written advice from intelligence sources on the 10th October to the effect that people on the vessel had jumped into the water and that children had been thrown into the water. So I want to make it very clear that the basis of our claim about people being, people not only going overboard themselves but children being thrown overboard was not the video. At no stage have I (interrupted) At no stage have I said that the basis of my allegation was the video. Now, as to what the video shows, I think people can make their own minds up.

But whatever the video shows that doesn’t alter the fact that I was advised by defence sources, or my two Ministers were, and I in turn was advised by them. And then two days later, I received a written intelligence report that contained the very direct and explicit statement. And if Mr Beazley for example disbelieves that, well he’s perfectly at liberty to come into my office and have a look at the intelligence report. He’ll know that I can’t make it public.

Q: Well can I ask you this. This incident has become a very key part of the election campaign and a lot of Australians were very upset by the thought that people would be you know throwing children overboard and the fact that so many people on Christmas Island have raised questions over it, you know it obviously, there are a number of people looking for clarification. Now can I ask you this, the initial information you say came from Navy. Was there subsequent advice to the Minister from Navy that in fact children had not been thrown overboard?

HOWARD: My understanding is that there had been absolutely no alteration to the original advice that was given and I checked that as recently as last night.

Q: Well can I ask if there was a report to the Minister after initial confusion that may have…

HOWARD: Look, Catherine, if you want to ask the Minister that but can I just go through the sequence of events. I was informed by both Mr Ruddock and Mr Reith that this had occurred. I subsequently was informed in writing from intelligence sources that it had happened. Now in those circumstances I was perfectly justified in making the claim. I don’t retreat from it.

It in a sense has got nothing to do with the video. The video came along a couple of days after the 10th October. I think the video was first mentioned on television news on the 11th October and I think it was in the newspapers the following day.

When I first made my claims, the claims were based on what Mr Ruddock and Mr Reith had told me and they in turn had based their claims on Navy advice. Now in those circumstances we just move on. And you make a claim like that, you believe it. I had no reason to disbelieve the Navy and I repeat, if Mr Beazley wants to come and have a look at the intelligence report I have, I will be perfectly happy to make it available to him.

Q: Well I’m wondering this because a lot of Australians would like to know the answer just two days out from the election, given that there’s been so much debate about it. And what I’m –

HOWARD: Well I think what the debate has been –

Q: – asking is on their past

HOWARD: – Catherine, is the policy of turning away illegals.

Q: Well people wondering too if the Government information has been right –

HOWARD: No, no, I think they’re wondering –

Q: – and I guess that’s what I’m asking you – whether you stand by it and is it right?

HOWARD: No, no I think they’re wondering who really does intend if they get elected on Saturday to maintain a firm policy on illegal arrivals. I think that is what the Australian public are worried about. But look Catherine, the position, let me repeat it again, is that we were informed from Navy sources that this had happened. The two Ministers told me that. That was the basis of my originally referring to it. At no stage did I claim that my claim was based on the existence of a video.

I was subsequently informed in writing that the incident had occurred without any qualifications. I had every reason to believe that. I still have every reason to, irrespective of what is on the video.

Q: If it shows nothing, if it’s inconclusive though, what

HOWARD: That won’t make any difference.

Q: Well that’s what, what I’m wondering is, if Australians are wondering whether, given that so many people on Christmas Island have questioned this –

HOWARD: I think Australians are –

Q: – if they want to know –

HOWARD: I’m sorry, Catherine, you’re asking me the questions. We’re not having a debate. I think the Australian people are worried about which party is going to maintain a strong policy on asylum seekers. The question of whether a video shows something is interesting but it doesn’t go to the issue of whether children were put in the water and it doesn’t go directly in any way to the issue of whether our policy on asylum seekers is correct or not. And I think that is the issue that is being debated by the Australian public.

Q: I accept what you say. Can I just ask you this one question on this before I move on? If the Australian public though are also questioning whether or not the information they’ve been getting from the Government, from the Minister for Defence, from the Minister of Immigration, is correct. It’s a question of honesty. Now what I’m asking is: if the video doesn’t show anything, what are people meant to think about the fact that there are two different stories coming out? How do they reconcile this?

HOWARD: Well if the video is inconclusive, it doesn’t in any way disprove what Mr Reith and Mr Ruddock have said because what Mr Reith and Mr Ruddock have said, very clearly, is that they were informed by defence sources. I was informed in writing by intelligence agencies that this had happened.

 

Now unless you and others are prepared to assert that the Navy in giving the information to Mr Ruddock and Mr Reith were lying

Q: No, I’m wondering if –

HOWARD: Now hang on, you’ve asked me

Q: I’m wondering if they’ve reviewed it? If you’ve been given the review.

HOWARD: No, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Q: That’s what I’m asking.

HOWARD: You have asked me a question. Let me please finish the answer or you are asserting that the intelligence advice I’ve got was dishonest. I mean what are you getting at? I mean I –

Q: I’m just wondering.

HOWARD: I as a Minister will act on advice. That advice remains. As to what is on the video, that is interesting but, can I just remind you again, the basis of my claim was not the video. I did not, I did not know the video existed when I made the claim. Therefore in no way was the claim based on the video.

Q: I’m just wondering yes or no, can you rule out whether Navy have reviewed their initial advice…

HOWARD: I have had no information or suggestion that they have reviewed their advice. No, I haven’t.

An update. In an interview on the SBS insight program John Howard said the navy had NEVER corrected the record, and that he therefore continued to act on advice that the event occurred. This is a scandal in itself for the navy.

 

In a second interview after the second Shackleton statement, Howard muddied the waters, saying the navy HAD advised of the incident. When it was pointed out that “defence” had advised the government, he claimed that was hair-splitting, because “the navy is part of defence”.

 

Howard was not asked about Reith’s claims about the video or the release of the false photos. He refused to withdraw his slur against the character of the boat people, or to admit that the alleged events did not take place. Beazley has called Reith a liar and promised a full inquiry.

 

In my view, today’s scandal will help John Howard in the poll. You’ll see from the ads in the papers tomorrow he wants to run home on boat people. This gives him what he wants. Voters who support his policy do not want to change their mind, and they won’t. They need the government’s credibility to stay intact in their minds, because they don’t want to reexamine their position on the issue. The interests of Howard and the blue collar support he’s attracting are as one on this matter.

 

I’m going home. I’m told Howard will appear on Lateline tonight.

I

was about to publish your reactions to the child overboard scandal when the government said the Chief of the Navy, Vice-Admiral David Shackleton, was about to put out a retraction of his statement that the navy had never advised the government that any child had been thrown overboard.

 

Here’s the statement and my take on what it means, then some advice on voting formally, and the second instalment of the Edmund Rice centres’ series on debunking the myths on asylum seekers.

 

***

 

What does the Shackleton statement mean?

 

It says:

 

Statement by the Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral David Shackleton AO RAN

 

“An AAP report (1640 8/11/01) attributed to me, following today’s farewell of HMAS Adelaide and HMAS Kanimbla in Western Australia, concerning unauthorised boat arrivals is inaccurate.

 

“My comments in no way contradict the Minister.

 

“I confirm the Minister was advised that Defence believed children had been thrown overboard.”

 

Further information: Tim Bloomfield (Department of Defence) Ph 0404 822361

 

Note that Shackleton is not withdrawing his prior statements in any way. His statement was that no children were thrown overboard on the day in question. He said the video did not prove the ministers’ claims, but showed only that a child was held over the side but not thrown in the water.

I rang Mr Bloomfield. He said that “the defence department advised the minister that defence believed children had been thrown overboard”. I asked who in the defence department gave that advice. He refused to say. I asked who advised the defence department of the matter. He refused to say. But he did make it clear that the NAVY had never given such advice. This backs the navy sources quoted in the Australian yesterday, that the incident alleged by the government did not take place.

 

Shackleton also said at his press conference before the statement: `A lot of children were in the water the next day when the boat was sinking.” The photos released by Reith which he said were taken after children were thrown overboard were in fact of the next day’s events, when the boats were sinking.

 

I asked the spokesman what, if anything, the navy did to correct the record after Reith released the photos. He refused to answer.

 

So the key questions remain. It is conceivable that someone in the defence department got the wrong end of the stick in the first advice to Ruddock. how? And what happened next? Who did the ONA assessment, and on what basis? Who saw the video and told Reith it proved the claim? Why did Ruddock and Reith claim navy officers had witnessed the alleged throwing overboard and accused skeptics of calling them liars? Who provided the photos as proof? Did anyone advise Reith that the photos were unrelated to the throwing overboard claim? And did the navy seek to correct the record with the ministers? We need to see all relevant documents, at the very least.

 

A few things are clear though. First, the government wrongly claimed that asylum seekers had thrown their children overboard to harass the navy, and thus made political capital out of something that never happened.

 

Second, the photographs the government released and said recorded and proved the alleged event did no such thing.

 

Third, government claims that a video proved the claim were also false.

 

Fourth, so fair none of the men who made the claim and then demonised innocent people – Howard, Ruddock and Reith – have withdrawn the claim, or apologised to the people they defamed.

****

 

Several readers have asked if they can write “Tampa” on their ballot paper without their vote being informal. Yes, but be careful.

 

The Australian Electoral Commission – which has received thousands of emails on the subject, advised me that “if an elector were to write a slogan on a ballot paper he/she must be extremely careful that the words or marks do not identify them and that the words or marks do not obscure the numbers in the boxes (ie. their vote)”.

 

In other words, write Tampa or any other slogan you want at the top or bottom of your ballot paper – do not write it over the candidates names or the numbers you put beside them. Do NOT write your name on the ballot paper.

 

Many readers are still asking if there is any way to vote which does not give a preference to either the Coalition or the ALP. No! The AEC, which again has been inundated with emails asking how to avoid preferencing a major party, advises: “In 1998 the Parliament enacted the Electoral and Referendum Act 1998, which among other things, repealed various sections of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918. The result is that, while it is no longer an offence to encourage a 1,2,3,3,3, … Langer-style vote, such votes will not be counted as formal votes for the House of Representatives.

 

“In order to cast a vote for the House of Representatives and the Senate in federal elections, voters are required by law to cast a full preferential vote. This means that you must place a preference number against the name of each and every candidate on the House of Representatives ballot paper in an electoral Division, and against the name of each and every candidate on the Senate ballot paper in a State or Territory (unless utilising a Group Ticket Vote for the Senate).”

 

This is the AEC’s advice on how to cast a vote that will be counted.

 

“To cast a formal vote you are required to do the following:

House of Representatives

 

A voter at a House of Representatives election is obliged to:

 

* place the number 1 in the square on the ballot paper opposite the name of the candidate for whom they give his/her first preference; and

* place consecutive numbers 2, 3, 4 (and so on, as the case requires), without the repetition of any number, in the squares opposite the names of all the remaining candidates so as to indicate the order of preference for them.

 

Senate

 

A voter at a Senate election is obliged to vote in one of two ways:

 

Above the line: by recording a ticket vote by placing the number 1 in one of the squares printed on the top of the ballot paper for the purposes of ticket voting; or

Below the line: by numbering the squares opposite the names of the candidates printed on the bottom half of the ballot paper in exactly the same way as if recording a vote in a House of Representatives election.”

 

***

 

Direct action: The Boat People Tactical Media Group is heading down to the Opera House tonight at 10:30 pm to make its final statement prior to the federal election. Get down to check out how activists are responding to Howard’s shameful race card election ploy! And watch out for other projections throughout the city tonight!

 

DEBUNKING MORE MYTHS ABOUT ASYLUM SEEKERS

 

I published the Edmund Rice Centre’s first myth-debunking document early in the Tampa debate. Here’s their next lot. Their site is www.erc.org.au

 

Myth 9: Australia is second only to Canada in the number of refugees it takes

 

Fact: This is incorrect. This claim is based on the fact that Australia is one of only eight countries whose immigration program actually specifies an annual quota of refugees and at 12,000 Australia’s quota is the second highest on a per capita basis. However, as UNHCR reports indicate, many more than eight countries take refugees and asylum seekers – but unlike Australia they do not set a fixed number. These are the facts:

 

71 countries accept refugees and asylum seekers in some form or other

Of the 71 Australia is ranked 32nd ;

On a per capita basis Australia is ranked 38th, slightly behind Kazakhstan, Guinea, Djibouti and Syria;

Of the 29 developed countries that accept refugees and asylum seekers Australia is ranked 14th. Per capita, the US takes twice as many refugees as Australia.

 

Myth 10: The people in the boats are terrorists

 

Fact: This is incorrect. Just 11 of more than 13,000 people who sought asylum in Australia last year were rejected on “character grounds”. Only one was regarded as a security risk because of suspected terrorist links. He had come by air, not by boat.

 

Government intelligence briefings concerning the threat of terrorist attacks have not mentioned asylum seekers. There remains no evidence that any asylum seekers currently arriving by boat have any connection to terrorism. Those who perpetrated the September 11 attacks did not arrive in the United States as Asylum Seekers. They flew first class using valid papers.

 

The people in the boats are fleeing from the terrorism of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Linking the atrocities in the United States with the boat people is akin to blaming the Jews for fleeing Hitler. People fleeing oppression have a right to claim asylum and have those claims assessed.

 

Myth 11: Refugees should stay in the first country they come to and `join the queue’

 

Fact: Australia has not taken a single refugee from the UNHCR in Jakarta – from the so-called ‘queue’ – for more than three years. This is despite the rhetoric from Australian politicians for asylum seekers to be processed in Indonesia. It should also be noted that UNHCR centre in Indonesia was set up by Australia with Indonesian support. Refugees cannot stay in Indonesia because Indonesia is not a signatory to the Refugee Convention.

 

There is no requirement in international law for refugees to seek asylum in the first country they come to. Some developed countries have made this an additional requirement in order to avoid processing claims, leaving the large numbers of asylum seekers in camps in Third World countries. International law requires that asylum seekers should not be penalised according to the way in which they enter a country. Australia’s current policy does not accord with this requirement.

 

Some people have given up on the ‘queue’ and resorted to coming by boat. 24 of those who recently died when their ship sank off the coast of Indonesia had already been granted refugee status by the UNHCR in Jakarta. Many more had relations in Australia who had been provided with asylum but were not allowed access to their wives and children. Simply, the ‘queue’ does not work.

 

Myth 13: Getting tough on refugees does not affect Australia’s international reputation

 

Fact: The Australian Government’s stance on boat people has attracted widespread international condemnation. The President of Pakistan recently claimed that he should not be forced to open the border to Afghanistan to allow in refugees because Pakistan already had 2.5 million refugees whilst Australia was turning away a few hundred.

 

The Howard Government’s policy represents a change in the Liberal party’s position. In 1985 current Minister, Phillip Ruddock criticised the then Labor Government for reducing its intake of refugees from Vietnam. In 1998 the Government rejected Pauline Hanson’s call for temporary visas to be given to all refugees. However, the Government later introduced a similar proposal for those arriving without valid papers. Ms Hanson also called for the use of the navy to repel boats coming to Australia in February this year, six months before the Tampa incident.

 

Myth 14: Australia is a `soft touch’

 

Fact: Compared to other nations, Australia takes a hard-line approach to asylum seekers. All people are mandatorily detained. If successful they can only receive a 3-year temporary visa and cannot apply to have their families join them. The current policy has not stopped people coming. Asylum seekers come to Australia because they fear persecution. The numbers reflect the severity of the situation they are fleeing, not the policies of the countries they are fleeing to.

 

The Minister for Immigration recently commented that the drowning deaths of over 350 people trying to get to Australia would not deter others. If such events do not deter people, the costly use of the Australian navy will not deter them either. The number of asylum seekers coming to Australia has increased since the Tampa. The current policy has been extremely costly. So far it is estimated it has cost this year’s budget over $140 million in extra funding, bringing the total to $500million.

 

Myth 15: It is easier to get refugee status in Australia than overseas.

 

Fact: According to the UNHCR, the total acceptance rate for all asylum seekers in Australia is equivalent to other western countries.

 

The Government has claimed that Australia cannot afford to allow asylum seekers to land in Australia because our court system enables asylum seekers to appeal within our court system and thereby gain easier access to refugee status. In contrast, they claim that only 10-15% of Iraqi asylum seekers are granted refugee status by the UNHCR in the Middle East, and similar results are found in Indonesia. UNHCR figures do not support this. They have approved over 77% of Iraqi asylum seekers processed in Indonesia. This does not include those who gain access through the UNHCR’s appeal system.

 

Myth 16: People who destroy their identification can’t be genuine

 

Fact: Most refugees are not able to travel through conventional channels because they cannot obtain a passport from the government that is persecuting them, or they are fleeing from.

 

Identification documents enable not only Australian immigration officials to determine identity but also representatives of the regime people are fleeing. This places relatives within countries like Afghanistan and Iraq at risk. Moreover, people fleeing from political persecution are at greater risk within their own country if they can be identified when they are on the move.

 

Myth 17: Asylum seekers are “ungrateful” and behave badly

 

Fact: There has been a series of allegations in the media since the Tampa incident concerning the “behaviour” of asylum seekers. These claims have been continuously proven false. One newspaper reported that the violent activity of asylum seekers on board the Manoora led to a child having their arm broken. Defence Minister Peter Reith denied such reports. The Government has alleged that prior to being picked up by HMAS Adelaide refugees threw their children overboard. The Australian Navy’s video of the incident shows that these allegations cannot be substantiated.

 

Myth 18: Detention centres are better than the countries they have left behind

 

Fact: The German Government recently condemned detention centres, comparing them to concentration camps. Many asylum seekers have been the victims of persecution in the countries they have fled. For many, Australian detention centres continue their persecution by removing many basic human rights and freedoms including access to families, and to the media. Adequate support services for the most basic of needs are limited. Constant surveillance, musters and other intrusive practices characterise people’s daily lives. According to the Head of Psychiatry at Westmead Children’s Hospital, a young child confined within a detention centre was recently diagnosed with an extreme form of depression, directly attributable to his confinement. This was not a one-off case. Many cases of severe depression have been reported.

 

Myth 19: Sending boat people to other countries solves Australia’s asylum seeker problem

 

Fact: Australia pays for the processing of asylum seekers who are intercepted by the navy and then transported to other countries. Total bill for this policy is now $500 million, and rising. In contrast Iran receives $60 million to process over two million refugees.

Countries in the Pacific will not continue to accept asylum seekers coming to Australia. In the past Indonesia has accepted people for processing. However many nations, including Australia have refused to accept those who successfully receive refugee status. This has left the vast majority of asylum seekers in Indonesia indefinitely. Many in the Pacific fear the same will happen to them.

Seeing off the ship in question, HMAS Adelaide, in Perth today, the Navy chief vice-admiral has totally contradicted the claims of Howard, Ruddock and Reith.

 

Navy chief Vice-Admiral David Shackleton said the navy NEVER ADVISED that people threw children overboard.

 

“Our advice was that there were people being threatened to be thrown in the water and I don’t know what happened to the message after that.”

 

He said the information reporting chain was from the ship to maritime command in Sydney to the chief of the ADF who would have told the minister. He also said the navy had never changed its advice to Mr Reith.

 

He declined to comment on the information Mr Reith had provided to the public. “I don’t want to comment on that,” Vice Admiral Shackleton said. “All I can say is that the video tape shows that this child was held over the side, with all that we can discern from that (sic) is the absolute intent to drop that child in the water.” He said the child was not dropped into the sea because the HMAS Adelaide came alongside the vessel.

 

The red light question was – what the hell were those photos REALLY recording and what was Reith told they were recording??? It now seems they recorded a rescue after adults and children jumped from the boat AS IT WAS SINKING a day after the government’s alleged throwing overboard.

 

The flashing red light question is – were two senior ministers and the Prime minister lying, or did they get confused? If the latter, how????? Was there a conspiracy to lie to the Australian people?

 

My last entry recorded the key quotes and key transcripts of this affair. Let’s remind ourselves of the statements that now require urgent explanation, then the transcripts of Howard’s latest story at the press club, Reith’s latest attempt to get out of the mess at a doorstop in Perth before the Navy’s statement, and Ruddock’s latest remarks, also made before the navy’s bombshell. Remember – these claims were used early in the camapign to utterly demonise boat people. The photos – now shown to be fraudulent – were splashed all over page one of the papers and led TV news reports. They were repeated throughout the campaign. This government has betrayed the defence force and the Australian people to win the election.

 

KEY STATEMENTS BEFORE TODAY

 

Ruddock on Sunday, October 7: “Disturbingly a number of children have been thrown overboard, again with the intention of putting us under duress. (It was) clearly planned and premeditated. People wouldn’t have come wearing life jackets unless they intended some action of this sort.”

 

Who gave him that information, and in what form?

 

October10, when Reith released the photos.

 

“Well, it did happen. The fact is the children were thrown into the water. We got that report within hours of that happening.

 

From whom did he get that report?

 

“Now, the first thing to say is there were children in the water. Now, we have a number of people, obviously RAN people who were there who reported the children were thrown into the water. Now, you may want to question the veracity of reports of the Royal Australian Navy. I don’t and I didn’t either but I have subsequently been told that they have also got film. That film is apparently on HMAS ADELAIDE. I have not seen it myself and apparently the quality of it is not very good, and its infra-red or something but I am told that someone has looked at it and it is an absolute fact, children were thrown into the water.”

 

1. Who gave Reith the photos? Who told him they recorded events after the child was thrown in the water? Which RAN people reported that the children were thrown in the water, and in what form?? Who told Reith that someone had looked at the video and said it showed `as “an absolute fact” that children were thrown in the water?

 

“I’ve had various written reports in various aspects of it. None have particularly specified a blow by blow description.”

 

Reith now appears to deny getting written reports from the navy. He must now produce these report.

 

HOWARD ANSWERS AT THE PRESS CLUB TODAY – BEFORE THE NAVY STATEMENT

 

Fran Kelly, 7.30 Report: Defence sources are saying today that the photos released by the Defence Minister’s office some weeks ago of the people in the water from that sinking boat were captioned when they were handed to the Government and that those captions clearly showed that the people were in the water because the boat was sinking, not because people had been thrown overboard, children had been thrown overboard. Will you now ask the Minister of Defence to release those photos with captions as originally provided by the Navy?

 

Howard: Well, Fran, I don’t know what defence sources you’re referring to but let me just take you through the sequence on this very quickly. The claims that were made by Mr Ruddock and Mr Reith on the Sunday, I think it would have been Sunday the 7th of October, it was just after the election was called, they were based on advice from defence sources. My own comments were based on my discussions with Mr Ruddock and Mr Reith. On the 9th of October I received an ONA report that read in part as follows: Asylum seekers wearing life-jackets jumped into the sea and children were thrown in with them. Such tactics have previously been used elsewhere, for example, by people smugglers and Iraqi asylum seekers on boats intercepted by the Italian Navy.

 

Now, I make the offer to Mr Beazley and, I’m sure he will respect the sensitivity of it, that if he wants to have a look at the ONA report in its entirety he’s very welcome to do so and I’m very happy for him to do so. Now, look, the whole basis of our claim was the advice we received. Now, if you get that kind of written advice and you get the sort of advice that both Mr Reith and Mr Ruddock received at the time, that’s the basis of the allegations that are made. Now, I mean, you can ask endless questions about releasing this or that but the basis of the claims were the advice not the video. The video didn’t come intothe discussion of it didn’t come into the public domain until, I think, the 10th on evening television and then in the newspapers on the 11th. But can I say with respect, Fran, that although this is important – I don’t want to trivialise it because it was a traumatic, emotional turn to the issue – it’s not really, you know, directly on the issue of whether you agree or disagree with the policy that we are pursuing. I mean, the Australian people are concerned about the policy that we’re pursuing. Those who support it, support it and those who don’t, oppose it. But that’s the central issue in the debate but I have to say to all of you who’ve sort of raised queries about this, if you get.if the Defence Minister and Immigration Minister get verbal advice from defence sources and the Prime Minister gets that kind of written advice I don’t think it’s sort of exaggerating or gilding the lily to go out and say what I said.

 

Louise Dodson, The Age: Mr Howard, I wonder given that there is some uncertainty about this video about the children being pushed overboard, do you regret saying that those people shouldn’t be allowed – they’re not the sort of people we’d like to have in Australia?

 

Howard: I don’t regret saying, I should go back and have a look at exactly what was said, but I don’t regret ever saying that people who throw children overboard aren’t welcome in Australia.

 

Louise: But given there’s some uncertainty about whether they did.

 

Howard: Well in my mind there is no uncertainty because I don’t disbelieve the advice I was given by defence. And can I just say again Louise when you get defence giving advice, and the statements I made were based on advice, I wasn’t there, neither of the ministers were there. They get advice, it is then confirmed in writing in terms that I have described. I think in those circumstances it’s perfectly reasonable and legitimate of me to say what I said and I don’t disbelieve the defence advice.

 

Paul Cleary, Australia Financial Review: Mr Howard, I’d just like to point out that Mr Reith did say on ABC Radio on October 10 that there was a video which confirmed that the people were thrown overboard. Will you discipline Mr Reith in light of those remarks? But also my substantive question is about what you’ve said in the past about refugees, that the Coalition’s acceptance of more refugees per capita from Indo-China in the Fraser Government was one of your proudest achievements. You’ve said that a number of times. The Vietnamese in particular have gone on to become entrepreneurs, they run great restaurants, they represent 1% of the population yet 5% of their kids are at university. Aren’t the Afghanis like the Vietnamese in that they’re risk takers, they’re risking everything for a better life, and aren’t they the sort of people you want in this country?

 

Howard: Can I just say Paul that I was proud of what the Fraser Government did in relation to the Vietnamese people, very proud. We had a particular and special responsibility in relation to them because we had largely, in relation to most of them, fought on their side in the Vietnam War we had a particular responsibility in relation to them. But I thought that was great policy. And I’m not making any general aspersions or unfairly comparing the Afghani or the Iraqi people with the Vietnamese. What I’m saying is that we believe you’ve got to run an orderly refugee program and we are facing a situation.I mean it’s very easy for people to criticise what the Government is doing. I ask my critics to contemplate the alternative. I ask my critics to say to me and to tell the Australian people, you dismantle what is called the Pacific Solution, what is the alternative. The alternative is that you will be sending a signal, I mean if after everything that has happened if we reverse policy that will be seen as a magnet, in current economic circumstances, to great and increasing numbers of people to endeavour to come to this country. And that will present an enormous difficulty for Australia.

 

And can I say to you that I’m not the only person who has concerns about this. I think I’ve said before that when Tony Blair rang me to say he couldn’t come to CHOGM he talked about the aftermath of the 11th of September and he drew a link between that aftermath and the problem of asylum seekers. I mean can I just read something to you? ‘Here in this country’, this is the quote, ‘and in other nations around the world laws will be changed, not to deny basic liberty but to prevent their abuse and to protect the most basic liberty of all – freedom from terror. New extradition laws will be introduced, new rules to ensure asylum is not a front to terrorist activity, terrorist entry. This country is proud of its tradition in giving asylum to those fleeing tyranny. We will always do so but we have a duty to protect the system from abuse.’ Now they were the words of the British Labour Prime Minister to the party’s annual conference in Blackpool or Brighton, I forget which, on the 2nd of October of this year.

 

Now I haven’t said, I haven’t made the allegation that there are terrorists on any particular boat loads of people, what I am saying is that we have a heightened obligation to make absolutely certain who is coming to this country, which further underlines and validates the attitude this government has taken and I’m not alone in saying that because the sort of argument that I used is almost identical to the argument that the British Labour Prime Minister used to his own party conference a little over a month ago.

 

Paul: Mr Reith’s comments on October 10?

 

Howard: Well I’ll have a look at Mr Reith’s comments, I think Mr Reith has been an extremely good member of the Government and I have a very warm regard for what Mr Reith has done. And can I just say to you again Paul the claims that were made were based, about children being thrown overboard, were based on advice before the video even came into the public domain.

 

Journalist: Prime Minister, I asked you a question in Melbourne yesterday about the analysis of this campaign by Mr Oakes that a key element of your election strategy was dog whistle politics. You told me at the time you hadn’t seen it. Have you now looked at it and how do you respond?

 

Howard: Well yes I have now seen it and I have now read the column. I don’t agree with the analysis by Mr Oakes. I don’t believe at all what he says is accurate and I reject it completely. This election, as you know, is being held against the background of a set of circumstances that have come upon us. It’s being held at the time it’s constitutionally required. I find the suggestion in that article is inaccurate. It’s politically offensive. People are entitled to attack me, I am not personally offended by it because I’m used to a fair degree of personal attack and journalists are entitled to state their views plainly and passionately.

 

Look, I have done what I have done in relation to border protection because I genuinely believe that it is in the national interest to do so. I haven’t done it because I am catching up with somebody else on the subject. I’ve done it because I genuinely believe it. I think if we were to reverse that policy now we would send the wrong signal around the world and I think the challenge we would then face would be enormous. You have got to control you borders. It’s a fundamental exercise of national sovereignty. That is all I have sought to do. I know it is subject to a lot of criticism and a lot of that criticism has a moral overtone to it and like everybody else I examine criticisms of my behaviour that have moral strictures contained in it like other strictures but I am satisfied within myself that what we are doing is in the national interest. Others wait. Others have waited interminably to come to this country and I have found as I have moved around many people who went through that long process of waiting would be offended if the Government abandoned its policy and believe what the Government is doing in relation to this is fundamentally correct.

 

REITH DOORSTP IN PERTH THIS MORNING

 

Q: The real issue is why did you take so long to see that video?

 

REITH: Oh look, I still haven’t seen that video.

 

Q: But you said [inaudible] that somebody had seen that video and that it definitely showed a child being thrown overboard. Now you are backing away from that now are you?

 

REITH: No. What I said was that the advice that I had at the time –

 

Q: A child had been thrown overboard.

 

REITH: Excuse me. The advice that I had at the time and the statement that I made was that I had received advice which said that the video confirmed the advice that I had. That’s what I said.

 

Q: [Inaudible]

 

REITH: Excuse me. What I said was and it’s still the case that I have not myself seen the video and what I said on the public record was that I had advice from Defence from somebody who had seen the video that they said that it confirmed the advice that I got. Now, that is a true statement at the time then and it’s a true statement today. The advice that I had got was that somebody else had seen the video, I had not seen it, still haven’t seen it, and that it was confirmation of what I was being told.

 

Q: [Inaudible]’that children were thrown into the water’

 

REITH: That is the statement that I made’

 

Q: [Inaudible] advice from the Navy?

 

REITH: Well, there has been various advice, for example, the PM referred to an intelligence report that he had –

 

Q: [Inaudible] and put the matter to rest.

 

REITH: Well, Mr –

 

Q: [Inaudible]

 

REITH: I am sorry but you have asked your question.

 

Q: [Inaudible] `knew about it beforehand [inaudible]’

 

REITH: Look, I am happy to answer questions but I do need to have one question at a time. As the Prime Minister said this morning if somebody wants to have a look at that intelligence advice, for example Mr Beazley, then they can do so. We would not and do not release intelligence advice but that was a written advice that he had. I have also seen other written advice which had that statement in it. Now, you have go to put it in a context though, the context is that –

 

Q: There’s a lot of questions [inaudible]

 

REITH: May I finish? I am sorry, but you have asked your question and I am entitled to answer it and intend to do so. You need to put this in context. The context was that with this particular boat we had also advice that the engine had been sabotaged, that the steering had been sabotaged, that the people on the boat were very difficult to deal with, that the advice that they had received about what had happened about entering into Australian waters being illegal, was thrown onto the boat by our people and was thrown off again.

 

Now, the fact is that these people were very difficult. I am told that the video does show a person holding a child on the top deck. Now, the video apparently is still not easy to see because of some of the actions on the other side of the boat. I appreciate that. But in the context that these people were very difficult to deal with, and that was the advice coming to me from Defence at that time and prior to that particular incident, the fact is that there was no surprise to me that these people were doing absolutely everything possible to require us to pick them up.

 

And remember also that in the final incident this boat actually went under water, it actually sank. And as I have said on the public record, I can’t prove it but my suspicions are that a boat that seemed to be seaworthy at the time suddenly sank was a very suspicious situation.

 

Q: [Inaudible]

 

REITH: The position is this and that is that in terms of these boat arrivals of which we have had quite a number we get verbal advice from Defence as to what has happened and when there is a big demand for information we have tried to provide information to people on the basis of that advice. Now, you might say well should we have auditors on board Navy ships, should we have cameramen, you know, taking film of everything, people with sound equipment to record absolutely everything. Well, we have not done that, I wouldn’t expect to do so.

 

Q: [Inaudible]

 

REITH: Well, I have had advice which I relayed publicly which I thought was reasonable. We did, I don’t mind telling you, we did when we first heard that advice we sought confirmation of it. So you know we issued that advice on a bona fide basis.

 

Q: Mr Reith, [inaudible] confirm that advice by looking at the tape?

 

REITH: Well, I still haven’t seen the tape –

 

Q: Why?

 

REITH: The comments I made, it might be difficult for you to understand, but the comments that I have made I have made based on advice.

 

Q: [Inaudible]

 

REITH: With great respect, can I finish my answer.

 

Q: It’s a very serious matter.

 

REITH: It is a serious matter and therefore you should listen to my answer if you –

 

Q: [Inaudible] Mr Beazley and tell us what happened.

 

REITH: Can I just answer your question? I made it very clear at the time that the comments that I was making were based on verbal advice that we had had. And I made it very clear at the time that I had not seen the video. It has never been my position that I have seen the video therefore this proves anything. It’s never been my position that I was relying on the video. And from what I am now told –

 

Q: The commander of the ship would have given you that verbal advice [inaudible]’

 

REITH: I don’t speak to the operational commander. I’ll take one more question and then I have to go.

 

Q: Why haven’t you seen the video?

 

REITH: Well, because the comments that I made were made on the basis of verbal advice, not on the basis of the video.

 

Q: [Inaudible]

 

REITH: I am sorry but to again put it in context, these matters happen and the video was on the ship and as we said at the time we didn’t have access to the video. People asked us what had happened and we relayed what we were told. It’s as simple as that.

 

Q: [Inaudible]

 

REITH: Oh look, I also said, just to answer that question, I have also said on the public record prior to the last few days that my understanding is that it was a pretty confused situation.

 

Q: [Inaudible]

 

REITH: With great respect, I do intend to finish the answer. You can imagine that when people were jumping into the water which the video demonstrates the crew of the ship mainly focussed on getting people out of the water, they weren’t focussed on having a post-mortem after they got into the water, they were just rushing madly to get people out of the water.

 

Q: [Inaudible] after the Navy had already made a call that the boat was breaking up and that it was sinking –

 

REITH: Just to repeat the –

 

Q: [Inaudible]

 

REITH: Well, I am sorry but you are mistaken and I’ll explain it to you. Can I just answer the point. In this particular case there had been a warning shot some hours earlier – some hours earlier – and I am on the public record just so that you can check the actual facts, but I think it was three or four hours earlier. There was later a boarding on the ship, on the boat, and around that time these people were jumping off the boat. So the boat was seaworthy at this time, no question of that whatsoever.

 

RUDDOCK TODAY

 

No transcript is available of Ruddock’s remarks today, also made before the navy statement. Here is a summary.

 

Ruddock said details of the incident first came from a senior defence official who briefed members of the departmental boat people task force.

 

He said his department head subsequently briefed him on what occurred on October 7 and he had since seen detailed written reports. But he had seen the video for the first time today.

 

“I am incredulous as to why there is scepticism because people just don’t make these sorts of things up,” Mr Ruddock told reporters today. “To imagine that there would be the navy and ministers in some sort of conspiracy to put something like this in the public arena – why would we do it? It is just not feasible.”

 

Mr Ruddock said the video recorded some of the events that took place at the time but could not record other aspects. He said he had mentioned at the time that there were some unusual aspects to the case which involved a group of 187 mostly Iraqi asylum seekers. He said the fact everybody in the vessel had lifejackets was unusual.

 

The boat which sank off Indonesia last month resulting in the drowning of more than 350 asylum seekers carried 70 lifejackets for 400 people.

 

“That there was a certain determination on the part of the people to make sure they were taken onboard was evidenced by the way they behaved,” he said. “The extent to which people threw themselves into the water and in some cases it would appear threw their children first – I don’t think the children were thrown in later, I think they were thrown in first – it may well have been a parent that followed them in, I don’t know.

 

“All we know is that children were thrown in and others jumped in.”

Seeing off the ship in question, HMAS Adelaide, in Perth today, the Navy chief vice-admiral has totally contradicted the claims of Howard, Ruddock and Reith.

 

Navy chief Vice-Admiral David Shackleton said the navy NEVER ADVISED that people threw children overboard.

 

“Our advice was that there were people being threatened to be thrown in the water and I don’t know what happened to the message after that.”

 

He said the information reporting chain was from the ship to maritime command in Sydney to the chief of the ADF who would have told the minister. He also said the navy had never changed its advice to Mr Reith.

 

He declined to comment on the information Mr Reith had provided to the public. “I don’t want to comment on that,” Vice Admiral Shackleton said. “All I can say is that the video tape shows that this child was held over the side, with all that we can discern from that (sic) is the absolute intent to drop that child in the water.” He said the child was not dropped into the sea because the HMAS Adelaide came alongside the vessel.

 

The red light question is – what the hell were those photos REALLY recording and what was Reith told they were recording???

 

The flashing red light question is – were two senior ministers and the Prime minister lying, or did they get confused? If the latter, how????? Was there a conspiracy to lie to the Australian people?

 

My last entry recorded the key quotes and key transcripts of this affair. Let’s remind opurselves of the statements that now require urgent explanation, then the transcripts of Howard’s latest story at the press club, Reith’s latest attempt to get out of the mess at a doorstop in Perth before the Navy’s statement, and Ruddock’s latest remarks, also made before the navy’s bombshell. Remeber – these claims were used early in the camapign to utterly demonise boat people. The photos – now shown to be fraudulent – were splashed all over page one of the papers and led TV news reports.

 

KEY STATEMENTS BEFORE TODAY

 

Ruddock on Sunday, October 7: “Disturbingly a number of children have been thrown overboard, again with the intention of putting us under duress. (It was) clearly planned and premeditated. People wouldn’t have come wearing life jackets unless they intended some action of this sort.”

 

Who gave him that information, and in what form?

 

October10, when Reith released the photos.

 

“Well, it did happen. The fact is the children were thrown into the water. We got that report within hours of that happening.

 

From whom did he get that report?

 

“Now, the first thing to say is there were children in the water. Now, we have a number of people, obviously RAN people who were there who reported the children were thrown into the water. Now, you may want to question the veracity of reports of the Royal Australian Navy. I don’t and I didn’t either but I have subsequently been told that they have also got film. That film is apparently on HMAS ADELAIDE. I have not seen it myself and apparently the quality of it is not very good, and its infra-red or something but I am told that someone has looked at it and it is an absolute fact, children were thrown into the water.”

 

1. Who gave Reith the photos? Who told him they recorded events after the child was thrown in the water? Which RAN people reported that the children were thrown in the water, and in what form?? Who told Reith that someone had looked at the video and said it showed `as “an absolute fact” that children were thrown in the water?

 

“I’ve had various written reports in various aspects of it. None have particularly specified a blow by blow description.”

 

Reith now appears to deny getting written reports from the navy. He must now produce these report.

 

HOWARD ANSWERS AT THE PRESS CLUB TODAY – BEFORE THE NAVY STATEMENT

 

Fran Kelly, 7.30 Report: Defence sources are saying today that the photos released by the Defence Minister’s office some weeks ago of the people in the water from that sinking boat were captioned when they were handed to the Government and that those captions clearly showed that the people were in the water because the boat was sinking, not because people had been thrown overboard, children had been thrown overboard. Will you now ask the Minister of Defence to release those photos with captions as originally provided by the Navy?

 

Howard: Well, Fran, I don’t know what defence sources you’re referring to but let me just take you through the sequence on this very quickly. The claims that were made by Mr Ruddock and Mr Reith on the Sunday, I think it would have been Sunday the 7th of October, it was just after the election was called, they were based on advice from defence sources. My own comments were based on my discussions with Mr Ruddock and Mr Reith. On the 9th of October I received an ONA report that read in part as follows: Asylum seekers wearing life-jackets jumped into the sea and children were thrown in with them. Such tactics have previously been used elsewhere, for example, by people smugglers and Iraqi asylum seekers on boats intercepted by the Italian Navy.

 

Now, I make the offer to Mr Beazley and, I’m sure he will respect the sensitivity of it, that if he wants to have a look at the ONA report in its entirety he’s very welcome to do so and I’m very happy for him to do so. Now, look, the whole basis of our claim was the advice we received. Now, if you get that kind of written advice and you get the sort of advice that both Mr Reith and Mr Ruddock received at the time, that’s the basis of the allegations that are made. Now, I mean, you can ask endless questions about releasing this or that but the basis of the claims were the advice not the video. The video didn’t come intothe discussion of it didn’t come into the public domain until, I think, the 10th on evening television and then in the newspapers on the 11th. But can I say with respect, Fran, that although this is important – I don’t want to trivialise it because it was a traumatic, emotional turn to the issue – it’s not really, you know, directly on the issue of whether you agree or disagree with the policy that we are pursuing. I mean, the Australian people are concerned about the policy that we’re pursuing. Those who support it, support it and those who don’t, oppose it. But that’s the central issue in the debate but I have to say to all of you who’ve sort of raised queries about this, if you get.if the Defence Minister and Immigration Minister get verbal advice from defence sources and the Prime Minister gets that kind of written advice I don’t think it’s sort of exaggerating or gilding the lily to go out and say what I said.

 

Louise Dodson, The Age: Mr Howard, I wonder given that there is some uncertainty about this video about the children being pushed overboard, do you regret saying that those people shouldn’t be allowed – they’re not the sort of people we’d like to have in Australia?

 

Howard: I don’t regret saying, I should go back and have a look at exactly what was said, but I don’t regret ever saying that people who throw children overboard aren’t welcome in Australia.

 

Louise: But given there’s some uncertainty about whether they did.

 

Howard: Well in my mind there is no uncertainty because I don’t disbelieve the advice I was given by defence. And can I just say again Louise when you get defence giving advice, and the statements I made were based on advice, I wasn’t there, neither of the ministers were there. They get advice, it is then confirmed in writing in terms that I have described. I think in those circumstances it’s perfectly reasonable and legitimate of me to say what I said and I don’t disbelieve the defence advice.

 

Paul Cleary, Australia Financial Review: Mr Howard, I’d just like to point out that Mr Reith did say on ABC Radio on October 10 that there was a video which confirmed that the people were thrown overboard. Will you discipline Mr Reith in light of those remarks? But also my substantive question is about what you’ve said in the past about refugees, that the Coalition’s acceptance of more refugees per capita from Indo-China in the Fraser Government was one of your proudest achievements. You’ve said that a number of times. The Vietnamese in particular have gone on to become entrepreneurs, they run great restaurants, they represent 1% of the population yet 5% of their kids are at university. Aren’t the Afghanis like the Vietnamese in that they’re risk takers, they’re risking everything for a better life, and aren’t they the sort of people you want in this country?

 

Howard: Can I just say Paul that I was proud of what the Fraser Government did in relation to the Vietnamese people, very proud. We had a particular and special responsibility in relation to them because we had largely, in relation to most of them, fought on their side in the Vietnam War we had a particular responsibility in relation to them. But I thought that was great policy. And I’m not making any general aspersions or unfairly comparing the Afghani or the Iraqi people with the Vietnamese. What I’m saying is that we believe you’ve got to run an orderly refugee program and we are facing a situation.I mean it’s very easy for people to criticise what the Government is doing. I ask my critics to contemplate the alternative. I ask my critics to say to me and to tell the Australian people, you dismantle what is called the Pacific Solution, what is the alternative. The alternative is that you will be sending a signal, I mean if after everything that has happened if we reverse policy that will be seen as a magnet, in current economic circumstances, to great and increasing numbers of people to endeavour to come to this country. And that will present an enormous difficulty for Australia.

 

And can I say to you that I’m not the only person who has concerns about this. I think I’ve said before that when Tony Blair rang me to say he couldn’t come to CHOGM he talked about the aftermath of the 11th of September and he drew a link between that aftermath and the problem of asylum seekers. I mean can I just read something to you? ‘Here in this country’, this is the quote, ‘and in other nations around the world laws will be changed, not to deny basic liberty but to prevent their abuse and to protect the most basic liberty of all – freedom from terror. New extradition laws will be introduced, new rules to ensure asylum is not a front to terrorist activity, terrorist entry. This country is proud of its tradition in giving asylum to those fleeing tyranny. We will always do so but we have a duty to protect the system from abuse.’ Now they were the words of the British Labour Prime Minister to the party’s annual conference in Blackpool or Brighton, I forget which, on the 2nd of October of this year.

 

Now I haven’t said, I haven’t made the allegation that there are terrorists on any particular boat loads of people, what I am saying is that we have a heightened obligation to make absolutely certain who is coming to this country, which further underlines and validates the attitude this government has taken and I’m not alone in saying that because the sort of argument that I used is almost identical to the argument that the British Labour Prime Minister used to his own party conference a little over a month ago.

 

Paul: Mr Reith’s comments on October 10?

 

Howard: Well I’ll have a look at Mr Reith’s comments, I think Mr Reith has been an extremely good member of the Government and I have a very warm regard for what Mr Reith has done. And can I just say to you again Paul the claims that were made were based, about children being thrown overboard, were based on advice before the video even came into the public domain.

 

Journalist: Prime Minister, I asked you a question in Melbourne yesterday about the analysis of this campaign by Mr Oakes that a key element of your election strategy was dog whistle politics. You told me at the time you hadn’t seen it. Have you now looked at it and how do you respond?

 

Howard: Well yes I have now seen it and I have now read the column. I don’t agree with the analysis by Mr Oakes. I don’t believe at all what he says is accurate and I reject it completely. This election, as you know, is being held against the background of a set of circumstances that have come upon us. It’s being held at the time it’s constitutionally required. I find the suggestion in that article is inaccurate. It’s politically offensive. People are entitled to attack me, I am not personally offended by it because I’m used to a fair degree of personal attack and journalists are entitled to state their views plainly and passionately.

 

Look, I have done what I have done in relation to border protection because I genuinely believe that it is in the national interest to do so. I haven’t done it because I am catching up with somebody else on the subject. I’ve done it because I genuinely believe it. I think if we were to reverse that policy now we would send the wrong signal around the world and I think the challenge we would then face would be enormous. You have got to control you borders. It’s a fundamental exercise of national sovereignty. That is all I have sought to do. I know it is subject to a lot of criticism and a lot of that criticism has a moral overtone to it and like everybody else I examine criticisms of my behaviour that have moral strictures contained in it like other strictures but I am satisfied within myself that what we are doing is in the national interest. Others wait. Others have waited interminably to come to this country and I have found as I have moved around many people who went through that long process of waiting would be offended if the Government abandoned its policy and believe what the Government is doing in relation to this is fundamentally correct.

 

REITH DOORSTP IN PERTH THIS MORNING

 

Q: The real issue is why did you take so long to see that video?

 

REITH: Oh look, I still haven’t seen that video.

 

Q: But you said [inaudible] that somebody had seen that video and that it definitely showed a child being thrown overboard. Now you are backing away from that now are you?

 

REITH: No. What I said was that the advice that I had at the time –

 

Q: A child had been thrown overboard.

 

REITH: Excuse me. The advice that I had at the time and the statement that I made was that I had received advice which said that the video confirmed the advice that I had. That’s what I said.

 

Q: [Inaudible]

 

REITH: Excuse me. What I said was and it’s still the case that I have not myself seen the video and what I said on the public record was that I had advice from Defence from somebody who had seen the video that they said that it confirmed the advice that I got. Now, that is a true statement at the time then and it’s a true statement today. The advice that I had got was that somebody else had seen the video, I had not seen it, still haven’t seen it, and that it was confirmation of what I was being told.

 

Q: [Inaudible]’that children were thrown into the water’

 

REITH: That is the statement that I made’

 

Q: [Inaudible] advice from the Navy?

 

REITH: Well, there has been various advice, for example, the PM referred to an intelligence report that he had –

 

Q: [Inaudible] and put the matter to rest.

 

REITH: Well, Mr –

 

Q: [Inaudible]

 

REITH: I am sorry but you have asked your question.

 

Q: [Inaudible] `knew about it beforehand [inaudible]’

 

REITH: Look, I am happy to answer questions but I do need to have one question at a time. As the Prime Minister said this morning if somebody wants to have a look at that intelligence advice, for example Mr Beazley, then they can do so. We would not and do not release intelligence advice but that was a written advice that he had. I have also seen other written advice which had that statement in it. Now, you have go to put it in a context though, the context is that –

 

Q: There’s a lot of questions [inaudible]

 

REITH: May I finish? I am sorry, but you have asked your question and I am entitled to answer it and intend to do so. You need to put this in context. The context was that with this particular boat we had also advice that the engine had been sabotaged, that the steering had been sabotaged, that the people on the boat were very difficult to deal with, that the advice that they had received about what had happened about entering into Australian waters being illegal, was thrown onto the boat by our people and was thrown off again.

 

Now, the fact is that these people were very difficult. I am told that the video does show a person holding a child on the top deck. Now, the video apparently is still not easy to see because of some of the actions on the other side of the boat. I appreciate that. But in the context that these people were very difficult to deal with, and that was the advice coming to me from Defence at that time and prior to that particular incident, the fact is that there was no surprise to me that these people were doing absolutely everything possible to require us to pick them up.

 

And remember also that in the final incident this boat actually went under water, it actually sank. And as I have said on the public record, I can’t prove it but my suspicions are that a boat that seemed to be seaworthy at the time suddenly sank was a very suspicious situation.

 

Q: [Inaudible]

 

REITH: The position is this and that is that in terms of these boat arrivals of which we have had quite a number we get verbal advice from Defence as to what has happened and when there is a big demand for information we have tried to provide information to people on the basis of that advice. Now, you might say well should we have auditors on board Navy ships, should we have cameramen, you know, taking film of everything, people with sound equipment to record absolutely everything. Well, we have not done that, I wouldn’t expect to do so.

 

Q: [Inaudible]

 

REITH: Well, I have had advice which I relayed publicly which I thought was reasonable. We did, I don’t mind telling you, we did when we first heard that advice we sought confirmation of it. So you know we issued that advice on a bona fide basis.

 

Q: Mr Reith, [inaudible] confirm that advice by looking at the tape?

 

REITH: Well, I still haven’t seen the tape –

 

Q: Why?

 

REITH: The comments I made, it might be difficult for you to understand, but the comments that I have made I have made based on advice.

 

Q: [Inaudible]

 

REITH: With great respect, can I finish my answer.

 

Q: It’s a very serious matter.

 

REITH: It is a serious matter and therefore you should listen to my answer if you –

 

Q: [Inaudible] Mr Beazley and tell us what happened.

 

REITH: Can I just answer your question? I made it very clear at the time that the comments that I was making were based on verbal advice that we had had. And I made it very clear at the time that I had not seen the video. It has never been my position that I have seen the video therefore this proves anything. It’s never been my position that I was relying on the video. And from what I am now told –

 

Q: The commander of the ship would have given you that verbal advice [inaudible]’

 

REITH: I don’t speak to the operational commander. I’ll take one more question and then I have to go.

 

Q: Why haven’t you seen the video?

 

REITH: Well, because the comments that I made were made on the basis of verbal advice, not on the basis of the video.

 

Q: [Inaudible]

 

REITH: I am sorry but to again put it in context, these matters happen and the video was on the ship and as we said at the time we didn’t have access to the video. People asked us what had happened and we relayed what we were told. It’s as simple as that.

 

Q: [Inaudible]

 

REITH: Oh look, I also said, just to answer that question, I have also said on the public record prior to the last few days that my understanding is that it was a pretty confused situation.

 

Q: [Inaudible]

 

REITH: With great respect, I do intend to finish the answer. You can imagine that when people were jumping into the water which the video demonstrates the crew of the ship mainly focussed on getting people out of the water, they weren’t focussed on having a post-mortem after they got into the water, they were just rushing madly to get people out of the water.

 

Q: [Inaudible] after the Navy had already made a call that the boat was breaking up and that it was sinking –

 

REITH: Just to repeat the –

 

Q: [Inaudible]

 

REITH: Well, I am sorry but you are mistaken and I’ll explain it to you. Can I just answer the point. In this particular case there had been a warning shot some hours earlier – some hours earlier – and I am on the public record just so that you can check the actual facts, but I think it was three or four hours earlier. There was later a boarding on the ship, on the boat, and around that time these people were jumping off the boat. So the boat was seaworthy at this time, no question of that whatsoever.

 

RUDDOCK TODAy

 

No transcript is available of Ruddock’s remarks today, also made before the navy statement. Here is a summary.

 

Ruddock said details of the incident first came from a senior defence official who briefed members of the departmental boat people task force.

 

He said his department head subsequently briefed him on what occurred on October 7 and he had since seen detailed written reports. But he had seen the video for the first time today.

 

“I am incredulous as to why there is scepticism because people just don’t make these sorts of things up,” Mr Ruddock told reporters today. “To imagine that there would be the navy and ministers in some sort of conspiracy to put something like this in the public arena – why would we do it? It is just not feasible.”

 

Mr Ruddock said the video recorded some of the events that took place at the time but could not record other aspects. He said he had mentioned at the time that there were some unusual aspects to the case which involved a group of 187 mostly Iraqi asylum seekers. He said the fact everybody in the vessel had lifejackets was unusual.

 

The boat which sank off Indonesia last month resulting in the drowning of more than 350 asylum seekers carried 70 lifejackets for 400 people.

 

“That there was a certain determination on the part of the people to make sure they were taken onboard was evidenced by the way they behaved,” he said. “The extent to which people threw themselves into the water and in some cases it would appear threw their children first – I don’t think the children were thrown in later, I think they were thrown in first – it may well have been a parent that followed them in, I don’t know.

 

“All we know is that children were thrown in and others jumped in.”

Today, four brilliant pieces on the tragedy of our two nations from Tim Dunlop, Nardya Colvin, Graham McPherson and Dave Green.

 

First, several readers are interested in John Howard’s comments on the culture wars, reported in the Australian by Paul Kelly on October 27. This is the relevant extract:

 

“For five years Howard’s prime ministership has been plagued by the legitimacy issue. It’s something he feels. It originates in Howard’s initial tolerance of Pauline Hanson’s racial chauvinism and continues through his refusal to apologise to Aborigines, his campaign for the Queen against the republic, his assertion of Australian values against Asian engagement, his championing of social conservatism and in his dramatic election-eve stance against the boat people. The intelligentsia is unforgiving. It damns Howard as a racist, or a manipulator of race politics, or as a leader prepared to split the nation for his own gratification, or as guilty on all counts. In short, as unfit to lead.

 

“When I ask Howard where his legitimacy problem is these days, he replies: “In limbo.” That is, it awaits final judgement on November 10. Howard ruminates and talks about himself as an outsider might, slipping into the third person. The legitimacy issue was “alive and well when we were doing poorly in the polls early in this year. There were people, and I don’t just mean Phillip Adams and Robert Manne (he gives me a steely sideways stare) who were saying, you know, `He’s got no world view and he’s a cheap opportunist’. So that’s why I say it is in cold storage. I mean, if we win this election it is academic. If we don’t win the election I think it will become, in the eyes of some of these people, the wisdom that we lost the election because `he never really had a world view and because the only reason he won in 96 was because people were desperate to have a change of government and didn’t like Keating and took the attitude that Howard would do and they voted for him and he has gone backwards ever since.”

 

“Yes, Howard knows the mind of his opponents. As a professional, he knows his enemies and their critique. He’s a media junkie, always has been. Howard’s paradox is that he has turned the critics’ hostility into an electoral plus for himself, yet he still wants the ultimate recognition of his achievement and legitimacy.”

 

 

TWO NATIONS

 

1. Tim Dunlop

 

Change through engagement

 

Whoever wins Saturdays election, those who support a progressive agenda have to start thinking seriously about how our democracy actually works.

 

Progressives the people John Howard disingenuously calls the elites have lost the ability to talk to ordinary Australians. This is because they hate them.

 

Howard and his numerous conservative apologists pander to peoples fears, which is bad enough. Progressives denigrate those fears, dismissing them as unworthy.

 

Any whiff of concern ordinary Australians express about immigration is instantly interpreted as racism. Any apprehension about a person’s intention in coming here is cited as evidence of the White Australian mentality baked into our bones. When people express views that question hot-button progressive issues like a treaty with Indigenous people, the republic, or multiculturalism it is defined as ignorance. If such people actually organise themselves into interest groups or political parties and try and have a say in public debate, it is defined as a crisis of democracy.

 

There is a case – an utterly compelling one – to be made against the Government’s approach to the Tampa incident, its use of Pacific islands as a dumping ground for asylum seekers, its failure to engage with Indonesia on the issue, its treatment of people in detention centres, and all the related issues. There is an equally compelling case to be made in favour of the hot-button progressive issues I’ve just mentioned.

 

The trouble is, the progressives (the left, the educated elite, call them what you will) don’t know how to make it.

 

They have no language that addresses people as equals, no language of solidarity with the everyday aspirations of ordinary Australians, and they have no story to tell that doesn’t cast ordinary Australians as ignorant bigots.

 

Thus Labor finds itself endorsing the nonsense and over-reaction of border protection legislation and a war on terrorism because it lacks confidence in the ability of ordinary people to follow another line of argument. It simply can’t find the words to tell another story.

 

Progressives are so busy testing people for the purity of their opinions that they fail to engage with them at all. Frankly, youre not even in the game unless you can say three-bedroom-brick-veneer-on-a-quarter-acre-block without sneering; unless you can say rural without instinctively thinking redneck; and unless you can say ordinary Australian without reaching for the sick bag.

 

A central problem is that key institutions do not allow sufficient interaction between the different strata of society.

 

Whether it’s the composition of the major parties, or the courts, or the federal bureaucracy, our institutions are unrepresentative. They actively exclude the voices of ordinary Australians. And having been relegated in this way, such people are then insulted and vilified when they do take advantage of the forums that are left to them, like letters pages and talkback radio. Their use of these outlets, especially the latter, is seen as evidence of why we kept them out in the first place.

 

Occasionally, however, an opportunity comes along for ordinary people to be taken seriously. When it happens, the results contradict the popular wisdom of progressives who insist that ordinary people are ignorant, disengaged, and wedded to a backward-looking, fortress Australia mentality. It puts the lie to the simplistic notions of the two nations theory and the elite/popular divide.

 

One such event was the deliberative poll held on the topic of Australia becoming a republic.

 

A deliberative poll brings together a representative sample of the population with a range of experts for and against a topic. The sample citizens are provided with information about the issue (six weeks in advance), and are divided into small groups to talk about it all. They then come together with the experts in a number of joint sessions (over two days) to ask questions. They are polled before and after the event and the results compared. The experts, who through better knowledge and more experience in that sort of forum would normally dominate such a discussion, are restricted to answering questions from the floor.

 

Contrary to those who maintain that there is an unbridgeable gap between so-called elite and popular opinion, the deliberative poll found the opposite. In fact, the ordinary people, the representative sample of Australian voters, lined up with the elites on every question asked. Whether it was the way the President was installed or Australia’s future role in the Commonwealth, the citizens were at one with elite opinion. It was such an overwhelming repudiation of the No case and their tactics that proponents like Kerry Jones came out and bagged the whole process, even though they had collaborated in its design and execution.

 

What was even more extraordinary than the alignment between so-called elite and popular opinion was the effect on citizens themselves. Having for once been taken seriously, and having been allowed to ask their own questions and form their own opinions, they thrived. They didn’t need a university degree; they didn’t need some leader to inspire them and point them in the right direction. They learnt on the job and they learnt well. They picked up inconsistencies in arguments and openly scoffed at the attempts by some experts to spin the facts.

 

To quote one participant: “Can I just say that as an elder citizen that I’ve been tremendously informed and stimulated by this gathering. I would just like to say how wonderfully I’ve seen the democratic process at work. On Friday there were only one or two spokesmen [but] by this mornings session everyone of our fifteen delegates was speaking vociferously and strikingly at times.”

 

The lesson? Change comes from engagement.

 

If so-called progressives spent less time bagging the ever-baggable John Howard; spent less time congratulating themselves on their superior insights and tender sensibilities; spent less time listening out for evidence of moral depravity amongst their fellow citizens and spent more time addressing the institutions of our democracy that so obviously disenfranchise the vast bulk of the people from meaningful political engagement, then they might just start to get the sort of country they think they so richly deserve.

 

Comments and criticism welcome to Tim at tinota@primus.com.au

 

***

 

2. Nardya Colvin in Armidale, NSW

 

I always knew, deep down

 

I’ve always known that many Australians would act in the way they have towards the refugees but it doesn’t make it any easier to accept.

 

I teach multicultural studies to year 12 TAFE students. The majority are from disadvantaged backgrounds, and have come to TAFE for a second chance to get their year 12. At our first session each semester I ask them to write down their thoughts on multiculturalism and their perception of an Australian identity. The vast majority respond with positive comments about a multicultural society and how all Australians, no matter what their background, are valued. It’s easy and comforting to accept their statements.

 

But this comfort zone was shattered when Hanson gave her maiden speech. They had found a voice which articulated their deeply held fears. I walked into the classroom to find the majority of my friendly, thoughtful students fully in favour of her pronouncements.

 

After a long discussion they admitted to their opposition to immigration – not so much in racist terms but in economic ones. They pointed out that I could afford to see immigration/multiculturalism as a positive aspect of Australian society. It held no threat for me. I had a job, my kids were either at uni or were employed.

 

But it was the opposite for them – they believed increased migration equalled increased difficulties in finding employment for themselves and for their kids. The fear of being swamped by cheap labour has a long history in Australia.

 

It’s true that there are strong elements of racism in terms of the opposition to the refugees but we should never forget the economic factor. From my student’s viewpoint, refugees are viewed as yet another potential threat to their livelihood.

 

Labor can’t win on this issue (although God knows it could have made an effort to articulate a more reasoned stance) and the Liberals know that to show any weakness/compassion would allow Hanson to move back into centre stage (not that I believe the Liberals have any compassion).

 

It seems that any change has to come from a grassroots level. Our town had a candlelight vigil on Sunday and is holding a forum on refugees in a week or so. You’re right in saying that it will be a long struggle but we have to do something.

 

***

 

3. Graham McPherson, disillusioned citizen

 

Titanic mess

 

Here is a quote from you in Us obscurantists. I thought I might have a go at responding to the implied question.

 

“And here’s an irony. Several contributor supporters of the policy have suggested a failure of assimilation fuelling resentment from white neighbours as a reason. Yet the States most in favour of the policy are virtually homogeneous – Queensland and Tasmania (83 and 84 percent) whilst the most multicultural states, Victoria and NSW, show significantly less support (68 and 73 percent).”

 

I think that there is a simple answer, and that is that the current refugee policy stands as a symbol of the retreat from the bipartisan immigration policy of the past 50 years. This is the essence of its popularity and the root cause of Howard’s impending electoral success.

 

Large scale immigration, except maybe in the late 1940s and middle 1950s, has never enjoyed majority support in this country, because it has never been supported by the working class people it most intimately affected.

 

Immigration has had two major effects, social and economic, but the only effect that was ever given political consideration was the economic. Social effects, at least upon the pre-existing working class population, were ignored. The middle classes on the other hand were entirely insulated from the social impact of immigration and could see nothing but advantages to be gained from its economics. The figures in your quote show not so much the relative popularity of the refugee policy in NSW and Victoria, but the relative strengths of the middle classes in those states, and their relative weakness in the other states.

 

What the refugee debate has done is to cause ordinary people to ask themselves whether immigration has done anything for them personally, for their families or for their country. This is a question of self-interest, which is perhaps why someone like Howard has found it so easy to put it to them, albeit in an indirect manner. The poll results show what answer most people came up with.

 

The current debate is like a shadow play in which the characters themselves are metaphors for larger forces. The single central question of the election should be whether Australia is splitting down the middle, and if so what to do about it.

 

But all the debate is about symptoms, not causes and certainly not solutions. When the refugee policy is reversed after the election, as it inevitably will be, it will be interesting to see how Howard will rationalise his old position or whether he will even bother. It will also be interesting to see just how such a move will play out in an increasingly alienated and frustrated electorate. Perhaps we could see the resurgence of One Nation, or of something even darker.

 

Refugee policy is to this country what the tip of that iceberg was to the Titanic before it struck. It showed that there was something to worry about, but it gave you no idea of just how deep your troubles really go.

 

MARGO: Graham’s first piece, a Westie’s fairytale, is a class analysis of the boat people issue published in Resigned to our fate.

 

***

 

4. Dave Green

 

Time for questions, not answers

 

Something occurred to me tonight heading home on the train. The main gripes of the anti-Howard/anti-Hanson forces are as follows, not in order of preference:

 

(1) An intense dislike of the direction this country is taking internationally. The way we’re treating asylum seekers looks appalling, is deeply embarrassing for those of use who have to interact with persons in other countries, and has, quite frankly, shocked many citizens in other western nations who always thought of Australia as being a relatively warm and open nation. To many older, foreign westerners its simply reconfirmed a much older stereotype that had nearly been killed off, of “white” Australia. Bummer. Twenty five years of work by governments from both sides of politics down the tubes.

 

(2) A deep and very real concern for Australia’s economy. I don’t think the message has been made clear – this isn’t a bunch of people bitching that arts funding hasn’t been doubled, it’s mums and dads deeply concerned about the sort of country we are leaving for their kids. Already, over the last two years, the value of the Australian dollar has suffered due to the perception overseas that we are a commodity-based economy. The Labor party should have been up front about this in the election – do you want your kid to work in biotechnology, or a factory? Look at the economic history of places like Argentina and the result of their dependence upon commodities. It really is that stark. Things can go down very quickly, and probably more so in a global economy.

 

(3) The Republic. Reconciliation. Multiculturalism. These issues speak for themselves. Howard seems to view Multiculturalism as some extended form of “tolerance”. Tolerance has nothing to do with it. People in a western nation have a fundamental right to speak any language, observe any customs, and worship any religion they desire. And that’s it. No provisos, nothing. You don’t tolerate someones rights, you respect them, just like you respect their physical property. Simple.

 

In my mind these issues are all focussed upon identity – where we want to be in the world – and this impinges upon the sort of national directions we take economically, socially, and culturally. Ultimately, this is the sort of discussion that happens when new nations are created, and have no doubt, that is what is happening here.

 

It’s the Republic, stupid!

 

Please people, don’t give up. The Australian road to independence was never going to be an easy one. Thankfully we haven’t had to fight a foreign power or host a revolution to establish ourselves as a nation.

 

But we have to do something that is in many ways far more challenging. To achieve our independence we have to look at ourselves honestly look at ourselves. We have to see in the mirror of contemporary reality what we really are warts and all, and from there, consider what we’d like to be.

 

We need real leadership, and not just from our politicians. Certainly, when politicians display clarity, humility and foresight, it helps things a great deal. But ultimately we must lead ourselves, in dialogue with one another. This movement must be grassroots – if you want an Australian Republic stand up now. It won’t happen sitting down.

 

An Australian Republic is a unifying force around which our hopes and desires can be clarified. I am not suggesting for one minute that we define a Republic along political lines. By its very nature, a Republic is as much about debate as it is about direction – it is in the same instance powered by ideological friction as it is by the desire for fusion and consensus.

 

But consider this. Our nation will be our gift to the world. It is, by its essence, an element of the future – a hopeful entity. For all those who have had a gutful of negativity and fear, and want to push on into the next chapter, this is it.

 

This is what we do. What such a process will give us is something we are lacking in the here and now – not answers, but questions. What do we stand for, why are we here, and where are we going?

Was there ever an election where we so clearly needed more than one leader’s debate? John Howard said on announcing the election date: “The uncertainty over the security outlook and the global economic downturn are the most significant challenges that an Australian Government has faced in nearly a generation.”

 

War, world recession, boat people, two Australias, political fragmentation, fundamental rethinking of free market theory and the role of government – there’s so much for leaders to debate in this election.

 

Two debates – one on international events, boat people and the vision thing, the other on domestics – would have been great. But no, says big John, leader.

 

And make it early too, our leader insists. As Ray Martin told me today, “They’re really launching their campaigns with the debate – this time the debate is kickstarting the election, rather than being the final full stop.”

 

The problem with that is the leaders debate before their official campaign launches or the big policy platform announcements. Howard, standing on leadership, is taking no risk that his might taint. Too bad for democracy.

 

Ray agreed to give an email address for reader’s suggestions on questions, stressing that they should be issues-based. You can send them direct to 60minutes@nine.com.au or you can send them to me and I’ll publish them tomorrow night and send a copy to Ray. I’ll be on a Network Ten panel at 9.30 Sunday night to analyse the debate, along with Peter Reith, Bob McMullan and The Courier-Mail’s Peter Charlton.

 

The rules of engagement thrashed out by the two parties were finalised late today and are just about the same as for the last election. Here they are.

 

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

 

1. The debate to be opened with a two-minute opening address by both leaders.

2. From there, the moderator will conduct a free-flowing discussion, allowing both Leaders to pursue the major issues of the election campaign.

3. The moderator will ensure both Leaders are given equal treatment and time.

4. The moderator will ask questions alternately of the Leaders, but be able to follow up the responses of the Leaders. He will also allow each Leader to respond to the points made by the other, if they wish to do so.

5. There will be no strict time limits, but both leaders are asked to restrict their answers to less than two minutes. (The moderator will ensure both Leaders have equal time.)

6. The moderator will intervene to prevent either person from talking over the top of the other.

7. The debate will finish with the moderator asking a general question to both Leaders in order to sum up.

8. A coin will be tossed to determine who will make the first opening statement. Whichever Leader makes the first opening statement will be the first to be asked the wrap-up question.

9. The Leaders will use standing lecterns.

10. A clean feed of the debate will be made available to all broadcasters, with no station identification on the set.

11. The broadcast should be commercial free.

12. There will be no “worm” or broadcasting of audience responses.

13. The debate must be broadcast live.

 

Sixty Minutes will have an audience of 80 uncommitted swinging voters in Sydney in a studio driving the worm during the debate. After it ends, the worm’s key movements will be shown, and the audience will pick a winner.

 

***

 

Michel Dignand’s complaint yesterday that “the Webdiary seems to have been taken over by Media People, Leading Academics and other well-known and very verbose commentators – am I the only one who is tiring of this, and longing for simpler, shorter and more straightforward opinions?” has attracted a strong sympathy vote.

 

This is an ongoing issue for Webdiary – for new readers, the last big debate on the mix (and on a redesign) is in the archive, beginning with Cut and Paste and Not too Wanky.

 

For a start, I can only run what you write, so if you want short, punchy items, go for it. Second, I’ve chosen not to run such items when they repeat views already expressed – I got complaints recently that the Webdiary was getting repetitive.

 

New reader Richard Goodwin wants to know the Webdiary’s rules of engagement: “Can anyone have a rave about anything at any time? Do past topics still get updated if someone adds a rave? If so, does anyone read them? Can someone re-start a topic? Who chooses the topic for the day?”

 

Unlike our leaders, I’m into freewheeling debates. You can write anything you like about anything you like any time you like. I run what I like when I like, and reserve the right to edit. So it’s a trust thing. I try to run everyone with something interesting to say that is not vilification – I don’t censor ideas. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with contributions, as with the Tampa, and have to pick and chose. On the Tampa, I ran up to five editions a day and some people complained it was all too much. It was too much for me too, and I want to run one edition a day at no more than 5,000 words. You will find the charter of Webdiary in the archive in an entry called What’s the point?

 

On updating topics, a planned redesign to make the webdiary easier for you to navigate and which would bring together discussion on topics was underway when budget cuts hit us in June. Dump time. I hope a modified redesign will go ahead after the election.

 

Election issue five, Thursday, October 11

 

1. Frank Fredrick, Labor left, on why his party had to throw away boat people.

2. Jeffrey Allen on why the polls are wrong.

3. Cathy Bannister on how the Howard leadership ad is too damn good.

4. David Stanford on how to cope with a Labor loss and Jock Webb, Rosemary Bedford and Pippa Tandy on why they can’t.

5. David Eastwood finds John Anderson wanting.

6. Mary Travers on arts on the edge.

7. Simon Thomsen’s marginal seat report on Richmond.

8.. Sean Richardson’s War and Politics column

 

Helping out: Australian unions, through its humanitarian arm Union Aid Abroad (APHEDA), need donations to help fleeing Afghan refugees. Donations will go to Handicap International to help refugees near Quetta in Pakistan, concentrating on the very old and those suffering from disabilities, and to Merlin, a British-based health organisation providing medical assistance to Afghan refugees living in neighbouring Tajikistan. Donations tax deductible. Phone: 1800.888.674 (business hours), Fax: (02) 9261.1118, Email: apheda@labor.net.au

 

Left field

 

The rail industry and the Democrats became friends during negotiations on the GST deal. The relationship has stayed sweet. Today, the Rail Association hailed “the Australian Democrats’ announcement of a $507 million dollar commitment the future of Australia’s rail network”

 

“For the cost of half of one major urban road, Australia’s national rail network could be brought up to international standards, making it more efficient, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and save lives of motorists by making rail a more attractive option for freight haulage…A transfer of unnecessary road freight to rail means safer roads, lives saved, reduced pollution and major savings in road maintenance.”

 

1. MEANS AND ENDS

 

Frank Fedrick, member of the Labor left

 

Howard’s ads, I’m afraid, will fall on fertile ground, as some people are really spooked. Howard is doing what Menzies did with Communism. But then you have other people who don’t want to know about it and turn CNN off – Afghanistan is just to far away to worry about and they are more concerned with domestic issues.

 

I know it was pragmatic, but I agree with the compromise we struck over the refugees. Kim Beazley had no choice. We can’t help our people in opposition, it’s as simple as that.

 

Before Tampa we had an election winning lead, because Howard’s policies on the GST, job security, education, health, child care and aged care are hurting our people. Sometimes you have to forgo your most treasured principles for the greater good.

 

2. THE POLLS LIE, SURELY

 

Jeffrey Allen in Sydney

 

No matter how hard I try and how often I’m told polling is a science, I cannot comprehend the recent Newspoll figures – my only conclusion is that their respondents are lying (or not totally telling the truth )

 

During the 98 election, One Nation garnered more actual votes than polling had indicated in the lead up to the election. One theory was that One Nation voters felt stigmatised and a good percentage gave false responses to the pollsters when asked who they would vote for – only in the privacy of the polling booth did they show their true intentions.

 

My desperate theory for this election is that the reverse is happening regarding John Howard – many respondents feel it would be `disloyal’ or `traitorous’ to acknowledge they would be voting against the Prime Minister at a time of perceived national crisis, in effect rallying behind the office rather than the man.

 

Come November 10th, behind closed doors, the result should be a lot closer than polls now predict.

 

3. AD FOR THE TIMES

 

Cathy Bannister

 

I think you were wrong about the Liberal black ad on Late Night Live this week. . It beautifully encapsulates every fear and paranoia floating around at the moment. It will work, dammit. At the very least it won’t hurt the Liberals one iota.

 

Your comparison with the 1993 Hewson shotgun ad was interesting, but I think you’re kidding yourself that the new ad will fail for the same reason. That shotgun ad was way too melodramatic for 1993. In that context it was silly.

 

This new one, however, seems entirely appropriate in the circumstances. I must admit (albeit begrudgingly) that I admire the ability of the Howard PR camp to identify social paranoias and create symbols that resonate. Sure, Daniel Maurice in News Overload is correct that both Keating and Beazley have wielded the wedge, but no other imbues it with quite the verisimilitude as Howard.

 

Beazley is spectacularly bad at it; whenever he tries, he ends up looking disingenuous. You could just tell his heart just wasn’t in trashing the GST. He just hasn’t bothered since, hence the long silence.

 

I’m just hoping the polls are as spectacularly wrong as they have been before every other major electoral test this year.

 

4. COPING WITH LOSS

 

David Stanford

 

There seems to be a climate of fear amongst many of your correspondents that the conservatives are about to have a decisive victory on November 10. They have clearly been expecting a Labor victory for a long time, encouraged by the Canberra Press Gallery to expect the Howard Government’s slaughter at the polls. They’re not happy, and judging from the last few days are escalating the level of vitriol in the Webdiary.

 

Many of these people must really loath aspects of our democracy. In their minds legitimate governments don’t have the right to carry out mandates given at the polls. Even though they have minority views on many of the big issues, they are certain that their views are paramount and everyone else’s viewpoint is beneath contempt.Such views are echoed in the columns of Mike Carlton or Mark Day or on air by Phillip Adams to name a few.

 

No-one has ownership of the high moral ground in a truly free democracy, and it is imperative that we listen to each others views and select what we believe is right at election time.

 

I know many extremely intelligent and successful people around Australia with a broad range of views and opinions from Aboriginal reconciliation and the Republic to immigration policy. I am often amazed therefore that a viewpoint prevails that there is only one credible way of looking at most issues. This is insulting and essentially anti-democratic as well as lacking empathy with other Australians, not all of whom are as stupid as some would have you believe.

 

People who continually talk about the shame in being Australian and feeling diminished in the world eyes show a classic sign of insecurity that is almost childish. Australia is a strong, mainly tolerant and ardent democracy that is considered so by the world and the many boat people who try to come here.

 

To all your correspondents experiencing fear and loathing and seeing conspiracies everywhere, bad luck. Get over it and rejoice in strong democracy.

 

Jock Webb

 

I come from Narromine west of Dubbo, population just under half Nauru’s. Feeling bitter and shamed by the events of recent weeks I asked a National Party campaign bloke in Dubbo if they were reconsidering the refugee issues in view of the beginning of the attack on Afghanistan. “No!” His office person interjected that “they are of a different religion to us and should go to a country with the same religion – I mean, we’re Christians”.

 

“Would you recommend on that basis that Jews not come to Australia?” I asked. They could not see the parallel.

 

I find everything despairing at the moment. Though I come from the bush and off a farm I was raised to keep an open and thoughtful mind about race and culture. Grandad was conservative in deed but a Tory hater. Everything that I felt was decent about Australia seems to have sunk in the last 5 years and I cannot find a head to kick.

 

Rosemary Bedford in Balmain, Sydney

 

David Davis said yesterday that Labor was not yet ready for Government. When will it be? We could wait around for that till Doomsday. My feeling is that, in our current climate, anything has to be better than a Howard Government.

 

I warned Kim Beazley by email that he would lose my vote forever if he went with the Government on the Border Protection Bill, but I might have to renege on my vow if the country is polarising towards the major parties.

 

Yet I cannot bear to be part of a country that is so mean-spirited, so lacking in compassion to turn away from desperate people in need. I spent 6 weeks in Afghanistan in the 1970s when the Shah was still in his palace on the Kabul road, and everywhere we went, including to Mazar-i-Sharif in the north, we were treated with a dignified courtesy and generosity by a people who didn’t have much materially and who must have been puzzled by us women walking around in jeans and hippie tops displaying a freedom that wasn’t extended to their own women. Mind you, we were there long enough to realize that you would insult or cross these people at your own peril – they aren’t known as proud, fierce, unassailable fighters for nothing.

 

The last straw for me came last night when I heard Peter Reith talk about the RAN Adelaide firing shots in the air followed by a round of automatic fire near the asylum seekers’ boat, and then heard Howard state that he wouldn’t want people who `throw their children in the water’ to enter his country.

 

Are the Australian people going to swallow that? Surely what is taught in schools now – the acceptance of diversity, the power of conflict resolution through free exchange of ideas and active listening, is reaching the adult population? And surely adults understand the difference between `tough’ and `bullying?’

 

Thank you for providing a forum for our views – I feel myself boiling over with despair not long after I awake each morning, and it’s good to have an outlet.

 

Pippa Tandy in East Perth

 

In today’s edition of our tawdry daily The West Australian there is an article about a man jailed for `people smuggling’ and on the back pages, an obituary for Emilie Schindler, the widow of and collaborator with Oskar Schindler.

 

Abdul Hussein Kadem is reported to have paid $17,000 to get himself and his apparently stateless family to Australia. He is said to have collaborated with people smugglers by acting as a translator and go-between. A squalid arrangement perhaps, like the squalid arrangements of the Schindlers, but none so base as those made by our Prime Minister and his generals Reith and Ruddock at the expense of asylum seekers in order to ensure his re-election.

 

Even lower are the actions of Kim Beazley and the Labor Party. I have been voting Labor for over thirty years but not this time. We have been bullied into a ludicrous supine submission on the one hand and on the other we are complicit in the most cynical cruelty.

 

Both Liberal and Labor have made thugs of all Australians, and many of us do not seem capable of making the connection that what our leaders are doing to asylum seekers they will do to us next.

 

5. VOTING FOR DILLS

 

David Eastwood in Sydney

 

Margo, was listening to John Anderson on the radio this morning urging Australians to vote for “stable government” – presumably the Coalition, rather than casting the major parties aside to register protest votes for Greens, Democrats, One Nation et al. Naturally this is particularly pertinent in his case, facing a real independent threat.

 

How many times over the decades and in many nations have governments of “national emergency” been formed comprising all parties, with a view to developing a united non-partisan response to a threat? Heaps. We could argue that this form of “unstable government” is actually a better solution to dealing with our current economic, geopolitical and military uncertainty than either of the main alternatives.

 

I find it hard to take this election seriously when politicians indulge in this type of disingenuous rhetoric to suit their own personal needs.

 

So who can one vote for? Why?

 

6. OUT OF FASHION

 

Mary Travers in Potts Point, Sydney

 

The piece you ran yesterday about polling by Graham Turner yesterday prompted me to fish out an extract from my study of reporting government and the arts.

“The low news status of government and the arts can be seen in the reporting of the most recent federal election, in 1998. The day after the Liberal-National Coalition Parties announced their arts policy, the Melbourne newspaper, The Age, reported the policy release, quoted the predictable negative response by the Labor Party spokesman, but did not report one item of the policy. A few scraps of information appeared later the next week.

 

None of the arts policy of the Australian Labor Party was reported by the Daily Telegraph, which devoted a full page to the launch. Instead it ran a story on the former Prime Minister, Paul Keating, describing the current Prime Minister as the cartoon character Mr Magoo, and a second story about famous artists and senior Labor figures meeting at a hotel after the event.

 

The Herald did produce a short report of each party policy announcement, but no media gave an adequate outline for the public to judge.

 

Coverage of the arts before the 1996 federal election was quite different. In the six weeks of the campaign the arts pages of The Australian and the Herald reported some aspect of arts policy every week.

 

The drop in media interest in 1998 can be directly linked to Prime Minister Howard’s lack of interest in the arts. When Prime Minister Keating and Opposition Leader Howard launched their arts policies, even the political journalists attended the events. As a rule they rarely cover the arts beyond the occasional ministerial statement. And when they do the over-riding influence appears not to be the content of an arts news event but the status of the persons involved in it.”

 

On this basis I guess 2001 will be even worse than 1998.

 

7. MARGINAL SEATS REPORT

 

Richmond

 

By Simon Thomsen

Editor, The Northern Rivers Echo

In 1990, the NSW north coast’s political landscape changed dramatically thanks to a grassroots nuclear disarmament campaigner and a National Party leader with a philately obsession. Politics has been much more interesting ever since.

 

Helen Caldicott went up into the lush hills around Byron Bay, in the federal seat of Richmond, where three members of the Anthony dynasty have sat as members. Normally, the only time the hippies heard a knock on their door, it was the drug squad. Caldicott convinced them to tune in to the electoral roll while they dropped out.

 

In doing so, an independent almost ended the National Party’s 89 year reign in Richmond. But the incumbent, Charles Blunt was already in deep trouble, having spent $250,000 on postage during the campaign.

 

Labor won Richmond and the adjacent seat of Page, based around river towns of Lismore and Grafton, plus the hippie haven of Nimbin. Suddenly, years of National Party neglect were over.

 

Voters stuck by Labor for a second term before the reverting to the Nationals when Howard came to power. In his second attempt, Larry Anthony followed in the footsteps of his father Doug, and his grandfather Larry snr.

 

Former Greiner government minister Ian Causley won Page from Harry Woods, who promptly won Causley’s state seat of Clarence. After coming within a whisker of winning in 1998, Labor’s former federal member, the insipid Neville Newell, followed Harry Woods’ example by winning another formerly safe Nationals state seat of Tweed in 1999.

 

We like to hedge our bets.

 

The far north coast is a strange blend of traditional and emerging farming, new age and Seachange lifestylers. The average weekly income is $452 – two thirds of the national average. Unemployment rarely falls below double digits, and consistently hovers around the mid-teens. There is a high proportion of single parent families, group households, retirees – pensioners and self-funded – and Aboriginal people.

 

Real estate prices are skyrocketing on the coast. Only 30 minutes drive inland, places like Lismore, Casino and Grafton in Page worry about their future.

 

The traditional farmers have sugar cane, tropical fruits, beef and dairy. Local lawyers and doctors in search of a tax break plant tea tree, macadamias and coffee.

 

Dairy dominated the region for a century, and the ghosts of the butter factories remain scattered across the landscape as pubs and cottage industries. The once proud dairy cooperative Norco almost disappeared last year under a mountain of debt, surviving after asset sales. We don’t make white milk locally any more – Norco has pinned its hopes on being an ice cream manufacturer. This week it received a $1.1 million federal grant to upgrade its plant. One third of dairy farms have gone, along with 1000 jobs.

 

Richmond has the nation’s highest proportion of caravan park residents. That’s why Community Services Minister Larry Anthony looks so terrified every time Labor hammers the issue of the GST on caravan parks.

 

Byron has been screamingly green tinge and is not much fun for the Nats. The fought to keep big corporations and fast food chains out of the town, but amidst congratulating themselves, fret that their paradise is too popular.

 

The coastal town of Ballina, 20 minutes south, delivers strong support for the Nationals, but it shifted to the Page electorate, to the dismay of Larry Anthony, during the last redistribution of electoral boundaries

 

Nimbin is Nimbin. It has a serious drug problem, despite the finest aspirations of its residents. Backpackers bussed over from Byron for the day to try the local weed support the smack habits of junkies.

 

Lismore is a university town and the regional centre emerging from its rural depression and the withdrawal of government jobs and services. The city is pinning its hopes on innovation and a belief that herbal medicine could drive the rural economy. Like the rest of the tertiary sector, Southern Cross University has struggled to attract funding. It’s strong on nursing, environmental science and MBAs. It’s about to build a new residential college for international students.

 

Casino has an abattoir, Grafton’s survives on government intervention and tax concessions. Forestry is big, but despite the certainty the Regional Forest Agreements were supposed to provide, the Greens came away from the process feeling duded, and the bickering and protests continue.

 

While Larry frets that if voters don’t like the government his 0.8% margin means his ministry is first on the chopping block, things are not all smooth sailing for Jenny McCallister, 28, a union organiser imposed on local branches over a popular grassroots candidate. John Della Bosca has been fingered as having his prints on the move, and a bitter stoush between party stalwarts has been waged publicly in the letters pages of the local paper.

 

One prominent ALP office holder, Julie Nathan, has resigned to run as a `Labour independent’.

 

One Nation polled 10.2% in 98, and this time has a 60-year-old female taxi driver, Dell Rolfe, from the Tweed. Anthony is snookered by a agreement that ministers will not do deals with ON.

 

Byron Bay Greens candidate Jan Barham is a local councillor, proving she already has a strong electoral base. You can bet a meditation or basket weaving party will join the fray. Byron activist Fast Buck$ is keen to create havoc once again.

 

While John Howard is following in the footsteps of his mentor Menzies’ reds-under-the-bed campaigns to whip up fear, Richmond is probably the rural seat least likely to buy it.

 

Tomorrow: Page

 

8. WAR AND POLITICS

 

Sean Richardson

 

Mahatir Watch

 

This week the always straight talking Malaysian PM said: “Conventional war cannot overcome terrorism and defeat terrorists; it can only result in innocent people becoming victims.”

 

Hmmm. Depends what he means by “conventional war.” If he means forming the redcoats in line and firing muskets by platoon volley, he’d be right. On the other hand, the good Doctor may have noticed that he does not reside in a communist country. This is because the British and Australian armies successfully destroyed a well organised (communist) terrorist network between 1948 and 1960. It was called “The Malayan Emergency”. Perhaps Dr Mahatir was overseas at the time.

 

Lionel Hutz Still at Large

 

There has been much reportage in the last 24 hours on the words of al-Qaeda spokesman Sulaimon Abu Gheith. Of course, you should never take people seriously when they’re named after a Neil Diamond song, but here’s what he said: “There are thousands of young people who look forward to death like Americans look forward to life.”

 

Oh, Sulaimon (Sulai-sulai-sulai-mon), if you’re right, then it is proven that western civilisation is superior to your brand of “theocratic fascism” (to use Chris Hitchens’ accurate description). We too have young folk who look forward to death, but we call it “youth suicide”, consider it a tragedy and try to discourage it.

 

Here’s another quote, from Peter Baker and Susan Glasson reporting from Afghanistan: “The supply route fell to the rebels after 40 Taliban officers and their men defected in northern Afghanistan and agreed to cut off the regime’s main north-south route.” In days of yore, when information was hard to come by, we commoners were protected from most of the propaganda of our countries’ enemies. These days, it seems, every post-adolescent enemy cry of “I’m hard, me, HARD!” makes the front page.

 

Nevertheless, just because they say they’re the toughest bunch of death-loving supermen ever to change sides on a whim, that don’t make it so. Unless America does something very stupid indeed, the Taliban and al-Qaeda are going to lose.

 

Domestic Affairs – Burn Your Draft Card

 

Australians have never, ever, not even once, been conscripted to serve overseas. I mention this because others still seem worried by the prospect, including a letter writer to the Herald today. Apparently she didn’t hear John Howard’s reply to the question “Will you be introducing conscription?” It was a non-prolix “No.”

 

“That young whipper-snapper’s forgetting Nam!” cry the old hippies. No I’m not. I know many Aussie baby-boomers confuse their actual lives with memories of The Big Chill, but National Serviceman had to volunteer for the Regular Army before serving outside Australia and her territories and protectorates. This was also the case in World War II.

Slogan

Don’t panic!