Public pressure is rising to sanction Israel over war crimes in Gaza in the wake of the March for Humanity across Sydney Harbour Bridge. Stephanie Tran reports.

In one of the largest protest events in our nation’s history, hundreds of thousands of  Australians marched across Sydney Harbour Bridge over the weekend. 

It was a striking show of public outrage at the government’s failure to take meaningful action to stop the genocide in Gaza. Yet despite the clear public support for decisive action, the Albanese government has done little beyond issuing statements. 

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has acknowledged that Israel is breaching international law by blocking food deliveries into the territory and joined 28 world leaders in calling for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza.

However, Australia continues to supply key components for F‑35 fighter jets used by Israel and maintains lucrative defence contracts worth billions of dollars with Israeli arms manufacturers, including Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Elbit Systems.

“Snuff videos as a sales pitch”. Rafael boasts of human testing in Gaza death camps

Russia – a double standard on sanctions

Australia has imposed more than 1,400 sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, but just a dozen on Israel.

The Greens argue that a Russia‑style sanctions regime targeting Israel would affect about $50 million in exports, around a third of Australia’s exports to Israel, but stress that broader measures would also be necessary.

“For months now, the Albanese Government has been repeatedly told by international legal experts, human rights groups and millions of Australians that they need to sanction the Israeli Government and end the two‑way arms trade,” Greens Senator David Shoebridge said.

“In the case of Russia, Australia has imposed harsh and appropriate sanctions that stop the export of weapons and other goods that support Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine. In the case of Israel, you have the Foreign Minister trying to convince people that parts for fighter jets are ‘non‑lethal’ and the Prime Minister dismissing a comprehensive sanctions regime as a ‘slogan.’ The double‑speak is deeply troubling.”

“International legal experts have made clear that even with these sanctions, more will likely need to be done to meet Australia’s obligations under international law. The test set down by the ICJ not engaging in any trade that entrenches the occupation”

Calls for greater sanctions on Israel

Following the International Court of Justice’s July 2024 ruling that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal, Australia imposed limited sanctions on seven Israeli settlers involved in violent attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank. In June 2025, the government expanded sanctions to include Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben‑Gvir, and finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, for their incitement of violence against Palestinians.

However, international law experts argue that a more comprehensive approach is needed, including trade sanctions, a full arms embargo, and the use of Australia’s Magnitsky sanctions regime against senior Israeli officials. 

Australia has the power to impose such measures under the Autonomous Sanctions Act 2011, which gives the government authority to implement targeted financial, trade, and travel sanctions independently of the United Nations.

In 2021, parliament strengthened these powers by adopting the Magnitsky‑style amendments, enabling Australia to impose sanctions on individuals and entities responsible for serious human rights abuses and corruption. 

According to international human rights lawyer Benedict Coyne, these laws have already been used against Russian officials following the invasion of Ukraine and should now be applied to senior Israeli leaders.

“In 2022, Australia used the Magnitsky laws for the first time, sanctioning 39 Russian individuals accused of serious corruption and human rights abuses. Australia can and should impose Magnitsky sanctions on responsible Israeli government and military leaders, especially those who have espoused genocidal rhetoric.”

 Australia can and should impose immediate political, diplomatic and economic sanctions on Israel.

Coyne also suggests that trade restrictions should be imposed to ensure Australia is not complicit in the ongoing assault on Gaza.

“Australia should refuse any trade from Israel and immediately halt all aid and export licences, including cancelling export licences for weapons, F‑35 fighter jet parts and any dual‑use components,” he said.

Australia once led the way on sanctions

During the 1980s campaign against apartheid South Africa, then Prime Minister Bob Hawke was instrumental in leading the Commonwealth in imposing financial sanctions against the regime.

Coyne highlighted this event as an example of Australia’s historic leadership on sanctions.

“There is precedent for this. In the 1980s, Bob Hawke took a lead with the Commonwealth Heads of Government, even against Margaret Thatcher, who was not comfortable with imposing these sanctions against apartheid South Africa. And he won. Nelson Mandela later attributed those sanctions as a key factor in ending apartheid.”

Red-Lines Package

In addition to sanctions, there are calls to ensure Australia is not economically tied to acts of genocide or war crimes. Central to this push is the Red Lines Package, a set of three bills poised for reintroduction this year, potentially with broader cross‑bench support.

The package will introduce critical legal safeguards to prevent businesses and the government from supporting genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The package includes three bills:

• Bans on defence exports linked to genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity and due diligence requirements on the defence minister.
• A bill stopping the Future Fund and Australian charities from investing in businesses supporting illegal settlement activity.
• A bill requiring Australian government agencies, large companies and businesses involved in weapons manufacturing to disclose their supply chains, ensuring they don’t contribute to genocide.

MWM understands that the bills are currently being reviewed and strengthened before being reintroduced.

Australia’s Voice Senator Fatima Payman said the package was about giving parliament a moral compass, stating,

Hopefully, the government builds up the moral courage to do what needs to be done.

“We’ve been waiting two years and counting. What more do you need to see? We can’t just keep turning a blind eye to this anymore. The silence is deafening. There’s only so much people can take.”

A legal obligation to act

In January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute a “plausible genocide”. The ICJ’s finding is significant because it does not require proof of genocide beyond reasonable doubt but rather recognises that there is a serious risk of genocide occurring, a threshold that activates states’ obligations under international law.

Multiple human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and prominent genocide scholars, have reached similar conclusions, warning that Israel’s indiscriminate targeting and deliberate starvation of the Palestinian population meet several indicators of genocidal intent.

Australia is a signatory to the Genocide Convention, a treaty born from the atrocities of the Holocaust. Article I of the Convention obliges states not only to punish genocide after it occurs but to actively prevent it. This is known as the due diligence obligation; states must use all means reasonably available to them to prevent genocide from happening.

According to Rawan Arraf, Executive Director of the Australian Centre for International Justice, the ICJ ruling has practical consequences for Australia. 

“This ruling demands concrete steps Australia must take. The government must immediately review its economic ties to Israel and impose targeted sanctions. All defence industry partnerships must be suspended, and a two-way arms embargo imposed. This means the government must halt any export of arms and arms components to Israel, including exports being diverted through other countries. Any extant permits must be suspended.”

Failing to take such steps risks Australia being complicit in grave breaches of international law. 

Why the reluctance?

So why has the Albanese government resisted calls for a comprehensive sanctions regime? Shoebridge argues that Australia’s alliance with the US under the AUKUS agreement is a key factor.

“When it comes to Australia’s international relations, especially Israel and Palestine, there is an elephant in the room, and it is called AUKUS,” he said. “A large part of AUKUS is to integrate Australia’s military and our industrial and research base with the US. Because of that, Albanese is not comfortable stopping the arms trade with Israel, worried about the US response.

“Australians are looking for a win‑win solution here that has us cancel AUKUS and use that to take a meaningful step towards independence by ending the arms trade with Israel,” he said.

“Unfortunately, Albanese and modern Labor have gone so far to the right on defence and so deep into Trump’s new America that they have lost touch with the public on this.”

I hope the show of humanity on the Sydney Harbour Bridge can remind them who they represent.

Nationwide protests planned after Harbour Bridge march

 

This post was originally published on Michael West.

Queensland Teachers Union’s members go on strike today. Crushing workloads, school violence, and the teacher exodus are high on their list of grievances. Joshua Barnett with the story.

When more than 36,000 Queensland teachers voted to strike for the first time in 16 years, they weren’t just focused thinking about how their salary compared to supermarket workers.

Nevertheless, Murdoch media framed it as a dispute over “greedy teachers’ pay,” with the Courier-Mail and News.com.au reducing the strike to a numbers game. “How do their salaries compare?” asked one headline, stacking teachers next to nurses, traffic controllers, and hairdressers, as if the issue were jealousy, not job viability.

The media use averages from Glassdoor, an unreliable resource for salary averages, and the insinuation that ‘teachers already have it good. ‘ This tactic inflates wages and omits working conditions, misshaping public perception.

For the teachers, however, it is also about violence in schools, crushing workloads, and teachers walking away from a profession they love, not because of pay, but because of burnout and a broken system.

Pay is just one single factor among a litany of poor working conditions, including school violence, staff shortages, teachers being hospitalised after assaults,  or inadequate mental health support.

Youth crime crisis

There is a notable disconnect between the political and media focus on Queensland’s so-called “youth crime wave” and the lack of attention paid to school-based violence.

The Courier-Mail has dedicated an entire homepage to youth crime coverage, and the issue was central to the LNP’s state election campaign. Yet the same young people, when in classrooms, are part of an escalating pattern of aggression towards teachers, a concern raised repeatedly by the QTU.

Despite this, school violence remains largely absent from mainstream reporting, creating a gap between political messaging and the lived reality inside Queensland’s public schools. Even legal experts have questioned the evidence for the alleged crime wave, calling the crackdown “draconian” and lacking statistical foundation.

MWM spoke to a former Head of Positive Behaviour for Learning Teacher in Queensland, who said:

“I was often physically and verbally assaulted by students, often multiple times a day or week. In high school, the students will often swear or make disrespectful comments about your appearance and the way you act. They also actively seek out your social media and try to add  your accounts to get dirt on your life and then share it around.

And then the is the fear of contacting home regarding issues at home. The amount of times i have been abused over the phone for calling home for support or to inform the parent of their childs behaviour. Often told ‘what are you going to do about your teacher to help my child’.”

Spotlight on youth as sun sets on Garma Festival start

Union demands

According to the Queensland Teachers’ Union, the upcoming strike is not solely about pay, but about addressing a broader set of workforce and systemic challenges facing state schools.

Key priorities include:

• Addressing the teacher shortage, which the union describes as critical and ongoing;
• Improving retention of experienced staff, citing concerns over burnout and high attrition;
• Establishing safer workplaces, in response to an increase in occupational violence and aggression;
• Reducing excessive workloads, including unpaid overtime regularly undertaken by teachers;
• Achieving competitive salaries, with the union arguing that current offers will see Queensland fall behind other states;
• Ensuring resourcing commitments are formalised, rather than left to discretionary or operational decisions.

The QTU argues that the government’s proposed agreement, which includes an 8% increase over three years, does not adequately address these issues. Union officials maintain that without substantive changes, challenges in recruitment, retention, and school safety will likely continue.

Union President Cresta Richardson stated that the goal is to “deliver the resources and education standards Queensland students deserve,” while General Secretary Kate Ruttiman noted that the current approach,

does little to address the teacher shortage crisis or ensure safe workplaces.

Since February, the Queensland Teachers’ Union and the Department of Education have held 17 negotiation meetings. Two formal offers have been presented by the department, both of which were rejected  the second by more than 250 elected union delegates.

Following the impasse, the department referred the matter to the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission for conciliation. The department has indicated that some issues raised by the union fall outside the scope of enterprise bargaining and should be addressed operationally, rather than through the certified agreement.

Conciliation is ongoing, and further outcomes will depend on the Commission’s assessment and the willingness of both parties to reach an agreement.

The QLD Minister for Education, John-Paul Langbroek, told ABC Radio, “I know remuneration is important, but conditions as well, and that’s why we are

working on conciliation with the teachers’ union and will continue to do so.

Even the government acknowledges the challenges facing educators. And while teachers want to know why they are managing overcrowded classrooms with no support, the Courier-Mail wants you to know how teacher salaries stack up against tradies.

The King’s School headmaster controversy deepens as boy is ‘clipped over the ear’

 

This post was originally published on Michael West.

Announcing a new one-sided subs-deal with the UK, resisting calls for a review, ignoring a US Admiral’s caution, while building hundreds of houses for US military. AUKUS is having a shocker. Former senator and submariner Rex Patrick reports.

On Friday, 25  July, Defence Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong stood beside their UK counterparts at a brief press conference in Sydney. They answered questions on a new 50-year treaty-level agreement between the UK and Australia related to the AUKUS submarine scheme.

The journalists who attended the press conference were not in possession of the text of the agreement, which was not actually signed by Marles and UK Defence Secretary John Healey until the following day, and not in Sydney but rather in Geelong. Without the text of the treaty being released, no hard questions could be asked (see below).

Marles apparently thought it more important to have the text signed a day after the ministerial discussions so that the “Nuclear-Powered Submarine Partnership and Collaboration Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of Great Britain and Northern Ireland” could be informally named after his hometown, as “the Geelong Treaty”.

The whole stage-managed affair was one that would have left everyone feeling warm and fuzzy in the halls of Parliament, where rhetoric counts for more than reality.

Australia, UK to ink 50-year deal to underpin AUKUS

Meanwhile, in US Congress

About the same time, the Geelong Treaty was being announced, news was breaking in Australia of the testimony to the United States Senate of the nominee to serve as the next US Chief of Navy, Admiral Daryl Caudle.  What he had to say did not augur well for Australia eventually being provided with three US Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarines as envisaged under AUKUS.

“The question of Australia’s ability to conduct undersea warfare is not in question by me or by anyone,” the admiral told the Senate Armed Services Committee’s seapower subcommittee. “But as you know, the delivery pace is not where it needs to be to make good on the Pillar 1 of the AUKUS agreement, which is currently under review by our Defense Department”.

Caudle testified that “There are no magic beans.”

“We do have to understand whether or not the industrial base can produce the submarines required so that we can make good on the actual pact that we made with the U.K. and Australia, which is around 2.2., 2.3 Virginia-class submarines per year.”

“That’s going to require a transformational improvement, not a 10 percent improvement, not a 20 percent, a 100 percent improvement.”

Of course, none of this was really news. The US Congressional Research Service and numerous other well-informed observers have been spelling out these facts for some time, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Defence Minister Marles remain wilfully blind to the facts.  Having put all their political chips on AUKUS, they don’t want to see or hear anything negative.  Instead of a pause, they’ve been writing taxpayer-funded cheques to gift United States shipyards.

They quietly slipped the US Government another non-refundable $800M last week – following on from a non-refundable $800M in February.

Rudd talking the AUKUS talk in Washington, but is the US walking?

No control, no warranty

By Monday, the ‘Geelong Treaty’ had been tabled in the Parliament.

A read of the treaty documents revealed the completely lop-sided nature of the partnership with the UK. Whilst Australia gets to have a bit of a say, the UK get to decide the design of SSN-AUKUS.  Australia will be buying and building a British design, and the success, delivery schedule, and cost will be absolutely dependent on the United Kingdom’s currently run-down and struggling submarine industrial base.

And if it doesn’t work in the end, there is no warranty.

Calls for inquiry

During the election campaign, a number of cross-benchers and the Greens started calling for an AUKUS inquiry, a call repeated this week by Senator David Shoebridge. He lodged a motion to establish a Select Committee into what is our most expensive and purportedly most important Defence procurement project ever.

The inquiry motion was originally set to be voted on on Tuesday, but as the week progressed, Senator Shoebridge kept postponing it. That’s a signal that he didn’t have the numbers to get a ‘yes’ vote. The Labor Party has already ruled out an inquiry, and it looks like the Senator is trying to get the Liberal Party on board.

We’ll now find out the inquiry’s fate on 25 August. The Liberal Party are unlikely to support the inquiry. They want to criticise the government’s handling of the US alliance, but they have no intention of questioning AUKUS, which, after all, was first conceived by their man, Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

It’s an all-eggs-in-the-one-$368B-basket capability acquisition full of risk – but it appears as though there will be no oversight.

As the Parliament appears reluctant to review AUKUS, in true Trump tariff negotiation style, the US Defence Department announced its review of AUKUS would not be completed until “fall” (the next three months).

Minister plays down American review of AUKUS deal

Housing bill waved through

To add icing on the cake, the government’s first Housing Bill in the 48th Parliament, voted through the House on Wednesday by the duopoly, was one to build houses, not for Australians, but for foreign military personnel and their families in Perth.

As Senator Shoebridge tried to have this Bill referred to a Senate Committee, he laid it out:

“In the last parliament, we saw Labor coming up with a million reasons they couldn’t do anything on public housing. They couldn’t help people out on rents, they couldn’t build public housing, and they kept saying it was all the Greens’ fault for not supporting their crap bills. Then, in this parliament, they start with a public housing bill. Well done, Labor! You bring a public housing bill into the chamber. You push it through the lower house. And do you know what public housing they’re building? They’re building public housing for US troops under AUKUS. That’s their public housing bill.”

“Please, minister, you haven’t explained in the bill how much this is going to cost; is it going to come from the Defence budget or some other budget?”

No answer was given, and no referral to a committee occurred.

The AUKUS week closed with some lobbying on Sky by former Secretary of Home Affairs, Michael Pezzulo. Pezzulo is officially disgraced, but is not without expertise on national security issues.

Pezzulo does know something about the financing of Australia’s defence capabilities, and he issued a blunt warning about the scale and urgency of Australia’s AUKUS commitments, saying the nuclear submarine program will demand a national effort on par with Medicare.

“It’s like having the military version of Medicare. It’s something that’s got to become an all-consuming, focused effort that transcends Commonwealth, state, territory governments into industry, academia, the training pipeline through both universities and vocational educational training institutions.”

All that statement does is roll out the trifecta. The US can’t deliver Virginia Class submarines to us; the UK submarine industry is a cluster fiasco; and Australia’s not ready. And, we will have to make AUKUS submarines our number one national priority if we are to have any chance of success.

In 2023 Paul Keating – without knowledge of the total $4.7B that is to be gifted to the United States, or the similar amount that is being gifted to the UK, nor the facts that the US is unlikely to deliver, and that we really don’t have any rights in relation to the SSN-AUKUS – called it “the worst deal in all history”.

Knowing what we know now, Keating was wrong. He should have said “dumbest deal in all history”.

I just want a Ferrari, sorry, a nuclear submarine, no matter the cost

 

This post was originally published on Michael West.

The 48th Parliament’s first week has featured an extraordinary display of political upheaval everywhere except in the Labor Party. Michael Pascoe reckons that won’t last.

When Liberal shadow minister Dan Tehan is writing what should be Labor zingers about National Party steers, you know we are in for extraordinary political times.

With Barnaby Joyce and Michael McCormack undermining David Littleproud, the Nationals in general undermining the Coalition and the ghost of Angus Taylor forever hovering over Sussan Ley, faced as she is with an already dysfunctional Opposition and polling in the toilet,

the circus has come to town.

And then there are the Greens, a party that has the opportunity under calmer leadership to make the very best of holding the balance of power in the Senate, the chance to demonstrate it can be taken seriously as an adult in the chamber to make deals with the government and gain credit for shaping policy in the way the “Teals” attempt in the lower house.

But instead, new Greens leader Larissa Waters is in trouble over allegations that a “trans and queer cult” has taken control of the party, pushing environmentalism down the pecking order.

On the ABC’s 7:30 program on Tuesday night, Greens co-founder Drew Hudson made his case against the “cult” expelling him and dozens of others. Given her chance to respond, Senator Waters either (A) was poorly prepared for the interview by not knowing any of the details of Hudson’s expulsion, or (B) was prepared for the interview by carefully not knowing any of the details of Hudson’s expulsion.

In either case, it was a very bad look that overshadowed what she would prefer to be talking about.

Battle lines drawn as 48th parliament gets under way

Labor above the fray?

Labor, basking in rising poll numbers on top of their fat parliamentary majority, is looking amazingly stable and set for a long, disciplined innings on the Treasury benches, right?

Or maybe not?

While the Opposition (i.e. Murdoch media) has been failing to strike a blow, when the biggest charge against the Prime Minister is that he spent too much time looking at a panda, there are problems brewing within Labor that the tight leadership group won’t be able to contain indefinitely.

They are Gaza and AUKUS. The membership is unhappy with both issues, as are most thinking Australians. The strain must eventually tell on MPs of having to toe the Albanese/Marles/Wong line on one hand and face their branch meetings on the other.

Gaza and AUKUS

The SMAge report ($) of 78 Labor branches passing motions calling for sanctions against Israeli entities and individuals is a sign Labor won’t escape turmoil.

It quoted Peter Moss, a co-convenor of Labor Friends of Palestine, saying the flurry of motions being passed at branch meetings across the country represented a groundswell of support among the Labor faithful for tougher action against the Israeli government. He expected more than 100 branches will soon have passed such motions.

Parliamentary discipline is maintained through carrots and sticks, the carrots of advancement, of jobs with higher pay; the sticks of banishment.

Ed Husic, freed from Cabinet solidarity after being dumped by factional games, is an example of how quickly a united front can crumble.

Ex-cabinet minister wants Israel sanctions over Gaza

And then there’s AUKUS. As regularly dissected on this site by Rex Patrick and others, it is a disaster for Australia, for our defence and sovereignty.

The government can keep pretending all is hunky dory while secretly hoping the Trump gang saves us from ourselves, but the membership is not fooled.

Thoughts and prayers

The common factor in the Labor Government going all the way with the USA on AUKUS and going

no further than thoughts and prayers on Palestine is the appeasement of Australia’s mainstream media.

The usual suspects heap scorn on Labor for not being closer to Trump and for any sign of not supporting Israel. The unedifying spectacle of the  Labor leadership three years ago traipsing off to Holt Street to sup with Lachlan Murdoch set a standard of not daring to take on Labor’s real opposition.

People generally go into politics with good motives. Some of that is on display in this week’s maiden speeches, most obviously that by Ali France.

How long principles can be maintained under the weight of toeing the party line is a matter of personal quality. When that party line is set by powerful media rather than the membership, at some point, the weight must become too much.

Albanese visits China, meets Xi Jinping, sky does not fall

 

This post was originally published on Michael West.

The press ignored it, but thousands have converged on Canberra for the first sitting week of Parliament to protest Australia’s involvement in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Stephanie Tran reports.

Thousands of people converged on Canberra this week, marking the first sitting week of Federal Parliament with a powerful message: end Australia’s complicity in the genocide in Gaza.

The national protest, supported by a number of grassroots organisations across the country, called on the Albanese government to move beyond “empty statements” and take concrete action, namely sanctions against Israel and the suspension of military ties.

Among the speakers was Palestinian lawyer and Australia Palestine Advocacy Network executive Hiba Farra, who stressed the urgency of global solidarity.

“Gaza now has reached a point where everyone needs to be in this,” she told MWM. 

“It’s about humanity. Everyone should be in this because it starts in Gaza, but it doesn’t end at the borders of Gaza. It starts in Gaza and it’s acceptable in Gaza. It will open the door for it to be happening elsewhere.”

Farra said the protest in Canberra was a critical moment to hold power to account.

“Being here is important, and being together is important. Empowering each other is important. Showing the government and the Parliament that we are watching their silence, and their silence is deafening.”

‘We need sanctions, not sympathy’

The protest comes as frustration mounts over the Albanese government’s tepid response to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. More than 59,000 Palestinians have been killed, with 142,000 others wounded. The UN Human Rights Office reported that at least 1,054 Palestinians were killed between May and July while trying to access food, many shot by Israeli forces while queuing for humanitarian aid.

“Palestinians in Gaza are dying of starvation or bullets of the Israeli army while trying to get food,” the UN said. “The horrific physical and psychological deaths and suffering caused by hunger are the result of Israel’s interference in the delivery and militarisation of humanitarian aid.”

Speaking outside Parliament, Australia’s Voice Senator Fatima Payman described the government’s rhetoric as hollow.

“This morning I saw a little 4-year-old boy trembling while waiting to get food. And those queues are being bombed,” she said. “What does our government say? ‘The actions of Israel are indefensible’? How dare you call it indefensible now when this has been happening for decades? How dare you issue empty statements?”

Payman echoed protestors’ demands for immediate sanctions and a severing of diplomatic and military ties with Israel.

We are done with empty statements. We need sanctions; we need to break ties with Israel.

Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi staged a pointed protest in the Senate, holding up a sign that read “Gaza is starving, words won’t feed them, sanction Israel” during Governor-General Sam Mostyn’s speech. 

She directly confronted Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as he left the Senate calling out “Prime minister, Gaza is starving, will you sanction Israel?”.

24-hour vigil calls for immediate ceasefire

The protests kicked off on Sunday, and a 24-hour “Voices for Gaza” vigil is currently being held on the lawns of Parliament House with members of Parliament, doctors, journalists, academics, actors, writers, and community members reading out the names of over 17,000 Palestinian children killed in Israel’s 22-month-long assault on Gaza.

The vigil is organised by a number of major humanitarian organisations including Amnesty International Australia, Doctors Without Borders, Action Aid, Oxfam Australia and Save the Children.

The vigil called for the Australian government to apply pressure to Israel for immediate and permanent ceasefire, suspend the export of weapons parts, munitions and military support to Israel and apply full diplomatic pressure to restore safe access for humanitarian relief in Gaza.

Australia’s role in fuelling the war

While Prime Minister Anthony Albanese recently joined 28 world leaders in calling for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza, Australia continues to supply F-35 jet parts used by Israel, and maintains lucrative defence contracts with Israeli arms manufacturers including Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Elbit Systems.

Investigations by MWM and Declassified Australia have exposed Australia’s role in exporting weapons components used in Gaza, with Israeli companies openly marketing their products as “combat-proven” on Palestinian civilians. One Rafael promotional video featured footage of an unarmed Palestinian man being killed by a Spike Firefly drone.

Farra urged activists not to give up hope.

“I would like people to not give up,” Farra said. “It’s normal to feel activist fatigue, but we need to remember that the Palestinians haven’t given up, and we can’t give up.”

“Snuff videos as a sales pitch”. Rafael boasts of human testing in Gaza death camps

This post was originally published on Michael West.

Everything about AUKUS nuclear waste is a political secret, including the cost, which will more than double the $368B announced AUKUS price tag. Former submariner Rex Patrick with the story.

If we ever get these subs, the total price tag may well be over $1 trillion. I’m in the Federal Court at present, trying to pry open a November 2023 report into how the Government intends to deal with the high-level nuclear waste from AUKUS submarines.

But there’s already a lot we can deduce by combining what has been extracted from the Government using Freedom of Information (FOI) laws, from Senate testimony and also looking at how the United States does and doesn’t take care of its naval nuclear waste.

Cost explosion

For starters, there was a short but insightful exchange in Senate Estimates last year between Senator Lidia Thorpe and the head of the Australian Submarine Agency (ASA), Admiral Jonathon Mead.

After making quick reference to the cost of nuclear waste facilities overseas, Senator Thorpe asked about the waste costs for AUKUS, “There’s no costing as yet; is that right?” Mead responded, “That’s correct”.

For an organisation that is required to cost its capability from cradle to grave, including support facilities, it’s a huge omission. It might be the case that

they’re too frightened to do the math.

As I will set out below, the price of safely storing AUKUS waste is likely to double the AUKUS price tag. But first, we need to take a look at what radioactive waste AUKUS will produce and what will be done with it.

Nuclear waste. AUKUS agency’s reckless indifference

Low-level waste

We know that Australia’s nuclear-powered submarines will produce small amounts of low-level waste every year (disposable gloves, wipes, reactor coolant and Personal Protective Equipment). ASA Senate Estimates briefs obtained under FOI suggest that this will amount to “roughly the volume of a small skip bin each year.”

This, along with low-level waste from US and UK submarines operating out of Perth, will be stored at HMAS Stirling until the Australian Waste Management Agency builds and commissions the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility.

Barely noticed by the national media, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works approved the construction of a ‘Controlled Industrial Facility’ at HMAS Stirling in August 2024.

High-level waste

When each AUKUS submarine decommissions, Australia will need to handle the recovery, transport, storage and disposal of two different types of high-level nuclear waste: spent nuclear fuel, about the size of a small hatchback, and the reactor compartment, about the size of a four-wheel drive.

Noting the total lack of transparency around Australia’s plans, MWM is making a reasonable assessment as to how this waste will be handled by looking to the US.

Fuel rods will be removed from the submarine at a decommissioning yard (possibly Henderson in WA for the Virginia Class and Osborne in SA for the SSN-AUKUS submarines).

The hull is cut open, and a defueling enclosure is installed on the submarine to provide a controlled work area. The fuel is removed into a shielded transfer container and moved to a wharf enclosure. It’s then placed into a specially designed shipping container for transfer to, in the case of the US, an intermediate ‘storage site’ in Idaho. Despite 70 years of nuclear-powered submarine operations (USS Nautilus was commissioned in 1955), the US has not yet sorted out its long-term ‘disposal site’.

It is not clear whether Australia will have an intermediate ‘storage site’ and a ‘disposal site’ or a combined site. Certainly, both storage and disposal are talked about in the information that has been released under FOI.

Australia is not permitted, by the text of the AUKUS Treaty and by commitments made to the International Atomic Energy Agency, to reprocess the fuel. Reprocessing involves separating the plutonium and fissile uranium from the spent fuel to reduce the amount of spent fuel that needs to be stored long term, but doing so raises nuclear weapon proliferation concerns.

For Australia, we have to find a geologically suitable place to bury the fuel in the state it was when it left the submarine. Whilst the Defence Minister has declared this will be on ’Defence land’, the ASA can identify a news site and the Minister can compulsory acquire it – anywhere in Australia.

Reactor compartment

To deal with the reactor compartment, all of the elements of the reactor that will remain in the compartment – the pressure vessel, piping, tanks and fluid system components – are drained to the maximum extent practicable. About 2% of the liquid remains trapped in discrete pockets.

All openings are then sealed.

The reactor compartment is then cut from the submarine, and with the pressure hull remaining as part of the disposal package, the high-strength steel serves as an outer seal.

In the United States, the reactor compartment is transported to “Trench 94” in Nevada.

It is not yet known whether the Australian Government will bury the reactor compartments in a final disposal site.

Looking after high-level nuclear waste is complex. You can’t responsibly just bury it or dump it in a deep mine shaft.

Nuclear waste facility

A waste facility must be carefully located, away from seismic activity, away from flooding and other weather events and generally where geological structure allows for deep, very long-term storage. Geoscience Australia has looked at suitable locations for a high-level radioactive Waste store on occasions between 1976 and 1999 (subject to a National Archives request).

It must also be located with suitable transport pathways from the submarine dismantling yard or possibly several yards.

The site must be prepared and built/bored. It must have access to electricity supplies, water, communications and sewerage. It must allow for the safe receipt and storage of fuel and the reactor compartments, it must be resilient to loss of heating or ventilation, loss of electricity, flow blockages, structural failures, etc.

It must be resilient for well over a millennium.

It must also be designed with the necessary security in mind, with access control, constant monitoring, intrusion detection and central alarms in place, and be secure in relation to protest and sabotage and have a co-located response capability. It must provide for safe long-term storage, with multiple barriers in place to prevent release of radioactive material, and be designed to deal with large accidental radioactive releases.

At the same time, the facility will be subject to international non-proliferation safeguards overseen by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which will require periodic access and perhaps remote monitoring and surveillance.

It will likely need a level of remoteness, but be able to be staffed by relevantly qualified personnel, and to receive surge responders in the event of an emergency.

Design and construction would take close to ten years.

What will it take?

The Government has committed to consultation as it selects a site for long-term disposal, yet the law does not require it.

The decision to locate a National Radioactive Waste Management facility at Kimba in South Australia involved a lot of communication, some consultation, but very little listening. The Federal Court ultimately found that the decision-making process for that site was seriously flawed. The Liberals get a D minus.

Labor got the Parliament to declare both HMAS Stirling in Perth and the shipyard precinct at Osborne in Adelaide a ‘designated zone’ for nuclear activities. There was no consultation, so they get an F.

Section 10(2)(c) of the Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Act 2024 allows the minister to designate more zones. The consultation can be of a ‘tick-the-box’ nature.

AUKUS waste plans. The hitchhiker’s guide to nuclear approvals

While we don’t know what the cost of an underground storage/disposal facility would be, documents released under FOI show that a 2019 cost estimates study by Altus Expert Services placed the cost of an above ground facility at Kimba at $923 million. We could reasonably expect a deep storage facility could cost billions.

Then there are the ongoing operational costs of the facilities, over several hundred years.

Even at an annual cost of only $30 million per annum, that’s close to $4B over 120 years. And if the site is then sealed for 100,000 years, as the Finnish intend to do with their underground facility, there’s even more cost. Even if monitoring of sealed waste only cost 1/10th of the yearly operating cost, say $3million, the cradle-to-grave cost of dealing with AUKUS high level waste will add up to more than $300 billion; $300B that seems to have slipped ASA’s minds.

One thing’s for sure, there’s been too much secrecy around this radioactive hot potato. Maybe things will fall my way in the Federal Court. But it would be much better if the Government was just be up-front with everyone, particularly as we tax-payers have to pay for it.

Secret AUKUS nuclear waste site docs in Cabinet lockdown

 

This post was originally published on Michael West.

A bill to establish a Whistleblower Protection Authority is before a Senate Committee, and submissions are in. But will the Labor Government finally act? Rex Patrick reports.

The Whistleblower Protection Authority Bill 2025 (WPA) has been tabled in the Senate by Senators David Pocock and Jacqui Lambie. Its purpose is to serve as a one-stop shop for the giving of advice to both whistleblowers and investigators, and step in when a whistleblower protection issue arises.

The then Labor opposition promised to establish a WPA during the 2019 federal election campaign. Once in Government, though, not much has been done by Labor to make it happen.

Instead, in their last term, all the Labor Government did was prosecute public sector whistleblowers such as David McBride and Richard Boyle, and did nothing to assist corporate sector whistleblowers such as Tony Watson and Christian Reiche.

David v Goliath battle for whistleblower tackling Lendlease, PwC in court

Richard Boyle and a WPA

MWM has reported extensively on Australian Tax Office (ATO) whistleblower Richard Boyle. In May this year, he had no choice but to timidly plead guilty to being a whistleblower and will face court again in August to find out his fate. Here’s hoping he does not get burdened with a conviction.

How would a WPA have helped Richard?

Richard, like so many whistleblowers, had never before blown the whistle. He had little knowledge of what to do.

In good faith, he prepared his public interest disclosure, collecting evidence needed to support his case. He broke the law, not knowing that his copying of protected information was not protected under the Public Interest Disclosure Act (it took four judges, three King’s Counsels, and a number of barristers and lawyers to work out he wasn’t protected).

It’s not clear that a WPA would have had a definitive answer on Richard’s conduct – legal hindsight is a wonderful thing – but it is reasonable to say that had Richard contacted the WPA, it would have cautioned against the approach he was planning on taking. Indeed, the WPA could have assisted him to ensure that his preparation carried out for his public interest disclosure was squeaky clean.

The making of a criminal … from a whistleblower

It is accepted by the Senate and the SA Court of Appeal that the ATO botched the investigation of Richard’s disclosure. Perhaps a different approach would have been taken in the investigation had Richard made his disclosure to the WPA and the WPA had then referred it to the ATO. Richard could have been given anonymity, and the ATO would likely have taken the investigation more seriously.

Richard, undeterred by the botched ATO investigation, took his disclosure to the Inspector-General of Taxation (IGT). Whilst that was logically sound on account of the IGT’s expertise in tax, it had no jurisdiction to deal with his disclosure. Richard should have gone to the Ombudsman. A WPA could have advised him of this.

Retribution

It was only after the ABC 4Corners program, Mongrel Bunch of Bastards, was set to report on the issue raised in Richard’s disclosure that retribution commenced. On 4 April 2018, the Australian Federal Police raided Richard’s home on behalf of the ATO. On 10 April 2018, Mongrel Bunch of bastards aired. In May 2018, the ATO terminated his employment.

On 7 January 2019, he was charged with 66 offences.

Richard commenced a fight for his liberty, one that is still ongoing. He had no ability to direct time and resources to dealing with the ATO’s retribution.

If there had been a WPA, Richard would have had the ability to call for their support. It could have investigated the ATO to see whether they had engaged in the pursuit of Richard for improper reasons (embarrassment of the ATO as opposed to a genuine concern over illegal activities engaged in his preparation to blow the whistle).

The WPA could have made a recommendation to the Attorney-General to have the charges against Richard dropped.

The WPA would have facilitated access to legal support and expertise.

It’s fair to say that the charges against Richard may never have been laid if there was a WPA standing beside him throughout the entire process. Indeed, it may even have been the case that ATO officials could have themselves been disciplined or charged in respect of their failures under the Public Interest Disclosure Act and even for misfeasance.

Richard Boyle’s case has seen hundreds of media articles written that have undermined public confidence in Australia’s whistleblower protection regime. WPA involvement and intervention could have had the opposite effect, giving confidence to others who observe wrongdoing in their workplace.

Government reluctant to act?

Almost 50 submissions have been made to the Senate inquiry, mostly supportive, many with suggestions for improvements.

The Attorney-General’s Department’s submission is probably the most instructive on the Government’s position on the Bill. It states, “The Government is considering the WPA Bill”, but then goes on to say “the establishment of a Whistleblower Commissioner or Authority would raise significant legal, operational and resourcing issues that require careful consideration.”

It does not instil confidence.

Boeing death a stark reminder of the need for a Whistleblower Authority

At least five separate parliamentary inquiries have lent support to a WPA. There are WPA equivalents in countries such as Ireland, the Maldives, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Spain and the US.

And yet, a government that is content to blow billions upon billions on defence projects is reluctant to spend a dime protecting whistleblowers, such that no one wants to risk wrongdoing inside public and private organisations.

The government seems to fail to appreciate that it is the cost of not having a WPA that needs to be considered most.

And living up to an election promise.

Hero Richard Boyle pleads guilty to being a whistleblower.

This post was originally published on Michael West.

Before the last election, a bureaucrat in the office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet attempted to embed ministerial blindness into the conventions of our government. Rex Patrick reports.

In December 2024, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet uploaded to its website a revised Guidance on Caretaker Conventions.

The Guidance is intended to declare and explain the longstanding conventions and practices of the caretaker period and to provide advice for the appropriate handling of business by Australian Government agencies during an election campaign.

Now, to be fair, the guidelines do offer the following caution, “The conventions are not legally binding, nor hard and fast rules. Their application in individual cases requires judgment and common sense.”

However, where is the common sense in this new advice in the guidance document?

2.6 Following the end of the caretaker period and once a new government is appointed, successive governments have accepted the convention that ministers do not seek access to documents recording the deliberations of ministers in previous governments.

One only has to think for about 20 milliseconds to realise how detrimental that advice would be. It’s akin to saying to a new CEO of a company that they cannot access the corporate history contained within their predecessor’s files. That would be a recipe for corporate disaster.

It’s advice that might be contrived if political imperatives were the driving factor, rather than good governance. And the thing is, the public service that published the guidance is not supposed to be political.

That the then Secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Glynn Davis, allowed this political desire to be embedded into the guidance is a mark against his relatively good report card.

No Convention

The last sentence in the new paragraph, suggesting that there is a long-standing convention that ministers are not to see the deliberations of previous ministers, is just plain wrong.

Whilst there exists a well-established convention that new governments are not to see Cabinet documents from past governments, there’s no such convention suggesting new ministers cannot see (non-Cabinet) documents from past ministers.

Curious as to where the idea came from that there was a long running convention for new ministers not to have access to the corporate knowledge contained in documents and records of a previous minister’s reign, I directed a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (PMC) for evidence that such a convention exists.

I got a nil return. All they found were documents relating to the Cabinet convention.

I also sought access to the documents that explained how the offending paragraph made its way into the Guidance on Caretaker Conventions, and got this:

Mr Ananijevski, the official who put the idea forward without citation, also recognised that the view being expressed “may not be a universal view. Indeed, his ideas were at best conjecture; a well-informed reader of the guidelines might call it out for the BS that it is.

And yet it somehow made it into formal guidelines that are intended to explain how a responsible system of government works.

Perhaps Mr Ananijevski was oblivious to the fact the Commonwealth had adopted an argument in Attorney-General v Patrick [2024] FCAFC 126 that successive Ministers hold different offices, meaning there is no expectation that a document that was in the possession of a former Minister will be in the possession of a subsequent Minister (especially a Minister of a different government). The Full Federal Court wasn’t at all persuaded by the argument.

Rex Patrick v Mark Dreyfus court battle a big win for political integrity

Bad policy

Imagine building a new apartment block, and halfway through the build, the building site manager leaves the project. What possible benefit would flow from denying the new building site manager access to the documents and decision rationale of the old building site manager?

The documents of a minister are the documents of the office of the minister.

They are not the documents of the person who is appointed to the position of minister or, from time to time, performs the duties of the position. 

In Patrick v Attorney General, Justice Charlesworth noted that information held by the Government is to be managed for public purposes and is a national resource. 

No matter how much the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet would like to please departing ministers and give a ‘nod and wink’ to new ministers, what has happened here is bad policy. It’s like they think their first duty is to ministers, and not the Australian public.

The truth is, I can only guess the motives behind what has happened. I’m left at the place where I started; just what was Assistant Secretary Branko Ananijevski thinking?

FOI win as Information Commissioner rebukes Defence secrecy

This post was originally published on Michael West.

The National Anti-Corruption Commission celebrates its second anniversary this week. Has the much-heralded initiative of the first Albanese government lived up to its expectations? Kim Wingerei asks.

As of June 30, the NACC reports that it received 2,260 referrals over the last 12 months, down from 3,190 the previous year. It currently has five matters before the courts, and 41 matters under investigation by itself or jointly with other agencies. To date, the NACC has secured less than 20 convictions from the 5,450 referrals of potentially corrupt conduct that it has received, or 0.3%.

Next Monday, July 7, is also the anniversary of Robodebt Royal Commissioner Catherine Holmes’ referral of her report to the NACC. It included a sealed chapter that recommended six individuals for civil and criminal prosecution for their roles in the illegal Robodebt scheme. A report she intentionally delayed the release of so that the then newly established NACC could deal with it.

The farce that developed around the Robodebt referral has since been well reported, if not by the mainstream media, certainly on these and other pages of independent media.

A short chronology of the Robodebt Royal Commission and the subsequent referral:

• June 2020 – Labor and the Greens call for a Royal Commission
• May 2022 – a Senate enquiry recommends one be established
• August 2022 – PM Albanese announces RC with $30M budget
• July 2023 – RC Report presented with aforementioned referrals to NACC

This, as many know, is where it all starts to ironically disappear into a black hole of public sector mismanagement and subterfuge.

• June 2024 – NACC announces it will not pursue referrals of the individuals named in the sealed section of the RC Report
• June 2024 – Following public complaints, the NACC Inspector (oversight authority) announces that it will review the NACC’s decision not to further investigate referrals and appoints Alan Roberston SC to conduct the review (kudos to @RonniSalt for alerting 1,200 complainants)
• October 2024 – Following Robertson’s review, the NACC Inspector announces that the NACC is to appoint an appropriate person to reconsider its decision not to further investigate RC referrals.
• February 2025 – NACC announces Geoffrey Nettle KC to “reconsider” the referrals of the six people named in the RC Report.
• June 2025 – NACC announces “re-investigation” now underway, led by Deputy Commissioner Kilgour with Nettle as “Chief Adviser”.

To put it briefly, more than five years after the RC was first contemplated, there is still no resolution regarding who should bear the ultimate responsibility for the decisions made, the actions taken, and the cover-ups that followed.

Deafening silence at flawed process. NACC and the Robodebt investigation.

Aside from the enormous public anger, the heartless lack of consideration for Robodebt victims seeking a just closure and the severely damaged reputation of the NACC itself, including many of its senior officers, what has all this cost? Here’s a summary of the remuneration of the people involved – you can form your own opinion if we’re getting value for money.

NACC Remuneration

ROLE	REMUNERATION
Chief Commissioner	$784,000 p.a.
Deputy Commissioner	$613,000 p.a.
Inspector of the NACC *	$552,000 p.a.
Alan Roberston	$136,000 (3 months)
Geoffrey Nettle	$684,000 (8 months)

* Note – NACC Inspector is a part-time role as she undertakes the same role for NSW ICAC (good work if you can get it). The $552K p.a. remuneration has been commensurately reduced in the above.

Reinvestigating the reinvestigation

Aside from the Chief Commissioner’s self-inflicted ridicule, we also know he managed to implicate at least one other Deputy Inspector in his bungled handling. Hence, the appointment of apparent clean-skin Deputy Commissioner Kilgour and Nettle in the ambiguous role of Chief Adviser to undertake the re-investigation.

According to a MWM source, the NACC’s contract with Nettle was awarded in April 2025 and has since been extended twice, with a current completion date now of December 2025. It would be interesting to know what this role involves and how it aligns with the NACC’s legislative framework.

“It would be a travesty if a legal technicality impeded the prosecution of any adverse findings, as has happened with NSW ICAC, e.g. Nick Greiner & Margaret Cunneen had ICAC findings overturned, even Gladys Berejiklian had a go at getting off.”

Low output at high costs

When compared to public expectations, the NACC’s output has been, at best, abysmal.

With that in mind and the magnitude of dealing with an RC referral complete with subsequent bungling, applying a 15% time allocation to the Chief Commissioner and similar for just one Deputy Commissioner, a conservative cost estimate for the full-time senior staff plus the two fixed term appointments to deal with Robodebt to date is approximately $1.3M. 

Drawing on Nettle’s current contract expiry, assuming the re-investigation is concluded by December 2025, add another $300K for Deputy Commissioner Kilgour. An estimated total of approx. $1.6M. This, of course, excludes administration & external support and other operating costs. It’s highly likely there will be no change out of $2M.

The final cost of the Royal Commission was $33.6 million. An investment that will be wasted if there is no full justice arising from what is seen as Australia’s greatest public management failure.

The final cost to the taxpayer is therefore likely to be a minimum $36M+, a figure that will be much higher if one or all of the six referred individuals are ultimately prosecuted.

Additional costs of prosecutions

Unfortunately, there are many examples where the taxpayer perversely funds the cost of legal counsel for public figures (politicians), including Gladys Berejiklian at NSW ICAC and the Robodebt RC itself, where the taxpayer picked up $2.5M legal costs for former Ministers.

If there’s a grifter or two in the referral list (big chance), let’s hope they’ll be required to meet their own costs under the NACC’s re-investigation or any subsequent court prosecution. 

But there’s one thing money won’t be able to fix, and that’s the loss of confidence and sense of betrayal that many feel about the NACC and our political class, who created it. We can only hope that Chief Commissioner Brereton is acutely aware of his failures in dealing with Robodebt, as well as the multitude of other unanswered referrals to the NACC over the past two years.

Corruption Commission’s Robodebt failure tells of deeper problems with the NACC

This post was originally published on Michael West.

A Melbourne company is recruiting Australians to work on a mysterious Israeli and American-backed aid project in Gaza. Could it be the infamous Gaza Humanitarian Foundation? Yaakov Aharon reports.

An ad posted by Claymore Personnel – named after an anti-personnel landmine – promises that successful candidates will “be looked after.”

Workers will have accommodation expenses in Israel covered, operate in American-led teams, and receive payment in US dollars. 

While it remains impossible to verify exactly who Claymore is working with, the shortlist of aid agencies that fit Claymore’s description ranges from bad to worse.

There is precisely one self-described ‘aid agency’ thriving in Gaza right now, and that is the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Fogbow lags in a distant second place.

The Israeli and American governments back both agencies; both agencies rely on private security contractors to distribute aid; both agencies’ founders are American military and intelligence officials; both have been implicated in massacres at Gaza aid sites.

This month alone, at least 450 have been killed and 3500 injured while waiting for food at sites operated by GHF, a Mossad and CIA-backed front.

Looking for adventure?

Before GHF had begun its Gaza operations on May 27, it was already the subject of condemnation in a joint statement issued by aid agencies. The letter condemned GHF as “a dangerous and politicised sham” and “a blueprint for ethnic cleansing”.

Claymore posted ads on seek.com and on its official website on May 28, a day after GHF hit the ground. The first batch of recruits left for Gaza two weeks later. 

Reports of massacres at sites of American-led aid projects did not dampen Claymore’s spirits. Its mission to recruit carried on throughout June, with the ad saying workers deployed to Gaza will have a “3-month contract with strong potential for multiple extensions”. 

While most aid sites in Gaza were closing down, prospects for Claymore’s partners were expanding. “A large humanitarian distribution centre is now operating in Gaza”, Claymore’s ad said.

The recruitment agency sought Australian labourers, truck drivers, and forklift operators willing to work for low wages paid in USD ($3250-$6000 monthly). Successful candidates enjoyed full travel sponsorships. The ad on Claymore’s website assured applicants that there would be no police checks. The seek.com ad said otherwise. 

On each workday, the workers would be provided with “secure transport” from Israeli accommodation to worksites at “secure zones” in Gaza. 

MWM spoke to Senator Mehreen Faruqi, the Greens Spokesperson for International Aid, who condemned “any so-called ‘humanitarian’ effort that operates at the whim of the genocidal Israeli military”.

“I’m concerned that Australian companies appear to be inserting themselves into a brutal system where ‘aid’ is delivered at gunpoint, guarded by soldiers and private contractors, while starving Palestinians are forced to risk their lives just to access basic supplies.”

Chasing ghosts

Tracking yesterday’s leftover footprints at Bondi Beach is easier than following Claymore’s digital footprints.

The LinkedIn profile of the company’s sole director, Tanya Molloy, provides no information beyond her role at the small business, which was founded in 2023. Trusted aid agencies and union officials told MWM on background they were not aware of Claymore, nor of any project it may be associated with in Gaza.

The recruitment agency’s address is listed as CSS Partners, a small accounting firm in Keilor East, Victoria. MWM called CSS’s landline and asked to be put through to Claymore. The receptionist said they were not aware that Claymore had listed its address as CSS Partners, and that the company’s relations were of an accounting firm to a client.

An associate of MWM visited the address listed on government records as Claymore’s principal place of business in Altona North, Victoria.

“It is in a large remote industrial area,” was the report back from the Altona North office. “There is no sign nor even a number on a door. I think it’s empty.”

Playing mum against dad

Tanya Molloy lives with Claymore’s secretary, the American-born Calum McEwan, in a suburban Melbourne townhouse.

When MWM asked Molloy who Claymore was working with, she was coy.

“Claymore Personnel is a recruitment agency only — we are not involved in the political, logistical, or operational aspects of any aid delivery. We supply skilled workers for overseas roles, and once placed, our involvement ends. We’re not affiliated with any government, military, or aid organisation.”

“Due to the sensitivity of the work and the wellbeing of those on the ground, I won’t be commenting further.”

Further statements by Molloy deny any association with GHF.

If nothing else, Claymore’s footsteps follow the lead of GHF, which also lists its address as an abandoned warehouse in Delaware, USA. 

Text messages leaked to MWM raise doubts about Molloy’s firm assertion that Claymore has no association with GHF. 

“The company the candidates will be working for is JK International – jkiglobal.com”, Calum McEwan said, in a response to a concerned humanitarian last month.

When the recipient of the texts asked McEwan if JK International works for GHF, McEwan responded “I don’t have this information.”

Claymore’s ad says it is “the only Australian contact point for this operation”, after being “personally engaged by [an] international logistics group”.

JK International is a global logistics and shipping company based in Tennessee, USA. Its business partners include the USA’s Department of Homeland Security and Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, as well as Israel’s largest shipping company, Zim – a key player in the global weapons supply chain. 

Supply and demand

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is wanted for arrest by the International Criminal Court for charges of war crimes, including ‘starvation of civilians as a method of warfare’.

Rather than heeding calls to obey international law, Israel has doubled down. Israel says it has no obligation to provide aid to Palestinians, given its allegations that Hamas steals aid at gunpoint and has infiltrated the United Nations.

Israel’s parliament passed sweeping restrictions on aid agencies working in Gaza. UNWRA and UNICEF were banned from delivering aid into the Occupied Palestinian Territory, in breach of orders issued by the International Court of Justice.

Any worker or organisation who has expressed the wrong political opinions will be refused entry by Israel. Background checks will ensure workers have never made statements that “delegitimize” Israel or question its identity as “a Jewish and democratic state”.

Each Palestinian who receives aid is also vetted to ensure they have no connections, according to Israel’s standards, to a Palestinian resistance group.

A government statement said these changes guarantee aid is distributed “in a manner aligned with Israel’s national interests”.

Funding criminal gangs in Gaza

Instead of trusted agencies, aid is increasingly provided by American private military contractors, as well as Israeli-backed gangs.

Earlier this month, Israeli opposition figure Avigdor Lieberman revealed that Mossad and the Ministry of Defence were arming and funding criminal gangs in Gaza. Further reports reveal security at GHF aid sites is provided by mercenaries from Safe Reach Solutions, a firm founded by former CIA officers.

These reforms weaponised aid to undermine Hamas on a grassroots level.

After reports that Israeli Forces massacred Palestinians at a GHF site in Rafah, Israel released footage that it claimed showed Hamas fighters were responsible. In fact, the footage depicted a different massacre, at a different GHF site, committed by Israeli-backed gangs as they stole aid.

Interviewed Israeli soldiers claimed their commanders ordered them to shoot civilians collecting aid at GHF sites. The Military Advocate-General then instructed the IDF to investigate these reported war crimes. 

Government declines to answer

Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi called on the Albanese Government to “urgently clarify whether it has had any involvement in authorising or facilitating this project, and whether it has provided any diplomatic, logistical or intelligence support to Claymore Personnel or related actors.”

“DFAT has a clear responsibility to ensure any Australian-linked aid effort operates fully in line with international humanitarian law,” Faruqi said. “That includes not participating in a system where aid is used as a tool of control and oppression.”

Several international humanitarian law organisations cosigned a letter yesterday expressing concern about Gaza’s privatised “humanitarian” operators.

The letter issues a warning to all those involved with GHF — including states, companies, and contracted workers – of their potential liability for complicity in genocide.

MWM spoke to Lara Khider, acting executive director of the Australian Centre for International Justice, which was among the organisations that signed the letter.

“Any recruitment of civilians into areas of conflict or occupied territory must be approached with the utmost caution and transparency,” Khider said. “Particularly where international humanitarian law and the risk of complicity in grave breaches of international law may be engaged.” 

“It is imperative that Australian nationals and entities exercise due diligence and avoid any involvement that could directly or indirectly support or legitimise unlawful conduct.”

Another government official told MWM that state funding is directed toward United Nations agencies, the Red Cross and the Red Crescent – but refused to answer if the government supported Claymore or its associates.

MWM asked the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) if it was aware of – and approved – Claymore’s aid project.

To say DFAT dodged the question is to compliment it unfairly for showing grace and dexterity.

“Any Australian travelling overseas for employment should ensure they are not in breach of Australian law and follow all travel advice on Smartraveller,” a department spokesperson said.

To DFAT’s credit, Smartraveller is clearer in its profile on Gaza and Israel: “Do not travel.”

Shayne Chester contributed to research.

Lone Soldiers. New Australian IDF recruits due to arrive in Israel in January

This post was originally published on Michael West.

As the Navy embarks on the ambitious AUKUS program, the Auditor-General has handed Defence a ‘C minus’ on the Canberra Class ship-building program. Rex Patrick reports.

Ever since the Navy took possession of the two Canberra-class landing Ships at a cost of $1.5B each, they’ve been mired in controversy about reliability.

In a scathing report from the Auditor-General released on Friday, their audit found that the ships’ sustainment has not been effective, or achieved value-for-money, with the ships being hobbled with defects throughout their young lives.

HMAS Canberra was delivered with 6,640 defects and deficiencies, while the second ship of the class, HMAS Adelaide, was delivered with 2,240.

When HMAS Canberra was deemed to have reached its ‘initial operational capability’ in November 2015, it had over 1,000 residual defects and deficiencies.

Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD) Ships

To the untrained eye, they look like aircraft carriers. But they’re not; they’re 27,000-tonne landing ships (referred to as “LHDs”). 

LHDs can carry and land ashore over 1,000 army personnel with weapons, ammunition, vehicles and stores using up to 12 helicopters (not included in the price) and 4 56-tonne landing watercraft (included in the price). They have space for 110 vehicles, including 12 Abrams tanks, and also have onboard medical facilities that include operating theatres, wards, X-ray, and dental facilities.

Operational issues ongoing

The ships were in the media in 2017, with HMAS Adelaide unable to attend exercise Talisman Sabre. LHD sustainment was listed as an underperforming program on the Defence ‘Product of Interest’ list ‘due to ongoing propulsion pod reliability and vibration concerns at delivery, as well as the concerns over maturity of the overall sustainment system’.

The ships received a ‘final operational capability’ declaration in November 2019 with six ‘significant residual deficiencies’.

In 2022 and 2023, the ships suffered total power failures while providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief support to Tonga and Vanuatu, respectively. Worse than failing the Navy when needed, the incidents caused the Navy reputational damage.

The Auditor-General found that:

“Risks arising from an accumulation of defects and maintenance backlogs over several years have materialised. The substandard condition of the vessels and personnel workforce shortages have resulted in instances of critical failure and impacts to the Navy’s delivery of operational outcomes.”

As of this month, there are 223 urgent defects recorded across the two ships.

Defence Management Failure

In respect of Defence management, the Auditor-General found that:

• Defence did not implement fit-for-purpose planning and value-for-money procurement arrangements to support LHD sustainment.
• Value for money and the intended sustainment outcomes were not achieved through Defence’s procurement processes.
• Sustainment of the LHDs was not managed effectively by Defence through its prime contractor arrangements.

Over the past year, there have been multiple reports of Defence projects being “re-prioritised” (this is a term many now acknowledge as being used in Senate Estimate hearings to avoid “cancelled”) to pay for the AUKUS submarine program.

Adding to that news was a revelation this week that the Defence Department has cut project maintenance and training budgets by 10 per cent to save money to also pay for the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines and new missiles.

The Audit report reveals further financial issues. Hidden amongst details of how the costs of sustaining the LHDs required more money was a report regarding correspondence in May 2024 prepared by the Chief of Navy,

identifying a shortfall in the Navy of $2.7B over 2023–24 and 2027–28.

There is pressure bearing in on all sides as the Navy pursues its dream of acquiring eight nuclear power submarines at a bankrupting cost of $368B.

Something has to give. Unfortunately, it’s not the AUKUS program.

I just want a Ferrari, sorry, a nuclear submarine, no matter the cost

More money, please

The Audit report also comes at a time when, around the world, there have been calls for increases in national Defence spending. NATO countries have agreed, while Prime Minister Albanese has resisted.

A major problem for Australia is that throwing more money at Defence is, based on past performance, throwing good money after bad. What makes it worse is that most of our money goes overseas; many of the NATO nations can spend it locally.

Over the last decade, Defence has wasted $20B on capabilities not delivered, or capabilities they accepted that did not meet expectations.

And now we see Defence is not faring well on sustainment of their assets, with their expectation that the taxpayer will pay more for the same capability.

And yet, we roll on with no changes inside Defence. No one is accountable, and the taxpayers are expected to just pay the bill.

It may well be that the current geo-strategic uncertainty and outlook require greater spending on Defence; however,

the Government would be well advised to only do that after significant reform has occurred inside Defence.

The old adage “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” is as true as ever. Maybe it’s about time we do something different.

Dumb Ways to Buy: Defence “shambles” unveiled – former submariner and senator Rex Patrick

This post was originally published on Michael West.

It’s 21 years since the Howard Government spied on Timor-Leste’s sea boundary negotiation team, but the National Archives is refusing to even say whether they hold documents relating to the spying. Rex Patrick puts to bed any doubts about the fact that the spying took place.

In 2004, the Australian Secret Intelligence Agency spied on Timor’s sea boundary negotiating team, seeking to defraud the world’s newest and most impoverished country of its right to access and benefit from its own resources.

The spying occurred despite a 2002 written commitment by the Australian government to negotiate the sea boundary in good faith.

A maritime boundary treaty was signed between Australia and Timor on 12 January 2006. The Timorese, however, found out about the spying and, after unsuccessfully approaching the Australian government to resolve the issue, commenced proceedings in April 2013 in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague to overturn the fraudulently negotiated treaty. In their statement of claim, they said:

“The circumstances… are that during the negotiation of the 2006 Treaty between Timor-Leste and Australia in 2004, Australia covertly spied on the Timor-Leste negotiating team by means of listening devices surreptitiously and unlawfully placed by Australian personnel in the Timor-Leste government offices. This enabled the Australian negotiating team to become aware of the private discussions of the Timor-Leste negotiating team and of its position in relation to various issues arising in connection with the 2002 Treaty and the attempt to amend it by the drafting of the 2006 Treaty … “

They went on to accuse Australia of violating customary international law though its bad faith conduct and because the spying was carried out on the territory of Timor-Leste by Australian officials and/or governmental personnel who’d entered Timor-Leste while concealing the true and unlawful purpose of their visit, and with the intent to violate the law of Timor-Leste.

They also added that the complicity of the Australian Embassy in Dili in these actions was incompatible with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

A voice for Timor and whistleblowers keeps up the good fight

Witness ‘K’

On 3 December 2013, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation raided the offices of Timor’s legal representative, Bernard Collaery, and the home of Witness ‘K’, a former officer of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service and a client of Collaery Lawyers, and seized legal documents related to the arbitration.

The raids gave rise to new proceedings in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to recover Timor’s unlawfully seized legal documents. The documents seized included earlier versions of an affidavit made by Witness ‘K’. According to documents filed by Timor in the ICJ,

“The affidavit describes the covert bugging in 2004 of the Timor-Leste Cabinet room on the instructions of the Australian authorities. This affidavit was the key evidence in the Timor Sea Treaty Arbitration.:

Just over a month later, on 31 January 2014, the Australian Government asked the Arbitral Tribunal to disallow the giving of evidence of Witness ‘K’. The Australian Government also confirmed in the ICJ proceedings in their formal submissions:

“The facts on which the current dispute turns clearly show that the acts of Mr Collaery and one of his clients, known as ‘K’, constituted an unauthorised disclosure of Australian national security information, which posed serious threats to Australian lives and national security.”

Australia’s line of defence in the ICJ centred on the right of States and stated that the seizing of the documents involved an exercise of territorial sovereignty over an Australian national to protect Australia’s national security. That ‘protection’ centred on laws enacted to prohibit the disclosure of national security information. 

The accusations of criminal acts raised included offences under the Intelligence Services Act and the Criminal Code. 

Criminal charges laid against Witness K

After the ICJ proceeding commenced, both the ICJ and arbitration cases were suspended for consultations seeking to resolve the differences between Australia and Timor-Leste. Both proceedings were eventually discontinued, and the two countries reached an agreement on a treaty delimiting the maritime boundary and addressing the legal status of the Greater Sunrise gas field.

After a new Maritime Boundary Treaty was signed, charges were brought against Witness ‘K’. The charges were described in the summary of facts in the Magistrates Court of the ACT.

“Witness K has pleaded guilty to the offence of conspiracy to communicate ASIS information between about 1 February 2013 and 20 November 2013 in the Australian Capital Territory and/or elsewhere contrary to section 11.5 of the Criminal Code and section 89 of the Intelligence Services Act 2001 …”

 The charges related to the spying operation that took place in Timor between April and October 2004. The statement of facts confirms:

“On 23 April 2013, the Republic of Timor-Leste instituted arbitral proceedings in the Permanent Court of Arbitration against the Commonwealth of Australia, alleging the negotiated Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea was invalid because Australia failed to conduct the treaty in good faith by engaging in espionage. Collaery was involved as a legal advisor to Timor-Leste and the evidence of Witness K was central to the Timor-Leste case.”

Criminal charges laid against Collaery

Charges were also brought against Collaery under the Intelligence Services Act, and the Criminal Code included a charge that,

“Between 1 December 2012 and 31 May 2013 at Canberra and elsewhere, the defendant conspired with a person known to him as Witness K to communicate information or matter to the government of Timor-Leste that was prepared by or on behalf of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service in connection with its functions or related to the performance of those functions.”

Spies Like Us: how Timor’s oil and gas delivered justice to Bernard Collaery

Wong’s nuanced confession

On 7 July 2023, Australia’s Foreign Minister, Senator Wong, addressed Timor-Leste’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation in Dili and with a nuanced confession:

“There have been past instances in which Australian governments have acted in ways that Timorese people – and many Australians – found disappointing.

“Timor-Leste was right to initiate compulsory conciliation, as you were entitled to do under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.”

Neither confirm nor deny

When I asked the National Archives for 2004 ASIS documents relating to the spying, they refused to confirm or deny the existence of such documents.

The problem is that, as outlined above, there is a straight and unbroken line that can be drawn through all of this formal government documentation showing that the spying took place.

In Australia, it would not be possible to bring charges against Witness K and Collaery for communicating fictitious spying information.

Admit it, And Let’s Move On

In the Collaery case in the ACT Supreme Court (which was eventually stopped after Senator Wong had travelled to Timor) Xanana Gusmao deposed:

“I believe that the [spying operation facts] can be discussed in public audience in these proceedings, without risk of prejudicing the national security of Australia and the international relations, because they are already a matter of public record and, in the perspective of Timor-Leste, generally are considered true, independently of whatever official position is adopted by Australia in relation to them …”

He went on to state:

“It is my opinion that the public evidence about the [spying operation facts] would be a positive development in our bilateral relationship and that this would be well received by Timor-Leste. This would happen because a public discussion of these measures would strengthen our trust in Australia and in its Government.”

Gusmao concluded his affidavit by saying:

“… It is my opinion that the mistake on the part of Australia in confirming or denying openly all or part of the [spying operation facts] is a bad example and reflects negatively on the commitment made by Australia to transparency, justice and the rule of law in the international community.”

Gusmao is currently the Prime Minister of Timor-Leste. What he said must be listened to.

Not listening

But the Australian Government is foolishly not listening.

While the Government refuses to confirm or deny the spying operation, Australians can’t talk to their government about it. While the Government refuses to confirm or deny the spying operation, we will not have a proper, trusted relationship with Timor.

I have appealed the National Archives decision. This is a case that may well end up in the High Court.

Meanwhile, Timor is cuddling up to China.

Rex Patrick: will Timor-Leste become China’s latest aircraft carrier?

This post was originally published on Michael West.

Crippling debt, political turmoil and the controversial AFL stadium have left Tasmania in a state of crisis. Greg Barns reports.

A week into Tasmania’s mid winter election campaign, precipitated by a successful ‘no confidence’ in the Premier Jeremy Rockliff moved by the ALP and supported by the Greens and most independents in the State’s 35 member lower house, and one can only say, its depressing.

Labor’s leader Dean Winter and Premier Jeremy Rockliff are simply exemplars of what we have in Australia today – political leaders who are devoid of a big picture vision.

The election campaign is depressing in that Tasmania is in a worst financial position than any other state in Australia but neither the Liberals or Labor appear to care.  On the contrary they are the big spenders.

Then there is the fact that a sports stadium is front and centre of the campaign.  Forget the homelessness crisis, the appalling low rates of literacy, the worst health outcomes in the nation etc.

AFL gun to the head

The stadium was imposed on Tasmania by the most arrogant and thuggish sporting organisation in this land – the AFL. It told the Tasmanian government if it wanted a team in the nation’s premier sporting competition then it needed to build a permanently roofed stadium on Macquarie Point – a waterfront site. 

It was gun at your head stuff. Mind you to expect that the Tasmanian government would put the interests of its people first and insist on some negotiation over the stadium site and cost, was a step too far given the track record of the Liberal government on this issue.

The stadium is hideously expensive and the Rockliff government has decided to rip up its planning process and ram through special legislation to ensure the AFL gets its wish.

It’s the economy

But the real issue in the election is the fact that Tasmania is back in the red, yet again. It was there in the late 1980s and early 1990s and dug out by a series of Labor and Liberal governments.

This time it is Mr Rockliff’s Liberals, in government since 2014, who have to shoulder the blame. As the prominent economist Saul Eslake said earlier this week in an oped published in the Hobart Mercury, largely because of “unfunded vote-buying at the last three elections, Tasmania’s public finances are, by many metrics, the worst of any state or territory.

“The 2025-26 State Budget presented last month shows that Tasmania’s public sector – that is, including government business enterprises as well as the departments and agencies which constitute core ‘general government’ sector – will incur cash deficits equivalent to about 5½ per cent of Tasmania’s gross state product over the four years to 2028-29. That’s worse than any other state or territory, including Victoria, for which the corresponding figure is about 1¾ per cent of gross state product.”

A billion for the stadium on top 

The stadium will cost Tasmanian taxpayers over $1 billion – its already sitting at $945 million. Then there are the other promises both Labor and the Liberals are making.  No talk of tackling debt though. In short, an Alice in Wonderland and bread and circuses approach from both the major parties.

Of course what is clear, even a month out, is that it is highly unlikely that Labor or the Liberals will get the 18 seats needed for a majority in the House of Assembly. The Liberals currently hold 14 seats and Labor 10. 

At the moment it is 5 Greens and 6 independents, although 3 of the latter are running in this election under the National Party banner, that hold the balance of power. It is difficult to say what the make up of the cross bench will be after the election but it can’t be ruled out that the Greens will be the king makers. That will displease both the Labor Party and the Liberals – the former has a visceral hatred of anything Green.

Speaking of candidates it is extraordinary that former federal MPs have been endorsed as candidates for Labor and the Liberals. Talk about lack of imagination.  Following the lead of former Howard government minister Eric Abetz who, after losing his senate seat in the 2019 election, now finds himself a minister in the state government, Gavin Pearce, Bridget Archer and Brian Mitchell are standing in the election. Mr Pearce and Ms Archer were federal Liberal MPs who lost their seats in the recent election, and Mr Mitchell was the Labor MP for Lyons who retired.

The only, and I mean only, possible silver lining in this dismal election campaign is that ‘no stadium’ candidates win seats. And in doing so, whomever is premier – Mr Rockliff or Mr Winter – get the message that Tasmanians expect that their government prioritises scarce resources on those who cannot find housing or who wait for years for surgery. And of course the expectation that governments reduce the crippling debt that every Tasmanian is saddled with today.

Meanwhile this island state continues to drift aimlessly, waiting, as always for something to turn up and rescue it from failed state status.

This post was originally published on Michael West.

After 14 months of monkey business the Australian Government has batted off FOI requests for advice on Australian citizens serving in Israel’s army IDF. Yaakov Aharon reports on an heroic stonewalling.

In politics, when you can not win – delay.

A year and a genocide ago, in April 2024, MWM correspondent and former senator Rex Patrick wrote to the Attorney-General’s (AG) Department.

Documents were requested under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act relating to the “conflict between Israel and Hamas since October 2023” and “Australian citizens serving in the Israeli Defence Force” (IDF). 

After 14 months of monkey business, the published FOI shows the government chose to avoid its obligations – under domestic and international law – to investigate Australian IDF soldiers for war crimes. 

It is estimated that 1000 Australians are serving with the IDF, but this FOI continues to obscure the true number.

Lone Soldiers. New Australian IDF recruits due to arrive in Israel in January

Arrested developments? Yes. Arrested war criminals? No.

Rex requested the documents in early April 2024. Usually requests are processed within 30 days.

Later that month, the AG Department told Rex that his request covered 1330 pages of documents and could not be approved.

Rex negotiated a reduction of the FOI’s scope, and negotiated another reduction in August. A short extension was negotiated by the AG Department in April, and again in May.

After months of silence, a heavily-censored 44 pages was published.

During that wait, the International Criminal Court charged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with war crimes and crimes against humanity. While Netanyahu is on the run from international law – as the rogue state’s wartime leader – he leads from the front. Israeli media has since published holiday guides for IDF soldiers wanting to avoid arrest for war crimes.

In December 2024, MWM uncovered IDF recruitment programs targeting Australian citizens. The Australian Federal Police, overseen by the AG Department, refused to comment.

Inaction is a choice

The Australian Centre for International Justice (ACIJ) wrote to the AG Department in December 2023, informing it of its legal responsibility to investigate Australian IDF soldiers for war crimes.

In response to the letter, the Department prepared talking points for its then-boss, Mark Dreyfus, titled ‘Australian citizens serving with the IDF’.

There is no further mention of the IDF or war crimes. There is only a single mention of the “Israel-Hamas conflict”.

Scouts honour. Come join the Israel army and learn to kill.

The clearest reference to Australian IDF soldiers is to clarify a crime they have not committed. 

“It is an offence for Australians to engage in hostile activities overseas,” the talking points read, “unless serving in or with the armed forces of a foreign country.”

The AG Department’s Office of International Law was initially excluded from contributing to the talking points. In the final hour, the office was asked to provide input “ASAP”.

The office recommended the talking points specifically refer to war crimes prohibited under domestic and international law, and to the government’s obligation to investigate them. Its email notes that these details were copied over from previously cleared talking points related to Australian war crimes committed in the Afghanistan War.

Those recommendations were ignored.

ACIJ told this masthead it found the government’s lack of meaningful action “regrettable”.

“Decisive and substantive action by the Australian Government is long overdue”. 

AG received legal advice from a foreign [REDACTED]

Which foreign government or organisation could it be? Safe to say, not the Palestinian Authority.

The AG Department refused access to three further documents, totalling 31 pages. 

The first document, dated 19 October 2023, was refused as the AG Department had given or received legal advice and publication of that advice may affect Australia’s relations with another country. On 18 and 19 October, the AG Department announced $132 million of grants for beefing up security at Jewish and Muslim sites, and boosting social cohesion projects.

The third document, dated 14 January 2024, concerns legal advice received by the AG Department, written “in confidence” by a foreign state or organisation. The International Court of Justice began hearing the case that Israel is committing genocide three days earlier.

This FOI arrives at a time when Australia seems more likely to join the war criminals than investigate them. 

President Trump is considering dropping the bomb on Tehran and Israel continues its crusade for greater land. For now, Australia is stuck on platitudes of Israel’s “right to self-defence.” 

Investigation: elite Australian big business group monetises Israeli war machine

This post was originally published on Michael West.

Pandering to the strategic goals of the United States, which puts a target on our nation’s forehead, our Government keeps lying to us. Michael Pascoe with some uncomfortable truths.

First, a little context, a little perspective, before getting to our government blatantly and consistently lying to us:

On January 29, 2002, five months after the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush declared Iran, Iraq and North Korea to be the “axis of evil”. None of those countries was responsible for 9/11, but the US set about planning to invade Iraq anyway and did so the next year.

With that invasion imminent, North Korea pulled out of the nuclear weapons non-proliferation treaty (NPT) in January 2003, not that its heart was ever entirely in it. In 2006, North Korea conducted its first atomic bomb test. What else is a dictator to do when the US draws a target on his forehead?

And then there are the other countries, understandably feeling threatened, and with the extra complication of their governments suffering a significant level of religious fanaticism, i.e. Iran and Israel.

Warmongering Marles commits Australia to US war against China amid Iran mayhem

Israel never bothered to sign the NPT and has built a nuclear arsenal that it neither confirms nor denies.

The trouble with Iran

Iran meanwhile, upon overthrowing the US coup-delivered Shah, found itself invaded by US backed-Iraq and eight years of war that killed some hundreds of thousands of its people, plus the rival US-guaranteed power of Saudi Arabia across the gulf, never mind byzantine Middle Eastern politics and the complications of being Shiah Persians amidst mainly Sunni Arabs and a theocracy amidst feudal dynasties.

If that wasn’t tricky enough, post-Shah Iran doesn’t recognise US-guaranteed Israel. It calls for its destruction, backing various criminal, terrorist and revolutionary groups around the place, much as the US has always done.

(It’s apparently irrelevant that the founding platform of Netanyahu’s Likud party holds that Israeli sovereignty shall always extend from Jordan to the sea and that various current ministers from harder-right parties shout the quiet bit out loud, actively implementing that policy and pursuing “ethnic cleansing” while Israel campaigns against anyone thinking of recognising Palestine.)

The result is a few decades of proxy and not-so-proxy attacks. Given all that, Iran, to greater and lesser extents, has sought to have its own nuclear weapons, prompting greater and lesser diplomatic and punitive actions by the US and Europe.

Now, for various reasons, including the advent of King Trump, Israel has declared war on Iran by way of bombs and missiles. (Heck, if you’re getting away with genocide, why not fly a few sorties against the Ayatollah?)

The nuclear threat

Amidst all the usual speculation such things generate, there’s a worrying insight from Farah N. Jan published in The Conversation.

Dr Jan claims this war is much more than yet another Middle Eastern crisis, “it marks the emergence of a dangerous new chapter in nuclear rivalries that has the potential to reshape global proliferation risks for decades to come”.

Big call. Dr Jan argues the initial Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities have spiralled into the world’s first full-scale example of what she calls a “threshold war”, a new form of conflict, where

a nuclear weapons power seeks to use force to prevent an enemy on the verge of nuclearisation from making that jump.

“The international community is witnessing the collapse of traditional deterrence frameworks in real time,” Jan writes.

Unlike traditional nuclear rivalries where both sides possess declared arsenals, like India and Pakistan, who despite their tensions operate under mutual deterrence, this new threshold dynamic creates an inherently unstable escalation spiral.

“Iran increasingly believes it cannot deter Israeli aggression without nuclear weapons, yet every step toward acquiring them invites more aggressive Israeli strikes. Israel, for its part, cannot permanently eliminate Iran’s nuclear knowledge through military means. It can only delay it through means that would seemingly guarantee future Iranian determination to acquire the ultimate deterrent.

“Under this dynamic, neither side can step back without accepting an intolerable outcome: for Israel, an Iran more determined than ever in becoming a nuclear weapons nation capable of deterring Israeli action and ending its regional military dominance; for Iran, the risk of regime change through devastating Israeli strikes.

The consequences of this deadly logic extend far beyond the Middle East.”

Jan goes on to explore the legality of what Israel calls a “pre-emptive strike” but which is actually a “preventive strike” which targets distant future threats when conditions seem favourable, citing Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour as an example.

Preemptive wars

Allegedly, “pre-emptive” wars are bad enough at eroding international legal frameworks, e.g. the invasion of Iraq by the US, UK, Australia and Poland. Accepting “preventive” wars with just the odd expression of concern simply scraps all pretence of the “rules-based international order”.

But that is what is happening, that is what Australia is part of, both actively and passively.

The passive bit is our government and opposition, along with the rest of the West, not criticising Israel but treating both sides equally in calling for “de-escalation”.

In the Guardian, Ben Saul, Challis chair of international law at Sydney University, makes a similar point,

“The risk of abuse of ‘anticipatory’ self-defence is simply too great, and too dangerous, for the world to tolerate. Many countries have hostile relations with other countries. Allowing each country to unilaterally decide when they wish to degrade another country’s military, even when they have not been attacked, is a recipe for global chaos – and for the unjustified deaths of many innocent people. Would Australia accept, for example, another country’s right to preventively bomb our AUKUS program, if they perceived it as a security threat?”

We’re also actively trashing those supposed international standards by supporting the United States’ support of Israel. 

If you believe the US isn’t supplying Israel with intelligence to help guide its war on Iran, you probably think the bombs, planes and missiles aren’t American, German and British because there’s an Israeli flag painted on them.

Critical to America’s intelligence gathering as the world’s biggest eavesdropper is the US base at Pine Gap, outside Alice Springs.

We’re hosting the war effort. 

But we’re not supposed to call it an American base, just as we’re not to call the US submarine base being built in WA an American base or call the US Air Force B-52 base and the US Marines base in the Northern Territory “US bases”. 

To admit they are American bases would be to admit our government has compromised our sovereignty, so instead the Labor and Liberal Parties pretend they are “rotations”, not bases. 

George Orwell might smile at that. A savvy brewer of zero-alcohol beer should brand it “Rotation”.

Government lies

Our government lies to us about our sovereignty, declares black to be white and, with only rare and minor exceptions,

remains in lock step with US strategic ambitions.

It was on vivid display in Four Corners’ “Submerged” examination of the AUKUS submarine folly on Monday night. The program let key players and observers from here and abroad tell the story, for and against, leaving it to the audience to reach the obvious conclusion, the one that our government and opposition refuse to consider: it’s a monumental cock-up.

Like jury members, viewers were allowed to judge who might be credible witnesses and who was not. The program steered clear of the domestic politics involved and did not delve into the dubious strategic purpose of acquiring SSNs in the first place. It had more than enough to deal with just in the practicalities.

But always on display was our government lying to us, lying that AUKUS will be just fine, lying that we don’t need a Plan B, lying that what we’re building at HMAS Stirling is not a base for American SSNs.

If you’re a dictator and the US paints a target on your forehead, you probably try to acquire nuclear weapons to deter being killed.

If you’re an Australian and the government and the alternative government keep lying to you, I don’t know what you do beyond joining the growing third or so who don’t vote 1 for either of them.

Rudd talking the AUKUS talk in Washington, but is the US walking?

This post was originally published on Michael West.

After more than four years, the Information Commissioner has compelled the Defence Dept. to hand over information sought about expert advice on Australia’s Naval shipbuilding program. Rex Patrick reports.

In the FOI review decision, the Information Commissioner issued a scathing rebuke of Defence secrecy, saying,

“… the assertion made by the Department that disclosure of the relevant material would undermine the willingness of individuals to serve on the panel and provide full and frank advice

does not appear to be supported by cogent reasoning or evidence.

Ouch!

The information we had sought was about advice provided to the Government by the Naval Shipbuilding Expert Advisory Panel, formerly the Naval Shipbuilding Advisory Board. The panel exists to “provide independent, expert advice on all matters relating to the performance of the naval shipbuilding enterprise, and assist in identifying emerging challenges that may require further consideration by Government.”

Recent costs for the board, which is laden with retired US admirals, are not available, but from 2016/17 to 2018/19 the taxpayer forked out $6.4m– an average of $2.1m a year – for their advice.

When I asked to see some of that expensive advice in 2021 (not an unreasonable proposition given the disaster area Defence shipbuilding management had already become, and it’s not got better since), I was denied access to all of the documents, bar some trivial logistical information.

I appealed the decision with the Information Commissioner, who, four years later, has ordered Defence to hand over more information.

Fearful advice

Defence told the Information Commissioner

“There is a close connection between the documents at issue to a governmental process, and disclosure of the relevant material would impair the Government’s ability to receive frank and candid advice.”

That was Defence’s ‘argument’ for secrecy. The sky was going to fall in if advice on an almost $200B naval shipbuilding program (as it was before AUKUS came along and made that look cheap) was made available to the public who were paying for it.

I just want a Ferrari, sorry, a nuclear submarine, no matter the cost

I pushed back hard, pointing out to the Information Commissioner that the Department had not provided any evidence to establish that disclosure of the relevant material would discourage members of the panel from providing quality advice and recommendations.

I further pointed out that the advisory board members would be under a contractual obligation to provide comprehensive advice and recommendations having regard to their expertise, and failure to do so would amount to a breach of their contractual obligations.

The Information Commissioner accepted this and berated Defence for its fantasy claims:

“The Department was provided several opportunities to make submissions in support of their claim that disclosure of the material at issue would be contrary to the public interest. However, other than an assertion that panel members would be less likely to provide full and frank advice and recommendations, the Department has not provided any evidence of substance to establish that disclosure would have this effect.”

And when it came to the idea that no one would serve on the $2m per annum advisory board if their advice were at risk of being disclosed, the Information Commissioner was again scathing, stating:

“Similarly, although the Department contends that disclosure of the relevant material would undermine the willingness of individuals to serve on the panel, the Department has not provided any evidence to support its claim.”

In other words, no evidence from a department that’s committed to spending $56.1B in the coming financial year.

Secrecy does not help

Defence procurement is a mess. MWM has been reporting this for some time. The mainstream media is just waking up to the incompetence of our Defence procurement organisation.

Dumb Ways to Buy: Defence “shambles” unveiled – former submariner and senator Rex Patrick

Defence procurement is in need of significant reform. Excessive secrecy, a default setting for Defence bureaucrats, conceals incompetence, maladministration and waste. It enables corruption in a portfolio where tens, even hundreds of millions, are regarded as small change.

The capabilities of our Defence Force and its current operations deserve a level of secrecy,

but the same is not true for projects that deliver that capability.

Oversight requires access to information. That includes access to the very expensive advice Government receives in relation to Defence projects. If the providers of that advice are not willing to have it peer reviewed by experienced project management experts in the general community, the Government should not rely on it.

We now await the release of the documents, and to find out what the Defence Minister knew, or didn’t know.

Unfortunately, Defence procurement change will not occur until the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, demands it. Defence Minister Richard Marles won’t counsel the Prime Minister because, time and time again, he’s been caught out drunk on Defence-Kool-Aid.

Storm in a South China tea cup. Is Marles’ testosterone putting Australia at risk?

This post was originally published on Michael West.

Three months have passed since the National Anti-Corruption Commission promised an “impartial and fair investigation” into Robodebt. Nothing has been heard since, and legal experts question the process. Michelle Fahy and Liz Minter investigate.

Anti-corruption experts are alarmed by the National Anti-Corruption Commission’s apparent plans for one of its deputy commissioners to be involved in the investigation of the six officials referred to it by the Robodebt Royal Commission.

Anthony Whealy KC, chair of The Centre for Public Integrity, said that all of the NACC’s deputy commissioners were “arguably tainted” and should not be involved in any way.

He added that a “truly independent person” must also conduct the investigation, particularly given the “substantial damage” the decision not to investigate the referrals from the Robodebt Royal Commission had done to the NACC.

The deputy commissioner being lined up for the investigation, Kylie Kilgour, joined the NACC in February 2024. She worked alongside Commissioner Brereton, Deputy Commissioners Nicole Rose and Ben Gauntlett, and other senior NACC staff, crafting the public statement that explained why the NACC would not investigate the six officials. Ms Kilgour was also involved in the editing of, and discussions regarding, the letters sent to the Robodebt 6 advising them that they would not be investigated.

Ms Kilgour was included in emails dating back to at least March 2024 from Commissioner Brereton outlining changes he wanted made to the public statement and the letters.

NACC Inspector Gail Furness, who conducted an inquiry into the NACC’s refusal to investigate the six officials for corruption, also referred to all three deputy commissioners being involved in editing the public statement.

We put a series of questions to the NACC. It refused to answer any of them, even those of basic accountability, including whether the investigation into the six public officials has started.

Corruption Commission’s Robodebt failure tells of deeper problems with the NACC

Royal Commission referrals

It has been nearly two years since the NACC received the Robodebt referrals (6 July 2023). Eleven months later, on 6 June 2024, the NACC released a two-page statement announcing it would not investigate the referrals.

The public outcry was immediate; more than a thousand complaints were lodged with the NACC Inspector’s office. NACC Inspector Gail Furness, who is independent of the NACC and the Federal Government, quickly opened an investigation into the NACC’s handling of the matter.

She found that NACC Commissioner Brereton had not appropriately handled his conflict of interest with Referred Person 1, now generally accepted to be Kathryn Campbell, with whom he said he had a “close association” and who was “well known to me”. Mr Brereton delegated to Deputy Commissioner Nicole Rose to decide whether the NACC should investigate the referrals.

Inspector Furness said that in addition to appointing a delegate, the commissioner should have removed himself from related decision-making processes and limited his exposure to the relevant factual information. “This was not done.” She found that the commissioner’s involvement was “comprehensive, before, during and after the 19 October 2023 meeting at which the substantive decision was made not to investigate the Robodebt referrals”.

Ms Furness recommended that the NACC’s decision be reconsidered by an independent person. That person, former high court judge Mr Geoffrey Nettle KC, overturned the NACC’s decision, finding that,

each of the six referrals raised a corruption issue and all should progress to investigations.

Anthony Whealy said, “As we look back on this unfortunate affair, it must be conceded that the damage to the NACC has been substantial. The Nettle reassessment has determined that the agency must investigate the six referrals… But who at the NACC could preside over the investigation?”

Kylie Kilgour’s involvement

In a media release in February, the NACC obliquely raised the prospect of Deputy Commissioner Kylie Kilgour being involved in the investigation, but documents recently released under Freedom of Information (FOI) laws make it explicit.

The NACC’s media release, headlined: National Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate Robodebt referrals, stated:

“As a result of the decision made by its independent reconsideration delegate, Mr Geoffrey Nettle AC KC, on 10 February 2025, the Commission will investigate the 6 referrals it received from the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme. The purpose of the investigation is to determine whether or not any of the 6 referred persons engaged in corrupt conduct.”

The release ended with this ambiguous sentence (emphasis added), 

“The Commissioner and those Deputy Commissioners who were involved in the original decision not to investigate the referrals, will not participate in the investigation.”

Compare that sentence with the clarity of Philip Reed, the NACC CEO, in his all-staff email the same day (emphasis added), 

The Commissioner and Deputy Commissioners Rose and Gauntlett will not participate in the investigation.

Mr Reed’s email was included in the documents released by the NACC under FOI laws in April. Mr Whealy believes Mr Reed’s email, in conjunction with the media release, raises “a worrying ambiguity”.

“The Robodebt investigation must be undertaken by an independent person with no connection to the NACC. There is a truly serious conflict of interest between the commissioner and referred person 1 in the proposed investigation. Given the history of the matter, that conflict can be avoided only by a truly independent person conducting the investigation.”

Kylie Kilgour joined the NACC from Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission on 12 February 2024. This was almost four months before the NACC released its controversial public statement and two months before DC Nicole Rose recorded the final decision on Robodebt.

As a deputy commissioner, Kilgour joined the NACC’s top decision-making body – the NACC Senior Assessment Panel – which includes the commissioner, deputy commissioners and some senior staff.

She was involved at the highest levels in discussions about the public statement and the letters to the six officials, according to Alan Robertson KC, who wrote a report for NACC Inspector Furness’ investigation (emphasis added): 

“On 29 March 2024, the Commissioner emailed to Deputy Commissioners Gauntlett, Rose and Kilgour a revised draft public statement. He said, relevantly: … 

“Attached is a slightly revised draft letter and public statement. The main change is that rather than just listing relevant considerations… I’ve structured them in a way that shows which were more important and prevailed. I’m very happy to receive any further suggestions or comments.”

Inspector Furness’ October 2024 report also referred to all three deputy commissioners being involved in the editing of the public statement.

“Even though the wording of the reasons had occupied the time of the Commissioner, the Deputy Commissioners and a number of senior staff since 19 October 2023, that is for over six months, the [public statement] still contained this misleading reason.”

The NACC’s public statement incorrectly implied that the Australian Public Service Commission could impose sanctions on the five public servants whose names are contained in the sealed section.

Vindication for Robodebt victims elusive as NACC investigates itself

Mr Whealy said that all those discussions among senior NACC officials, a number of which involved input by Brereton, “arguably tainted the prospect that any of the deputy commissioners could be involved in the post-Nettle investigations”.

Will Partlett, Associate Professor of Public Law at the University of Melbourne, agreed that no member of the NACC senior leadership should be involved in the investigation, “A possible way for this investigation to be rendered impartial is for the Commissioner to ask the Minister to appoint an Acting Commissioner to oversee the Robodebt referrals under Section 186 of the NACC Act.”

The illegal Robodebt scheme resulted in $1.7 billion in debts being raised by the federal government against 500,000 Australians receiving social security payments. The scheme caused widespread distress, with some people taking their lives as a result. Robodebt has been judged a “massive failure of public administration” and an “extraordinary saga [of] venality, incompetence and cowardice”.

The names of six officials involved in the scheme who were referred to the NACC by the Robodebt Royal Commission are contained in a sealed section of the royal commission report and have not been made public.

This article has been republished with permission from Michelle Fahy’s investigative website Undue Influence.

The NACC, the Notionally Avoiding Corruption Commission, turns one. What’s the scam?

This post was originally published on Michael West.

Taxpayers will pay Pauline Hanson’s One Nation $2.98M for her not to win a single seat in the House of Representatives election. Rex Patrick reports on some fun and not so fun vote payment facts from the 2025 election.

Any party or independent that gets more that 4% of the primary votes in any of the 150 electorates in the House of Representatives (House) will receive $3.39 per vote from taxpayers to offset the cost of their election campaign.

Likewise, any party or independent that gets more than 4% in any of the six State or two territory Senate elections also gets $3.39 per vote.

Looking at the mostly settled results of the election draws out some interesting facts.

Harvesting taxpayers’ money in the House

To have any chance of winning a House seat you need to get about 35,000 votes, which is about 25% of the total votes in an electorate, and some good preference flows. There’s a huge difference between the 4% which triggers payment from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) and getting a seat-winning percentage.

Pauline Hanson will have been watching the polling in the lead up to the election. She would have known that she was getting numbers in and around 10% in those polls – enough to get a Senate seat (which takes 14%), but nowhere near enough to get a seat in the House.

But she ran 147 candidates for the House, and for her efforts she’ll scoop up $2.98M.

No chance of winning in any of those seats, but every chance of raising a quid to fund her campaign in the legally separate Senate elections.

One is left wondering if she told her House candidates they weren’t really electioneering, rather they were harvesting cash.

Green with envy 

One Nation was not alone. 

The Greens also ran in every House seat, even though they had real prospects in only a few. In the end, they got just one seat and will collect $6.43M in House funds to help pay for their successful Senate campaign.

Clive Palmer’s Trumpets of Patriots didn’t get more that 4% in many House seats and will collect only $263K off the taxpayer (and he will collect nothing from his national Senate run). The taxpayer hit is small. 

Sarcastic readers may be glad the duopoly parties completely upended out electoral donor laws to stop Clive’s ‘success’ in future elections … to spare us those annoying yellow ads … oh, and to entrench Labor and the LNP in the Parliament for eternity.

And we just can’t let you read on until you’re been made aware of the $621K that will be paid to the Legalise Cannabis Party. No seats for them, but It’ll buy a lot of ganga.

The big party take

Of course, the biggest payouts are to the old parties who set the rules on how much they are paid. Between the House and Senate, the Labor Party will take home $36.9M while the Liberal-National Party Coalition (LNP) will take home $32.5M.

The total Greens take across both houses will be $12.2M and, for One Nation, $6M.

The average taxpayer cost for a Labor member to get into the House was $196K, which seems a bit of a bargain when compared to the LNP at $387K.

For the Greens it’s a whopping $6.43M per seat ($6.43M ÷ 1 seat) and for One Nation – well, that involves a divide-by-zero error.

Moving to the Senate, the taxpayer cost per elected senator for Labor and the LNP was around $1.2M, a bargain $980K for the Greens and a million a-piece for each of the three One Nation Senators (although that doesn’t take into account the House harvested cash for the two minor parties).

David Pocock came as a great value-for-money Senator, only costing $389,102 in AEC funds. Jacqui Lambie takes the prize in the competition, getting a seat in the Senate for the grand sum of $91,608 in taxpayers’ money.

Independents and Teals

Minor parties (e.g. Legalise Cannabis Party, Gerard Rennick’s People First, Trumpets of Patriots, Family First etc) will share $1.1M for their unsuccessful House efforts.

Senator Payman’s One Voice, which ran in a number of states, will receive no AEC funding, so few were the votes the party attracted. There will be a lot of thinking going on in her office about what that means for the 2028 election.

Those House candidates that attracted support from Climate 200, which included Andrew Wilkie and Rebekha Sharkie, will collectively receive in their pockets $2.58M. Other independents that ran will collect $909K.

Individual performance

Star performers in collecting taxpayer funds for Labor don’t quite align with the party pecking order. The top earner was Amanda Rishworth ($202,304), then Anthony Albanese ($201,006), who had Tanya Plibersek ($200,292) hot on his tail.

Peter Dutton won’t be around to chat about his $124,022 AEC prize, although it’s nowhere near Susan Ley’s take of $151,499. A point of embarrassment for Ley might be that David Littleproud, her National Party counterpart, hauled $175,892 into the LNP kitty.

The increasing spend 

With the electoral law changes that were passed in the Parliament in the lead up to the election, thanks to a Labor-LNP deal, and to take effect at the next election, the amount of money paid by the taxpayer per vote will rise to $5.

That’s a 47.5% ‘pay rise’ in public funding (in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis).

Laying out how that would have affected the parties if it were in place this time around – the total winnings for the Labor Party would have gone from $36.9M to $54.5M and for the LNP from $32.5M to $47.9M.

Almost $94M of your money will be sent to the parties by the AEC over the coming months, once party and candidate returns are lodged.

Next time around, with the new payment level and further growth in the national electorate, it’ll be well over $140M.

The American way. Electoral reform bill to entrench major parties’ power

This post was originally published on Michael West.