Allan Fels is all class. What a way to retire: do an Australian Story drawing out the joys and pain of your family life and your work philosophy and modus operandi, and then, once the context is fully drawn, tell the camera you won’t seek another term as head of the competition and consumer commission.

As the face of the commission since 1995, he’s educated us all on our rights as consumers and stuck up for us when the big and not-so-big boys tried to con us. He’s forced business to obey the rules. Unions too – he said he and his family had lost Bill Kelty as a long-time friend when Fels threatened action against the unions during the wharfies dispute. A hard decision, he said, but the rules are the rules.

Throughout the program he reinforced the impression that he stands aside from the corruption of power and that he plays by no rules but the ones he’s been given in law. I knew someone like him years ago, Decree O’Connor, who headed the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal and took Alan Bond on over his $400,000 payout to Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen.

Until O’Connor no head had interpreted the law as it was written – winks and nods were the game. After she gave the Broadcasting Act teeth, the Labor government – Kim Beazley in fact – gutted the tribunal, turning it into a largely closed-door, powerless shadow. “Light touch regulation,” Beazley called it. In fact, it simply stripped the public of any power to hold TV stations accountable.

Fels has protected the commission from that fate, so far, partly because he is a star media performer – ever-present, considered, tough, a true believer in competition policy and in public service. As someone said on the show, he became “a brand”, sometimes more powerful that the big-time politicians because unlike them, he had the trust of the people, and unlike them, was unafraid to stick it up big business when necessary.

I reckon he was doing much more than a unique retirement statement last night. With just under two years to run in his term, he’s setting himself up to have influence in the choice of his successor. He’ll now groom his preferred successor, in an attempt to stop the government putting in someone who’d say yes to big business more often. If his preferred successor is working for the commission, I’d expect him or her to take over some of Fels’ media duties over time. An endorsement by Fels would be hard for the government to resist. Damned hard. And an Allan Fels ensconced in academia would be a powerful critic if the new head locked his doors, did his deals in secret, or hung back on consumer protection.

When Fels said he wanted to write on his experiences as commission head to impart what he’d learned “to future leaders in the public service”, he looked up to the camera ironically, as if he wondered whether there’d be any left sometime soon.

Whether you hated his zeal for competition policy or not, Fels oozed integrity. He said last night: “I don’t see myself as a hero, just someone determined to do the right thing.” And, I should add, without earning a super-huge paypacket. I hope his last big play to preserve the commission’s culture and his legacy will be successful. The Commission is one of our last bulwarks against big business running the country on their own terms.

***

Today’s issue:

1. Darren Spain, Noel Hadjimichael and Max Phillips on whether we really need a new political party and Darrell Rigby on why the Greens are the go by default.

2. Elizabeth Wertheim asks us baby boomers to become activists again.

3. James Woodcock and Ron Jones on John Crockett’s decision to stop reading the Herald.

4. Richard Moss, Polly Bush, Claude Mostowik and Elen Seymour on Tam Long’s critique of Tony Kevin’s SIEV-X analysis.

5. Dr Aaron Oakley responds to his critics on radiation and global warming.

1.NEW PARTY NEEDED?

Darren Spain in London

I’m a regular Webdiary reader. I left Australia in January 1994 and have since lived and worked both here and in New York City, USA. I’ll be 36 years old next month and expect to return to live in Sydney soon.

I’m approaching my eighteenth anniversary of working in the financial markets, the past nine of them out of the country. During that time the Australian political landscape has shifted, nay convulsed; Labor has lost power and later direction, we’ve witnessed the rise and fall of One Nation, the rise of the Greens and, it seems, the start of the demise of the Democrats. The policies that the Coalition Parties and Labor now hold also seem to have shifted such that I’m not too sure who their core voters are anymore.

Like many others I have no idea who represents my values now.

Over the past few years I’ve become more and more politically minded and willing to “Take A Stand” on some of the big issues that currently confront the country of my birth. I’ve never been a member of any political party, yet now that I’m financially secure I find myself considering joining and working for one, or perhaps becoming a political lobbyist on my return to Sydney in the not too distant future. The problem is I see no party or special interest group with a platform that represents my views and values.

Last Federal election I broke with my pattern of the previous seven elections of voting Democrat with a Labor preference, and became, in equal parts, both a reluctant Green and Democrat voter. (In the UK I tend to vote Liberal Democrat with a Labour preference).

This year your Webdiaries of March and mid-December 2001 have continually come back into my consciousness. There were a couple of days back then where we all played “Identity Politics” trying to define where we stood in the post-left/right world. Peter Parker’s piece which divided the landscape into Social Liberals, Social Conservatives, Economic Liberals and Economic Conservatives and attributed these characteristics to prominent people has stayed with me the most.

Using those labels I am best described as a Social Liberal and Economic Conservative. Mr Parker used this label to describe both Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam.

Where are the rest of you and is there a party of us?

Margo: I pulled together Webdiarist’s attempts to to work out new political categories in Defining your politics, at webdiary2001. There’s also a great exchange of views between One Nation Webdiarist Greg Weilo inRetrospective Hansonism at webdiary2001 and Christopher Selth in Left, right … how politics will march forwards at webdiary2001

***

Noel Hadjimichael in Camden, Western Sydney

Your analysis of the potential for a “party of five” Senators to emerge from the Democrats’ self-destruction (The Leeway Party) is challenging. Many voters in regional and rural localities would argue that there is space in the market for some “liberal-progressive” opinion in the Parliament.

Whilst the majors continue to be the main game – and people like me choose Liberal over today’s Labor – the desire for choice is strong. The German Liberals have generally played a coalition partnership role to the conservatives (in the main) or the social democrats (before the greens) on the basis of articulated policy demands, progressive social policy and pure support for marginalised constituencies (small farm holdings, professionals and anti-left civil servants). There are working precedents.

You have received many serious contenders for the name of the new party – I will throw in my commentator’s choice: Progressive Federals.

The tag “independent” has been seriously damaged by either shonky local government candidates or outcasts from the majors (read members sacked or pushed out for personal conduct).

The term “progressive” appears to be well received by the Webdiary contributors and would likely make the link to liberal values.

The term “federal” may appear reactionary – but this is not so.

Australia is and is likely to continue to demand a federal compact – national government with significant powers; state governments with both jurisdictional power and service delivery responsibility; and local governments able to innovate. Also, a strong feature of conservative voter support, especially outside the Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne triangle of power and privilege, is an acceptance and approval of effective federalism.

I am not saying to the “party of five” that they should become a party. However, the conditions appear to be favourable for such a development. If they became another carping critic of “everything” the Howard government stands for, a faction of the pre-1990s Left, then they would fail from the outset.

The political spectrum is not just left and right – ala the cold war – but complex and interesting.

On the social policy questions, we have seen the government take broadly described conservative directions. But the stem cell research debate has also opened up true distinctions between fundamentalist and practical liberal viewpoints.

On economic issues, you are correct to discern a conservative government that is more likely to protect economic assets from foreign interests than a Labor leadership committed to globalised capital. (But, hey, don’t even consider a McDonalds or Starbucks for the inner city strip frequented on Saturday…unless the Party machine gets a really good incentive).

There is no mandatory dogma for this potential new party – beyond maybe a commitment to liberal values, environmental stewardship and human rights. There is no demand that it espouse fashionable rhetoric for just publicity’s sake.

You can be a promoter of landcare, a small town conservative voter opposed to many of the results from privatisation, an opponent of the big-city Republic push and a cynic when it comes to the poor outcomes achieved by many aboriginal corporations and still remain a thinking liberal.

***

Max Phillips

So the Independent Progressives are to be born out of Lees’ treachery, Murray’s hissy fit and Ridgeway’s rejection. The ‘gang of five’ steal party status from the Democrats and assume the balance of power in the Senate. Meanwhile they establish a party front – structured so they retain absolute power and enrolling a bunch of powerless members to look legitimate. Why does this all sound like the script to a third world coup?

What kind of mandate does this new party have?

The representatives have all been elected by voters, but 95% of those votes were above-the-line for their former party. So they could possibly claim a mandate of 5% of the total Democrats vote.

They could claim their mandate stems from the “small l” Democrat voters and members. But this claim can not be quantified or easily identified (until the next election), and therefore can only have the same credibility as Sadam Hussein claiming to represent the Iraqi people or Stalin’s claim to represent “the workers”.

They could recognise that as the new party does not have a mandate. This choice would leave them with four options for action:

1) Resign from the Senate (allowing the Democrats to appoint new representatives for their seats) and run as their new party at the next election.

2) Exist as a separate entity, but vote with the Democrats in order to respect the mandate granted by voters at the last election.

3) Abstain from all votes.

4) Ignore any need for a mandate.

Options 1 and 2 respect democratic principles. Option 3 dis-enfranchises Democrat voters, but is a compromise that does not affect the balance of power. Option 4 is a blatant abuse of democratic principles.

Their decision will be a big test of their “small d” democratic credentials, (something most “small l” liberals consider important). If Lees’ and Murray’s delusion of grandeur continues and they decide to wield power devoid of a mandate, then they are as low as all those corporate fraudsters who’ve destroyed their company (party) while stealing money (votes/power) from their employees and stockholders (members and voters).

***

Darrell Rigby in Kiama, NSW

I have had the uneasy feeling since the Howard government’s ascension that we have lived a period of lost opportunities, of fear mongering ignorance promoted by an administration which has no serious grip on current Australian life. On things that give ordinary Australian’s lives meaning.

With Keating we had the vision of a united Australia , free and independent. By 2001 we’d have been a republic in control of our own destiny. We may well have achieved reconciliation , and may I suggest we would not have had the craziness of the Pacific solution and all the lies that has been born out of it.

Our country today is leaderless, and on both sides of politics there appears to be no-one with conviction and foresight who can grab the reins. I have been a long term supporter of the Democrats, but I’m afraid they have fatally injured themselves. So now we have the situation where a vote for labor is irrelevant, a vote for Howards libs is a giant step backwards and there is no Democrat party left to vote for.

My vision has settled amongst the smoke and ruins upon one person who has a firm and consistent view in step with the social attitudes of a majority of Australians. It’s Bob Brown. He’s the last one left standing.

2. CALL TO ACTION

Elizabeth Wertheim

Dear Baby-boomers and all those who were politically active in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, I feel the time has come to remind you all of your radical student years and youth. To ask you once again to stand up and speak out and support and encourage the youth of today in the crucial need for social and political voice and activism.

You the youth of the 60s, 70s and 80s know what change your voice and activism brought. Many of you who are now politicians, journalists, high profile artists, academics, government officials and social commentators began your careers in the universities. You believed in your right to speak and demanded you were heard. It is time to tell your stories to the youth of today and help to activate their energy and passion.

For this generation beneath their enforced silence have insights, ideas, passion and energy that will benefit us all. Their lives are far harder in many ways than yours. They will walk out of universities with HEC debt, low paid jobs, with substandard education and far less social welfare fall backs than your generation did.

Once their energy, passion and voice begins to heard you the may find that your generation’s loss of passion and commitment to justice, equality social and political engagement may be reinvigorated and you can once again stand tall and reclaim your lost right to the name of the Radical Generation.

Funnily enough I think a good reminder may come from one of the artist heroes of your time, Bob Dylan. I believe his words are most relevant but they, at this time also contain an ironic twist. For you are now the mothers and fathers, the congress men (politicians) who might well be “standing in the doorway and blocking up the hall”. Once again ” the times are a changin” but unfortunately in very different direction to the one that occurred in the 60s, 70s and to some degree in the 80s. I fear we will all “sink like stones.” for there is most definitely “a battle outside” and “the order is rapidly fading”. It is time for us all to “start ragin”.

3. STAY IN THE GAME, JOHN

James Woodcock

John Crockett’s comments on the SMH in The Leeway Party are not fair, as Fairfax has actually provided very balanced coverage on the whole asylum seeker issue. And it is not the SMH’s fault that “right wing intellectual” is an oxymoron in this country. With the possible exception of Mr Henderson, the other writers do more than rehash the shrill that they hear around some white trash front bar without even checking details or adding anything new to the debate.

Miranda Devine’s recent hysteria on gays destroying “the family” is a fabulous example. I do not blame the SMH for publishing such stuff as 1) it is really funny and 2) it is not the SMH’s fault that there are no Australian conservative commentators with any brains

PS: Thanks for publishing my rant on the ALP and the children overboard inquiry. Channel 9’s Sunday program on Australia’s “disruption” of asylum seeker boats in Indonesia has stirred up Faulkner again, although the bleeding obvious response to his call for a judicial enquiry is, “Why don’t you get the Senate to try harder???”

***

Ron Jones

Talk about puffery! Poor old Padriac, Imre et al dare express an opinion contrary to the pious views of of John Crockett and he promptly appoints himself a member of the “intelligentsia” and decides to take his bat and ball and go home and play with himself (ie boycott the S.M.H.)

Don’t worry Margo, there are plenty of us dumb-wits out here who, despite your moralistic finger wagging, will stay and play the game. I wouldn’t miss it for quids.

4. TAM LONG ON SIEV-X – REACTION

Richard Moss

I can’t recall enjoying anything in Webdiary so much before as Tam Long’s utter demolition of the disgraceful conspiracy theories about SIEV X, flimsily constructed from negligible evidentiary material on a foundation of bias and malice, and peddled by Tony Kevin and you, Margo. He leaves no more to be said on the subject, except to ask whether there is any possibility of you now dropping the subject, preferably in the nearest rubbish receptical.

His last lines also eloquently express a concern held by others, including myself, about the one-dimensional direction of Webdiary, which offered so much at the outset as a forum for a genuine cross-section of views.

**

Polly Bush in Melbourne

I’m trying to swallow this critique on Kevin in SIEV-X: Right of reply, and already I’ve hit a stumbling block. What is this “would-be-asylum-seekers” definition on about? Correct me if I’m wrong but I thought the term asylum seeker meant someone who was applying for refugee status? Is Long arguing they wouldn’t be applying for refugee status? (were they going on a fucking cruise?)

Surely it is acceptable to assume they were heading to Australia to apply for refugee status which would make them asylum seekers. Bugger this “would-be” or “passenger” crap. Angry. Confused. Thank christ for Peter Mares: “The failure to distinguish between asylum seekers, refugees and unauthorised migrants means that all are brushed with the same tar of distrust and illegitimacy and ultimately results in patently nonsensical constructions such as “illegal asylum seekers” and even “illegal refugees”, terms that have appeared with surprising frequency in recent media reports.”

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[Father] Claude Mostowik in Erskinville, Sydney

Tam Long seems to be way off the mark when s/he critiques Tony Kevin’s article on SIEV-X in SIEV-X: mystery unsolved. This article was originally a talk given at the Tampa One Conference at the University of Technology August 24-25. I was one of the conference organisers. I heard him give the talk in a very tempered manner. Tony was never at any time emotive.

Tony has been researching this issue for some time and thank goodness for his tenacity and perseverance in keeping this issue alive. 353 people are dead who wants to know why? I am sure that the Government and it seems even the Opposition would like this issue to die.

Tam Long criticises Tony Kevin for not taking on the people smugglers. I know that Tony Kevin is very critical of them but his intention was to get to the truth of why the people on the SIEV-X seems to have been abandoned. This is the point – and this is what we need to establish.

Tam Long seems to be emotive and needs to devalue and depreciate Tony Kevin as person to make a point rather than look at the facts and how we as Australians might be complicit in a criminal act. If we do not want to find out what happened and why it happened then we are complicit.

***

Elen Seymour in Sydney

Tam Long ends an interesting piece with the following quote: “Margo, may I close by suggesting that the credibility of your online column depends on broadening the contributors you publish and keeping them to accepted standards of objective scholarship. Reinforcing the prejudices of a sectional interest is surely not professional journalism or in keeping with the AJA code of ethics.”

Oh Margo! No no no no. Not accepted standards of objective scholarship! I will defend with my last breath the right for anyone to be an elitist wanker, I’m one myself. But please this is a forum for discussion, observation and occasional wit.

Objectivity, scholarly or otherwise, is of course welcome, but I don’t want would-be contributors to feel intimidated into not contributing. One of the things I love is the sheer volatility of the mix of scholar and non-scholar, wanker and pragmatist, right and left.

Please don’t close this down. If I want scholarly debate I’ll walk across the road to the University. If I want opinions from a wide range of people with a wide range of experiences and a wide range of viewpoints I’ll log in here.

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5. AARON OAKLEY FIGHTBACK

Dr Aaron Oakley

Max Phillips in his rejoinder to me (see Puffing the Greens, The Leeway Party) displays the kind of dishonesty I complained about in my original post. Firstly he misrepresents the original Watson claim: She talked about spreading Plutonium evenly around the world, not lining up everybody and injecting plutonium straight into their lungs. Secondly, his hypothetical is patently absurd.

Lets look at what he has said: “A couple of micrograms of Plutonium inhaled is sufficient to cause lung cancer. There are half a million micrograms in half a kilogram of Plutonium. 500,000,000 divided by 2 is 250,000,000. Therefore half a kilogram of Plutonium is sufficient to kill only a quarter of a billion people or only 1/24th of the Earth’s total human population (twelve times Australia’s population).”

Lets assume for a moment that the initial statement about plutonium toxicity is correct (it is not). In order to deliver the kind of dose Mr Phillips is talking about, we would literally have to line everyone up (that’s one hell of a queue) and inject just the right amount of plutonium into their lungs. Based on this level of reasoning, we could say that one sledgehammer is enough to kill everyone on earth! Just line ’em up and whack ’em on the noggin. Mr Phillips is treating a ridiculous hypothetical situation as though it was real (this is one of many dishonest green tactics I have encountered).

Mr Phillips claim about the actual toxicity of plutonium is untrue. The idea about cancer resulting from a microgram of plutonium comes from the discredited “hot particle” theory, where a single speck of the substance was eventually supposed to cause a cancerous lesion. This claim is shown to be false from the observation that following the 1963 Atmospheric Test Ban Treaty, there was no epidemic of cancer. (Prior to the treaty, several tonnes of plutonium were dispersed in the atmosphere. Needless to say, we’re still here).

Since 1963, we have witnessed one of the most dramatic increases in longevity in human history. Furthermore, followup studies of plutonium workers has shown that they enjoy better health that the general population!

Damian Shaw-Williams provides further examples of green dishonesty. He tries to tie global warming sceptics to the fossil fuel industry. This use of the “guilt by association” tactic says nothing about the truth or otherwise of global warming. Scientific truth is determined by evidence, not by political allegiance. For evidence, well-controlled ground stations and weather balloon radiosonde measurements show no warming since about 1940.

Mr Shaw-Williams says: “When the field is dominated by two such morally bankrupt players it seems a bit rich to level this accusation at the only party with a clear statement of purpose.” That purpose apparently being to decimate living standards.”

“On nuclear power, unless I missed a meeting there has not as yet been discovered a satisfactory method of storage of waste, let alone reducing decommissioning costs to the point where nuclear power is economically viable and the inherent risk associated with such facilities.”

Since when did the greens care about “economic viability”, Mr Shaw-Williams? Wind and solar energy are definitely not economically viable alternatives to conventional energy generation. Yet these methods are exactly the ones that the greens are pushing. For the record, I would say that there ARE low-risk methods for dealing with nuclear waste, it’s just that the Greens will never accept them.

The Sunday program’s investigative reporter Ross Coulthart reported on Australia’s “disruption” of asylum seeker boats from Indonesia on Sunday. His report is at sunday. Phillip Adam’s interview with Ross and SIEV-X whistleblower Tony Kevin is on Radio National’s Late Night Live at 4pm. For all the news on SIEV-X, go to sievx

Today, Tam Long critiques Tony Kevin’s analysis of the SIEV-X mystery in SIEV-X: mystery unsolved.

Pamphleteer polemics

By Tam Long

I normally enjoy reading the various contributors to your on-line discussions but I am deeply troubled by the latest contribution from Tony Kevin regarding our navy’s activities off northern Australia and the tragic circumstances of SIEV-X.

During historiography lectures my old history professor at uni taught me that in the choice between conspiracy and cock-up always put your money on cock-up – particularly in democratic societies and especially in ones where they play cricket.

Tony Kevin’s “paper” entitled “The Story of SIEV-X” is not up to academic standards in its research, analysis and argument. It is really the polemics of a pamphleteer rather than an objective account or an objective intellectual exploration of an important public issue.

Tony uses very emotive and slanted terms throughout and frequently ignores possible or likely alternatives and interpretations that would be contrary to the narrative he constructs and the line he pushes.

This begins with his use of the term “436 asylum seekers” in his first sentence. Why seize on this term rather than “smuggled people” or “would-be asylum seekers”, etc, or a neutral term such as “passengers”. His blanket assumption that they were all legitimate “asylum seekers” is just as wrong as the opposite assumption that they were all “bogus asylum seekers”, although, in fact, the UNHCR figures would indicate most of the 436 were not genuine. More to the point, irrespective of how many of them were or were not real refugees, they were all smuggled by an international ring of people smugglers.

Right from the beginning of his paper he fails to acknowledge the centrality of the regional people smuggling crisis to the issues he ostensibly wishes to discuss.

A few lines later he refers to another 353 “asylum seekers” on SIEV-X as having “drowned in international waters” (the actual location is not really known or knowable but was probably outside Indonesian territorial waters). However Tony steers clear of mentioning that this was almost certainly within Indonesia’s international zone of search and rescue responsibility.

Tony then goes on to say that SIEV-X was “almost certainly sabotaged” with the inference later in the paper that this occurred before departure from Indonesia at Australian instigation. There is no evidence for this and commonsense and the rational actor paradigm in international relations argue against it strongly. Is it not far more likely that the boat sank because it was so criminally overloaded by the people smugglers (and the bribed Indonesian officials in their pay) who seemingly forced the passengers aboard at gunpoint? Why does Tony not mention this real probability with the same certainty he alleges a far more unlikely sabotage?

He then goes on to describe Australian actions to combat people smuggling in very emotive and factually incorrect terms. He misdescribes naval boarding parties armed for their own protection as “armed assault teams”. He alleges that “repeated volleys of cannon and machine gun fire” are used. Apart from the impossibility of firing volleys from the single gun carried on most Australian warships, would it not be better to have accurately noted that interception of people smuggling vessels can involve a graduated series of steps that escalate in line with the degree of non-cooperation shown by the vessel intercepted (in the same way it does for fishing poachers or whalers in our EEZ or drug smugglers in our 12-mile limit).

And why is it that Tony then goes on to describe the “asylum seekers” as having the “courage to disable their boats”? Given their motive (emotional blackmail of Australia), and his earlier use of the word “sabotage”, why does Tony not use the word “sabotage” instead of “disable” in this instance? This is a clear example of the bias that saturates Tony Kevin’s paper.

He then goes on to accurately describe SIEV 4 as unseaworthy but fails to make the obvious connection with its eventual complete sabotage by its occupants, nor ask the question as to why its occupants chose to accept such an obviously risky illegal passage to Australia in such an unseaworthy craft in the first place. Tony then draws a longer bow by describing the obvious legal requirement to keep the passengers on the boat for as long as possible as somehow a “criminally irresponsible order”, before omitting to mention that it was the naval party aboard who provided the (ample) 60 minutes warning he describes to evacuate the boat. Tony completely ignores the huge volume of evidence, including videos, that shows the main danger to the passengers was their own attempts to hasten the sinking of the boat during their rescue by HMAS Adelaide.

In the next few paragraphs Tony sprays more emotive terms such as “contemptuous of their responsibility”, “left to drown”, etc, without any attempt at substantiation or objective argument.

Tony somewhat strangely ascribes Indonesia’s shock at SIEV-X simply to reports that the sinking happened in Indonesia’s national waters. Would it not be just as likely or even more likely, for example, that Indonesian concern was because of the way that SIEV-X was loaded at gunpoint in Indonesia before it sank? Or that, as no-one disputes that it sank in Indonesia’s zone of search and rescue responsibility but Indonesia did nothing to assist, the Indonesian authorities were deeply embarrassed? Or even because, as many of the rescued passengers said, after their boat sank they were surrounded by boats with searchlights (presumably Indonesian navy or police as we know no Australian vessels were anywhere near there) that did nothing to help them?

Tony then continues to weave his particular disparate and often contradictory threads by using more emotive and slanted terms – “official versions of truth”, “gross moral failure”, “duty of care betrayed”, etc, – before making the surprising claim that these “helpless men, women and children … had effectively put their lives in the hands of Australia’s border protection authorities”. Silly me, like most people I had assumed that they had put their trust in the people smugglers, but Tony Kevin with his clairvoyance seems to know more than anyone could possibly know of the situation and their intentions.

Of course Tony is careful not to mention the real gross moral failure of the Indonesian authorities for encouraging people smuggling, not stamping out the involvement of their police in forcing passengers on to the boat, or not reacting to a vessel in distress in their search and rescue zone. Why is it that Tony cannot bring himself to regard the people smugglers as criminals or indeed to blame them for anything? Why he doesn’t even condemn them, from his own professed viewpoint, as parasites exploiting poor refugees? Perhaps it is for the same reason that Tony’s paper never once mentions the very high percentage of his claimed “asylum seekers” whose claims to refugee status are subsequently found to be unfounded by the UNHCR or IOM.

In discussing the “ill-fated voyage of SIEV-X”, Tony goes on to admit that the “overloading took place under armed duress by uniformed policemen”. Funny how Tony’s account conspicuously misses the word “Indonesian” before the word “policemen”. He then concedes that the nearest Australian ship was some 150 miles away from SIEV-X when it sank, but his mention of survivor accounts contains no mention of their descriptions they were surrounded by boats who shone searchlights on them in the water but then sailed away. Even if these accounts are false or mistaken, surely they deserve some mention?

Tony then goes on to accuse Prime Minister Howard of various lies, especially in regard to the location of SIEV-X’s sinking. It would clearly appear, however, that Tony puts too much emphasis on the initial belief by many Australian officials that the SIEV sank in Indonesian waters. He therefore is wrong to describe bureaucratic and political confusion as to the location as “evasion”. It is far more likely than any other explanation that the confusion as to location is simply caused by genuinely conflicting information and problems with the passage of information rather than any negligence or conspiracy. Tony also keeps using the disingenuous phrase that the vessel sank in “international waters” rather than the far more accurate “international waters within Indonesia’s zone of search and rescue responsibility” with or without the helpful orientation explanation that this was just off the southern coast of Java.

A real long bow is then strung and plucked by Tony. His whole following argument is seemingly centred on Operation Relex meaning that Australia should constantly patrol, in a saturated fashion, the waters between Australia and its neighbours so as to guarantee that any vessel in distress that might have been heading to Australia or near Australia (even without telling us) would be rescued, even where the vessel had disobeyed international law and practice in its voyage planning, etc, and might be actively seeking to avoid detection. Tony ignores that such a ludicrous requirement would be contrary to international law and practice as well as commonsense. Despite this astounding supposition as to Australia’s responsibilities, Tony then has the effrontery to describe Indonesia’s search and rescue responsibilities as only “nominal”. Surely what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

Tony then goes on to misunderstand and misconstrue Australia’s attempts to counter people smuggling. Even though this is a wholly legitimate law enforcement activity (both nationally and internationally) he makes the supposedly breathtaking observation that AFP and DIMA cooperation with Indonesian authorities is a “secret” involving “paid informants” and “intelligence operatives”, and is therefore somehow nefarious. I would have thought that many law enforcement activities were carried out secretly in order to stop the criminals finding out about the investigation until the evidence was gathered and/or the criminals in question were caught. Maybe Tony Kevin’s experience as a middle ranking diplomat has allowed him to know more about effective police work than the police?

Incredibly, Tony then goes on to blame the Australian law enforcement agencies for the later sinking of SIEV-X because its “life-threatening departure was not impeded” by their activities in Indonesia. Once again he lets the Indonesian authorities concerned off scot free, especially those Indonesian Police who seem to have forcibly loaded the vessel. Tony Kevin appears to be arguing, somewhat paradoxically, that SIEV departures from Indonesia are really Australia’s fault.

In the very next paragraph he completely ignores that the AFP have no jurisdiction in a foreign country and blames them for not being “in control of what Indonesian police and others in Indonesia were doing”. Surely an ex-diplomat should have a better understanding of jurisdictional matters generally and the difficulties of international police liaison in particular.

Tony then moves his paper into “Elvis lives and has left the building” territory by inferring that SIEVs break down so often because Australia somehow sabotages their boats in Indonesia. Is it not far more likely that the breakdowns are the individual or collective result of poorly maintained boats, weather, unskilled crew and/or sabotage by the passengers as part of the emotional blackmail that they are coached in making by the people smugglers? Why is it that Australia is always at fault? How is it, according to Tony Kevin, that Australia can be so ubiquitous but so incompetent at the same time (but yet keep complex conspiracies a secret)?

He caps off this astounding diversion into paranoid conspiracy theory by suggesting that there is “no more convincing alternative explanation … for the ominous departure circumstances of SIEV X”. Maybe if Tony knew more about Indonesia, international law, military procedures, international search and rescue responsibilities and procedures, and the problems of police work, intelligence gathering and analysis, and bureaucracy generally, he would not fall prey to such silly statements and theorising.

Tony’s paper then drifts further off track. The entire section in which he attempts to discuss the handling of the AFP intelligence reporting from Indonesia merely shows his knowledge of intelligence processes must have been gained from reading Second World War spy novels. Tony does not appear to understand that not every national security problem has a foreign intelligence-assisted solution, or that not every knowledge gap can be targeted or answered by intelligence gathering (intentions are notoriously difficult), or that the information that can be gathered is often contradictory or fragmentary, or that intelligence analysis is rarely instantaneous or as timely as desired, or that (as with the case of SIEV X and especially the unknown AFP report of the 18th October) it is very dangerous to objectively analyse or assess the comparative reliability of single reports especially where they are uncorroborated by other means of intelligence gathering. Tony Kevin’s apparent marked ignorance of intelligence theory and practice and his 20/20 hindsight leads him to always assume the worst. It would surely be more probable that the intelligence analysts involved, and the decision makers reacting to that intelligence, were simply doing the best that was possible in difficult circumstances.

This section of Tony Kevin’s paper also contains some startling factual errors and examples of naivete on his part. It is simply wrong to say that Operation Relex never included safety at sea action because we have all seen the videos of Aussie sailors rescuing SIEV passengers in difficult circumstances (including rescuing them from themselves and the consequences of their actions). It is also surely obvious why DIMA and AFP witnesses to the Senate Inquiry could not provide information that was subjudice. It is not “strange obscurity” for there to be some measure of uncertainty about dates and locations.

All Tony’s omissions, conspiracy theories and general misunderstandings and ignorance then lead him off in full pursuit of the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) red herring. His supposition that someone, somewhere coldbloodedly decided to let SIEV-X sink is just simply untenable because it is contrary to the evidence, contrary to reasonable supposition and contrary to how Australian society and governance work.

Firstly, it is simply not possible to permanently monitor all the various ships and aircraft in your international zone of search and rescue responsibility even when they tell you that they are coming and advise you of their planned course and destination (its not a legal or moral responsibility to monitor them either).

Secondly, it is not sensible to launch expensive and complex airborne searches on the basis that a vessel may be moving into your international zone of search and rescue responsibility from an adjoining country’s zone at some unknown time, especially where the vessel’s course, speed, intentions or intended landfall is not known.

Thirdly, even if it was possible to send out search aircraft it is far more likely that no-one at that time made the connections between the separate scraps of information that Tony has tried to string together subsequently.

Fourthly, even if they could have made enough connections they probably could not have done so in time to realise that SIEV-X had sunk or would sink.

Finally, the nature of airborne surveillance planning, tasking and operations needs to be taken into account. In summary, to conserve resources, narrow the area to be checked and focus your search patterns, you patrol out from the adversary’s target (in this case presumably Christmas Island) and wait for them to come to you rather than patrol deep in their territory trying to find their (unknown) start point and subsequent (unknown) route to the target. This latter aspect is probably why no wreckage was sighted by the search aircraft (and they were not apparently looking for wreckage anyway).

Finally, Tony appears not to understand how the armed forces function. The ASTJIC, for example, is not an executive body but a supporting intelligence agency to the joint theatre headquarters in Sydney. Similarly, “NORCOM” in Darwin (actually HQNORCOM) is not subordinate to the ASTJIC as Tony describes. Tony makes the accusation that “action was frozen” at “NORCOM” but all the published evidence clearly points towards a decision being made that no search and rescue action was necessary because the intelligence available was so fragmentary and contradictory. Simple deductive reasoning using all the published accounts would tend to drive objective analysis along the same path. That HQNORCOM might have been able to realise that SIEV-X had sank (although no-one else did either) is tragic but hardly the stuff that merits Tony Kevin’s claims of coldblooded conspiracy and skulduggery.

Tony’s claim that SIEV-X sank in NORCOM’s search area is probably incorrect. Firstly, no-one appears to know where the SIEV actually sank. Secondly, it would be most unlikely that Indonesian territorial waters were within such an Australian responsibility and the boat may have sunk within those waters. Thirdly, in terms of search and rescue responsibility, it is unlikely that NORCOM could subsume Indonesia’s responsibility for such activities inside Indonesia’s international search and rescue zone, and all reputable sources appear to have assessed that the SIEV was within the Indonesian zone when it sank and was probably still well within Indonesian territorial waters (probably even within sight of the coast of Java) when it struck trouble.

Perhaps I could finish my brief criticism of Tony Kevin’s paper and theory by asking him six questions that any reputable paper on this subject would have covered in detail.

* Why does his paper not concentrate on or at least begin with the key issue involved – international people smuggling?

* Why does he simply assume that all “asylum claimants” are genuine when the evidence strongly indicates that most are not?

* Why does he never apportion any real responsibility or blame to Indonesia for any of the people smuggling problem in general or the SIEV-X and Tampa incidents in particular?

* Why does he never address the question why Australia and New Zealand are the only signatories to the 1951 Refugee Convention in the whole Asia-Pacific area, and why after 52 years do our neighbours still refuse to shoulder their international responsibilities in this regard (and apparently escape any condemnation for it)?

* Why does he have such an Australia-centric view in blaming only Australia for seemingly every ramification of what is actually a regional and wider problem?

* Would he be willing to see the longstanding international law regarding the interception of slave-carrying vessels extended to people smuggling vessels (so any naval vessel could intervene anywhere to stamp out the trade)?

Margo, may I close by suggesting that the credibility of your online column depends on broadening the contributors you publish and keeping them to accepted standards of objective scholarship. Reinforcing the prejudices of a sectional interest is surely not professional journalism or in keeping with the AJA code of ethics.

Take a look at the pdf image of page one of today’s Herald (it’s halfway down the right hand column of smh home page (there’s also a low resolution version). What do the three stories have in common?

At first glance, doom on all fronts – local, federal, international.

* The Liverpool mayor, ex Labor police minister and NSW Labor Right member George Paciullo, stands aside, as does big man in small pond, Canterbury Leagues Club president Gary McIntyre, amid kickback/conflict of interest/nepotism scandals over a development called Oasis, designed to deliver Canterbury 1000 pokies to fleece the poor.

* A report to the world’s 22 richest countries leaked on the eve of the Johannesburg earth summit (the one Howard can’t be bothered attending) that the world has lost 10 percent of its forests in the last ten years, helping to escalate global warming, that we’ll need 30 percent more fresh water by 2020, that less than 0.1 percent of the average income of the rich countries finds its way to poor ones, and that donations for environment protection and basic social services has plummeted from 35 percent of aid 10 years ago to less than 15 percent. We’re wiping out species of plants and animals with glee and global energy use will rise by 50 percent over the next 18 years.

* Asylum seeker Sharid Qureshi has been charged $26,460 – $130 a night – for his stay in the Maribyrnong detention centre, where he slept in a dorm with no door, was banned from having sex, endured a toilet with no door, two hour queues for a shower and one towel for the entire detention period.

Life’s a bitch, our leaders are stuffed, and there’s nothing we can do about it, right? World “leaders” are incapable of looking after our planet, our federal “leaders” treat the poor and disenfranchised like shit, and the locals we elect to look after our backyard and our footie clubs are burning our interests for self-interest. But wait.

Two courageous, persistent old-fashioned Herald journos Anne Davies and Kate McClymont broke the back of the Canterbury/Liverpool Council scandal with hard work and rolled gold leaks. Who leaked? Who knows? Maybe someone who wanted to make a killing and got frozen out. Maybe someone who’d had enough of the stench of it all. This is journalism at its finest, in the public interest. And the Herald is fighting for a constituency not traditionally its own – residents of Western Sydney. Clearly the competition, the Daily Telegraph, has been happy doing the cheap and easy tabloid thing rather than the hard yards in their heartland. And the Herald has let traditional investigative journalists do a job journalism has been gradually retreating from for a long time – holding the insiders accountable on behalf of the people they’re ripping off. In this case the Fast Bucks Development Club, and the Let’s Pretend Sport Isn’t Big Business Club.

There’s more – a wonderful tale of Canterbury footie club members realising the power is theirs to grab. They collected signatures to a petition at the Canberra Raiders game on Sunday – even Raiders fans signed it! – to force McIntyre’s resignation.

“McIntyre must go. We only need 100 Bulldog members’ signatures to call an extraordinary general meeting for the dismissal of McIntyre, and we’ve got 230,” said Michael Taouk, 27, of Redfern. A group of club members seizing their power circled Canterbury footie club yesterday to deliver the petition to someone with power. They got results. McIntyre walked out and resigned.

Down to bottom left of page one. Scientists and academics who’ve stayed true to science and the academy and refused to be bought and sold by big corporate players, and countless non-government organisations led and supported by activists around the world committed to change. For all its faults, the UN, in finding space for NGOs and daring to paint a big picture, is looking the powerful in the eye and telling them the truth. Not that they’ll listen, until they really, really have to. But the fightback has begun.

Bottom right. There’s pro-refugee groups around the country visiting asylum seekers in detention, raising money to defend them in court, holding rallies to commemorate the Tampa, proclaiming their beliefs with car stickers and signatures on petitions. People power means Julian Burnside QC and other lawyers determined to insist to the bitter end that every person in Australia has human rights and the benefit of our legal norms can take the government to Court on behalf of Mr Qureshi. Burnside will argue that the accommodation bill is unconstitutional.

So you can read page one two ways. Why not choose the latter? It’s an empowering feeling. Take a risk and take a stand. It might even be fun!

***

I just can’t get Labor’s close-down of the children overboard inquiry out of my head. (See SMH Connect, And the winner is…, and for the case against the reluctant witnesses and the damage Labor’s cave-in will do to our democracy What servants are for, June 27).

Labor Senate leader and chief inquiry prosecutor John Faulkner has all sorts of private excuses for what Labor has done – the Senate would have to put public servants in jail if they refused to obey subpoena, Reith wouldn’t tell the truth anyway, blah blah blah, but one fact stands out like a very, very sore thumb. NOTHING IN WRITING!

Webdiary is a forum where Faulkner can write at whatever length he likes a defence of the shut down in the certain knowledge that I’d publish it in full. He hasn’t even told the public in a statement why Labor’s spat the dummy and delivered the Government a blistering win and accountability a crushing blow. Nothing.

Maybe that’s because Labor hasn’t got a leg to stand on.

One example. Prime Minister and Cabinet senior officer Michael Potts has been twice scheduled to give evidence on his role in his subordinate, Brendon Hammer, calling a meeting with Commander Stefan King on what he might say about the fact that he briefed Hammer on the fraudulent photos within two days of their release by Reith. Potts has been postponed, now let off, yet his story is totally at odds with that of Hammer. We’re talking allegations of witness tampering here, folks. And we’re talking about PMC head Max Moore-Wilton’s responsibility for failures of administration in his department. Why the back-down, John?

Another example. There is a precedent for putting the hard word on a government staffer to give evidence to a Senate committee, and it was set by the government when Paul Keating was Prime Minister. The Liberals wanted to quiz David Busting on the spending and workings of ANIMALS, Labor’s propaganda arm. Labor said no, citing the so-called “convention” of big-party convenience against staffers being called. The Liberals – led by the now Senate leader and defence minister Robert Hill, the bloke who’s banning everyone he can think of who might damage the government from giving evidence – got the Senate to order Epstein to turn up. This is the precursor to a subpoena. The Government caved, Epstein appeared.

Yet Faulkner and co haven’t even sought a Senate order against Reith, his advisers Scrafton, Hampton and Hendy, a mere administrative assistant in Reith’s office called Lisa who handled the notorious captions of the fraudulent photos, and even the head of the defence task force formed to help the inquiry, Admiral Raydon Gates.

Why not call the government’s bluff? Why not release the independent report on the case to answer of Reith and Co when it comes in and dare them to clear their names? Why not, after releasing that report, ask health minister Brendon Nelson why he employs Hampton as his spin doctor when Hampton won’t deign to clear his name of suggestions he helped mislead the Australian people? Scrafton is now a public servant in the defence department – why not pressure defence department head Alan Hawke to redeem himself on the children overboard fiasco and order his officer to give evidence or refer him to the Public Service Commission for possible disciplinary action? Why not ask the lobby group for manufacturers, ACCI, why they’ve just employed Peter Hendy as their chief executive, when he refuses to answer questions on his activities on children overboard? Why not press defence industry company Tenix on why it employs Reith as its lobbyist and public spokesman given the case he’s got to answer that he lied to the Australian people? And Robert Hill on why he’s dealing with Reith on Defence? (See Craig Skehan’s brilliant story today on the Reith-Hill connection, and recall that Hill recently dubbed Reith “an honourable man”.)

And then there’s SIEV-X. There is no justification of any sort for Hill telling Gates he can’t appear. Gates is the new chief of navy. As task force chief he reviewed all the intelligence on SIEV-X. His evidence is vital. He made public comment on the matter recently. Why not suggest a Senate order for him to appear? And why not recall Admiral Geoffrey Smith, just retired, to explain himself? After all, the head of the Prime Minister’s task force, Jane Halton, who mentioned SIEV-X in passing in her evidence, was recalled for a detailed look at the matter when it became important. Smith mentioned SIEV-X in passing in his evidence, then got blown out of the water by Admiral Bonser – surely he’s got questions to answer?

What’s the problem, John? No guts? An untidy fit with Labor’s latest scheme to restore a shred of political credibility to a clapped-out outfit? Principle zero, as usual? Webdiary would love to publish your reasons for Labor pulling out. Are you game?

Hill raises no objections to Reith advising Tenix

By Craig Skehan, Defence Correspondent

August 27 2002

The Defence Minister, Robert Hill, says he has no objections to his predecessor, Peter Reith, advising defence industry company Tenix on its bid to buy the Government’s Australian Submarine Corporation (ASC).

This comes amid industry concerns over the value of Mr Reith’s knowledge from his time as defence minister before retiring at the last federal election.

At stake is a move away from competitive tendering and the future of billions of dollars worth of Government defence contracts, including the construction of new air warfare destroyers.

In an interview with the Herald, Senator Hill argued that advice Mr Reith now gave to Tenix was an internal company matter and not one for the Government.

He said the only restriction should be in relation to specific contract details of which Mr Reith would have had knowledge from his period as minister. However, one industry source told the Herald it was clear that the main reason Tenix had engaged Mr Reith was because of his previous government involvement in relation to the future of naval shipbuilding.

The shipbuilding industry is involved in intensive lobbying as federal cabinet prepares to make crucial decisions on a rationalisation program centred on the sale of the ASC.

Tenix head Paul Saltieri has been reported as expressing confidence that the Government will choose his company to acquire the ASC and it will then become Australia’s major naval shipping industry operation for decades to come.

Senator Hill has not ruled out building a wider consortium around the sale of the ASC which could include Tenix’s main rival, the formerly Government-owned ADI, as well as smaller firms.

However, the minister has also left open the option of the cabinet appointing Tenix or another company as the lead player, through acquisition of the ASC, which would sub-contract work to so-called “second tier” companies.

At a media conference on July2, Senator Hill said he had no problem if Mr Reith was “giving general advice on strategic matters” to Tenix.

However, Senator Hill added at the time: “I would not expect him to be involved in contracts in which he played a significant role in the development of the framework for those contracts.”

Before retiring, Mr Reith was engaged in drawing up policy proposals on naval shipbuilding rationalisation and the dumping of competitive tenders in favour of so-called “strategic partnerships”.

A spokesman for Tenix said last night that Mr Reith was now “providing strategic advice on issues relating to defence industries” to the company, but not on individual contracts.

Options for the future of the shipbuilding industry are canvassed in a report presented to Senator Hill by his department last week and he is due to take a submission to cabinet next month.

In the interview with the Herald, Senator Hill was asked about Mr Reith’s consultancy and the argument that he should not be advising Tenix on the Government’s forthcoming decisions on naval shipbuilding.

“No, I would say what he advises Tenix is between him and Tenix,” Senator Hill said.

I call myself a ‘reluctant Green’, forced to vote for them for the first time to take a stand on refugee policy. So what did people like me get for our vote? The first Green Senator for NSW, Kerry Nettle, gave her maiden speech last week.

Senator NETTLE (New South Wales)

I revel in the opportunity to deliver my first speech during a debate about bargaining fees, where people on this side of the chamber rise to speak in the defence of Australian workers being able to organise collectively in the workplace.

I start by paying my respects to the Ngun(n)awal people, the traditional owners of this land. I acknowledge the pain and the suffering that so many Indigenous Australians have suffered as a result of the European invasion of this country. I acknowledge that the price for the prosperity and the peace that we enjoy today has been overwhelmingly borne by the first Australians. On behalf of the people that I represent in this parliament, I say sorry for these past injustices.

The Greens look forward to continuing to work with Indigenous Australians to address both past and current discrimination. Only when Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians work together can the true potential of our multicultural society be realised.

The Greens bring a vision to politics in Australia and around the world that is based on four core principles: social and economic justice, ecological sustainability, peace and non-violence, and grassroots democracy. Communities in Australia and overseas are increasingly turning towards the Greens because we offer an optimistic and caring vision for the future.

People are sick of a lack of choice at election time. They are sick of an emphasis on self-interest and the predictable surrender to the power of profit. Increasingly, there is a need to restate the fact that we are not simply a collection of individuals, but people who live in a society where a sense of community strengthens our connection with humanity and the environment on which we depend.

As a young activist concerned about issues such as public transport and proposals to extend the tragedy of uranium mining in Kakadu National Park, I became interested in the Greens because I saw the Greens as a political party that was made up of community activists – people who were interested in the same sorts of issues as I was and who brought an activist approach to the work that they did in parliament and also in the community.

I define this activist approach as a belief that progressive social change is not only possible but vitally necessary. I see this approach reflected in the work of Greens MPs in chambers across this country and on every continent.

Greens MPs are community activists first, before they enter this chamber, and they bring that energy, passion and commitment to their parliamentary work.

History shows us that social change does not start in chambers like this; it starts in the hearts and the minds of committed and passionate individuals. It builds strength on the streets and in the community, and only then can it enter this chamber. I recognise and I celebrate the symbiotic relationship between activism inside and outside parliament, and I look forward to playing my part in achieving progressive social change through the work that I do in this chamber with other Greens MPs and the work that I continue to do in the community.

The enormous array of community activists that I have had the opportunity to work with over the last few years has been a constant inspiration to me. The commitment of individuals working in local resident action groups across the country truly reaffirms ones belief in community spirit.

Every weekend, countless Australians engage in activities in their local areas and people daily in the management of their land show that they care and recognise the need to live sustainably with the planet. The dedication from grassroots communities on environmental issues is not in question, but we are yet to see genuine commitment from the government and corporations to addressing the environmental crises that we all face.

I would like to draw this chambers attention to the shameful fact that Australia has the highest land clearing rate of any developed nation. Over 500,000 hectares of native vegetation are destroyed in Queensland each year. In my home state of New South Wales, agribusiness is bulldozing rare woodlands and wetlands with no intention of complying with federal or state legislation. This archaic approach to environmental management must be stopped, and the government must play a key role in ensuring that this happens. For every tree that community or government programs plant, 100 more are bulldozed.

The community cannot respond to this unprecedented disaster alone. We need national legislation to end land clearing, especially in key areas such as the Murray Darling Basin.

But we must not stop there. We need to go further and embark on a program of land rehabilitation. This means financial incentives to assist farmers in making the transition to sustainable agricultural practices. The ecological vandalism that is inherent in our current land clearing patterns is part of a phenomenon that is becoming increasingly familiar to all of us. It is part of the economic funda-mentalism that has blighted much of Australian society and rages now at a global level through the destructive policies of the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Again, it is the tireless work of community activists who are attempting to halt this ever increasing drive towards the corporate free-for-all that has misleadingly been dubbed globalisation. This process is, in fact, not globalisation but centralisation – the centralisation of power into the hands of a small group of corporate elites. There is nothing inherently global about this transfer of economic and cultural power.

A diverse multitude of people have taken to the streets to raise their voices against this corporate takeover, and they look on as vitally important decisions are taken out of the hands of representative, democratically elected parliaments and placed into the hands of unaccountable, unelected bureaucrats and CEOs of transnational corporations.

Many people are outraged about this loss of democratic control over decisions that affect their lives. This is an issue about which parliament should be ecstatic. People are actually jumping up and down about the importance of parliament and yet our legislatures are complicit in the silencing of the electors voice.

The rise of corporate globalisation is the greatest threat to our current democratic systems, and the increasing role of corporations in our governments and our democratic institutions amounts to nothing less than a creeping coup detat.

At the moment on the horizon sits the General Agreement on Trade in Services. The neo-liberal ideologues have repackaged and expanded the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, which was defeated by community pressure in 1998. The new brand name is General Agreement on Trade in Services. It is back on the international trade negotiating table, to which you and I are not invited.

The Greens are a part of that same international community movement that defeated the MAI in 1998 and we are back preparing to defeat those same ideas as they appear in the General Agreement on Trade in Services. GATS is a treaty which seeks to bind national governments to deregulating and privatising their public services.

Public ownership has historically proven to be the only way to ensure that essential services are provided to all citizens in an equitable way. This is done by providing the service on the basis of social need rather than trying to pursue private profits. The Greens recognise that the seemingly endless pursuit of privatisation is a form of social theft on a grand scale, with the transferring of wealth from the citizen to the already rich.

Decisions that are made on trade issues have a very real effect on people’s everyday lives. Yet this government continues to shroud these decisions in secrecy. The Australian government is going to the next round of negotiations at the World Trade Organisation behind an absolute veil of secrecy. It will not allow this parliament or the Australian people to know which of our public services it intends to trade away. Final decisions that affect our basic services will be made in the cabinet room or perhaps in the corporate boxes – but not in this parliament.

We already know that the government intends to sacrifice Telstra at enormous cost to the bush. And from leaked EU documents we know that it is under pressure to trade away Australia Post and our water services. But we do not know at the moment whether health and education are also at the top of the government’s hit list. We know that this government favours private education and private health over the provision of these public services, but does this government intend to make public funding of schools and hospitals effectively illegal by labelling it as an unfair subsidy under WTO trade rules?

GATS is designed also to remove the rights of nation states to set environmental, labour, local content or human rights standards. This will lead us to a situation where it becomes impossible for Australia not to accept an international nuclear waste dump.

Australia has the opportunity to take a progressive role, to show some leadership and some courage as a responsible global citizen not only on trade issues but also in relation to international conflicts. Right now, more than at any time in our recent history, it is vitally important that we speak out in the name of peace and that we articulate a message of true global justice that is based on equity and not on power.

It is nearly a year since we were all horrified by the attacks on Washington and New York. The time immediately after September 11 could have been, and still can be, an opportunity to reflect calmly and rationally on the reasons behind the attacks on the World Trade Centre. We need an international effort that recognises the growing inequities between the haves and the have-nots of this world and then seeks to redress these imbalances. Instead, we have seen an arrogant unilateralism from the United States through their so-called war on terrorism and the response of the Australian government has been sycophantic. In trying to out-swagger the cowboys in Washington, we have only succeeded in making ourselves look foolish at a time when we could have and should have been a calming voice in our allies’ ear.

A war on Iraq cannot be justified. The hypocrisies and the inconsistencies of such an aggressive policy are obvious for all to see. We do not live in George Bush’s comic book world of goodies and baddies. Trading with oppressive regimes is commonplace, and more weapons of mass destruction are developed and held illegally in Western countries than in any axis of evil. A war would also be blatantly naive in a political sense. It would be tantamount to throwing a Molotov cocktail into the Middle East peace process.

On a practical level, armed intervention simply will not achieve its stated aim of establishing democracy, and it is even more unlikely to achieve its strategic aim of ensuring total US dominance in the region. It is certainly not going to win any peace, love and freedom for the people of the US or the people of Iraq.

A war on Iraq would be illegal under international law; it would also be blatantly inhumane. The Greens will continue to fight any extension of this so-called war on terrorism. We recognise that we need a program for peace, not a rush to war. The first step in this program for peace is for John Howard, Alexander Downer and George Bush to step back from their warmongering rhetoric. There is a place for weapons inspections in all countries that develop weapons of mass destruction, but there will be no lasting solution in Iraq or similar countries until we restore their dignity and their autonomy so that their people can pursue democracy and prosperity like any other nation.

The Iraqi people must be given back not only the right but also the capacity to decide their own rulers, without intervention from the United States, who firstly armed and supported Saddam Hussein and who are now only interested in controlling oil supplies, not in achieving democracy in Iraq. We need an international effort to rebuild Iraqi society and infrastructure, which was deliberately destroyed to undermine the civilian population. Sanctions that have caused immeasurable suffering must be lifted. Peaceful solutions will always seem more complex than a simple attack, but it is only through peaceful solutions that we can achieve long-term success.

Of course, these solutions do not apply only to Iraq. It is our responsibility to address the appalling inequalities wherever they occur around the world, and the way to do so is through support for local communities and their organisations so that they can determine their visions of democracy for their country.

I had the honour recently of meeting a 24-year-old Afghan woman by the name of Tahmina. Tahmina and her organisation travel around the world speaking about the need to liberate the women of Afghanistan. They have the solutions to the problems that affect their everyday lives. They suggest a range of measures, including ending the international financing of fundamentalist schools on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I have not met the Tahminas of Iraq, but these are the voices that we should be listening to in the current debate – the local voices that have the solutions to the problems in their community.

I find it constantly inspiring to be around so many people, Greens and others, who believe that progressive social change is not only necessary but is possible, and who work so hard to achieve that end. I would like to say thank you to all of the Greens campaigners and supporters who have made it possible for me to be part of striving for this change, not only in the community but now also in the parliament.

Social change has always happened because of committed and hardworking individuals working together to achieve change. That is how we will achieve change now.

Together with my colleagues inside and outside parliaments around the world, I am proud to be part of a movement that is about so much more than opposing the self-interested and profit-oriented views of the major parties. Our movement is about vision, responsibility and an optimism for the future. I look forward to working with Bob Brown to present the Greens vision in this parliament and to building a movement that strives for a more just, equitable and sustainable society here in Australia and around the world.

***

Labor Senator JACINTA COLLINS responded: “I would also take this opportunity to congratulate Senator Nettle on a brilliant first speech. There were some things in her contribution that I would obviously not accept, such as that the Labor Party is self-interested and profit motivated, but I think there are many areas of common interest that we can share and look forward to.

Former Australian diplomat Tony Kevin, the man who single-handedly got the fate of SIEV-X onto the public agenda, gave a speech on the issue to a conference in Sydney on Saturday called “The Tampa: One year on”.

Here it is, a testament to the disgraceful decision by the unthrown children inquiry to terminate hearings without recalling the man then in charge of Operation Relex, Admiral Geoffrey Smith, to explain his failure to search for SIEV-X.

The story of SIEV X

By Tony Kevin

A chain of consequence links three events:

* The Tampa’s rescue of 436 asylum seekers from “Palapa” on 26 August 2001, and the Australian government’s failed attempt to force Captain Arne Rinnan to take them away from Australia

* HMAS Adelaide’s two-day encounter with the people of SIEV 4 on 7- 8 October

* The tragedy of 19 October, when 353 asylum seekers including 150 women and children drowned in international waters south of Java on its way to Christmas Island. Only 44 survived the sinking of this grossly overloaded and almost certainly sabotaged boat, now known as SIEV X.

After Tampa, the Howard Government resolved to stop any more asylum seekers landing at Christmas Island or Ashmore Reef. Detection of boats was never a problem – 94% of boats were detected under the old system of interception and taking into custody. Howard’s challenge to the ADF was to make people go back. The new strategy had been planned for months – Tampa was merely the trigger.

The Government ordered the Navy under Operation Relex, the new border protection plan announced on 2 September, to deter and repel asylum seeker boats beyond Australian islands’ 12-mile territorial seas. Navy ships were initially directed to use all means short of sinking boats to force them to turn back: loudhailer warnings, then repeated volleys of cannon and machinegun fire across the bows, then dangerous close-quarters blocking maneouvres, finally aggressive boarding actions by armed assault teams: all intended to terrify asylum seekers into returning to Indonesia.

Such tactics of intense psychological warfare failed, because asylum seekers had the courage to disable their boats, trusting that in the final analysis Australian sailors would not stand by and watch them drown.

An angry Howard government, forced in the end to accept HMAS Adelaide taking the disabled and sinking SIEV 4 into tow back towards Christmas Island, ordered that the 223 people including 116 women and children be kept on board their unseaworthy vessel during a 24 hour tow. This criminally irresponsible order contradicted every safety of life at sea principle our naval officers ever learned, but such was the power of politics over navy ethics that the order was carried out without question. As Commander Banks testified, a primary mission aim at this stage was to keep the people on their boat – to take them off before their boat sank would have been mission failure. (Certain Maritime Incident inquiry Hansard pages 180-2, 186-7).

The boat finally foundered on 8 October with only an hours warning. In a dangerous emergency rescue from the sea, it is a miracle that nobody drowned. The most important dimension of the “Certain Maritime Incident”, just as important as the cynical falsification of rescue photographs – has been curiously ignored by almost every commentator. For 24 hours, the Operation Relex command were so contemptuous of their responsibility for the lives of these people that Banks was required to keep them on board a wrecked and unseaworthy vessel, instead of prudently moving them to the Adelaide. The lack of concern for human life is significant, in the light of what happened with SIEV-X twelve days later.

Adelaide’s encounter with SIEV 4 shattered Operation Relexs deter-and-repel border protection strategy. The outcome proved to prospective asylum seekers that as long as they held their nerve after interception by the Navy, they would not be left to drown. The Indonesian Government was not allowing forced towbacks of vessels. The People Smuggling Taskforce in Prime Ministers Department reported on 7 October:

“A strong signal that the people smugglers have succeeded in transporting a group to Australia could have disastrous consequences. There are in the order of 2500 potential unauthorised arrivals in the pipeline in Indonesia awaiting transport, therefore this should be avoided at all costs.”

But then, the sinking of SIEV-X on 19 October changed everything. SIEV voyages dried up within days. The Indonesian Government – shocked at the damage to its vulnerable international standing of a sinking reported to have happened in Indonesian waters – decided almost overnight to accept forcible Australian Navy towbacks to Indonesia, as a humanitarian necessity. The Indonesian Foreign Minister announced he would host an anti-people smuggling conference in Bali. Two weeks later, a satisfied John Howard told Kerry OBrien in his election victory interview on 10 November that the flow of people had virtually stopped, and that this was “specifically attributable to the action we took on the Tampa “.

Howard added: ” Obviously the more difficult we make it, the less likely they are to come”.

Indeed. But the sinking of SIEV-X, not the Tampa episode, was the decisive turning point that both won the election for John Howard, and won his campaign to stop SIEVs coming. Because SIEV-X, not Tampa, stopped the boats coming. It sent a terrifying deterrent message to asylum seekers: if you attempt to travel to Australia using people smugglers, you may well die on the way.

Australia seemed, at least according to John Howard on 23 and 24 October, to have entirely clean hands. Howard claimed emphatically that the boat sank in Indonesian waters: Australia was not responsible.

After five months of painstaking investigative work by the Senate Select Committee into a Certain Maritime Incident, there is now much public evidence that the Australian Government and its border protection agencies do not have clean hands in the sinking of SIEV-X. 2000 pages of Hansard testimony and furnished documents make this clear.

What remains to be seen now is what our public institutions – our Parliament, our political parties, our national media, and we the people of Australia will do with the highly disturbing truths that have already emerged about SIEV-X.

Whatever happens from here on, the community owes a huge debt to the patient yet persistent forensic interrogations by four Senators in particular: Peter Cook, John Faulkner, Jacinta Collins and Andrew Bartlett. We also are indebted to Senator George Brandis for his perhaps accidental contribution to public transparency, in pressing for a great deal of previously classified information about the scale and methods of Operation Relex to be made public. His initiative in April to have the Australian Defence Force (ADF) table details of 12 naval interceptions began a healthy process of public revelation of remarkable facts about Australian intelligence gathering, disruption activity, air surveillance and naval interception hitherto carefully concealed from the public.

Today’s paper has no room for a chronological account of how the truth of SIEV-X gradually emerged from a fog of government misinformation and deception. The story is fascinating at several levels:

* as a detective story, of how persistent probing into initially minor discrepancies in the public record gradually opened up huge cracks in successive official versions of truth;

* as a story of a battle of wits and wills, between Senators trying to unearth the truth and a Government Executive determined to resist proper processes of disclosure at every step of the way;

* as a story of a gross moral failure of compassion towards helpless men women and children who had effectively put their lives in the hands of Australias border protection authorities; a duty of care betrayed by those authorities.

This paper summarises where key matters of evidence stand. The Senate Committee has apparently decided not to call any more witnesses, but has been granted extra time probably until the end of September – to complete its report. I am submitting this paper to the Senate Committee.

A good way to flesh out the detail is to browse the fascinating SIEV X website, www.sievx.com, and to view the three SBS “Dateline” features on SIEV-X. There has been courageous newspaper coverage by Margo Kingston, Cameron Stewart and Kirsten Lawson.

We honor the dead of SIEV X and their grieving families if we learn the details of this story, and show our political leaders and media that we care about it.

The ill-fated voyage of SIEV X

Most of what we know comes from Don Greenlees detailed and well-based account in “The Australian” on 24 October 2001. SIEV-X left from Bandar Lampung in southern Sumatra before dawn on 18 October. It was grossly overloaded with over 400 people on a 19 metre boat. The overloading took place under armed duress by uniformed policemen. There was a large crack in the hull requiring passengers to bail from the outset. The engines failed once it got out into the Indian Ocean on 19 October, and it sank soon after at around 2 pm, Greenlees says some 50 kilometers south of the western tip of Java. Survivors spent 22 hours in the water before being picked up by an Indonesian fishing boat at midday on 20 October, and taken to Jakarta where they arrived on 22 October. They met world media on 23 October and it became a huge story.

This chronology and sinking location were broadly corroborated by survivor accounts and by coordinates given by fishermen to the Jakarta Harbourmaster of where they picked up the 44 survivors. This general location is supported by Committee testimony that the nearest navy ship Arunta was 150 miles from SIEV X (Admiral Geoffrey Smith’s 4 April testimony) and 67 nautical miles north of Christmas Island (Smith’s letter of 22 May). Both sets of data put SIEV-Xs sinking location in an area some 30 to 80 miles south of the western tip of Java well into international waters and well within Operation Relex’s air surveillance area.

Yet John Howard still sticks to his untenable original claim that SIEV-X sank in Indonesian waters. Senator Hill has claimed variously either that we don’t know where it sank, or that it sank in or near Sunda Strait, by implication in Indonesian waters. Jane Halton, who headed the People Smuggling Taskforce in Prime Minister’s Department, says that the difference between territorial seas and Indonesia’s nominal search and rescue zone was never explained to her. She was questioned closely by Senators on 30 July as to how her Taskforce reconciled an intelligence report recorded in its minutes on 23 October, saying that the boat was likely to have sunk in international waters, with the Prime Ministers emphatic statements on 23 and 24 October that it sank in Indonesian waters.

Why is there still so much official evasion and inconsistency on where the boat sank? And why the emphatic uncertainty still claimed by official witnesses over where the boat left from, and when it left? Especially when both the media and survivor accounts since 24 October have presented a pretty clear picture on these crucial matters, most remarkably, when the whole voyage chronology and sinking location is retrospectively confirmed in the Halton Taskforce minutes of 23 October. Why so much evasion of the truth, unless the system is still trying to hide something very important here probably to do with the receipt and handling of earlier intelligence on SIEV-X ?

The people smuggling disruption program

We have learned through Senate questioning of Australian Federal Police (AFP) and Immigration Department (DIMIA) witnesses about the existence of a “people smuggling disruption program”. It is managed by a joint AFP / DIMIA “People Smuggling Strike Team”, which operates out of Canberra and the Australian Embassy in Jakarta. The Strike Team is proud of achieving its desired outcomes, to disrupt and thereby discourage asylum seeker boat departures from Indonesia. Until recently the Teams existence was secret.

The disruption program is well funded. It operates through cultivating working-level liaison, nurtured by generous gifting, with selected areas of the Indonesian national police. It also relies on paid informants and intelligence operatives like Kevin Ennis, whose unusual activities were publicly scrutinised on two Channel Nine “Sunday” programs in February which led to Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee testimony by AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty on 19 February.

According to Keelty’s 11 July testimony, virtually ignored by our media, the disruption program involves such activities as monitoring when boats are about to leave and where from. Crews and passengers are then rounded up at the point of departure. Passengers are put into supervised United Nations agencies care. Clearly this was not done in the case of SIEV-X, whose life-threatening departure was not impeded.

We know from Taskforce minutes that a decision was taken around 12 October – soon after the Adelaide encounter – to “beef up” people smuggling disruption program activity in Indonesia. But was AFP actually in control of what Indonesian police and others in Indonesia were doing under the disruption program? For example, when Keelty was asked by Senator Cook whether AFP would know of or condone such disruptive activity as sabotaging engines, Keelty replied to the effect that AFP would not condone but would not necessarily know of such activities (Hansard pages 1810-1812).

Even before the tragedy of SIEV-X, it is noteworthy how frequently asylum seeker boats experienced engine failures (eg “Palapa”) during the short crossings to Christmas Island or Ashmore Reef. And of course there had been some – relatively unpublicised – earlier sinkings and disappearances of boats before SIEV-X. This could have reflected earlier disruption program activity.

On the basis of what is now known about the people smuggling disruption program – its objectives, resources and methods – it is a possible hypothesis that SIEV-Xs doomed voyage may have grown out of a beefed-up disruption program, at a time of urgent political need to halt decisively the flow of boats before this made a mockery of Howard’s election pledge to stop the boats coming.

This is not to say that such criminal sabotage was necessarily done with the connivance or aforeknowledge of Australian authorities in Indonesia. Maybe somebody on the Indonesian side might have been silently doing a favour to Australian colleagues, and only told them afterwards.

No more convincing alternative explanation has yet been offered for the ominous departure circumstances of SIEV-X. This makes the question of how intelligence reporting to Canberra about SIEV X was handled all the more important.

Handling of AFP intelligence reporting from Indonesia

The Committee during May learned much about intelligence reporting that came down to Canberra about the departure of SIEV-X. Initial claims in April official testimony, that nobody knew anything much about SIEV X until they saw news of its sinking on 23 October, were undercut by testimony from Coastwatch Head Rear Admiral Mark Bonser on 22 May, and by the possibly accidental release in early June of detailed summary minutes of the People Smuggling Taskforce in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Senators thereby ascertained that there had been six AFP reports from Indonesia on SIEV-X between 14 and 22 October. They learned also that SIEV-X (then designated as SIEV 8, until the Halton Taskforce concluded this boat had definitely sunk, when this number was transferred to another boat in the arrival series) was discussed in the Taskforce on at least six daily meetings, starting on 18 October.

Starting on 22 May, official testimony began to refer to many conflicting reports on SIEV-X: as a result of which it was claimed that nothing could be said conclusively at all about when it had left, where from, or even if it existed. The nature of evidence shifted dramatically, from claims of zero information to claims of an excess of conflicting information, as an explanation for why no safety of life at sea action was ever undertaken by Operation Relex.

Senators still confront a vital information black hole. There has been no testimony on the content of AFP reports sent down to Canberra regarding SIEV-X, between the reported time of its departure early on 18 October and the receipt in Jakarta of the one so far admitted intelligence report in the evening of 19 October, that was phoned through to Coastwatch in Canberra at 0930 on 20 October. What did the 18 October AFP report say?

AFP and DIMIA witnesses on 11 July firmly declined to give such information, both on grounds of classified intelligence and also that it could jeopardise upcoming possible legal proceedings against the alleged people smuggler Abu Quessai.

Keelty did testify that all the information that may have led to the conclusion that SIEV-X was in danger was not obtained by AFP until after SIEV-X sunk. So it would seem that if any intelligence operative or informant witnessed or was told about the manifestly unsafe departure of SIEV X in the early hours of 18 October, this was not passed to AFP until the evening of Friday 19 October. And yet we know there was an AFP report on 18 October. We just don’t know what was in it and how it was responded to.

In relation to the AFP intelligence report that came down on 20 October – which we only know about thanks to Admiral Bonser and which I will return to in a moment – Keelty declined for the same legal reasons to express a view on whether the AFP considered there might be a possible safety of life at sea situation.

Yet the Committee had already established from Bonser’s testimony (CMI Hansard page 1661 and supplementary letter) that this AFP report stated that a small and overcrowded boat had departed with over 400 people on board, and that some passengers had been unwilling to be boarded; and that an AFP liaison officer Kylie Pratt had conveyed a personal view to Bonser that the vessel may be subject to increased risk due to the numbers of people reportedly on board. It is still being claimed by official witnesses that despite the detail in this report, it did not say where SIEV-X had left from. Again, we see that strange obscurity.

During those two crucial days while SIEV-X was sailing south through Sunda Strait towards its doom, there was obviously some specific SIEV-X intelligence reaching Canberra. We know this from references to SIEV-Xs expected arrival in the People Smuggling Taskforce summary minutes from 18 October onwards, and from the fact that Australian authorities had expected SIEV-X to arrive at Christmas Island by Sunday 22 October. It therefore had to be known that SIEV-X had left on Thursday, the journey normally taking such boats three days.

If some Australian authorities knew by 18 October of the departure from Bandar Lampung on that day of a small and overcrowded vessel carrying over 400 people, why did such a report not trigger a Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) precautionary air search of the area of the Indian Ocean nearest to Sunda Strait, ie the northwest quarter of the Operation Relex air surveillance zone?

This question of official negligence of a SOLAS requirement is at the heart of the issue. Knowing more about the content of the AFP intelligence reports and how they were handled is now the key to unlocking the mystery.

We know that raw intelligence from AFP and DIMIA sources in Indonesia was normally “packaged” by the AFP/DIMIA Strike Team. This packaged product was normally then passed from the Strike Team to the Australian Theatre Joint Intelligence Centre (ASTJIC) for passing to Operation Relex.

Did the Strike Team suppress, or did they dilute beyond possible recognition of SOLAS implications, reports sent down from Indonesia prior to 20 October regarding SIEV-X, before such material was sent to ASTJIC and the Operation Relex command? Or did the Strike Team forward accurate and complete processed intelligence reports to ASTJIC, and thence to the Operation Relex command? Who is responsible for the SOLAS failure – AFP informants, the AFP/DIMIA Strike Team, ASTJIC, Operation Relex? We still don’t know.

But given Keelty’s stated legal constraints of the case against Abu Quessai, Committee Senators cannot now get a public answer. This situation, by preventing access to the truth on a key matter of accountability for the tragedy of SIEV-X, leaves the reputations of many agencies and persons under question. Will the final report leave these questions unanswered?

What did Operation Relex and NORCOM do?

The AFP 20 October report, phoned through to Bonser of Coastwatch by Kylie Pratt at 0930 on Saturday 20 October, was immediately passed on to ASTJIC. ASTJIC sent urgent signals to Operation Relex and to its northern field command, NORCOM.

But there, further action was frozen. According to documents provided by Senator Hill on 4 July, NORCOM on 20 October assessed that due to its overcrowding, the vessel would travel slowly and therefore might arrive after the initially expected arrival date of 21 October. On 22 October, NORCOM assessed that the vessel had returned to Java because of unfavourable weather and overcrowding.

So, incredibly and tragically, at no time did NORCOM ever order any SOLAS-oriented search for SIEV-X though it was in their search area. The RAAF Maritime Patrol Group Commander Philip Byrne testified on 30 July that the RAAF surveillance flight crews were told nothing on 20 October about the 20 October AFP report. He said they were briefed on the night of 20 October in preparation for the next days flight; but that briefing was so vague and watered-down that it did not trigger a SOLAS search on 21 October. All surveillance flights took place absolutely as normal, with no SOLAS adjustments to normal procedure. Byrne said a SOLAS search would have used different methods.

Flight charts provided by Senator Hill on 4 July show that on 19 October, ORION flight 1 made radar contact with what might well have been SIEV-X at 0919. ORION flight 2 made contact at 1930 with what might have been the wreckage of SIEV-X and the (widely reported by survivors) observing boats. But since there was, according to the records furnished by Senator Hill, no AFP intelligence about SIEV X available to NORCOM on 19 October, Orion crews did not know they should be looking for it.

Senators were unable to question the NORCOM command on its crucial decisions not to order a SOLAS-oriented air surveillance for SIEV-X on 19 or 20 October. Authors of the documents sent in by Senator Hill on 4 July have not been examined in public hearings of the Committee. Initially promised testimony by Admiral Raydon Gates, who had reviewed all the intelligence and has now replaced Admiral Smith as Chief of Navy, was blocked by Senator Hill despite repeated Committee requests for him to appear.

So where might the Senate report end up? I do not know. I know where I end up.

Here is Australias largest-ever maritime surveillance and naval interception program in the sea-air gap, supported in Indonesia by a major and intrusive people smuggling disruption program and a major intelligence operation.

The mission is to keep asylum seekers away from Australia. They are the enemy. Like all enemies in war, they must be dehumanised. They cannot be acknowledged as people. Until they arrive, until they require Jane Halton’s Committee to think about logistical issues like tents and food, they are just military abstractions – traces on a radar screen.

If they arrive, so be it. If they do not arrive, they have either turned back or they have sunk. Either way it does not matter, because they did not come here. So they are not our problem. Our safety of life at sea obligations do not apply to these people. We did not invite them to come to Australia. So we do not have to think of them as men women and children dying in the water. As long as we don’t see them or get a radio distress signal from them, we can ignore them.

I am curious as to how such attitudes became prevalent in Operation Relex and its supporting agencies. Did people have to be politically indoctrinated to this level of callousness, or did it grow naturally out of the situation? Was it there already in the ADF and administrative culture? What happened to our defence forces traditional decency and honour? When and how did our border protection agencies stop thinking of asylum seekers as fellow human beings for whom we had a natural duty of care?

Issues of Senate privilege

How should the Senate deal with repeated examples during this long enquiry of a deep lack of respect for its powers and responsibilities, from a Minister who is himself a senior Senator? The withholding of key witnesses like Admiral Gates; the manipulation of key information, eg the RAAF surveillance maps and Operation Relex data which were selectively leaked many days in advance to some media, so as to lessen their news impact when eventually tabled; the disparaging of the Committee’s role – where does this leave our fragile system of parliamentary scrutiny over an ever more powerful and arrogant political executive?

The role of the media

It is still not easy to interest major media in this story. Even after June, when there was already a well documented trail of unanswered questions and contradictions, there is still a disposition in some editorial offices to shy away from the subject. There seems a strange reluctance to confront this distasteful reality. The story may just be too frightening, in what it says to us about what our country is becoming.

I hope this might change when this Senate Committee submits its report. I hope the report will shock our nation. Even though the Committee has laboured under serious information denials, it by now has the wherewithal to produce a credible and deeply challenging report.

In my opinion, the challenge now before the Committee – which has done a heroic job to date – is this. Will its report clearly point to the large moral failures involved in SIEV-X, or will it attribute the tragedy basically to administrative failures: shortcomings in communications, divided command structures etc? I pray that it will take the former course.

Hi. I had a wow of a holiday in Byron Bay after its annual writers festival, where the audience played the starring role. A great vibe at an Australian writers only event where 17,000 people turned up and got right into it. Cripes, I got my hope back! So a thank you to festival organiser Jill Eddington for the invite – I’ll be back next year in the audience.

It’s true what they say about Byron – magic happens. I’m even looking forward to the rest of the working year, whatever horrors it brings. Thanks to those who emailed to say they were missing Webdiary – it was a nice way to ease back in.

I’ve just sent Democrats name-game winner Gerry Orkin, a Canberran, his prize for Murray’s Darling Party- two autographed photos of Meg Lees’ central Australia sojourn to decide her future. We’ve put the six photos she sent us to chose from in Webdiary.

Today we did a pilot for what we hope will be a regular video chat show on smh.com.au, working title SMH Connect. I interviewed Herald investigative journo Kate McClymont on the blockbuster yarn she and Anne Davies broke on the Canterbury Bulldogs rugby league team – how they cheated and by how much, and the red hot development deal called ‘Oasis’ the club is into with the Liverpool council. It’s a classic expose of how Sydney does business (sport this ain’t). The interview is on the home page.

I’m hoping the video thing will have two strands. I’d like to interview Herald journos across the paper on hot news, hot comment and hot media trends. This way, you’ll get to know the journalists who work for you, our readers, and get an idea of what happens behind the scenes in the newsroom and how stories happen and why.

The second strand will be interviews (and maybe debates) on current issues with real people – including Webdiary contributors.

While producer Vanessa Wilson and tech-head Adrian Alback are tweaking and developing the technical stuff there’s little room for direct input from you, although we’re hoping that in time you’ll be able to ring in questions and talk direct to the talent. At the moment, it has to be prerecorded and processed before being posted – in time we hope to do it live.

I’ll interview Kate or Anne tomorrow around 1pm on the latest Doggiegate developments, so if you’ve if got a question email me before then. We’d love your ideas on content, presentation and a final name for the show.

***

My last entry before holidays, And the winner is … included a bitter rave on Labor closing down the unthrown children/SIEV-X inquiry. Several readers emailed Simon Crean to protest, and he’s distanced himself from the cave-in by claiming it is the Senate inquiry members’ decision. Since Labor and the Dems have the numbers, Simon is indulging in a pathetic distancing exercise, but what’s new with old, old Labor? You’ll find the case against Peter Reith and other reluctant witnesses in What servants are for (June 27), as well as a piece by public service expert John Nethercote on the systemic damage Labor’s gutless stance will inflict on the people’s power to hold their government accountable through the Parliament they elect.

Judith Quilter wrote:

Dear Margo,

I read your article regarding the ALP giving in on the children overboard inquiry and wrote to Simon Crean, who replied and told me to check my facts as this is not so. Where do you get your information from? I realise you journalists are all alike and we the public should take very little notice of you. I just find all the hysteria for the Coalition and the antipathy for the ALP rather disquieting. I do believe that Simon Crean is a much stronger character than the previous leader and I think it is time the Press gave him a go. However I guess while John Howard goes on his trips with his large retinue we will hear little criticism.

…

Dear Judith,

Hi. Confirmed it with Labor inquiry people, Lib inquiry people, and the secretariat. Can you send me Crean’s reply? Would love to publish it. I hope they change their mind, but doubt it.

…

Dear Margo,

Herewith the reply. I do realise that John Faulkner has done a good job. It looks like the ALP might be hard working at the moment, but that is what Kim Beazley should have been doing for the past 6 years. I must say I do feel empathy for Simon Crean. I think the media has really sucked up to John Howard.

…

Dear Ms Quilter,

Please check your facts before you accuse us of being craven. We have pressed, and are continuing to press for the truth at the children overboard inquiry. The public hearings have ended, at the committee’s decision, not ours, and if necessary the committee can reopen them. The committee is now continuing its consideration of the issues and its conclusions , and the Labor members will continue to press for the truth to be told.

It is obvious that you feel strongly about this, as do we all, but this does not mean you can malign honest and hardworking Labor members of this committee.

SIMON CREAN

…

For the record, the unthrown children/SIEV-X report was to be handed down on Thursday. The draft minority report is ready, but the Liberal inquiry members successfully sought a delay to September 25 so they could draft a minority report.

Here’s the rotten rub. Labor Senator John Faulkner worked hard earlier this year to convince journalists that Labor hadn’t walked away from the big call – to subpoena Peter Reith and key ministerial and prime ministerial staffers to give evidence. You’ll recall there were several media reports that Labor was ready to subpoena Reith and co to get the truth. Instead, Labor came up with an unprecedented ploy.

It asked the Clerk of the Senate, Harry Evans, to recommend an independent expert to assess the evidence, decide whether any of the reluctant witnesses had a case to answer and, if so, to set out that case. Labor argued that the independent report would put pressure on the witnesses to front up and defend themselves. If they didn’t, Labor would have the moral authority to go in hard, as the Government could not claim that the case against the witnesses was only political.

Faulkner specifically told me and others he did not rule out subpoenas if Reith and co maintained their refusal to account for their actions after the independent report was completed.

I bought the line. Sucker punched. Now, the draft report is ready BEFORE the expert, Stephen Odgers SC, has even sent in his report.

So the last word should go to Liberal Senator George Brandis, who, it must now be said, has brilliantly led the defence team at the inquiry.

“The independent report was a completely confected excuse which you were silly enough to swallow – that this was a bona fide attempt to advance the committee’s work,” Brandis told me today. “It was nothing but a red herring to get the Labor Party over the embarrassment of not being prepared to exercise the subpoena power when it had insisted for months that these people must give evidence.”

“One the Liberal Senators called their bluff, they ran away at a million miles an hour.”

Brandis called their bluff when Dems Senator Andrew Bartlett moved a motion at a private meeting of Senate inquiry members that the reluctant witnesses be subpoenaed to appear. Brandis specifically conceded that the committee had the power to do this, and the three Liberal committee members abstained. Labor voted against, so Bartlett, and the Australian people, lost.

Brandis reminded me today that the inquiry “opened the batting between Crean and Howard after the election – look at how comprehensively Crean has wrong-footed himself.”

Personally, I just don’t believe that John Faulkner caved in off his own bat. He’s put too much hard work and passion into it – particularly on the SIEV-X tragedy – to do so. I reckon he’s been rolled.

***

Finally, Webdiarist Noel Hadjimichael in Camden welcomed me back today with his list of hot topics.

“I hope the break was productive and beneficial. What should the Webdiary tackle at the moment?

“I would suggest one of three topics that have got the potential for substantial “mums and dads” feedback:

(a) the tormented “reform” environment for the ALP – pushing for greater transparency and membership involvement on the one hand whilst allowing another head office imposed nominee for the first byelection since Hawke/Wran (Margo: Anyone in Wollongong who’d like to report this byelection, and perhaps explain why Labor factional heavies have imposed a candidate, disenfranchised local branch members and generally behaved as the thugs Crean’s reforms are supposed to disempower?)

(b) the important debate over stem cell research (with both major parties divided into “conscience vote” lobbies)

(c) the powerful and emotion-charged public response to the 55 year sentence for the gang rape leader (overlaid with lashings of questioning over multiculturalism etc).

I look forward to your renewed leadership of this valuable interface between journalism and its marketplace consumers (the mums and dads).”

…

Noel emailed just before George Pell stood down as head of the Catholic Church in Australia after sex allegations against him. Add (d)

OK, let’s do it.

Labor is a shell of a party, sure, but the lack of guts and integrity it’s shown in the children overboard inquiry is something else again. Its decision to capitulate to systematic government obstruction rather than do everything in its power to force the main players in the scandal into the witness box is a stain on the Senate and an awful blow to the accountability of government to the people.

Labor Senators have tortured mere public servants for days on end, humiliated powerless bit players and irrevocably harmed brilliant public service careers. In the meantime, the people who know the truth and lied about it, covered it up, and pressured the chief of the navy to mislead the public have senior positions in government and the private sector. Peter Reith is a consultant to a defence firm using his cozy government contacts to best financial advantage.

The Government rewards its protectors – the men who ensure the buck stops nowhere and that the unethical prosper.

Cabinet banned crucial staff advisers to Peter Reith – Peter Scrafton, Peter Hendy and Ross Hampton from giving evidence. Defence Minister Robert Hill went even further, banning a mere public service secretary in Reith’s office at the time from giving evidence about the processing of the captions on the notorious photos Reith used to convince the Australian people he had proof of the lie that asylum seekers had thrown children overboard.

When the SIEV-X tragedy hit the inquiry radar, defence minister Robert Hill had the gall to ban the head of the defence force task force formed specifically to assist the inquiry, Admiral Raydon Gates, from giving evidence. Gates had personally reviewed all intelligence reports of the movements and condition of SIEV-X for the inquiry.

Legal advice from the clerk of the senate, Harry Evans, makes it crystal clear the Senate can direct the recalcitrants to give evidence, and subpoena them if necessary. There is also nothing to stop the man whose behaviour is most in question, Peter Reith, from being ordered to appear. Reith, of course, is prepared to go to the High Court if necessary to avoid accountability to the Australian people.

Labor Senate leader John Faulkner was concerned not to create uncomfortable precedents for a future Labor government, and (supposedly) anxious to avoid the possibility that the Courts would water down the Senate’s powers to compel witnesses to appear.

He sold his interim plan – to get an independent assessor to compile the case against the men who haven’t the guts to account for their actions – as a means to pressure them to appear before considering more drastic action.

But now it’s all over, even before the assessor’s report has been received. Yesterday’s public hearing, according to inquiry Senators and the committee secretariat, was the last, with the report to be handed down on August 20.

Perhaps it’s the fact that the politics isn’t instantly favourable to Labor – most Australians don’t want to know for sure if Howard’s government lied to them during the election campaign, and whether the defence force showed callous disregard for the lives of asylum seekers on board SIEV-X.

But this is a matter of much greater moment than short-term public opinion. It is about the integrity of government itself, the limits on lying to win office, and what mechanisms the people, through their parliament, have to enforce integrity in government.

Unless Labor changes its mind, the Government has created precedents which mean future governments can, at whim, ban ministerial staffers, public service secondees to minister’s offices – advisory and merely administrative – and members of the defence force from giving evidence. It can even stop public servants being accountable for their actions after they leave minister’s offices.

Labor can’t be concerned that the Senate’s powers might be watered down in any court action. Capitulation is worse than taking that risk – it renders Senate power illusory by default.

Courtesy of Labor, a black hole of accountability has been opened which will swallow future attempts to force the buck to stop somewhere in government. Minister’s staffers can order public servants to do anything, keep anything from their ministers, tell their ministers and not have to tell that to the public, in fact destroy any reasonable chance for the public to get near the truth of scandals.

As for SIEV-X, to close down its inquiry into the tragic deaths of 353 asylum seekers without recalling the man whose false evidence on the matter exposed an attitude of callous indifference and sheer incompetence in the defence force’s Operation Relex, is a betrayal of the families of the dead. Admiral Geoffrey Smith’s evidence has been shot to pieces by later defence witnesses, yet Labor has decided not to call him to account.

Who cares? Certainly not Labor, a cheap and nasty relic of a once great political movement.

Postscript: After confirming the closure of the inquiry yesterday, Labor suddenly hedged its bets late today. Asked for an official comment by smh.com.au, Senator Faulkner backtracked a little late today. “The inquiry has not closed down,” he now says. “The committee awaits answers to further questions on notice including email traffic from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.” We’ll see.

Paul Murray, the former editor of The West Australian newspaper who hosts a talkback program on Radio 6PR, advises that One Nation and the Dems are walking the same walk.

“Pauline Hanson has been in WA over the weekend for the WA ON agm and she caused absolute havoc. The party here is completely split into the anti- and pro-Pauline groups. I interviewed her today. She said she wanted to take control of the party again, intends to be appointed to national executive as an adviser and will stand for parliament again. ON is in just as much trouble as the Democrats!”

TODAY’S DEMOCRATS ISSUE

1. Name games by me, Graydon Findlay, Andrew C Taubman, Abbie Worthington, Barrie Stephens and John Clark.

2. The incoming NSW president of the Dems, Cameron Andrews, on positioning

3. Webdiarist Brian Bahnisch considers the options

4. Philippa tries to sort out the Dems’ GST shenanigans

5. Democrats David Harcourt-Norton and Di Pritchard take bitterly-expressed sides.

***

Name Games

By Margo Kingston

Who you gunna vote off today? It’s compelling viewing, this Demo-split without script, and interaction is the key. Read the latest email war from the lead players on crikey.com and the latest membership spats on the show’s public/private chatroom. It’s the highest rating reality TV/Radio/Print in town, but will you vote for a new exciting episode?

The directors are spitting Chipps – half the cast is threatening to move to another channel!

Will The Democrats, the 25 year-old soap opera we all love to watch but few will commit to long-term, survive if its threatened replacement gets off the ground?

Some viewers want a replacement now and are already voting for a new name, to be judged by promoter Meg Less, who will donate the red centre photos she took last week while contemplating her departure from the show. The Progressive Party or The Progressive Democrats are early favourites, after The Liberal Democrats was ruled out by the judges because its already taken by another show. It’s never rated though – perhaps a name sale is on the cards?

Other contenders: The Real Democrats, The Original Democrats, The New Democrats, The Democratic Democrats, The Right Democrats, The Social Democrats, Democrats II, The Progressive Liberals, The Democratic Liberals, The Progressive Coalition Party, The Progressive Conservatives, The Democratic New Coalition, The Central Democratic Party, The Pragmatists or Pragmocrats, The Engagement Party, The Social Reform Party, The Australia Reform Party, The Centre Forward Party, The Advancing Australia Party, The Sustainable Option Party, The No Double Disillusions Party, The Leesbians and The Chipp off the Old Block Party.

But hardline fans of the The Democrats are angrily fighting the breakaways with their own suggestions. Contenders include: The NutMegs, The Coward-Lees Party, The OurMeggedon Party, The Lee’s Fleas Party (a bunch of annoying pests that infect larger bodies), The Fleedom Party, The Meg’s Army Party, The Megalomaniacs, The Megolees Maniacs Party, SLees Party, The Lee-st Important Party, The Leest We Forget Party, The Meg Lees and the GSTs. The Meg-a-Lee-Maniacs Party, The Meggots, The MegMassage Party, Meg and the Amazing Technicolour Turncoats Party, The Fleas Flees Party , The Megahertz Party, Shock and Her Absorbers Party, The Natasha-Basha Party, The Crash a Tasha Party and The Stop-Despoja Party,

While many Natasha fans despise her older rival, others hate the new storyline in the current show and want it stopped. They suggest: The Democracks, The Democrass Party, The Democ-Rats Party, The Chippenfails, The Australian Capitulation Party, Howard’s Birthday Party, The Get Into Howard’s Bed Again Party, The Liberal Party, The Leesbral Party, The Leeberals, The Sell Australia Out Party (SAOs), The Spit de Dummy Party, The Dance with the Devil Party, The Selstra Party, The Limelighters Deprivation Party, We Are The Bastards Party, Keep The Bastards Happy Party and The Cream the Dream Team Party.

Then there’s the cynical viewers who couldn’t care either way but really want to win the new name game competition. This category is the most hotly contested, with the critics choice winner likely to be overuled by a people’s choice poll. Candidates include: The Murray’s Darling Party, The Left Right Out Party, The Left-Over Party, The Lees-Way (or Leeway) Party, The Lee Way (or Meg Leaves) Party, The Meg Leaves Party, The Stop-de-Spoiling Party, The Liberal Lite Party, The Part-Lee Party, The Mega Middle Party, The Too Old To Party Party, The Party To Keep The Party To Keep The Bastards Honest Party, The Spot Destroyer Party, The Path of Lees Resistance Party, The Gingerly Meggs Party, The Keep the Lefties Honest Party, The Party’s Over Party, The Fool-Stott Party, The Flankers Party, The That’s What You Get For Voting Democrats Party and Meg’s Middle and Off Party.

But wait. This morning Natasha, shareholders rep, executive producer and worried star of The Democrats, demanded her dwindling support cast turn up in Canberra today to tell her they want her to keep top billing. Say yes, and she’ll expel the support player who’s backing the defector to a more mainstream channel. But Nat, it’s split three three when you include your own vote! It’s all very well to have the shareholders in your pocket, but the show could go broke – while ratings skyrocket no-one’s buying the product!

Stop Press: A late afternoon promo promised a solo episode by the star in Melbourne. Would she resign? Would a dark horse emerge? Would media directors be forced to reopen the name game? Not yet folks. Come back Andrew, Natasha says. I need you.

***

Late entries from Graydon Findlay (The DODGY Party – Disgruntled Old Democrats Grave Yard), Andrew C Taubman (Meg-a-What-a Suck-on-a Party, Slogan: Lees – The Dregs of the Whine. Or Meg and Cheryl could form the Democrat Leaders’ Party), Abbie Worthington (The Australian Derogates), Barrie Stephens (The AXD Party – (Association of [E]x-Democrats Party)

***

A new viewer’s faction has emerged. John Clark wants a new name for The Democrats soap opera. He suggests The Bold and the Beautiful.

***

2. A DEM LOOKING AHEAD

Division in the Democrats is not new

By Cameron Andrews

Disclosure: I’m the incoming NSW president of the Democrats and a former staffer of Senator Vicki Bourne

Some say it goes back to the party’s beginnings. As a party born from the marriage of the Australia Party and New Liberal Movement there has always been an internal tension between traditional left and small l liberal thinking.

That the Democrats have been so successful – despite these internal contradictions – reflects the strength, skill and resolve of a succession of strong and potent leaders over the party’s 25 year history. The clarity of vision shown by Chipp, Haines and Kernot galvanised the party and give it political direction. They were rewarded with the balance of power in the Senate and the opportunity to play a role in shaping the future of the nation.

Now, at a time of weakness, the welding that held the political fault line together has opened up, with very public and potentially disastrous consequences.

The Democrats are not alone in experiencing an internal clash of ideology. A rapidly changing political landscape is calling into question the relevance of all our traditional party structures.

In the Hawke/Keating years Labor forged a highly successful alliance between its working class roots and a new class of urban, tertiary educated social progressives. The Accord with the unions allowed Labor to embrace the economic reforms that attracted the Chardonnay socialists into the fold.

Labor’s recent defeat is conclusive proof that this alliance is unravelling. Labor’s traditional working class support base is rapidly evolving into what Labor frontbencher Mark Latham describes as the aspirational voter – a new breed that more readily identifies with Howard’s portrayal of mainstream Australia than Labor’s brand of a fair go for all.

The Liberal Party, while seemingly unassailable under the politically ruthless stewardship of Howard, also faces an uncertain future. Backbench revolt over issues like changes to media ownership regulation, anti-terrorism legislation and the International Criminal Court point to an internal rupture between the conservatives and the genuine liberals.

The party’s move to the right may have won back the disaffected Hansonites and given Howard a third term, but has left many liberals questioning why they should continue to belong. The party’s failure to hold government in any state in Australia also points to a decay in its party structure.

Even the Greens, currently enjoying a wave of popular support as the protest party of choice, is showing early signs of a conflict between its environmentalist founders and the recent influx of the socialist left. Bob Brown’s recent outburst on Telstra and his subsequent silencing by his party may be a sign of tensions to come now that NSW red Senator Kerry Nettle has joined Senator Brown in the Senate.

If there is to be a future for the Democrats it doesn’t lie in petty bickering over who should be leader. The current turmoil presents the party with the opportunity to finally resolve the crisis of identity that has loomed over the party since its foundation. Going back to Meg or rallying behind Natasha will both lead to political destruction if the underlying root cause of the division is left undiscussed and untreated.

The Democrats have to make a definitive statement as to which stream they will follow. The political landscape is changing in a way which forces the party, even if unwillingly, to reevaluate its identity. As the Greens now firmly occupy the fundamentalist left and both Liberal and Labor have abandoned any pretence of liberalism, the small l liberal course presents an enormous opportunity to take advantage of an emerging political landscape that is leaving the small l liberal voter with no representation. This has been the option pursued by the Liberal Democrats in England which, coupled with excellent campaigning, has led to their recent spectacular rise.

If the Democrats cannot take that decisive step, the only alternative will be to entertain a formal split. The Senators who most closely align with the small l liberal approach have the opportunity to stand as independents. The media attention that such a move would attract would give this group the opportunity to create a new identity and party structure. They would then be free to focus their efforts on developing the policies and vision needed to contest the next election.

The remaining Senators under Stott Despoja, as discussed by political commentators including you, would then face open competition with the Greens.

Times of crisis present opportunity for rebirth and change. With courage and vision the Democrats can embrace the opportunity that the current crisis brings and, with it, the chance to genuinely change politics in Australia.

***

3. A VOTER LOOKING AHEAD

The Centre Half Forward Party

By Brian Bahnisch in Brisbane

Disclosure: I have commonly voted for the top Democrat on their Senate ticket since the days of Michael Macklin. Then I usually go for the third Labor candidate and vote up the ticket in the hope that if the Dem fails it might help the third Labor candidate. A minor party senator needs to be one that I am convinced is suitable. I can’t remember whether I voted for John Woodley. If I did it was a mistake.

Ideally I’d like to explore the notion of banning party politics in the senate, together with a New Zealand or German MMP style system in the lower house so that significant minority views (as when One Nation got 10% of the national vote!) can be represented. The ‘house of review’ function of the Senate could then be developed, and we might have a system without so much inertia, one that could better accommodate change.

Meg Lees clearly needs lessons on how to lose. Cheryl Kernot had it right when she told the ABC’s Monica Attard that Meg should have got right out. I would not blame Natasha for not giving her enough positive strokes. How do you stroke a porcupine? Do you think Bill Hayden wanted strokes from Bob Hawke after he’d finished bawling in the dunny and said a drover’s dog could have led Labor to victory?

Big Kimbo has shown them all how to do it. He’s the loser par excellence. On election night he even looked as though he enjoyed it!

Meg should give back her seat to the Dems if she has any principle, and Murray has to go. You can’t keep a bloke who has declared a primary allegiance to some one outside the party!

Don Chipp should button up until he’s got both feet on the same side of the electric fence. Yes, he says, Senators should always follow their conscience and Meg was right to do so. Yes, he says, Party members should determine policy (and elect the leader) and Senators should follow Party policy. Well excuse me, Don, stripped of the personality problems I thought that was what the argument was all about.

Aden Ridgeway is a real worry. He has electric fence problems too and I can’t say I was surprised. Some time ago my son showed me the responses to an email he’d sent to all Democrat Senators, from memory when Meg was still leader. He got a sensible and intelligible reply from Natasha. From Aden he got a reply that was garbled, unintelligible and, well, weird!

I don’t have a new name for you, unless you count ‘Centre Half Forward Party’ as original. The ‘half’ is important, as they (Meg, Greg Barns, or whoever) are hardly going to step bravely forward to seize the day!

More seriously, in these days of uncertainty, loss of hope, of ‘endism’ everywhere, voters would like to restore if not the utopian dream at least a sense of movement, even though the precipice may be just around the next bend. In this sense we have only two parties that offer transformative dynamism.

First we have the Liberals. They are primarily about power, but beyond that are fully signed up to the neoliberal agenda, which is still being prosecuted with vigour by George Dubya as part of his war on something or other and by Robert Zoellick, Pascal Lamy and the World Trade Organisation secretariat on behalf of mainly American and European transnational companies.

The Liberals ameliorate this with a concept of ‘a fair go’. The fruits of a fair go have nevertheless been distributed in greater measure to the worthy, who turn out to be niche constituencies whose votes need to be secured.

The Greens also offer a clear transformative program. If you start with the notion of caring for the biosphere it is not a huge step to make sure you include all the primates, including homo sapiens. This is in spite of the fact that Nature’s big brain experiment has unusual capacities for obnoxious behaviour.

The Nationals? A surprising number are also fully signed up neoliberals, but don’t seem to appreciate that trade is not everything. They are terminally addicted to power on the coat tails of the Liberals, who screw them mercilessly. They are probably headed for extinction.

Then there is Labor. They are seriously infected by the neoliberal virus, their main virtue being that they do place greater emphasis on safety nets and on collective action and solidarity as against individualism and individual responsibility. Under them social capital would gradually improve. They are the true conservatives, at least since Paul Keating left, and under them we would experience steady organic growth. They can’t be a true home to the small ‘l’ liberals while they have a fundamental attachment to the unions. We can’t have the workers running the show!

This does leave some space for a genuine small ‘l’ liberal party, but it would have to enunciate its philosophy first and sign up members accordingly. Meg’s right, I suspect. You can’t give leadership if you’re programmed by the troops. That is if that’s what Meg really believes. The trouble with this imaginary party is that few will die in a ditch over its philosophy and it seems fertile territory for opportunistic dealmakers.

Hence ‘The Centre Half Forward Party’ seems about right.

***

4. DEMS GST MUDDLE

Philippa

I have been reading for a while, first time writer. I belong to an apparently invisible voting sector. According to politicalcompass.org, I am a right wing libertarian. That makes me overlooked by most political parties, and declared non-existent by the vast majority of political commentators. I majored in politics at university, and was considered odd for selecting Australian politics (instead of exotic courses like such as Post Maoist China or Swedish Labour Industrial Reforms) because I felt it important to understand how our own political system works.

I wanted to comment on the ostriches who have been writing in about Meg Lees. This isn’t to provoke a discussion on whether someone is pro- or anti-GST. Rather, the fact that I’m sick of all the alleged Democrats voters who ‘will never vote for them again because Meg gave us the GST’.

They seem oblivious of the fact – as you pointed out yourself – that it was DEMOCRATS POLICY at the time, not something that Lees did off her own bat but something that, with specific exemptions, the party went into the election supporting. So why then, are so many alleged party members and supporters ignorant of this fact? Or is it a case of ‘I never liked that policy myself so I’m going to pretend it never happened and it was all Lees’ fault’?

Those who didn’t vote Democrats in 1998 are entitled to complain, but to those who voted for them – either knowing or ignoring party policy – I’m sick of the whining and the reinventing of Democrats history.

When it came to the Senate vote all members were allowed a vote of conscience. Those who, like Stott Despoja, voted against it were not publicly reprimanded nor summoned before the ‘compliance committee’ to explain their actions. Nor do I recall Lees castigating them in the media. One’s conclusion could very well be that Lees was more generous to her parliamentary colleagues than her successor.

The inherent contradictions of ‘membership-voted policy’ and ‘parliamentary member conscience vote’ were inevitably going to clash, perhaps over the GST, and to a greater extent over any flagged discussion re Telstra. But the current Democrats leader is the only one I am aware of who has felt the need to enforce her leadership with the modern day equivalent of William Pitt’s 1798 Gag Acts.

I will watch with interest what happens with Lees and the remaining Democrats over the next weeks and months. I remember the current leader from her National Union of Students days, and sadly it appears she hasn’t realised that NUS isn’t like the real world.

Ultimately she didn’t learn from Kerry Chikarovski’s fatal mistake in 1999, namely don’t cause a leadership spill immediately prior to an election. Yes, it worked for Hawke in 1983, but that is the exception. How many other times has the incoming leader improved their position? Stott Despoja, like Chikarovski, should have waited until after the election. That way any fallout from the previous leaders’ decisions wouldn’t have hit her. But I suspect her own ego wouldn’t allow her to wait any longer, and I have to agree with Alan Ramsey’s piece on Saturday that her ‘personal ambitions exceed her competence but not her ego’.

I would prefer minority parties negotiate with the government of the day so that their own policies at least make it to the table. I wish that Bob Brown had been allowed to open negotiations on Telstra, because at least the Greens key environmental policies would have got an airing even if he ultimately rejected a sale.

I thought it was *responsible* for Lees to deal with a government that had campaigned and won on introducing a GST – especially considering it was part of her party’s platform – to get concessions on other matters. Continually block voting ‘no’ to every policy put forward is not improving or changing anything. I have always been a believer in incremental gains rather than ‘all or nothing’ because all too often the result of that *is* nothing.

To those who are pretending that everything wrong with the Democrats today is Meg Lees’ fault – please get your heads out of the sand. It must be getting crowded down there. Instead of reinventing history, perhaps you could ascertain what actually happened. It would make debate so much more interesting if you actually have a clue of what you are talking about.

***

5. THE BITTERNESS WITHIN

Lees and Murray as hypocrites

By David Harcourt-Norton

I am sick to death of hearing about Andrew Murray’s right to voice his opinion on everything and anything.

Murray, the self-appointed defender of free speech never said a word about star chambers, thought police, intolerance, my right to natural justice or free speech when I was facing the National Compliance Committee after his partner in abuse of members, Lees, used the resources of her public office to attack me with in the party and in the press. Why … because it suited his purposes!

It seems Murray’s idea of Democracy stops when the argument goes against him.

If Murray has no confidence in the National Executive, Compliance Committee, National President, Parliamentary Leader, the policy process, the constitution or the members ability to make decisions for themselves in a party that is based on PARTICIPATORY democracy, then what exactly does he have confidence in other than his own conceited arrogance?

He wants to stay because he knows that morally he has to resign his seat should he resign from the party. I wonder if he has earned his parliamentary pension yet!

In my opinion, Murray is little more than an opportunistic hypocrite and his behaviour to date has been spiteful, deliberately damaging and equates well to the child who changes the rules to suit himself and then takes his bat and ball and goes home when others object. How dare he lay down “TERMS” to a member driven party! Don’t expel him, disendorse him. Deny him our name.

Margo: In The Australian this morning, Glenn Milne wrote that Mr Harcourt-Norton was a member of the national executive during 1999-2000, when he publicly disagreed with the GST deal and helped organise a petition to spill the leadership. Glenn says Lees successfully pressured the executive not to accept the petition, or another one. Harcourt-Norton protested an alleged breach of the constitution, and two people on Lees’ payroll complained to the National Compliance Committee. The NCC banned him from holding any national party positions for a year.

***

The Walking Dead

By Di Pritchard

Having been a member of the Australian Democrats for almost a decade, a candidate, a staffer and an office bearer it is somewhat saddening to see a once almost great party implode. But the party died a long time ago now.

The party organisation is run by a rag tag group of amateurs and unprofessional wanna-be’s who have lofty ambitions but little if no talent. The entrenched culture of anti-professionalism and rank amateur values has eaten away at the party like a cancer.

In the past twelve months there was a small blip of increased support under the leadership of Natasha. However, as this was primarily based on a cult of personality, it was inevitably short lived. Those who put Natasha on a pedestal soon saw the party for what it was, and either continued as a ‘NSD’ groupie or left the party, bored.

Serious political parties are about substance, policy and compromise, not personalities, media appearances on light entertainment programmes, photo opportunities and obsessive paranoid image making. The leader’s office during and since the 2001 federal election has been run like a playpen for the Gestapo; isolationist, autocratic, and paranoid. A motley crew of loyalist staff members – led by Frank Maguire – constantly give the leader poor advice.

In terms of media, Natasha’s press secretary, Alison Rodgers – who is now widely know for her rudeness and abruptness to almost everyone – is never pro-active. The leader’s staff are constantly fielding media requests, never setting the agenda.

The current leader has twelve months – at most – left. Then NSD will no doubt resign, get married, maybe have kids and then work in the media, or as a political consultant in the US, or making a great deal of money in the private sector, whatever. The Democrats will be left with Aden Ridgeway as leader, which is somewhat tragic, as Aden is a serious under-performer in the Senate and in the media – having been dubbed ‘invisible’ and ‘mute’.

Aden will call for unity and position himself as a consensus leader and as a saviour of the party (just as NSD did). Aden will lead the walking dead party to the next election, but fail to get re-elected in NSW. It will be the worst ever result, with the party being all but wiped out. The Green’s fortunes will continue to soar, becoming the balance of power party.

In March 2003 at the NSW state election the Democrats will field a gaggle of lower house candidates, none of whom will be elected. They run a fractured, divided and bitter upper house ticket of Lantry, Furness, Burridge, Baird, Ferrarah and Zakzewski – all belonging to opposing factions and ideological standpoints. Not a single Democrat will be elected, as the candidates will be viewed as ‘the infighting bastards’, rather than candidates that can ‘keep the bastards honest’ and it will be the final nail in the coffin of an already dead party.

A sad state of affairs maybe. Certainly a pale imitation of the vibrant substance-based party of 1977 founded by Don Chipp.

Ding, dong, the Australian Democrats are dead. Long live democracy. As for me, I’m just another Demo-rat fleeing the Titanic

Webdiary’s intellectual powerhouse Tim Dunlop becomes the third regular Webdiarist to join the Weblog world. Tim has led Webdiary debate on dairy deregulation and The Third Way, the former while completing his Phd on the role of the intellectual in public debate.

His move is in a good cause: “It’d be nice to get a bit of lefty synergy going, as my impression is that the right has made extraordinarily good use of the blog phenomena to form a matrix of opinion and exchange.” Like Don Arthur and Jack Robertson, Tim intends to occasionally contribute to Webdiary. Webdiarists’ blogspots are:

Tim: theroadtosurfdom

Don: ahailofdeadcats

Jack: truebelieversmustdie

Tim and Rob Schaap, a mate of Tim’s at the University of Canberra and an occasional Webdiarist (his blogspot is blogorrhoea) have written a piece on racism and globalisation which it is my pleasure to publish.

Of racism and globalisation and trying to find the complicated truth in a sea of blame

By Rob Schaap and Tim Dunlop

We have an unprovable and unpopular theory arguing that when John Howard announced in the lead up to the 2001 Federal election that we will decide who comes here and the circumstances in which they come that people responded less out of any actual racist antipathy to ‘dangerous foreigners’ than out of a sense of relief that someone had at last said something that put the country first.

For nearly thirty years the public have been told that due to the ‘forces of globalisation’ we had to privatise government services, sell off public assets, deregulate banking and every other industry, reduce worker entitlements in order to remain ‘competitive’ and integrate ourselves into international institutions like the WTO – which by their nature undermine our own control over economic and social policy. In other words, having lived through a generation of neo-liberal reforms that were constantly presented to people as not only desirable despite the obvious pain they caused but also as ‘inevitable’ and for which they was ‘no alternative’, people were hanging out for someone to say, hey, what happens in our country matters and what’s more, I’m going to act as if it did.

Howard’s famous catch-cry fitted the bill nicely.

Of course, it is unfortunate that it did in fact tap into some of the nastier elements of racism present in Australia (elements present in any country you care to name), but to read it entirely as some sort of racist backlash and a harking back to ‘White Australia’ is a pathetic oversimplification. In fact it is a case of presuming the existence of the very thing you are seeking to explain.

More importantly, it lets the rabid ‘globalisation’ touts off the hook way too lightly, and stops us looking at the underlying causes of discontent. And that’s what we’d like to do here.

We can present only limited evidence for this. though we think that once you start to give it some thought there is some logical force to it.

What made us think of all this again was an e-mail Tim got from his sister-in-law, which should be vaguely encouraging for all those, like Hilary McPhee (‘I do not recognise my country any more’ theage) who are in serious hand-wringing mode about the state of the country. The email included this passing comment:

“I went to Circus Oz last night, at the Town Hall. It was as it always is. The interesting thing is that, at the end, one of the performers invited the audience to put money in a bucket for refugee support groups. A cheer went up and – honestly – the people holding buckets were mobbed. Instead of rushing out the door, the audience headed straight for the collectors – they pushed and shoved to put their money in a bucket. I’ve never seen anything like it. Remarkable.”

The tone of surprise in her voice is really interesting but completely understandable, fed as we are on the belief that ordinary Australians are irredeemably racist and that election 2001 was White Australia regnant. We voted for Howard so we must be racist, right? What this anecdote suggests is that the usual image is more complex than we are led to believe and perhaps offers some support for our little hypothesis.

We can put it into a bit more context by analysing it from an economic point of view.

The economic is, always and everywhere, dependent on the non- or extra-economic sphere. Liberals and conservatives are coming to recognise this, as evinced by their recent idyllic invocations of ‘civil society’ (a host of ‘third wayers’, ‘communitarians’ and ‘social capital’ types come to mind). Since the outrage of September 11 2001, some are even mentioning The State again!

The trouble is, says British sociologist, Bob Jessop (rjessop) the old Market/Civil Society/State trinity is being rather painfully reconfigured just now.

We citizens have watched our state apparatus ‘deregulate’, ‘liberalise’ and privatise us out of our sense of democratic relevance, of national identity, and of our understanding of our place in both present and future (seeManuel Castells’ trilogy for instance).

An ideology focused on supply side economic policy has dominated our media for nearly thirty years, and has driven the state for nearly twenty. It has simply displaced a sense of democracy as ‘of, by and for’ the people. In fact, under Margaret Thatcher’s famous dictate, there was no the people; there was no such thing as society.

In addition, we’re mad at the state because we didn’t so much watch it succumb to some irresistible external force as deliberately and methodically give away what looked like our birthright (Karl Polanyi, EP Thompson and Alex Callinicos argue/d thus). It didn’t matter what we thought about it and it didn’t matter who we put into government. We were told it was inevitable and to hang on.

Thus the huge disillusion throughout the western democracies with the political process, culminating not just in the fall off of actual voters in Britain and America, for example, (who can barely get 50% of those eligible to vote), but also in Australia where, as voting is compulsory, dissatisfaction has been expressed through the rise of alternative parties and independents. It is also reflected in the rise of populist right wing parties who at least purport to take the people seriously.

We have watched the state abandon us as citizens. Bob Jessop talks about:

– The State being denationalised, with state power moving ‘upwards, downwards, and sideways as state managers on different territorial scales try to enhance their respective operational autonomies and strategic capacities’,

– Our political system ‘destatised’ with the shift from ‘government’ to ‘governance’ – from a state apparatus we saw as responsive to ideological contests transformed into a bunch of technocratic managers, and

– The usurping of the citizen as the subject and object of policy by some amorphous and bemusing plethora of transnational entities like the WTO, NATO and even the UN.

These tendencies are as apparent in the policy prescriptions of the third way left as they are in the new right, and both converge on a core of economic liberalism.

We’re not even allowed to take our own reservations seriously, because everything is economics now and most of us don’t have doctorates in that. We saw this sort of attitude expressed recently in Webdiary byAaron Oakley (see Third Way terror, May 27). There is always going be someone out there gunning for anybody who dares to speak on economic matters without what they consider to be the requisite economic training.

The anti-democratic nature of such a position should be obvious, and it all serves to hobble the entire idea of democracy as participatory self-rule. Under such circumstances, expertise becomes not the helpful specialisation of knowledge in the service of the common good, but a weapon used to stifle dissent and popular participation in social debates. Experts, who in fact disagree amongst themselves, present themselves not as important contributors to national debate but as the last word to whom we should all defer.

Given that ultimately what they are dealing with are social outcomes – things we are all meant to have a say in – it is hardly surprising that the lay public gets its nose out of joint and is willing to dismiss all expertise as the self-interested ravings of a plugged-in elite.

It is less predictable, though nonetheless apparent, that this provides a perfect opportunity for the right sort of populist politician to then cast all opposition as the ravings of a selfish elite and to usurp any influence they might have had by a crude appeal to the innate goodness and common sense of ordinary people.

In Australia, the Johnny-on-the-spot in this regard has been our clever Prime Minister who has built up a considerable rhetorical arsenal built on the phoney distinctions between the battlers and the elites or ordinary Australians and the progressives.

This in turn licenses the disenfranchised elites, the progressives, to disown the majority of their fellow citizens as ignorant rednecks, which of course also includes the charge of racism.

So when the events around immigration emerged at the time of the 2001 election, it not only provided an opportunity for a populist like Howard (who was smart enough and desperate enough to seize it) but it provided confirmation of the low opinion the progressives held of ordinary Australians and encouraged them to ignore all the other forces that were crystallised in the call of “We will decide who comes here and the circumstances in which they come”.

So we’re talking about an Australian populace (and the same forces are apparent in the UK, France, Austria, the Netherlands and even the USA) in great need of being assured that their state is still there, that it still matters, that its ruling class (the true elites) recognise its existence and importance, and that it can still wield some clout on behalf of its ordinary citizens.

Oh, and we’re shit-scared for our jobs, shit-scared of world views that further threaten the stability of our sense of self-in-world, and generally shit-scared of a world that suddenly looks like The Great Unknown, with weird foreigners flying planes into tall buildings.

It is this shit-scaredness that is held in contempt by most of those who endlessly endorse the new world order of lifetime education, endless personal mobility, and the phoney freedoms of a wired world of self-employed contractors.

Dare to challenge this mantra and you are likely to vilified as a backward-looking weakling who just can’t cut it in the online world. That this contempt is as likely to come from the left as the right is a matter of some regret and another cause of the irrelevance of voices from the left. (Who outside the world of the middle-class intelligentsia is even remotely inspired, let alone comforted, by the onset on anything called The Third Way? Surely not the aspirationals at whom it is aimed?)

Too much progressive commentary has overlooked the economic angle and highlighted the race angle. This plays right into the conservative’s hands, something the self-righteous left fails to grasp. Yes, Australia’s history does warrant a black armband, but, no, things aren’t as bad as they might seem to the fervent anti-racism types among us.

Robert Manne wrote the other day (smh) that we’re still the same nation Keith Hancock wrote about in the 1930s – that we’re still a huddle of nervous, fiercely xenophobic whites stuck on an island fortress, both physically and psychically (our apologies to indigenous Australians, but that’s the picture as it was drawn).

But doesn’t this ignore the little matter of the transformative half-century that has elapsed since the war? First of all, the influx of white non-English-speaking foreigners by the hundreds of thousands. Then came the South East Asians. In the 1970s, under a conservative liberal prime-minister, Australia resettled more refugees per head of population than any country on earth, as Scott Burchell reminds us.

The Australia that did this thing was a much more culturally homogenous entity than it is now, and logic would suggest we would have been a less tolerant, more scared bunch, too (we’d been warring in SE Asia for nearly a decade). Not only that, but the people coming to our shores were of the very ethnic groups against whom we’d traditionally set ourselves.

Yet, as Scott Burchell says, Australia earned a well deserved reputation during the Fraser years for resettling a very large number of Indo-Chinese refugees.

As the likes of Don Watson and Hilary McPhee wring their hands at Australia’s ‘move to the right’ and the lost ‘moment’ of multicultural tolerance, we should remember that very few from the left ever gave Australians credit for the way they got on with it during the 70s and 80s.

In other words, having never conceded any progress in these matters when we were living through it, they now, in hindsight, seek to claim that recent past as some sort of ‘golden age’ from which we have strayed. Having never acknowledged it at the time, they now back-construct that period in order to use it as a weapon with which to hit Australians over the head and so continue with the usual game of superior disdain for yer ‘average Australian’. Neat trick.

We might add that a newly formed party, dedicated to the emancipation of the refugees, is hardly made up of typical lefties (John Singleton and John Newcombe are two salient members). All those famous old heads are heads of the seventies, the product of a time when many on the mainstream right of Australian politics were as willing to try multiculturalism as anyone on the left.

Why? Because one big difference (and we suspect it to be the decisive difference) is that we were not as globalised then as we are now. We are suggesting that nationalist xenophobia is precisely a function of that which purports to bring us all together.

There has been, quite appropriately in our view, a lot of talk about Australia’s obligations under Article 31 of UN Convention on the Status of Refugees. The trouble with the UN Convention is that it was drafted in 1951, and half a century is a long time in political economy.

Core economies needed labourers in 1951, and while this economic fact may not have written Article 31, it certainly encouraged it. Western polities were competing with the Communist Bloc for the hearts and souls of the non-aligned in 1951, too.

There is no polar distinction in the Convention between economic migrants and political refugees and in Article 31 there is the express understanding that refugees are often obliged to employ technically illegal means and criminal agents if they’re to escape at all.

And it is precisely upon the fulcrum of criminality that the whole argument now turns. The adjective illegal is crammed in everywhere. Trafficking is a big problem in Europe (to be trafficked is to be exploited and without the decisive burden of guilt) but here the problem is deemed overwhelmingly one of smuggling (and the smuggled party IS a guilty party).

We are encouraged by the government to forget the simple truth that refugees can’t escape without transport, without paying people, and without circumventing barriers. Phillip Ruddock loves the term queue-jumpers, for instance. He doesn’t say where an Afghan peasant or Iraqi villager might find this queue, he just besmirches them for doing what a refugee needs to do. Its like he never saw Schindlers List.

We see this messing about with language a lot.

Julian Burnside in Well, it’s the rule (webdiary) speaks of the elision of the distinctions that so obviously pertain between three distinct elements of Australian policy: border control, immigration policy, an treatment of refugees:

“All require quite different thinking, and all require separate solutions, and yet somehow our political masters have managed to run these problems together and use the ugliest bits from each. And, together in all their ugliness, they are reduced to but one notion: border control.

“Australians heard it again and again from their prime-minister during the election campaign: We will determine who comes into our country and in what circumstances.”

But consider: If a State is trying to garner brownie points, it’s a good idea to spend its (well, our) money at home rather than abroad. Again, that smuggling notion comes in handy – if smuggling is the designated problem, then border control is the appropriate strategy, and that means precisely that The State spends the money here, where we get to see it spent.

We DO matter! We ARE a nation and we ARE a State again! For do we not see The State investing in us, The Nation, again?

So the State seems directly to have addressed our fear and indignation it has secured our jobs (for so long have we been lectured by the neo-liberals that the notion of a Keynesian multiplier is all but dead), kept scary world views away, and made us feel like our place in the order of things has been, at least in part, restored.

The government burns $300 million a year on processing and housing refugees, and a few hundred million more on interception and interdiction. And our aid budget to the countries whence these refugees come amounts to all of $14.4 million. The State is doing National stuff in and for the Nation again. And a measure of comfort is temporarily restored.

Howard’s genius at the outset of the latest nonsense was not in obeying the pollsters, but in grasping the moment before the numbers were there to be reported – sensing all of the above and giving it the focus through which it could cathartically express itself to his advantage.

The irony is almost too delicious: The person who has more than any other advocated the very economic policies that created the sense of loss in the first place and who even stood up in the US Congress the other day and waxed hysterical about the primacy of the individual is now the prime beneficiary of this new-found desire to protect the collectivity, the state itself.

Howard had a lot of bad luck in the past (the Joh-for-Canberra saga comes to mind, and that racist nonsense on immigration policy back in ’88 hadn’t worked for him), but he’d never lost his eye for the main chance.

Having contributed to an enduring social malaise (as neo-liberal technocrats must), he saw the salving potential in the near coincidence of 9-11 and Tampa before anyone else did (and let’s give Reith some credit too: he was very quick to connect the dots for us).

In the wake of this we could all feel looked after again, feel a nation again, feel potently relevant again – and Howard gets another three years at the expense of a few thousand nobodies who can’t get near a phone, never mind a polling booth.

Kim Beazley, so intent on making himself and his party a small target, literally missed the boat. So spooked were they that rather than offer a viable alternative, they meekly fell in line with a hideous policy prescription, a decision that continues to haunt them.

Our ‘racism’ wouldn’t last a minute if we were confronted with what we’re doing and the real people to whom we’re doing it, but if our betters spend enough of our dollars on keeping our eyes and ears away from our actions and victims, that’s entirely manageable.

So the Howard Government has an express policy (confirmed in evidence to the unthrown children inquiry) of preventing the humanisation of those locked away in the desert or banished to the client satellite statelets of the Pacific Solution.

The infamous footage from the Curtin Detention Camp of people in obvious despair and in various stages of mental breakdown is part of a gradual but inevitable humanisation. You see, we don’t think the situation is such that a decisive proportion of Australians can’t be turned.

Sure, at the moment ours is the ignorance in which racism grows. And, sure, by the definition of racism held by The International Council on Human Rights Policy (IHCRP), our State apparatus is being racist (for it is most definitely “nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment, or exercise, on equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, or any other field of public life,” on the basis of “national or ethnic origin”).

But we do not think this obscenity need be read as a definitive symptom of an unchanging political culture, nor a particularly reliable indicator of how we might behave in the future.

As intimated before, we do not think Howard won the election on border protection alone. Labor enjoys neither the moral nor logical clout to carry that argument. They did not afford the electorate an alternative on this issue and, of course, no opposition can convincingly match a party in government that is prepared to embark on a budget-busting $23-billion-pork-orgy.

So whatever the suspicions of some, the re-election of a Howard government has little to tell us about any enduringly profound xenophobia.

A change in government might change things. Remember Paul Keating’s parting words at the National Press Club: When the government changes the country changes, and the gradual and inevitable promulgation of more gut-wrenching footage and shock-horror disclosures of what our betters have been getting up to would help.

Whether these alone would be decisive, we daren’t say. Imagine if such developments were accompanied by an expansion (and, yes, complication) of the globalisation discussions to include a democratically entrenched recognition of, and central role for, the citizen – such that subjects feel less like betrayed and impotent objects. An Australia once again secure in its capacity democratically to affect and manage inevitably changing circumstances (for let’s not forget the times have always been achanging, and Australia ever with them) would show an altogether different face.

Like helpless bods clinging to a leaky wreck somewhere between Indonesia and Australia, we were willing to grasp any straw floating past, as drowning people are wont to do.

We deserve condemnation for the form that straw took, but those who jump to hasty conclusions about ingrained racism need to at least recognise that many ordinary Australians did feel they were drowning in a sea of uncertainty set swelling by a neo-liberal juggernaut over which they felt they had no control.

Any account that doesn’t at least factor this into the equation is incomplete.

You’d think the Maritime Commander of the Royal Australian Navy, Rear Admiral Geoffrey Smith, would have stopped writing letters on SIEV-X.

After all, it was his letter to the Canberra Times repeating his false evidence to the unthrown children inquiry that he’d not heard of SIEV-X until after it sank that alerted Coastwatch chief Rear Admiral Marcus Bonser to Smith’s problem.

But he’s at it again, this time in a letter to the Herald published on Monday. Today, his letter and my reply, and my piece last week on last Thursday’s hearings of the SIEV-X inquiry. Ironically enough, his letter is dated the same day as a defence witness blew away his story at the inquiry.

The SBS Dateline program puts its second SIEV-X report to air tonight. The transcript of reporter Geoff Parish’s first report is in my first SIEV-X Webdiary entry Cover up or stuff up. I’ll put the transcript for tonight’s program up after it’s gone to air.

***

Navy didn’t turn its back on SIEV-X

I have read with considerable concern articles written by Margo Kingston about the loss of SIEV-X. In “Navy did all it could to find doomed ship: PM” (Herald, July 1) I was accused of giving false evidence to the Senate committee and retracting it to avoid contradicting with evidence from Coastwatch. This is untrue, and I take personal offence at the accusation.

Hansard records my words on April 4: “We had some information that a boat might have been being prepared in the vicinity of Sunda Strait but we had no real fixed information as to when it was going to sail. Indeed, the first time that the navy knew [it] had sailed was when we were advised through the search and rescue organisation in Canberra that [it] may have foundered in the vicinity of Sunda Strait.”

Ms Kingston has given distorting emphasis to the latter part of my statement, portraying it as a denial that the navy had any information about SIEV-X. In my evidence I explained that unconfirmed intelligence had been received, and later added a letter of clarification that she absurdly labelled a “retraction”.

The letter made the essential point that our intelligence reports come from sources of greatly varying reliability. Often these reports conflict, and cannot be solely relied upon to determine air surveillance patterns or the stationing of ships. This was the case with SIEV-X.

Those of us charged with the responsibility of sending Australians into harm’s way are prepared to weather criticism of our decisions. But Ms Kingston’s allegations about ordinary sailors (“Mass drowning case could sink Navy’s reputation once and for all”, Herald, June 4) are unjustified. She accused them of deliberately turning their backs upon people in peril, which is unfair.

The Royal Australian Navy is a highly professional service which places the highest importance on the safety of life at sea and, whenever we are able, we will always respond to those in distress.

G.F. Smith, Rear Admiral, RAN Maritime Commander Australia, Potts Point, July 11.

***

Dear Rear-Admiral Smith,

Your letter makes two points, both of which I strongly dispute.

1. You did not give false evidence to the inquiry

I am accused of distorting your evidence. I am in good company. When the head of Coastwatch,. Admiral Marcus Bonser, read your letter to The Canberra Times he took immediate action to correct the record. He told your chief of staff your evidence was inconsistent with the facts, particularly on “the first time that notification of SIEV-X occurred, which was not consistent with the flow of information as I knew it.”

When he heard nothing, he advised the head of the Defence force task force set up to assist the inquiry, Vice-Admiral Raydon Gates, at a face-to-face meeting. With the date when he would give evidence fast approaching and still no response by you, Bonser told the navy chief Admiral David Shackleton that “there would be inconsistencies between Admiral Smith’s evidence and mine when I appeared at the Senate committee, and he should be aware of that”.

You might also wish to explain your evidence on April 11 that, “We had no knowledge of that boat having sailed.”

Let’s go through your April 4 evidence as cited in your letter.

A. “We had some information that a boat might have been being prepared…’‘.

In fact, you had known for months through detailed intelligence reports that SIEV-X was being prepared by people smuggler Abu Qussey, a top-priority target of Australian intelligence operations, and had intelligence on October 18 and 19 that it was reported to have sailed. On October 20, your own intelligence group, the Australian Theatre Joint Intelligence Centre received a report from Australian Federal Police intelligence through Coastwatch that SIEV-X had sailed and was overcrowded. The head of ATJIC, Colonel Patrick Gallagher, gave evidence that “We took that report … to be confirmation that departure had occurred,” and immediately issued an urgent intelligence report to that effect as “the way to get people’s attention on a weekend”.

Colonel Gallagher could not explain why you did not accept that SIEV-X had departed for another two days. “Those sort of decisions would have been taken in Canberra,” he said.

B. “We had no real fixed information as to when it was going to sail.”

See above. Not only did you have fixed information that it had sailed, you had information of when it was expected to arrive if nothing went wrong. You knew the boat was overcrowded, yet you took no action to search for SIEV-X.

The day after SIEV-X sank, when survivors were still in the water hoping for rescue, your Northern Command issued an intelligence report to you that it was expected to arrive the next day unless its overcrowding slowed it down. NORCOM assessed “a high probability of the vessel arriving vic Christmas Island from 21 Oct 01, and that due to its overcrowding and need to maintain stability it may be limited to a slow passage, and therefore a later time of arrival could be expected.”

C. “The first time that the navy knew [it] had sailed was when we were advised (on October 23) that [it] may have foundered…”

See above. On October 22 Coastwatch issued an overdue notice on SIEV-X. A defence representative was at the meeting of the PM’s task force where this was discussed, along with the ‘fact’ (proved incorrect) that you were looking for SIEV-X.

***

Why did you give false evidence? The closest I’ve got to an answer is in a Mike Carlton piece. Mike has defended the navy over SIEV-X in three pieces in the Herald, in which he openly acknowledges that he relies for his information on navy bosses at the highest levels. He is a mate of former navy chief David Shackleton, for instance, and has spoken with you.

Here’s his explanation of your evidence in ‘Navy ‘plot’ doesn’t hold water’ (June 22).

“Undeterred, the theorists then claim a conflict between the director of Coastwatch, Rear Admiral Marc Bonser, and the navy’s maritime commander, Rear Admiral Geoff Smith. Again, not true. Bonser told the Senate committee of some early SIEV-X intelligence reports which Smith had believed were classified secret. He informed Smith he would do so. Smith then clarified that apparent difference in a letter to the committee.

Why did you believe the reports were ‘secret’? Why did you deny knowledge of SIEV-X instead of refusing to answer questions on it?

2. My unjustified allegations about ordinary sailors, accusing them of “deliberately turning their backs upon people in peril, which is unfair”.

This allegation verges on malicious obfuscation. At no time in the piece you mention, or any other, have I accused ordinary sailors or their immediate commanders of doing anything inappropriate in this affair. I have suggested that “the top brass” have lots of questions to answer, as they did over the ‘children overboard” lie.

Can you point to any part of the piece which makes “allegations about ordinary sailors” or that they turned their backs upon people in peril? (See the text of the piece you rely on below). It seems to me you are appealing to our pride in the navy to save yourself. This is a political letter, not one addressing the merits of this matter.

M.L. Kingston, journalist, Sydney Morning Herald

***

Patsy not so easily deceived

By Margo Kingston

Defence Minister Robert Hill offered up Colonel Patrick Gallagher as a witness on Monday. The colonel first knew he was the patsy next morning when he read about it in The Canberra Times.

He hadn’t been a member of the Australian Theatre Joint Intelligence Centre (ATJIC) when the SIEV-X intelligence reports were analysed and sent to Operation Relex for action.

Now head of the centre, he raced to Canberra, read all the reports on Tuesday and all the SIEV-X evidence on Wednesday.

He couldn’t answer most questions how could he? Hill had substituted him for Admiral Raydon Gates, who he has banned from giving evidence.

Gates heads the defence force task force set up specifically to help the inquiry. He also wrote the defence force SIEV-X submission and reviewed all intelligence on SIEV-X received by defence. He’s got a power-point presentation ready and he wants to give evidence.

Hill won’t oblige because he doesn’t want Gates to give evidence on the alleged witness tampering of Commander Stefan King by Dr Brendon Hammer of the PM’s department.

What doesn’t Hill want Gates to reveal? It’s bound to be something embarrassing to the Government, and, like his predecessor Peter Reith, he doesn’t care what damage is done to defence to achieve that aim.

Yesterday the damage was excruciating. Gallagher was asked when ATJIC first reported that SIEV-X was grossly overcrowded. Task force officers passed him an answer. “The first report that up to 400 people were aboard the vessel and that it was overcrowded” was on October 22, Gallagher read.

His brow creased. “I have to say I’ve some concerns about that, because my recollection is the report on the morning of the 20th of October actually mentioned a large number of people …”

The latest defence force story is crumbling.

Hill has learned that Gallagher is no patsy.

***

Mass drowning case could sink navy’s reputation

By Margo Kingston, June 4 2002

The new-look Defence Force’s handling of the fallout from the mysterious SIEV-X may well decide whether the navy’s culture, and its reputation, survives, writes Margo Kingston.

The incoming Defence Force chief, Lieutenant-General Peter Cosgrove, and the navy chief, Rear-Admiral Chris Ritchie, do not have the luxury of turning the page on the children overboard scandal which sullied their predecessors, Admiral Chris Barrie and Vice-Admiral David Shackleton, and called into question the political independence of our top brass.

They have to handle a potentially more damaging inquiry into the death by drowning of 353 people – including 150 children – during the federal election campaign.

The new-look Defence Force’s handling of the fallout from the mysterious SIEV-X – which the navy swore it knew nothing of before the drownings, then recanted in sensational circumstances – may well decide whether the navy’s culture, and its reputation, survives.

A former Australian ambassador to Cambodia, Tony Kevin, first suggested the Government knew about SIEV-X before its sinking when he made a private submission to the children overboard inquiry. But senators on both sides were hostile to his evidence and Admiral Geoffrey Smith, the head of the post-Tampa boat people assault code-named Operation Relex, buried the matter with unequivocal evidence.

Why was the nearest navy vessel so far away when the boat sank? Did the daily surveillance plane flyovers spot it? Were there warnings of its likely departure? “At no time under the auspices of Operation Relex were we aware of the sailing of that vessel until we were told that it had in fact foundered,” Smith said.

The only unanswered question: how did SIEV-X slip through what Coastwatch chief, Rear-Admiral Mark Bonser, called “a comprehensive surveillance pattern [in place] doing nothing but looking for these boats”? Senators became interested in the results of the navy’s investigation into what went wrong.

But before they got to that, Bonser threw a bomb into this minor inquiry footnote, revealing in evidence that the navy had extensive prior knowledge about SIEV-X from Australian Federal Police intelligence reports and Coastwatch analysis, including the identity of the people smuggler concerned. In particular, the day before the sinking it was told that SIEV-X had reportedly sailed and was a possible arrival at Christmas Island soon. Smith had agreed in evidence that it was normal practice to move a navy vessel in the direction of a target once a report was made of its departure.

Bonser also revealed that the navy had conducted no investigation into why SIEV-X had not been spotted and monitored as required by the Government’s forward defence interception and return strategy, or even asked any questions about it.

And his bombshells didn’t stop there. Bonser had taken extraordinary measures to warn the navy that his evidence would be inconsistent with that of Smith, yet it did not correct the record for more than a month. On April 16, when Smith was overseas, Bonser informed Smith’s chief of staff that his evidence was inconsistent “with the flow of information as I knew it”.

He heard nothing back, and on April 22 told the head of the Defence Force’s people-smuggling taskforce, Admiral R.W. Gates, about the problem. Gates said he would speak to Smith. Still nothing.

On May 10 Bonser went to the top, advising the then navy chief, David Shackleton, that “there would be inconsistencies between Admiral Smith’s evidence and mine [and] he should be aware of that”.

Six days later Smith rang Bonser to advise he would “clarify” his evidence, then got copies of the intelligence documents Coastwatch had given the navy at the time. Smith finally wrote to the inquiry correcting his evidence after his letter was cleared by the defence taskforce. But just before Bonser took the stand the navy demanded the letter back on the ground that it was confidential.

Bonser’s evidence and Smith’s letter have ignited inquiry interest. The Australian Federal Police and Admiral Gates will give evidence on June 21. Labor’s Senate leader, John Faulkner, told the Herald that SIEV-X was now his top inquiry priority.

What is going on in the navy? Has its core ethos mutated under the political stresses of Operation Relex? Has it got something terrible to hide, or is it so incompetent that it needs a shake-up much bigger than a change of leaders at the top? Stay tuned.