Tensions between the US and Israel escalated overnight when the US abstained from voting for an immediate ceasefire resolution to stop the atrocities in Gaza. Farah Abdurahman reports.

The United Nations Security Council voted overnight for a ceasefire in Gaza. The resolution has come up three times previously since Israel started its war on Gaza, each time voted down by the US who, as one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, holds veto power.

This time however, the United States abstained from voting, allowing the resolution, which was proposed by 10 elected members and supported by 14 nations, to be passed in a round of applause by council members.

Once a resolution is passed, it becomes international law. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu however rejected the ceasefire in a statement calling the US abstention “a clear threat from the consistent position of the US”.

In a show of protest, Netanyahu also cancelled an Israeli delegation to the US. 

US still bankrolling Israel’s onslaught

In response to Israeli criticism regarding the ceasefire, White House spokesman John Kirby said the US still supports Israel and is continuing to provide weapons systems and other capabilities for the country to defend itself.

In addition to financial and military aid, the United States also provides large-scale political support to Israel, having used its UN Security Council veto power 42 times against resolutions condemning Israel, out of a total 83 times in which its veto has ever been used.

In addition to an immediate ceasefire to extend for the duration of Ramadan, which thus far has not been upheld, the resolution calls for the release of all remaining 143 Israeli captives held by Hamas in the strip. 

It was a deal which the political arm of Hamas publicly welcomed stating they were ready to engage in an immediate swap of captives on both sides.

Israel’s Occupied Forces have taken thousands of Gazan men, women and children hostage over the course of recent months. They also dug up graveyards across the Gaza Strip and removed the bodies of Palestinians from their final resting places. 

There are also thousands of Palestinians held under administrative detention with no charges in the West Bank, many of whom are children and women. 

Footage along with witness accounts and victim testimony have revealed the extent of torture and humiliation to which the Palestinian hostages are subjected,  including being stripped, starved, beaten and raped. 

In the hours immediately after the ceasefire resolution was passed, civilians reported that Israel enacted another attack on Palestinians waiting for food aid in what has been labelled  the “Flour Massacres”.

More recent victim accounts from released Palestinian hostages detail the use of dogs to either attack Palestinians in areas under siege, as was the case at the Al-Shifa Hospital which was bombarded for the second time in recent months, or of dogs made to defecate on Palestinian hostages taken captive. 

Western media complicit in war crimes

In light of the failure of western media to report the atrocities, Dr Aliya Khan, Clinical Professor of Medicine at McMaster University in Canada and member of the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organisations, took to social media to detail the reports she has received from her colleagues who are volunteering at hospitals in Gaza.

“I’m receiving reports from my colleagues who are on the ground now and I just received a report that Al Kheir Hospital, which is next to Nasser Hospital has been attacked and the paramedics there informed the physician that a woman was raped for two days until she lost her ability to speak,” Dr Khan said.

“Women are being raped and this is not being publicised. No one is speaking about this in the western media. Political leaders are not talking about this.

“Another woman at the Nasser Hospital was stripped of her clothing in front of her husband and brother. When one of them took their clothes off to cover her, the Israeli soldiers killed both the brother and the husband. 

“We have the International Court of Justice saying that there is a plausible genocide happening and we have asked Israel and the United States to stop these attacks immediately but there has been a complete blind eye. A complete disregard of the words of the International Court of Justice.

“Not only are women being raped, children are being bombed to bits and pregnant women are being mowed over by bulldozers. These are unbelievable, horrific crimes, war crimes.”

Netanyahu intent on Rafah attack

Prime Minister Netanyahu has renewed his intentions to enter Rafah, a small parcel of land on the Egyptian border that Palestinians from across the strip were sent to as it was declared a safe zone.

Rafah has been under constant bombardment for months now despite the one million civilians taking refuge there. Israel intends a full-scale invasion into the densely populated civilian area with the invasion plan due to be presented to the US during the now cancelled delegation.

In response John Kirby said the withdrawal of the Israeli delegation was disappointing but also called for Israel to exercise restraint. 

“We don’t believe that a major ground operation in Rafah is the right course of action, particularly when you have a million and a half people there seeking refuge, and no conceived plan, no verifiable plan to take care of them,” Kirby said.

“We’ve been very consistent on that.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the long-awaited resolution must be implemented and that failure to do so would be “unforgivable.” 

On October 7, 2023, over a thousand Hamas gunmen launched attacks into Israeli army bases and neighbourhoods. @AJIunit investigated what really happened. 🇵🇸🇮🇱

WATCH NOW ➡ https://t.co/HugkJ2CQoo pic.twitter.com/1Dpi240ja0

— Al Jazeera Investigations (@AJIunit) March 20, 2024

This post was originally published on Michael West.

Does a change to a new Minister kill an ongoing FOI to the old Minister? Can a replaced Minister’s dirt be swept under the carpet? The Information Commissioner and Attorney General Mark Dreyfus said ‘yes’. Rex Patrick said no, and today the Federal Court said ‘no’ too.

When the Auditor-General finalised his highly critical audit report into the Community Sports Infrastructure Grants Program on 15 January 2020, it generated a huge ‘Sports Rorts’ controversy that quickly began to damage the political prospects of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s Coalition government.

Morrison instigated damage control. The Prime Minister asked Attorney-General Christian Porter to prepare advice on whether the former Sports Minister, Senator Bridget McKenzie, had acted lawfully in overriding Sports Australia’s grant recipient choices in preference to grant recipients located in seats the Liberal Party were targeting in an upcoming election.

Porter provided Morrison with his ‘Letter of Advice’ on 31 January 2020.  Morrison immediately grabbed onto this political lifeline, referring to the Attorney-General’s advice at a press conference on 02 February 2020, claiming that it supported the view that Sports Minister McKenzie did have legal authority to override Sports Australia.

A Perfect Slime: Scott Morrison’s slippery Sports Rorts report just the fix for Bridget McKenzie

FOI request

In March 2020, I made an FOI request for access to Porter’s Letter of Advice. Porter’s office refused to release it to me, and of course, I appealed the decision to the Information Commissioner.

When Senator Cash became the Attorney-General, in the wake of a rape allegation scandal (Christian Porter forcefully denied the allegation), the letter mysteriously went missing (even though it was claimed to be a Cabinet document), and the Information Commission ended the review in early 2023 on the basis that Cash’s successor, Mark Dreyfus KC MP, was not in possession of the Letter of Advice.

Federal Court appeal

I took a pretty dim view of the Information Commissioner’s decision.  In practice it meant that governments could sweep all manner of dirt under the carpet, evading FOI scrutiny, whenever a Minister leaves a portfolio.  I knew that couldn’t be right under the law.  I appealed it to the Federal Court.

Given that the Attorney General was the respondent in the appeal, I was hoping he would simply concede that the decision was wrong and that the Information Commissioner review be continued. He didn’t.

But Dreyfus decided otherwise and chose to fight tooth a nail to defend the proposition that changing ministers should allow governments to wipe the FOI slate clean. It’s a decision that reflects poorly on the Attorney-General and has caused a hit on the taxpayer in the vicinity of $300,000 in legal fees.

In the judgement handed down in Federal Court today, Justice Charlesworth said whether a document is an official document of a minister is to be assessed by reference to the facts and circumstances in existence at the time an FOI request is lodged, not some later review date after which the minister may have changed.

Further, Her Honour determined that there is an implied obligation under the FOI Act, imposed on those who receive an FOI request from any member of the public, to take such steps as are necessary not to frustrate access to a document or the applicant’s rights of review and appeal.

The dog ate my cabinet paper (or did it?)

As mentioned above, neither Senator Cash nor Mark Dreyfus could find the document that I had originally requested. That was a pretty strange situation given the document I was after was claimed to be a cabinet document and thus subject to rigorous control, custody and audit arrangements. How can the Government lose a cabinet document?

One of the interesting outcomes of this whole saga was that after the appeal was lodged in the Federal Court a proper look was had and the document was magically found. So, my appeal is not in vain.

The matter has now been remitted back to the Information Commissioner to determine my FOI review request in accordance with the law. With the document found, I will now continue his fight to get access to the documents. I have some confidence I’ll get it released so the public can see just what Prime Minister Morrison relied on when he claimed ‘sports rorts’ were all ok.

Whilst the matter is now one of history, Australians are entitled to the truth. We might also learn something that will assist in avoiding future political rorting of taxpayers’ money.

Information Commissioner failings

I can’t conclude this article without directing some criticism at the Information Commissioner.

In my submissions to the Information Commissioner, I argued exactly the points argued by Stephen McDonald SC, who represented me in the Federal Court Appeal. I concede McDonald argued it with greater eloquence and authority, but none the less, the Information Commissioner completely ignored my pleadings. McDonald did not use bold print or shout in his argument before Justice Charlesworth as I did, but our argument was essentially the same.

In a decision she made in February last year, a whooping two and half years after I asked her to fix the scam, she failed to address my emboldened legal points. She preferred to stick to previous flawed decisions and her own FOI guidelines based on those previous decisions, where my arguments had not been considered.

Justice Charlesworth had some advice for her. “Finally, I should confirm that to the extent that the Commissioner’s decision was based in part on the content of the [FOI] guidelines issued under or for the purpose of the FOI Act,”

those guidelines should not be followed to the extent that they are not consistent with the FOI Act on its proper construction.

No more secrecy for departing ministers

Most importantly, the Federal Court’s decision means governments, Labor or Coalition, can no longer sweep a departing minister’s dirt underneath the carpet. It’s a win for all Australians who want to see greater transparency and accountability restored to our political system.

As Jacinta Lewin, a Principal Lawyer at Maurice Blackburn Lawyers, put it, “This case is a win for democracy and open government. This decision makes it clear that a change in the minister’s portfolio cannot be used to stifle transparency and accountability. It closes a loophole in the law – access to information cannot be scuttled by a change in jobs. The decision returns some integrity to the FOI scheme.

A screen that encouraged secrecy and reduced government accountability has been lifted.

Dreyfus appeal?

There is some possibility that Dreyfus might appeal the decision to the Full Federal Court to maintain the secrecy blanket that has until now, shrouded the work, good or bad, carried out by past departing ministers.

Politics could come into play, but then he would be ignoring the very clear judicial pronouncement made in the decision handed down today.

The balance between maintenance of secrecy and public access is one that is struck by the Parliament. It is legislation, not political or administrative conventions, that is determinative of Mr Patrick’s rights in the present case.

It’s the rule of law that must prevail, not political expediency or convenience.

Sports rorts – the affair that just keeps on giving

 

This post was originally published on Michael West.

Australia is about to intervene in a legal case of global significance relating to the obligations of countries to protect the earth’s climate system. With Australia charging ahead with fossil fuel exports, Philip Dorling and Rex Patrick look at Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus’s forthcoming contribution to global climate (in)action.

An Advisory Opinion

A year ago, on March 23, 2023, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution that requested the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to give an advisory opinion on the obligations of states to protect the global climate system from greenhouse gas emissions.  

The ICJ was asked to answer two questions on 1) the legal obligations of states to protect the global climate system and environment and 2) on the legal consequences when they have caused significant harm.  

It was a rare moment of international unanimity and a triumph of environmental activism. 

The resolution was adopted after a lengthy campaign initiated by university students in Vanuatu, a group now known as the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change. Greenpeace, the Climate Change Network, Amnesty International and NGOs joined the campaign and the Government of Vanuatu was persuaded to present a draft UN resolution and enlist other states to cosponsor it.  

In the words of Greenpeace, the purpose of the campaign was “to get the highest court in the world … to give a determination on what duties countries have to protect human rights of current and future generations from the climate crisis; and what should happen under international; law when countries breach these legal duties.  Wealthy nations, such as Australia, may become legally obliged to keep future generations safe from climate disaster.”  

An ICJ advisory opinion isn’t binding on governments, but it’s likely to influence future climate change negotiations and could be cited as a persuasive precedent in legal proceedings around the world.  

As Greenpeace argues, an ICJ opinion has the potential to “arm every lawyer around the world with a new sword to fight climate change by holding governments and big corporate polluters to account.”

March 22 is the deadline for governments to make submissions to the “Climate Change case”. At the moment Australia’s carefully drafted submission is secret.  

Pacific solidarity

Primary responsibility within the Albanese Government for handling ICJ matters rests with Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, supported by his Department’s Office of International Law. Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen, together with their respective departments, are also interested in the climate change advisory opinion.  

The Office of International Law first briefed Dreyfus’s office on Vanuatu’s campaign for an ICJ advisory opinion in July 2022. A few months later they pointed out that if the Court were asked for an opinion “Australia will need to decide whether to intervene in the proceedings. This would be a matter for the Attorney-General, noting his responsibility for international litigation, in consultation with other relevant ministers”.  

Diplomatic considerations shaped the Labor Government’s initial response to Vanuatu’s initiative. 

Foreign Minister Wong was working to strengthen Australia’s ties with the South Pacific countries, seeking to counter growing Chinese activity and influence in a region traditionally regarded as ‘Australia’s backyard’.

This required a fulsome embrace of Pacific Island countries’ concerns about climate change and the growing risks of sea level rise and catastrophic weather events. In July 2022 Prime Minister Albanese joined other Pacific Island Forum (PIF) leaders in supporting Vanuatu’s campaign to get an ICJ opinion. Australia’s diplomats updated their talking points to declare “We commend Vanuatu’s leadership on this issue.” 

On 8 September 2022 Albanese reaffirmed Australia’s support to Vanuatu’s Prime Minister Bob Loughman.  In February 2023, PIF leaders including Albanese formally endorsed Vanuatu’s draft General Assembly resolution. Australia agreed to be a co-sponsor.

When the resolution was adopted by the General Assembly a month later, Australia’s national statement proclaimed solidarity with Pacific Island countries: “Climate change is an urgent global challenge and the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the Pacific. That is why it is so important that Pacific voices are at the centre of international climate discussions.”

Dreyfus gets drafting

The ICJ has moved slowly on the Climate Change case and the deadline for written submissions has been extended. 

Some delay was expected; as the Office of International Law told Dreyfus back in January 2023, “The Court currently has an unprecedented caseload and Vanuatu’s resolution does not currently request an urgent opinion”. Moreover in recent months the ICJ has been focussed on other high profile matters, notably South Africa’s action concerning application of the Genocide Convention to Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip.

So, the Australian Government has had plenty of time to determine its position and the Attorney-General’s Department has confirmed to MWM that they have prepared a submission for lodgement by the ICJ’s deadline next Friday.

The work has been largely done in-house, though it looks like some external advice has been obtained. Sydney-based barrister and international lawyer Callista Harris has picked up a $50,000 retainer to advise the Office of International Law on “climate change advisory opinions”.  

The Attorney-General’s Department says the Government “looks forward to engaging constructively through all stages of the ICJ advisory opinion.”  

However for the moment Australia’s submission remains secret. The Attorney-General’s Department doesn’t plan to take the initiative in releasing it, telling MWM that it will leave it to the ICJ’s “usual practice” of publishing submissions sometime after lodgement.

This is not about compensation

Although everything’s been kept under a tight lid so far, Attorney-General’s Department briefings and emails released under FOI provide some insight into the Government’s private concerns about the ICJ proceedings.

Media talking points prepared after the General Assembly’s resolution highlighted Australia’s support for our “Pacific family”, but quickly moved diminish the potential significance of an ICJ advisory opinion and defend Australia’s energy export industries.  

It’s clear the Albanese Government has strong concerns about the questions relating to compensation and impacts on Australian energy exports. Possible media questions listed in the Attorney-General’s briefing pack include “Won’t Australia end up having to pay compensation to Pacific Island countries as a result of this advisory opinion?” and “What are the potential implications of an adverse ICJ advisory opinion on Australia’s resources and heavy industry sectors?”  

The reference to an ‘adverse’ ICJ opinion is telling and the Department’s proposed responses are blunt and designed to downplay potential implications.

“This is not about compensation”, the talking points say. “Advisory opinions are not legally binding and are designed to contribute to the clarification and development of international law, [and] not to resolve specific disputes or enforce remedies between States.” 

The Department’s briefing also reveals Australia’s support for Vanuatu’s initiative was far from altruistic, noting that the General Assembly would have requested an advisory opinion “whether or not Australia co-sponsored the resolution”. Australia’s support was primarily designed to “put us in a better position to advocate for Australian interests”.  

Australia’s involvement with the ICJ climate change case is intended to serve both the needs of the Government’s Pacific diplomacy and support Australia’s energy and resources interests, including “working with our traditional energy export partners”, such as Japan.  

MWM has previously reported on the international drivers of Australia’s energy and climate change policies. So, it won’t be too surprising to find that the Government’s international legal strategy isn’t entirely in sync with its climate action rhetoric.

Climate Betrayal: how backroom deals with Japan locked Australia in for decades of gas

Keeping things narrow

Although Dreyfus’s submission is under wraps, an indication of its likely approach can be found in Australia’s little noticed submission in a parallel legal proceeding at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.  

The Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law has asked the Tribunal for an advisory opinion on the obligations of states under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to protect the marine environment from damage caused by greenhouse gas generated climate change. The questions posed are narrower than those before the ICJ, but have allowed the Australian Government to rehearse its arguments before the main event.  

Australia’s submission to the Tribunal contains political “preliminary remarks” that assert Australia’s commitment to climate action and acknowledge the “longstanding leadership” of Pacific Island countries. After this, however, the Government’s primary concern is to minimise the scope of the proceedings to the “the specific obligations of States Parties to UNCLOS”, the law of the sea and nothing else.  

“The questions put to the Tribunal do not involve issues of liability, responsibility, or dispute resolution”, Australia’s submission states. “Nor do they invite the Tribunal to consider any legal consequences arising from the specific obligations of States. … Given the terms of the questions that have been put to the Tribunal, it has no jurisdiction to provide its opinion on issues of liability, responsibility, or dispute resolution.”

The primary thrust of Australia’s submission is to minimise the scope and significance of any advisory opinion, and especially keep out any talk of accountability, liability or compensation. That’s likely to be reflected in Australia’s approach to the ICJ.  

As Attorney-General in a government energetically approving new coal mines and promoting dodgy carbon-capture and storage projects to facilitate increased LNG sales to “traditional energy export partners”, Mark Dreyfus will be working to his clients’ brief. It will be a harder row to hoe given the broader scope of the questions referred to the ICJ, but Dreyfus KC will no doubt do his best.  

Last November Vanuatu’s Minister for Climate Change Ralph Regenvanu complained his country’s ability to adapt to climate change was being overtaken by “Australia’s hypocritical gas expansion plans.”  

The Albanese Government’s climate hypocrisy is likely to again be on display, this time argued by our first law officer to the ICJ.  The principle of “the polluter pays” is unlikely to appear in Australia’s carefully drafted submission.

Race of the Century: Australia is in the box seat on climate and finance, here is the blueprint for victory

This post was originally published on Michael West.

The reported suicide of Boeing whistleblower John Barnett in Charleston, South Carolina (US), is a reminder of the need for reform in Australia. Lendlease whistleblower Tony Watson proposes a Whistleblower Authority.

According to the BBC, John Barnett had died from a “self-inflicted” wound on 9 March, and police were investigating. In the days before his death, he had been giving evidence in a whistleblower lawsuit against Boeing, where he had worked for 30 years. Boeing’s production quality issues are well documented.

In Australia, following the PwC tax leaks scandal, the Government has introduced a Bill to extend whistleblower protections to cover disclosures made to the Tax Practitioner board. A comprehensive review of Australia’s tax and corporate whistleblower laws will commence in July.

Proposals for strengthening whistleblower protections will include extending its breadth – who and what is covered, at what stage, and on what basis. The review will weigh the introduction of a Whistleblower Authority or Commissioner, whether there should be a ‘duty’ to blow the whistle, and whether we should introduce a financial incentive or bounty system as is in use elsewhere, including in the US.

It is in our interest as a society that we protect whistleblowers. Professor AJ Brown, Australia’s renowned expert on whistleblowing, recently testified in Canberra: “Since I last appeared before this committee in 2017, we have certainly completed a lot more research which confirms that whistleblowing is the single most important and significant way in which wrongdoing comes to light … It does not matter which industry or which sector of the economy, or which institutions we are talking about.”

The best defence, and the best deterrent, against wrongdoing of all types, is the whistleblower.

Yet there has never been a successful whistleblower case in Australia.

Lendlease whistleblower and lawyer Tony Watson – the law is failing to protect whistleblowers

I called the Lendlease double-dipping tax scandal for which Lendlease has belatedly raised a contingent liability in its most recent accounts. I commenced an action under our whistleblower laws against Lendlease and PwC in April 2022.

Why a Whistleblower Authority?

Having experienced first-hand the pursuit of whistleblower protection, I think it is imperative that we introduce a well-funded and well-resourced Whistleblower Authority. Here are 5 reasons:

1. The inequality of arms

In whistleblower cases, the wrongdoer is a big corporate or government. They are powerful opponents with deep pockets. Directors use shareholder money to defend themselves and crush the whistleblower. The expense, cost risk, and delays in seeking protection should not be left solely to the whistleblower.

2. A Whistleblower Authority would better protect the whistleblower

One goal of big corporates in disparaging the whistleblower is to deter others from speaking up. In China, this tactic is called killing chickens to show monkeys.

The other equally important goal is to intimidate and humiliate the whistleblower. When a whistleblower calls out a fraud or misconduct of a big corporate, the corporate responds by questioning the psychological stability and moral character of the whistleblower. C. Fred Alford, in his book Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organisational Power, calls this the “nuts and sluts strategy”:

The key organisational strategy is to transform an act of whistleblowing from an issue of policy to an act of private disobedience and psychological disturbance.

The tragic death of Boeing whistleblower John Barnett is evidence of the pressures brought to bear on whistleblowers. A Whistleblower Authority standing with the whistleblower will constrain such attacks.

3. Has the message been heard?

A considerable frustration for many whistleblowers is that they never know if the employer or regulator has effectively dealt with the disclosed crime or misconduct or if it has been swept under the carpet. A Whistleblower Authority should have powers to obtain information on the investigation of the wrongdoing and share that with the whistleblower.

Big companies who money launder, pollute our waterways, blow up sacred sites, or commit tax fraud should not be able to hide behind secrecy provisions.

4. Avoiding whimsical court decisions

The Federal Court’s decisions on our whistleblower laws are whimsical; a Whistleblower Authority would ensure protection is found and given, not undiscovered and denied.

The whistleblower protection in the Tax Administration Act applies to disclosures made at or after 1 July 2019. I made multiple disclosures after 1 July 2019, but I still have no protection.

With the greatest respect to the Federal Court justices, they have rewritten the statute. On the Federal Court reasoning, the application of the provisions is governed not by the timing of protected disclosures, which on the face of the legislation is the sole test, but by the timings of the retributions effected by Lendlease and PwC.

Consider this: Lisa and Linda are identical twins, working for BigBank. They become aware of a money laundering scheme. On 30 June 2019, they both tell their boss. Lisa is dismissed immediately. Linda is dismissed the following day (1 July 2019). They tell the ATO on 1 July 2019. In the Federal Court’s view, Linda is protected. But Lisa is not protected. The only difference between them is the date of dismissal. The timing of their disclosures doesn’t matter. Perhaps if a Whistleblower Authority had run this case, the outcome would have been more conventional.

5. The High Court rules in favour of the rich and powerful

Last November, the High Court revised its process for dealing with special leave applications. If you, as an applicant, are represented by a barrister, your application will be read by all seven High Court justices. If you make an application yourself, it will be read by two of the justices. Who engages barristers? Rich individuals and big corporations.

It is one rule for the rich and powerful and another rule for the rest of us.

I am left to wonder whether special leave would have been granted if all seven justices had read my application. A Whistleblower Authority will engage barristers and level the playing field.

A Whistleblower Authority would ensure that concerns raised by whistleblowers are acted upon; it would promote good corporate governance and discourage misconduct and malfeasance; it would protect the public purse; and it would ensure protection is genuinely available to all whistleblowers.

Whistleblowers and the Administration of Injustice | The West Report

 

This post was originally published on Michael West.

Australia is licensed to produce “unguided dumb missiles” which explode shrapnel, killing all soft targets within 50m of the blast, and causing lethal harm to those within a 150m blast radius. Farah Abdurahman confronts the shroud of secrecy over weapons sales to Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of Israel.

In the same week that the Australian prime minister, along with a number of senior parliamentarians were referred to the International Criminal Court for complicity in genocide, negotiations to make Australia the quasi 51st US state for weapons production gains momentum.

Will Albo’s referral to International Criminal Court put the brakes on weapons sales to Israel?

 

According to the New York Times, Australia is on the verge of producing thousands of Gimmlers guided missiles – the multiple launch rocket system that can hit targets from more than 80kms away with 90kgs of explosives.

The weapons will be produced at the Mulwalla explosives factory in NSW.

Australia is already licensed to produce M107 155mm artillery shells which are unguided dumb missiles with poor accuracy. They are designed to explode shrapnel, killing all soft targets within 50m of the blast, and causing lethal harm to those within a 150m blast radius.

In August 2023, prior to the assault on Gaza, Israel bought $60 million worth of 155mm shells produced by Elbit systems, the same arms manufacturer based on occupied Palestinian land in Haifa, and whose bombs are currently raining down on Gaza.

Future Fund invested in Israeli company Elbit Systems – whose bombs are raining on the Palestinians

Last December, Greens Senator David Shoebridge acquired documents under the Freedom of Information Act which detailed Australia’s Future Fund had invested almost half a million dollars directly into Elbit systems, despite it being formerly blacklisted due to ethical concerns relating to activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.

“This investment is in addition to the hundreds of millions that Future Fund has invested in its broad aerospace and defence portfolio such as Boeing, BAE Systems, Thales, Lockheed Martin and Rheinmetall AG who are all producing weapons currently employed in the genocide on Gaza,” Shoebridge said.

In total, the FOI document revealed that Future Fund had invested more than $650M in 30 ‘Aerospace and Defence’ companies as of October 31, 2023.

This includes:

• $71.3M in Lockheed Martin, manufacturer of the F-35 fighter jets that Israel uses in the bombing of Gaza; 
• $43M in Northrop Grumman Corp, which produces artillery and mortar systems and battle tanks; 
• $3.5M in Thales, a manufacturer of assault rifles, sophisticated surveillance, and weapons control systems; and 
• $72.4M to RTX Corporation (formerly Raytheon), which produces Patriot Missiles used by the Israel Defence Force.

“There has been an ongoing push by the Coalition and Labor for at least a decade to make Australia one of the top tier global leaders in weapons export,” Shoebridge said.

“Australian leaders openly wanting to become the 51st US state for the purpose of arms production is concerning, to say the least. I doubt there has been full consideration made to the international legal ramifications of being part of the US military industrial complex and its supply chains. 

“It is implicit in the US that by accepting any transfer of military tech to Australia that we will have to follow them into a military conflict with China. If there was any question about our loyalty in willingness to follow the US in such conflicts, we would be denied access to these military exports.

Complete surrender

“This move demonstrates a complete surrender of our sovereignty and removes any capacity we have to form an independent military policy and foreign policy.”

Senator Shoebridge said the move to produce US arms on Australian soil provided a loophole for the US government to bypass its own stringent congressional reporting and review processes around weapons exports.

In February 2023 incumbent US president Joe Biden signed the National Security Memorandum on the United States Conventional Arms Transfer Policy. 

Under Section 2: United States Conventional Arms Transfer Policy Scope and Objective, the document states that the CAT Policy must support the following US foreign policy and national security objectives:

• Promote international peace and stability and the settlement of international disputes through diplomacy and deterrence;

• Strengthen United States national security by reinforcing respect for human rights, international humanitarian law, democratic governance, and rule of law;

• Prevent arms transfers that risk facilitating or otherwise contributing to violations of human rights or international humanitarian law;

• Strengthen ally and partner capacity to respect their obligations under international law and reduce the risk of civilian harm.

Under Section 3: Arms Transfer Decisions; weapons exports must meet the consideration requirements of all applicable statutes and clauses including:

• The risk that the recipient may use the arms transfer to contribute to a violation of human rights or international humanitarian law;

• The risk that the transfer will have adverse political, social, or economic effects within the recipient country, including by negatively impacting the protection of human rights, fundamental freedoms, or the activity of civil society; encourage or contribute to corruption; contribute to instability, authoritarianism, or transnational repression; contribute to impunity of security forces; or undermine democratic governance or the rule of law.

The memorandum continues to state:

In light of these considerations, and consistent with applicable law, no arms transfer will be authorised where the United States assesses that it is more likely than not that the arms to be transferred will be used by the recipient to commit, facilitate the recipients’ commission of, or to aggravate risks that the recipient will commit:  genocide; crimes against humanity; grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, including attacks intentionally directed against civilian objects or civilians protected as such; or other serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law, including serious acts of gender‑based violence or serious acts of violence against children.

US – breaking its own weapons rules

In contravention of its own Arms Transfer Policy, the US persisted to provide more than US$14.3 billion in military exports to Israel since October 7, in addition to the more US$3.6 billion in annual military support it has received annually for the last 50 years.

The Obama administration in 2016 announced the biggest military assistance package to Israel ever, pledging around $38 billion to the occupying entity over the next decade. 

Author of The Palestine Laboratory and co-founder of Declassified Australia, Antony Loewenstein, said Israel could not continue its war without the US who has granted the occupying entity carte blanche in its disproportional response and collective punishment of Palestinian civilians. 

“US support has ensured that Israel maintains its qualitative military edge over neighbouring Arab countries by having more advanced weapons systems, something the US Congress wrote into law in 2008,” Loewenstein said.

Australia the client state

“Australia has always been one of Israel’s greatest global supporters and ignorantly believes that as a client state of the US, our alliance with Israel is cost free, but that is simply untrue.

“The current devastation in Gaza surpasses the tragedy of the Nakba [in 1948] with more displacement and far more death.”

The current death toll nears 31,000 people with women and children accounting for 67 per cent of victims.

“The dehumanisation of the Palestinian people has been so systemic and constant since the inception of the Israeli state that Palestinian blood is not viewed as equal to Jewish lives]”, Loewenstein said. 

“The actions of Israel and the ramping up of radical right-wing supporters in Israel and globally puts the Jewish diaspora in a position of moral collapse. 

“I would caution the Australian government in its unquestionable support for the US and Israel particularly when all facts demonstrate how embarrassingly incompetent the US and the West is at ‘winning’ wars.

“The only thing achieved by greater weapons production on Australian soil is to one – taunt China, and two – decrease Australia’s security and worsen global insecurity.” 

The Department of Defence was approached for comment but failed to respond. 

Six Eyes: Australia’s secret support for the Israeli assault on Gaza, through Pine Gap

 

This post was originally published on Michael West.

Defence Minister Richard Marles has a proven, through AUKUS, he’s a naïve and incompetent buyer. He’s also proven, through a failed sale of Bushmaster military vehicles to Indonesia, he’s no better at sales. Rex Patrick and Philip Dorling provide an update in his wheelings and dealings with Indonesia.

Bromancing the Stone

Last month Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles made his third visit to Jakarta in nine months to continue the bromance with his Indonesian counterpart, Defence Minister and president-elect Prabowo Subianto.

After becoming the president-elect, both Marles and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese quickly extended their congratulations to Prabowo, a former army general with a grisly human rights record.

The United States Government stopped short of congratulating Prabowo personally, preferring instead to applaud the Indonesian people on a successful election. 

Marles wasn’t so nuanced, rushing to Jakarta to continue building his friendship with Prabowo in the hope of strengthening defence cooperation as a buttress to China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea.  

Defence alliance with Indonesia. Is Marles cuddling up to the wrong man?

In a media statement issued on the eve of his 24 February visit, Marles declared Indonesia to be “one of our closest partners”.  

“The Government is invested in our relationship with Indonesia, as demonstrated by the calls the Prime Minister and I made to Minister Prabowo last week”, Marles said.

“I look forward to meeting my friend Minister Prabowo again to discuss the opportunities we have to build on our significant defence partnership – now and into the future.”  

Lightning fast treaty negotiations

The details of Marles’ latest meeting with Prabowo remain secret, but after their talks both Ministers were upbeat about the prospects for signing a new defence cooperation treaty.  

In a joint statement, Prabowo and Marles confirmed the Indonesian and Australian Governments expect to sign a defence cooperation agreement within two or three months. “We are committed to maintaining and enhancing this relationship. So I don’t think there will be surprises”, Prabowo said.  

Marles was positively effusive, saying conclusion of the defence treaty will be “the most important moment in this bilateral relationship.” 

“We are looking at the deepest, most significant defence agreement between our two nations in our respective histories. First time this will have occurred at a treaty level …It is a very a significant statement about the strategic direction of both Indonesia and Australia.  These are agreements which normally take many, many years, and we are very hopeful of being in a position to sign this in the next few months. If we can achieve that, that is a lightning-fast agreement.”

Both Canberra and Jakarta are pretty coy about the strategic thinking behind these negotiations; however documents released under FOI last year left little doubt that China’s rising military power and territorial expansion in the South China Sea are key elements in the strategic calculus.  

One key Australian objective disclosed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is to “to build greater alignment with Indonesia on maritime cooperation and the promotion of UNCLOS [United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea]”. Australian talking points included a commitment by the Australian Government to Indonesia to help advance “clear shared interests in maritime security”, including “supporting your efforts to protect your Exclusive Economic Zone across the archipelago.”

Bushmaster gift

However, behind such strategic calculations and Defence Minister Marles’ rhetoric of cooperation, a new Defence Department FOI release suggests that a reality check may be required on the practical implementation and scale of defence cooperation.  

A much touted component of the recent strengthening of bilateral defence cooperation has been Australia’s donation of Bushmaster protected mobility vehicles (PMVs) to the Indonesian Army.

The offer of 15 second-hand but refurbished Bushmasters was first announced by then Defence Minister Peter Dutton in September 2021 as a contribution to Indonesia’s capacity to contribute to United Nations peacekeeping operations.

Produced by Thales Australia at their facility in Bendigo, Victoria, the Bushmaster is a recent Australian defence industry success and the donation was intended to promote cooperation and showcase Australian military technology.  

However, the implementation of this modest initiative was sluggish at best. Australia’s proposed gift was subject to negotiation about training, spare parts and sustainment with the Indonesians looking for ongoing support to maintain the vehicles.  

It was not until April 2023 that Indonesia formally accepted Australia’s offer that included a training package and a six month supply of spare parts. The Indonesians will sustain the vehicles through commercial arrangements. 

In late June 2023 Indonesian troops took part in a Bushmaster operation and maintenance exercise conducted by the Australian Army’s 5th Battalion.  

The Bushmasters were eventually transferred to the Indonesian military in August 2023.  

Defence export fail

The fact that it took nearly two years to transfer just 15 vehicles suggests that the practicalities of bilateral defence cooperation might be characterised as something less than “lightning fast”.

Moreover, Defence Department briefings for Minister Marles now show that the Bushmaster donation was actually part of a defence export pitch that has so far failed to deliver any results.  

The Bushmasters have repeatedly featured in Defence’s briefings for Marles’ meetings with Prabowo.  

In November 2022 a Defence briefing for Marles on “what we want” from Indonesia urged him to “advocate for the sale of 50 Bushmasters to Indonesia’s army”.  

The Indonesian military had indeed expressed interest in purchasing Bushmasters and Defence proposed that Australia send “a trade mission to Indonesia to explore opportunities to cooperate on defence industry, potentially including helping it establish the capacity to repair and maintain Bushmasters.”  

However, in briefing prepared for Marles’ meeting with Prabowo in Canberra on 10 February last year, the Defence advised that “discussions have stalled”.

The reasons for this have been redacted from the FOI release on the grounds that disclosure would potentially damage Australia’s international relations; specifically that it would “negatively impact our bilateral defence relationship with Indonesia”.  

Since then it appears the prospective sale of Bushmasters to Indonesia has not moved forward. 

If it does it would be somewhat problematic anyway, since these vehicles are especially well suited for counter-insurgency operations, the type of activity in which the Indonesian Army has been notorious for human rights violations and abuse, most notably in recent decades in West Papua.  

None-the-less, the failure so far to secure an export sale suggests that behind Defence Minister Marles enthusiastic spruiking of a new defence cooperation treaty, the realities of policy implementation are not all that impressive.  

Need for scrutiny

This and the wider aspects of bilateral defence cooperation may be something for the Australian Parliament to explore through Senate Estimates hearings, the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee, or when the much hyped Defence cooperation treaty is signed and referred to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCOT) for review before ratification.  

Although JSCOT’s membership is solely comprised of Labor and Coalition MPs who are unlikely to have much argument with deeper defence ties with Indonesia, the necessary inquiry process for a treaty-level agreement should provide a rare opportunity for public submissions, debate and scrutiny of a relationship that has proved controversial; in the past and may well prove to be problematic in the future.   

Human rights and other civil society organisations should certainly have an opportunity to offer their perspectives on Defence Minister Marles cuddling up with the politician who is set to be Indonesia’s next president, but who also has a disturbing history of political violence, human rights abuse and authoritarianism.  

For that reason, don’t be surprised if the Albanese Government also moves “lightning fast” to truncate the parliamentary review process and expedite ratification well before Australia’s next election.

Marles Mauled: Rex Patrick demolishes Defence sophistry on AUKUS, submarines, nuclear

This post was originally published on Michael West.

A team of Australian lawyers led by King’s Counsel Sheryn Omeri have referred Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and a number of senior parliamentarians to the International Criminal Court for complicity to genocide in Gaza. Farah Abdurahman reports.

Filed on behalf of concerned Australian citizens under Article 15 of the Rome Statute, Albanese is the first leader of a Western nation to be referred to the ICC for individual criminal responsibility in aiding and abetting the commission of genocide. 

Omeri KC, a dual qualified barrister practising in London and Sydney, said this case was legally significant because it focused exclusively on two modes of accessorial liability.

“In relation to accessorial liability, a person may be found to be criminally responsible if, for the purpose of facilitating the commission of that crime, that person aids, abets or otherwise assists in the commission of the crime, or its attempted commission, including by providing the means,” Omeri KC said.

“Secondly, if that person in any other way contributes to the commission of the crime or its attempted commission by a group, knowing that the group intends to commit the crime.”

Not only has the Australian government sent more than $13.4 million in military exports to Israel over the last five years, it continues to produce F-35 fighter jet parts which are being used to bomb Gaza. 

Wong, Marles and Dutton in the mix

Lawyers from Birchgrove Legal who drafted the application spent months interrogating available evidence and actions committed by the PM, Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, and Defence Minister Richard Marles in respect to the situation in Palestine.

The 92-page document, which has been endorsed by Greg James AM KC, (along with more than 100 Australian senior counsel and barristers, retired judges, law professors and academics,) seeks to test the strength of international law to hold democratic leaders accountable, given the barriers to pursue the matter nationally. 

Omeri KC said the opportunity to investigate and prosecute parliamentarians for international war crimes in Australia required the consent of the Attorney General which posed a conflict. 

“The ICC is a court of last resort. It will prosecute international crimes where States parties to the Rome Statute, such as Australia, are either unable to do so themselves or have shown themselves to be unwilling genuinely to do so,” Omeri KC said.

“Since October 2023, my client (Birchgrove Legal) has twice written to the Office of the PM in respect to the situation in Gaza and on both occasions the communications were ignored. Therefore, we have taken this avenue.”

Senator Lidia Thorpe last month introduced a bill to amend the federal Criminal Code Act 1995 to remove the requirement of the AG’s consent for the prosecution of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Australian courts. The Bill is presently at committee stage with the committee due to report by November 2024.

No cred says Albo

PM Albanese has dismissed the application as “lacking credibility”, however several key decisions made by the named MPs forms the basis of the argument for the ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan KC to consider and investigate. These include:

1. Australia freezing $6 million in funding to the primary aid agency operating in Gaza – UNRWA – based on unsubstantiated claims that 12 aid workers out of 13,000 may have had some involvement in the October 7 attack. The aid funding was cut almost immediately after the International Court of Justice found Israel was plausibly committing genocide in Gaza.
2. Providing military aid and approving defence exports to Israel exceeding $13.4 million over the last five-years which could be used by the IDF during the prima facie commission of genocide and crimes against humanity. 
3. Ambiguously deploying an Australian military contingent to the region, where its location and role have not been disclosed.
4. Permitting Australians, either explicitly or implicitly, to travel to Israel to join the IDF and take part in its attacks on Gaza.
5. Providing unequivocal political support for Israel’s actions, as evidenced by the political statements of the PM and other members of Parliament, including the Leader of the Opposition.
6. Sharing intelligence with Israel obtained through the US-Australia Pine Gap surveillance facility.

Academic critics of the application have suggested the matter should have been referred to the domestic Office of Special Investigation, which was founded to investigate violations of human rights and war crimes committed by Australian defence force personnel in Afghanistan. 

But a spokesperson for OSI Omeri confirmed the limitations of OSI’s mandate which again sits under the Attorney-General’s portfolio and poses conflict. 

OSI ossified

“The Office of the Special Investigator’s mandate includes reviewing the findings of the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force Afghanistan Inquiry and working with the Australian Federal Police to investigate the commission of criminal offences under Australian law arising from or related to any breaches of the Laws of Armed Conflict by members of the Australian Defence Force in Afghanistan from 2005 to 2016.”

The OSI was formed after the now heavily redacted Brereton Report was handed down identifying 39 Afghans had been unlawfully killed by 25 ADF members in 23 incidents. Three-years on from its establishment, OSI has failed to bring responsible ADF soldiers to justice bar one – Oliver Schulz.

When asked for further information OSI referred MWM to DFAT who provided this response: “The Department and Foreign Affairs and Trade has no further comment to the response you received from the Office of the Special Investigator.”

DFAT then referred MWM to the Department of Defence who failed to either acknowledge receipt of the inquiry or provide a response to what ADF personnel were currently doing in the Middle East or the extent to which Pine Gap was supporting Israel.

Principal solicitor at Birchgrove Legal, Moustafa Kheir, said the ICC referral demonstrated a growing desire on the part of western civil society to hold officials to account and ensure their governments do not assist in the perpetration of international crimes.

“This application publicly sets out a case that genocide is taking place in Gaza and political leaders are complicit. Even if we can’t prove it to an individual criminal degree, we can provide it from a theoretical legal perspective so leaders should be doing more to stop it.”

Botany bomb arrest. Sydney man charged for threats against Theo for flying Palestinian flag

This post was originally published on Michael West.

The man behind the Botany bomb threat has finally been arrested and charged with a number of offences. He faced court today and has been refused bail. Michael West reports. 

NSW have arrested and charged a 44 year old Sydney man David Weiss for planting a bomb on the car of an Australian flying a Palestinian flag on his ute.

It has taken police 8 weeks to make the arrest. The matter was not handed to terror police but rather a local constable was given charge of the investigation. Weiss, who lives near the victim Theo (his name withheld for safety reasons), has been refused bail and appeared via video link at the Downing Centre Local Court today.

He is charged with the offences: 

– Send article to cause alarm;

– Stalk/intimidate intend fear physical harm (two counts)

– Use carriage service to menace/harass/offend; and

– Enter enclosed land.

The bomb was derided in mainstream media at the time, and the incident downplayed, as a “fake bomb”. The ABC is headlining its coverage of the incident today with “fake bomb” despite the story admitting the jerry can contained petrol.

It carried a note saying: “Enough! Take down flag! One chance!!!!”

It took the bomb disposal squad three hours and a robot to secure the device on January 5. Theo has expressed dismay with the length and lack of prompt response to the threat, telling MWM his family has lived in fear, and has been subject to further threats since the initial threat.

He told MWM today: “When Muslims demand peace and freedom they are publicly branded as terrorists, and when people like me show solidarity to those being murdered at unprecedented rates we are called antisemites and criticised for being ‘divisive’.

“But today we have found out what happens when a Zionist makes a bomb: it’s called a ‘suspicious device’ or outright denied as a real threat, and they are allowed to go about their lives for two months and two days before the police arrest them, even though the police were told to investigate the person on the day of the bomb”.

According to the police statement:

Around 2pm on Friday 5 January 2024, police were called to Daphne Street, Botany, after a resident found a suspicious item placed on his car.

Officers from the Rescue and Bomb Squad attended and deemed the item safe.

Detectives from South Sydney Police Area Command established a crime scene.

On 16 February 2024, the resident received an alleged threatening phone call. He alerted police and an investigation commenced.

Following extensive inquiries, police executed a search warrant at a home in Botany this morning (Thursday 7 March 2024).

A number of items were seized.

Frustrated with the lack of action by the police, Theo went on social media last month posting on X:

1/ The day after Xmas a photo of our house along with my phone number and our address was posted to a private Facebook group called “Jews of Sydney”. 

The comments under the post were riddled with racist hate speech and dog whistles. All of it under people’s own names.

2/ The comment thread had already been partially sanitised before a whistleblower screenshotted it and got in touch with us two days after the bomb. The whistleblower had given the information to police before us, they had not payed it any attention.

3/ We sent the material to the police. They questioned the whistleblower about their motives repeatedly and asked them some pretty weird questions, then the entire fact and all material relating to the doxxing apparently got lost or something.

4/ In the course of investigating the bomb placement and threat, my partner and I collated the information regarding the doxxing including explanations of the hate speech and possible calls for violence confirmed by an academic specialising in the Middle East.

5/ Upon discovering that the police appeared unaware of the doxxing (which they had been provided evidence of twice previously) we again supplied them with this nine page long dossier (longer I believe than the document which defunded UNRWA THE UN AID GROUP HELPING THE STARVING PEOPLE OF GAZA). 

That was about 2.5 weeks ago.

6/ Presumably as a result of today’s piece by Farah Abdurahman published by Michael West Media, we received an update on the investigation this evening. My impression of the update was that in the last 2.5 weeks the police have not made any further progress.

7/ I and others believe that investigating the doxxing we experienced is likely going to be pivotal in finding the man who planned and constructed a bomb to then place it along with a political demand and threat of further violence.

8/ Farah’s piece (attached) includes some portions of the dossier we gave to police about being doxxed. The comments are right there as the authors wrote them, along with their names which they had no qualms showing on a group of about 6,000 people.

9/ Now, @AlboMP : are the people who’s vile, ahistorical and racist garbage they proudly said to thousands may now be seen by the public the victims of this tale? Are they who you protect?

Because it’s clear you aren’t protecting me, and it’s clear you aren’t protecting us.

Theo flew a Palestinian flag. First he was doxed, then came the bomb!

This post was originally published on Michael West.

Cranbrook and other private elite schools don’t get obscene levels of public funding, it’s the old boys. Michael West reports on the inequity in private school funding as ABC Four Corners investigates the most elite school of all. 

Is this some sort of record? ABC Four Corners reporter Louise Milligan has divulged on social media today that ABC, its staff and *others* had copped no less than 7 legal threats from associates of elite Sydney boys school Cranbrook, which perches over Sydney Harbour and the richest suburb in Australia, Point Piper.

“Others” presumably refers to the sources for the ABC investigation. That’s quite a tally of pettifoggers and suggests, in this instance, that a current affairs show can legitimately deploy the word “explosive” for once. “A hit job” is how the Murdoch press is framing it today.

Indeed elitism and the boys’ culture of these fabulously wealthy private schools in Australia’s major cities are bona fide avenues for public interest inquiry, not merely things of titillation. They entrench advantage … and disadvantage in a country that has become a lot more unequal over the past 20 years. And anything that gets public funding is fair game for public coverage.

We know of SEVEN legal threats before tonight’s #4Corners Cranbrook story.
To:
* Myself & ABC
* People in our program
* People not in our program.
Even coming from people associated with Cranbrook NOT in our story. Power & influence in Australia’s wealthiest enclave. Tune in.

— Louise Milligan (@Milliganreports) March 4, 2024

 

And that is where we come in – on the headline that Cranbrook gets “$6m in government funding”. Is this fair to be slotting private schools millions in public subsidies when they are spending $20m on lavish building projects such as libraries and sports centres?

There will be much made of this in the coming days so a few points: the information about government funding is all public and easily accessible. What is more difficult is working out the equity in the funding models for schools in Australia.

Ski trips and citadels not on the public dime

Yes, private schools are subsidised but their capital works are not – that’s the swimming pools and the fancy building – at least in the case of these GPS schools. Yes, many such as The King’s School did gorge themselves on Covid subsidies when they should not have, at least on a moral basis. 

Yes, this on top of the $41,800 a year which parents, or grandparents, have to fork out to send just one child to Cranbrook. You can add the annual cost of a Cranners ski trip to Thredders on top.

Stories such as this one in SMH recently have lent a spot of fury to the debate.

“The fate of a $29 million plan to build a library resembling a Scottish castle at a private boys’ school in Sydney’s east [Scots College, up the street from Cranbrook] will be decided by an independent panel after residents complained the project would worsen traffic woes and encroach on harbour views.”

Ahem, $29m for a library? Again, it’s the parents and old boys who pay for it though.

So it is that we follow the money. Dial it up on the excellent My Schools website. Cranbrook gets around $6.5m in recurrent funding from federal and state governments, or $3,800 per student. Notice they get zero for capex or building works. The old boys pay for that. The inequity is in the tax breaks but we get to this later.

Now dial up Canterbury Girls High. That gets $12m or $16,000 per student. 

Incidentally, check out Canterbury Boys High. Why do the boys get more than the girls? It’s size of school, greater efficiencies in running bigger classrooms and more students. But that’s an aside.

New private schools, which are often quicker to set up in new suburban areas than public ones, get far higher government subsidies than do the ritzy private schools. The system is means-tested; it is based on ATO data on the wealth of the parents.

Now, there is an argument that Cranners and the like should not get any subsidies at all. It’s not as if they need it. The question is where to draw the line. This is a reasonable position even if many parents are not that wealthy and have to borrow or get their parents to pay the fees. But the numbers are not huge; they are based on a per student model and that the private schools deliver competition to the public sector.

It is true that new private schools do receive capital funding linked to their student numbers. Not the elite schools, though.

Trevor Cobbold, the spokesman for Save Our Schools and an advocate against public subsidies, says public schools have lost billions in funding over the last six years “because of accounting tricks conjured up between the Morrison and state/territory governments in bilateral funding agreements. They have lost about $13 billion over the six years from 2019 to 2024”.

“In total, public schools will have lost over $26 billion in funding over eleven years from 2019-2029 inclusive as a result of the collusion between the Morrison Government and the states and its continuation in the new agreements. It is outrageous that Labor Governments around the country are prepared to prolong the swindle.”

Trevor goes into detail on the inequities of the system on Save our Schools. And he is not much kinder to the Albanese government’s efforts to turn the scales than to the Coalition skew. 

Where the debate lies is in the issue that any funding from government does bolster the balance sheets of the elite schools and enables them to borrow for public works. The way this works is the school raises the finance from the banks and the parents typically repay the loans over a 20 year timeframe. So the recurrent money from the government for each student in a sense facilitates the borrowing but does not pay for it.

Gonski report

The reason that the Gonski Report recommended that every child in every school needed some level of government funding is that it keeps the private sector within the education system. World comparisons are valid. In Germany they don’t have private schools and education standards are higher.

In England, private schools don’t get public funding and are outside the government system so self-regulated, which has implications for education standards and control issues. Here, they remain inside the tent.

So, if we are not overhauling the entire system, we are debating areas of financial fairness in the various aspects of education funding. There is a metric called the ‘schooling resource standard base amount’ which is like a means test for parents which determines the level of government funding. Cranbrook’s would be at the lowest level.

Something that could be tightened up is the charity and tax status. Private schools have DGR or Designated Gift Recipient status, which means wealthy parents claim a tax deduction for donating to the capital works.

For the labourer from the outer suburbs asked to chip in for a classroom at the local public school, the same tax deduction is available but – as is the case with all the tax lurks – negative gearing, franking credits, CGT relief and so forth – some 90% of the benefits of these things tend go to the wealthiest 10%.

Symptom, not the cause

All of which brings us to the point, that the wealth of elite schools is the symptom of government policy and inequality in Australia, not the cause, although you could argue that cultural issues arising from elite schooling affect policy. As one former Cranbrook person notes in the Four Corners expose: “Those people go on to run our country, for better or for worse”.

A recent report from the NSW Productivity Commission found that Sydney was at risk of becoming “the city with no grandchildren”, said Commissioner Peter Achterstraat. High housing costs were forcing young families to leave Sydney, some 35,000 people aged 30-40 between 2016 and 2021 have left the city.

Similar trends, although to a lesser degree, may affect other metro centres over time. All this is down to the failure of successive governments to govern in the interests of all Australians to counter the deleterious social effects of reform stasis. Yes, the 9 years of Coalition government did nothing to arrest the funding skew in favour of wealthy schools but the ostentatious wealth? That’s all down to the parents.

A few points to close. The data for the independent schools on My School website is actual money spent whereas the money for the public and Catholic schools goes to the education departments respectively. And they allocate it.

The way the funding models for education work mean nobody loses money, at least on a per student basis. Two weeks ago, there was news that NSW public schools would lose money. They lost 5,000 students so they lose some $20,000 per student or $100m but the whole sector lost money.

Finally, swimming in money as they are, and backed often by the churches, private schools have been expanding into campuses for disadvantaged youth. The demand, incidentally, for these services has risen dramatically since the Covid lockdowns. It’s a sector that governments want to control and partially fund, but it’s not one they wish to keep entirely public. So joint ventures are rising in this space, which is perhaps a beneficial upshot of the rising inequality of wealth in this country.

So, short of having another inquiry, another report and another bunch of ignored recommendations, the overall structure of Australia’s education system is unlikely to change. There is an encroaching privatisation of the system yet the debates will centre on the detail not the whole. Can Cranbrook do without the funding? Surely. These schools all have waiting lists.

Does it deserve the funding? Probably not. The “arms race” as the battle to outdo the rival schools on grandiose building works, v ensures the debate will not go away. The question is where to draw the line when it comes to cutting public subsidies.

This post was originally published on Michael West.

Fat cat salaries, a post-career gravy train at their disposal and ‘gongs’ pinned on chests? Rex Patrick looks at the senior echelons of the public service to see how they’re faring in these ‘difficult’ times.

Ms Stephanie Foster was appointed acting Secretary of Home Affairs on 25 September after Michael Pezzullo was stood aside and a Public Service Commission investigation commenced into his highly inflammatory text message exchanges with Liberal Party power broker Scott Briggs.

At the time, Ms Foster was the associate secretary of immigration within Home Affairs.

Two months later, on 28 November she was appointment to the full role and a $928K salary.

It was not even a competitive appointment. Whilst the Prime Minister was advised of options to appoint a secretary, he chose a ‘direct approach to a single preferred candidate’ noting Minister for Home Affairs, Clare O’Neil MP, preferred Ms Foster be directly appointed.

Without competition, without testing to see if there was a better candidate, Ms Foster was given an almost million-dollar salary, access to an elite gravy train when she eventually retires, and an almost certain Order of Australia.

Fat cat salaries

Secretaries of Federal departments are paid somewhere between $830K and $977K.

These are extraordinary amounts given the Prime Minister receives $587K, Cabinet Ministers receive $388K, and Senators and MPs receive 225K.

Their salaries are nothing short of outrageous given those are public service positions, with emphasis on the words ‘public service’. It’s not supposed to be about profit.

It’s not as though these positions are ones where an approach to the market is made to get the best of the best, in almost all cases, those that are selected for these positions are simply promoted from within the public service, where they’ve spent most of their lives avoiding any career advancement risk and just picking up a pay packet from the taxpayer every fortnight.

And it’s not as though these positions are where accountability is an ever-present factor in the conduct of duties. Public services, State and Federal, are accountability voids. When a public program blows out by billions, no-one is held to account. Promotion often follows. The ‘Peter Principle‘ of promotion upwards to an employee’s level of incompetence, and indeed well beyond that, is deeply embedded across Australian Governments.

Sitting beneath the Secretaries are approximately 3000 Senior Executive Service personnel In 2002 the base salary received was between $186K and $253K for Band 1, between $253K and $327K for Band 2, and between $339K and $484K for Band 3.

But wait, there’s more

When secretaries and senior executive service personnel leave their highly financially rewarding public service positions, especially for secretaries, a gravy train awaits.

And there’s no need to worry about market competition – why depart from a system devoid of competitiveness – the work is handed out without the need to tender.

A few recent examples illustrate the situation.

• Since leaving as the Defence Secretary in 2017, Dennis Richardson has received four contracts totalling $1,091,300. Each of the four contracts were awarded by ‘limited tender’; that is, only one person was asked to apply.
• Since leaving as the Finance Secretary in 2022 Rosemary Huxtable (trading as Focal Point Consulting Trust) has received 15 contracts totalling $1,462,902. 14 of those 15 contracts was awarded by ‘limited tender’. Only one contract for $37,500 was by way open tender.
• Former DFAT Deputy Secretary Richard Maude (trading as Volatile World Consulting) has had three contracts, worth $215,997.6, awarded to him by limited tender since departing the public service.
• Former Deputy Secretary Steve Grzeskowiak (trading as SG Advice and in is own name) was recently awarded three contracts with his former agency for $967,000; again, all without a competitive tender.

Nuclear waste. Fifty years of searching, still nowhere to dump it.

It literally pays to be known.

These examples are but the tip of the iceberg. A whole article could be written just on the vast revolving door that is the Defence Department.

It’s a jobs-for-mates rort that needs to be curtailed. Secretaries have extremely well paid lieutenants to guide others in the tasks currently carried out by former public service leaders in consultancy rolls. We need to be growing expertise in the public service, not outsourcing it.

Then comes the medal

In 1997, former Prime Minister Paul Keating declined to accept an award of Companion of the Order of Australia, saying he believed honours should be reserved for unrecognised achievers.

It’s not a view shared by senior leaders in the public service. Awards are being thrown about left, right and centre.

Much has been said about the Orders of Australia awarded to Secretary Kathryn “Robodebt” Campbell and Michael “Political Text” Pezzullo.

In a recent Senate debate, Senator Lambie drew attention to the awarding of an Order of Australia to Defence Secretary Moriarty following the multi-billion debacles he has presided over, and his complete failure to hit Defence workforce targets.

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

It’s become routine for top public servants to nominate each other to be made Officers of the Order of Australia. AOs come in the public service ration packs, it appears.

But when awards just flow with ease for public servants who have just been doing their extremely well-paid jobs, it devalues the currency.

A reckoning needed

The public service has put the public offside.

Ordinary Australians who pay their taxes from salaries that don’t compare to the government fat cats have seen the likes of RoboDebt and too many other debacles and scandals. Opinion polls show that trust in government and the public service has plummeted. People are disgusted with the ivory towers that have been created in the upper echelons.

There has to be change.

Meanwhile, it looks like we’re stuck with a system of no accountability.

At the most recent Senate Estimates, newly minted Home Affairs Secretary Stephanie Foster was asked about the review of integrity and governance arrangements for the management of regional processing contracts (conducted by no other than Dennis Richardson). Senator McKim asked who was going to be held responsible for the serious of egregious mistakes identified in the report.

Ms Forster, in words Sir Humphrey Appleby would be proud of, responded:

“So … what I’m focusing on is what we need to do to ensure that the department’s contracting arrangements are fit for purpose … we have dealt with the historic problems in those contracts in our current processes.

“I did speak with Mr Richardson … about this issue of responsibility … he said it would take the wisdom of two Solomons to identify the complex arrangements and over the length of time with which individual officers and at what level accountability should rest. I asked him explicitly whether he felt … that there was unfinished business which as a new secretary I need to prosecute. His response was no.”

No thought to look at the line of well-paid officials who signed off on the regional processing contracts, or the well paid officials who were directly responsible for the management of them.

It’s all too hard to do accountability.

All the attending officials at Senate Estimates sighed a breath of relief when the Secretary said ‘no’ to accountability. Stay calm, nothing has changed.

Mike Pezzullo. The demise of a Canberra’s “most powerful, divisive, and yet indestructible bureaucrat”

This post was originally published on Michael West.

Disinformation group Advance Australia has been pouring advertising money into supporting the Liberals in the Dunkley by-election. Its funding includes over $1 million from a company whose ownership structure may be illegal. Anthony Klan reports.

Despite their claim to be a ‘grassroots’ movement of ‘ordinary Australians’, Advance Australia is bankrolled by a handful of wealthy families and individuals. According to the annual disclosure by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) on 1 February 2024, the largest donation to Advance Australia was $1.025M, but the AEC does not know the legal source of those payments.

The payment was also the second biggest individual political donation in Australia in the financial year.

After being alerted to it by this writer, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has confirmed that they are now investigating the ownership structure of the company behind the $1.025M donation, Hadley Holdings Pty Ltd.

The use of a complex and highly unusual company ownership structure, which also repeatedly exploits a notorious Australian regulatory black hole, means it is impossible to verify the true source, or sources, of the money. Further, the ownership structure appears to be illegal — the company at the top of the “ownership” chain claims that it “owns” itself.

The revelations come as the Advance, which has repeatedly been caught spreading disinformation and is a “false flag” operation run by fossil fuels and other vested interests, is aggressively targeting the Melbourne electorate of Dunkley ahead of Saturday’s Federal by-election.

It also comes as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese this week in Federal Parliament pointed to the “billionaires” behind Advance as to why donation law reform was needed — although he has announced zero changes since being elected almost two years ago.

The secretive Advance ran an aggressive campaign of disinformation ahead of the October 14 Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum, which it is now replicating in a bid to prevent the election of ALP candidate Jodie Belyea.

Dunkley, currently held by the ALP on a margin of 6.3 per cent, became vacant after the ALP MP Peta Murphy died of breast cancer in December.

Advance Australia astroturfers | Scam of the Week

Hadley Holdings Pty Ltd

Hadley Holdings Pty Ltd is connected to a relatively unknown 95-year-old Perth businessman called Brian Anderson, who has been widely reported as the source of the two donations totalling $1.025M.

A wealthy former car salesman and mining investor whose fortune was bolstered selling engineering products in the resources haven of Western Australia, Anderson has publicly stated he is the source of the money or at least some of the money.

Yet Anderson’s statements raise more questions — and the retired businessman has repeatedly refused to comment when contacted by us.

In a February 2 article, the AFR reported that Anderson had been “struck by No campaigners Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Nyunggai Warren Mundine” and “wanted to do what he could to support them.”

“My motives were because I thought the argument for the No case was correct, that [the Yes case is] divisive, and I wanted to support two of the Indigenous proponents, Jacinta Price and Warren Mundine,” Anderson is reported as saying.

Yet the payments were made in November 2022, which was not only almost a year before the referendum,

months before either Price or Mundine joined Advance’s “No” campaign against the Voice.

The two directors of Hadley Holdings Pty Ltd are Anderson and Perth accountant and tax agent Lena Hilton, 77, who owns accounting firm Hilton Partners.

Hilton has repeatedly refused to respond when approached by The Klaxon.

The Hadley Holdings AEC donor disclosure form was filed and signed two months ago on December 20 by Siva Paramalingam, who is also an accountant and tax agent at Hilton Partners.

He also refused to respond when approached for comment.

The ‘address’ for Hadley Holdings Pty Ltd stated on the AEC form is PO Box 1236, West Perth

Investigations show that while the directors of Hadley Holdings are Anderson and Hilton, the true ultimate owner, or owners, of the entity is hidden, even from authorities.

Opaque company structure

First, the $1.025m payments have been declared as made in two payments by a shell company, Hadley Holdings, which is 100% “owned” by another shell company, Anderson Nominees Pty Limited, which is 100% “owned” by another shell company, Yardia Pty Ltd.

Second, the “beneficial” owners, as in the actual owners of each of the three companies, are hidden.

Finally, the company at the top of the structure, Yardia Pty Ltd, claims it is 100 per cent owned by Yardia Pty Ltd.

Put another way, the biggest donor to Advance is a shell company owned by another shell company, which is owned by a third shell company; the “beneficial” (actual) owner of all three companies is hidden; all the directors of the three companies are refusing to talk; and, the company at the top of the structure claims it owns itself.

At the heart of Australia’s financial system is a black hole that allows the true owner, or owners, of any registered entity to remain entirely hidden. And it’s perfectly legal.

In what has drawn international condemnation from groups such as Transparency International, Australia has no register of “beneficial owners”.

That means the true ownership of any company can be hidden by naming a legal owner, who is different to the actual owner or owners.

That proxy owner has no rights to the company or its assets and must only act in accordance with the instructions of the actual owner/s.

ASIC investigates

We alerted ASIC on February 3 and asked how it could be legal,  or even possible, for a company to be the stated owner of itself. On February 7, ASIC said it was looking into the matter further.

“I need to clarify a few things but it would appear a company, can, in some very limited circumstances, own shares in itself as outlined in [Corporations Act] section 259a & 259b,” an ASIC spokeswoman responded.

“However, those acquired under 259a must be cancelled immediately after the transfer, and ASIC notified…and those acquired under 259b have 12 months to cease the shares.”

When we asked in response, repeatedly, whether Yardia Pty Ltd fell outside those laws, ASIC did not respond.

Investigations show that even if Yardia Pty Ltd meets other “very limited circumstances”, it fails to meet either Section 259a (that such a structure is replaced “immediately”) or Section 259b (that it is removed after 12 months) of the Corporations Act.

The legislation states: “If, at the end of the 12 months (or extended period), the company still holds any of the shares (or units of shares), the company commits an offence for each day while that situation continues”.

Yardia Pty Ltd became the owner of Yardia Pty Ltd on 30 June 2021 — more than two-and-a-half years ago.

Twelve months from then was 30 June 2022, more than 600 days ago.

ASIC filings show Yardia Pty Ltd has four shares, each with a stated value of $1, and on 30 June 2021 those four shares were all transferred to Yardia Pty Ltd itself. (The ASIC form detailing the “ownership” change was filed by Hilton).

We have now been made aware the matter has been substantially escalated, with investigations now in the hands of specialist teams within ASIC.

Anderson, who turned 95 earlier this month, lives in a multi-million-dollar waterfront home in the exclusive inner Perth suburb of Dalkeith. It is possible that he is the (hidden) “beneficial owner” of all three companies. It is also possible Anderson is the only “beneficial owner” of all three companies.

But the central issue, and point of serious concern for Australian democracy more broadly, is that there is no way of knowing.

AEC disclosure limitations

On February 2, we asked the AEC whether it knew the “identity/identities of the beneficial (and so actual) owner of Hadley Holdings Pty Ltd” and, if so, who that was.

“We administer the Commonwealth funding and disclosure scheme detailed in the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, this includes publishing disclosure data that is provided to us,” a spokeswoman responded. “These questions are outside of our remit as the AEC.”

The AEC doesn’t know the legal source of the payments.

Advance activities

Advance claims to be a “grassroots” movement of “ordinary Australians”, and uses the imagery of exhausted-looking blue-collar workers and campaigns against the “elite” and the “inner-city woke.”

“More of us are worried about what woke politicians and inner-city elites are doing to our country,” it declared ahead of the Voice referendum.

In fact, as previously reported, it is bankrolled by a handful of the mega-wealthy – the super-elite.

Of the Advance’s ten disclosed donor entities in 2021-22, all have fortunes in the tens of millions of dollars, and at least seven have estimated fortunes of $100m or more, including billionaire Sam Kennard, owner of Kennards Self Storage.

Most are so wealthy they appear in published media “rich lists” naming Australia’s wealthiest people.

Advance claims to be non-politically aligned, despite aggressively campaigning against the ALP in favour of the Coalition.

The outfit has heavily exploited Australia’s lack of truth in political advertising laws. Ahead of the 2022 federal election, Advance was caught lying by falsely claiming independent candidates David Pocock, now a federal senator, and Zali Steggall, now a federal MP, were actually Greens candidates in disguise.

Advance Australia fair? Why are the ‘No’ campaign people so afraid to be found?

This is an edited version of an article that first appeared in The Klaxon – original here.

This post was originally published on Michael West.

Rising calls for the Australian Government to confess to supplying weapons to Israel, which is on trial for genocide at The Hague, have been batted away. Are government MPs lying, or merely being economical with the truth? Monika Sarder reports.

For over three months, members of the Labor Government, including Defence Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong, have held the line that “Australia is not sending weapons to Israel and has not done so for the past five years”. This claim by Labor MPs has also been proliferating through a social media campaign allegedly combatting ‘disinformation’.

The reality is that Australia is a major exporter of military goods to Israel, and our government may at risk of being prosecuted for complicity in war crimes due to our export of F-35 bomber parts and other weapons being used in attacks on Gaza.

Despite the government’s attempts to cover up Australia’s weapons exports to Israel, minor parties and human rights groups have used what little accountability measures are available to challenge this claim.

Figures available from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade show that, in the six financial years from 2017-18, Australia has supplied $14.5 million dollars in arms and munitions to Israel.

Earlier this year, following questioning from Greens Senator David Shoebridge, it was revealed that over the same period Australia approved 322 military goods export licences to Israel.

Said Shoebridge: “[Foreign Minister] Penny Wong’s own department says in their published data that we have sent more than $10 million in arms and ammunition to Israel in the last five years.

“Then when we ask her in the Senate why she will not stop Australia’s arms exports to Israel, she stares you in the face, and says that Australia has not sent any arms or ammunition to Israel in the last five years.”

Wong’s response has been to duck the question: “I know there’s a lot of disinformation and misinformation circulating … I would encourage the senator [Shoebridge] to make sure that he does not contribute to that”.

Tricky accounting the excuse

So why is the government insisting that Australia’s weapons trade with Israel doesn’t exist? Put simply, it is a case of tricky accounting. Checkmate ABC has established that this claim is drawn from a narrow definition of weapons counts used by the UN Register of Conventional Arms (ROCA). ROCA’s aim is to provide a record of transfers of completed builds of weapons between countries.

These numbers do not include weapon parts, as this would result in double counting, and ROCA is only interested in the total weapons traded. Whilst excluding part counts is appropriate for ROCA’s purposes, such an exclusion is grossly inappropriate for the purpose of reporting on Australia’s weapons trade.

The arms trade consists of an extensive global supply chain of parts, services, and maintenance contracts. Australia’s own Defence and Strategic Goods List explicitly states that ‘parts and accessories’ are military goods for the purpose of export controls. Critically, the Arms Trade Treaty, which is aimed at preventing the transfer of arms for use in war crimes restricts the export of ‘parts and components.’

The heat is on Australia’s leaders — given that Germany’s Chancellor is now being sued over his complicity in the Gaza genocide, citing Germany’s weapons exports to Israel.

This might help explain the heightened *secrecy* over Australia’s exports to Israel of military… https://t.co/yYes9A5Kji pic.twitter.com/gepO9rlTsk

— Peter Cronau (@PeterCronau) February 28, 2024

 

The legal culpability of weapons parts exporters was clarified earlier this month when a Dutch appeals court ordered the government of the Netherlands to sto the export of F-35 bomber parts to Israel, citing a clear risk that it was being used to commit war crimes in Gaza.

In bringing their case before the Dutch court, Oxfam Netherlands and two other human rights organisations argued that the Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development was obliged to reassess F-35 export licences once the overriding risk that the bomber was being used to commit and facilitate war crimes in Gaza became apparent.

The court accepted this argument, finding that the F-35 bombers had been used in ‘indiscriminate attacks’ on civilians, and that there was a clear risk that these attacks amounted to breaches of international humanitarian law. In making these findings, the court relied on evidence from the United Nations and Amnesty International showing that almost half of the bombs dropped by Israel on Gaza are ‘dumb bombs’ (i.e. unguided bombs that are generally not precise) and that targets had included hospitals, schools, refugee camps, homes, markets and religious buildings.

The court subsequently ordered the Netherlands government to stop all exports of F-35 parts within seven days.

Australia’s genocide risk

The Dutch ruling has implications for the legality of Australia’s export of weapons parts to Israel, in particular our export of F-35 parts. Australia has signed and ratified the Arms Trade Treaty, and has recognised the international obligations arising from the treaty in domestic law.

The treaty aims to reduce human suffering by limiting the availability of weapons for use in serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law (aka ‘war crimes’). To achieve this, member states are required to refuse licences for the export of military goods where there is an overriding risk that the weapons will be used in such breaches. This requirement applies to both new and existing permits, meaning permits must be reassessed if the member state becomes aware that the goods are being used to commit war crimes.

Australia’s current export licences of weapons parts to Israel are almost certainly in breach of our domestic and international legal obligations. At present, over 70 Australian companies supply parts and maintenance to F-35 bombers. It is a matter of public record that every F-35 contains some Australian parts. Israel is already in possession of 50 F-35 craft and has placed an order for 25 more. 

I called on the Government today to stop the gaslighting and admit they are exporting weapons to the State of Israel, fueling the violence and destruction in Gaza.

People want Australia to be a force for good in the world, a force for peace. pic.twitter.com/ql4CUOTLZZ

— David Shoebridge (@DavidShoebridge) February 28, 2024

Over 70 Australian companies provide parts and maintenance to the F-35 program.

The government’s persistent gaslighting of the Australian public in relation to our weapons exports to Israel is reprehensible. It is time for transparency and accountability, the foundations of responsible government, to prevail.

There is currently a legal action underway, brought by the Australian Centre for International Justice and other human rights groups, to try and access information about Australian defence export permits to Israel since October 7. It should not take a court action for the Government to release this information. In the UK for example, information pertaining to requests for export permits – which includes the name of the company, the nature of the export, and the dollar amount – is readily available. 

Australians have the right to know whether their government is supplying weapons used to commit war crimes arms. Should the government continue supplying arms to Israel, they have a right to have these demands adjudicated in a court of law. The secrecy and mendacity must end.

Editor’s Note: The government has not come clean on the role of Pine Gap surveillance facilities in the war on Gaza and the Future Fund had not changed its position on its investment in the largest Israeli bomb-market Elbit Systems, even the the wake of the genocide action against Israel in the International Court of Justice.

Future Fund profits from bombing of Gaza thanks to Elbit investment

This post was originally published on Michael West.

Is the Cayman Islands-controlled operator of the Northern Beaches Hospital overcharging the government for public beds? It appears Brookfield is charging the local health authority more than twice the cost per bed than Royal North Shore Hospital. Michael West reports. 

“The taxpayer is paying almost $700 million per year to a company masquerading as a hospital operator which, at best, can deliver services for 250 public beds, yet the Royal North Shore Hospital, which has about 700 public beds, costs the taxpayer about $700 million a year to run.” 

This is the analysis of Andrew Gill, whose son Josh Gill died in tragic circumstances in the wake of hospital negligence at Northern Beaches in 2021. Gill, a lawyer, sued the hospital operator and settled confidentially – gaining a commitment that $11m would be spent on the youth mental health crisis – and has since campaigned to have the Hospital put back in public hands. 

The movement is gaining traction in the community with local MP Sophie Scamps, herself a doctor, raising the issue in recent days. That the Hospital operator never made good on its mental health commitment has helped. 

“It is disappointing that more than two years after the former NSW government announced funding for a four-bed youth mental health unit [in the wake of Josh Gill’s death], the Northern Beaches Hospital management has refused to provide the services.

“This raises a bigger question about whether this private hospital model is in our community’s interest. I am deeply concerned about the arrangements and I will await the outcome of the NSW audit into the hospital with great interest.” 

We reported last year in a joint investigation by MWM and Andrew Gill that the operator was not subject to financial penalties for its breaches, and that financial arrangements were highly skewed in favour of Healthscope/Brookfield.

Privatisation inquiry call: Cayman Island owners pay no penalty for Australian hospital fails

If the point of privatisation is to provide financial efficiencies for the public, it is doubtful this has been achieved – as the comparison with Royal North Shore would suggest. The greater issue, according to Andrew Gill, is the clear conflict of interest in having a hospital, an essential asset (and in this case a monopoly), run for profit for the benefit of a foreign financial engineering group. The lives versus profits conundrum.

Gill believes the group is in serial breach of its contractual obligations but there is no public record of specific breaches and medical negligence claims.

Numerous approaches have been made by MWM to the operator Healthscope (owned by Brookfield) and to the Northern Sydney Local Health District but both have failed to provide transparency either around the financial arrangements or of the breaches of their health services contracts.

As to the cost of putting NBH back in public hands, if the operator is in breach of its contract, which may be the case due to ‘Step-ins’ under the contract where medical breaches must be disclosed, then compensation to the operator could be contained.

 As for the audit on the NBH, he says there has been no recent announcement from the NSW Audit Office as to an audit being conducted on the NBH. “The potential for an audit on the NBH was announced in the 2023-26 Annual Work Program which was published on the NSW Audit Office website on or about 20 October 2023..

“As “follow the dollar” auditing now finally applies in NSW, the owners of the NBH should be very afraid if the NSW Audit Office does its job to protect the public from the grotesquely ravenous charging policies of the ultimate owner of our local public hospital, which is Brookfield Asset Management (a Canadian asset manager who specialises in owning global ‘infrastructure assets’) who boosts of having an asset position of over $1 trillion.

 In December 2014, NSW entered into a public-private partnership (PPP) to deliver the Northern Beaches Hospital. Under the terms of the PPP, the private sector designed, built, operates and maintains the new hospital which provides free public patient services as well as a range of services for private patients. 

“The Northern Beaches Hospital is a part of the Northern Sydney Local Health District and the private sector partner remains responsible for providing publicly-funded health services until October 2038. Using follow the dollar provisions, this audit may examine whether the Northern Beaches Hospital is delivering publicly-funded health services transparently, efficiently and effectively.” 

It is the word “may” which is key says Gill. “Again, very equivocal language … there is no guarantee that an audit will be held, which is disturbing when it seems very clear now that the taxpayer is paying [a fraction of the cost to operate RNS Hospital].”

Follow the dollar legislation passed in November 2022 and expanded the Auditor-General’s mandate by providing the power to conduct performance audits of any matter where public resources are used to deliver services to the community.

“In this way, the Auditor-General will be able to follow the dollar. That means the Auditor-General will be able to report to Parliament about whether total public resources allocated to a particular program have been managed and applied effectively, economically and efficiently and in compliance with all relevant laws. It will no longer matter whether the body delivering those services is a government or non-government entity.”

From the Northern Beaches of Sydney to the Northern Beaches of George Town, Cayman Islands

This post was originally published on Michael West.

The not-so-distinguished service of former Secretary of Home Affairs Mike Pezzullo ended in a blaze of ignominy, and there may be more coming. Rex Patrick and Philip Dorling with the story.

Mike Pezzullo got a gong in the June 2020 Queen’s Birthday Honours. The then Home Affairs Secretary was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for “distinguished service to public administration through leadership roles in the areas of national security, border control and immigration.”

Pezzullo joined the Defence Department in 1987 and, over more than three and a half decades, rose to a position of remarkable prominence in the national security establishment. ‘The Pezz’, as he was widely known, clawed his way to the top, becoming what one seasoned observer of Federal politics described as Canberra’s “most powerful, divisive, and yet indestructible bureaucrat.”

Yet in November 2023, Pezzullo was sacked from the top ranks of the Australian Public Service (APS).

The Home Affairs Secretary’s termination came within a week of the completion of a report by former APS Commissioner Lynelle Briggs, acting as a delegate for current APS Commissioner Gordon de Brouwer, concerning reports about Pezzullo’s conduct that had been published by investigative journalists Nick McKenzie and Michael Bachelard.

Briggs’ conclusions were damning. She alleged Pezzullo had repeatedly breached the APS Code of Conduct, used his position as a Departmental Secretary to gain a benefit or advantage for himself, and “failed to maintain confidentiality of sensitive government information.”

Briggs further alleged Pezzullo failed to act apolitically in his employment, disclosed a conflict of interest, and “engaged in gossip and disrespectful critique of Ministers and public servants.”

Briggs’ findings were utterly at odds with any notion of ‘distinguished service to public administration’.

Swift termination

As bureaucratic and political executions go, it was an efficient affair, something that Pezzullo, an immensely experienced bureaucratic operator with a keen sense of history, may well have appreciated. After all, he had once called for the rival Attorney-General’s Department to be “put to the sword.”

Pezzullo would have known his days were numbered as soon as he learned that his highly inflammatory text messages with Liberal Party power broker Jamie Briggs (no relative of the former Public Service Commissioner) were in the hands of investigative journalists and would soon be published. His WhatsApp and Signal messages could presumably only be found on electronic devices belonging to only two people – Pezzullo himself and his confidante Briggs.

In their initial report, Nine Entertainment’s McKenzie and Bachelard were somewhat coy about how they had accessed “thousands” of private messages, saying, “This masthead [SMH, Age] and 60 Minutes learnt of the messages and their content via a third party who obtained lawful access to them. We reviewed them while investigating Briggs’ involvement in a tender process for a failed billion-dollar contract for a new visa processing system from Pezzullo’s department.”

The resultant story, published in the evening of Sunday, 24 September 2023, was a sensational scoop, with Pezzullo revealed to have used Briggs as a clandestine political back-channel to two Liberal Prime Ministers to undermine his political and public service enemies, promote the careers of right-wing politicians he valued as allies in bolstering his Home Security empire, and to lobby to censor the press while advocating criminal penalties for journalists who published classified information.

Revelation of Pezzullo’s highly unorthodox, indeed outrageous secret political manoeuvring immediately rendered his position untenable. The next morning, 25 September, Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neill consulted with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and required Pezzullo to stand aside, albeit on full pay with a salary package exceeding $900,000 per annum, while she referred the matter to APS Commissioner Gordon de Brouwer, for an ‘expedited’ investigation.

Within a day de Brouwer had appointed former APS Commissioner Lynelle Briggs to conduct an inquiry into alleged breaches by Pezzullo of the APS Code of Conduct.

Acting Home Affairs Secretary Stephanie Foster told a Senate Estimates hearing in October that this was all a “significant shock” and lamented the “sustained and often distressing media reporting” about Pezzullo’s alleged misbehaviour and breaches of professional duty.

However, no information was forthcoming on Lynelle Briggs’ inquiry, with both Foster and APS Commission de Brouwer refusing at Estimates to reveal any details. De Brouwer flatly refused to discuss any “details of specific allegations, lines of inquiry, projected time frames or likely outcomes.”

Briggs took two months to complete her task. Pezzullo was accorded the opportunity to respond to her draft findings and recommendations, and his responses were apparently taken into account in the final report, which was provided to de Brouwer sometime shortly before 23 October.

Matters then moved very quickly, but before they could be finalised, there was one awkward issue that the Government needed to resolve.

The Pezzullo clause

Given what had been reported in the media, it was prima facie likely that Pezzullo would be found to have breached the APS Code of Conduct, and termination of his appointment would be recommended.

However, in a remarkable omission, the Federal Government’s Remuneration Tribunal’s determination of terms and conditions for departmental secretaries had no provision for dealing with a secretary and being sacked for breaches of the APS Code of Conduct. As things stood, if Pezzullo was terminated under section 59(1) of the Public Service Act 1999, he would still be entitled to 12 months of his reference salary of $804,062 as “compensation” for early termination of his appointment.

While Briggs proceeded to finalise her report, there was a scramble to deal with this potentially politically embarrassing problem.

In October, the Tribunal, comprised of then President John Conde and members Heather Zampatti and Stephen Conry, commenced an urgent review of compensation for loss of office by departmental secretaries.

Advice was obtained from the Australian Government Solicitor and the Office of Parliamentary Counsel, and on 17 November, just as Briggs was completing her report, the Tribunal wrote the departmental secretaries seeking urgent comment on proposed amendments that would remove a secretary’s eligibility for compensation if their appointment was terminated after, either a finding by the APS Commissioner that the secretary had breached the APS Code of Conduct, or, if the National Anti-Corruption Commission had found the secretary had “engaged in corrupt conduct of a serious and systemic nature.”

Three Secretaries responded, and on 22 November, the Tribunal wrote again, “clarifying the intent of the proposed amendments”. The next day, Wednesday, 23 November, the Tribunal held a meeting and approved what could be called the “Pezzullo clause”. There would be no payout.

The Chop

Perhaps coincidentally, or perhaps not, APS Commissioner de Brouwer hand-delivered the Briggs report to Prime Minister Albanese that same day, Wednesday, 23 November. Briggs recommended Pezzullo’s termination, and de Brouwer concurred. Pezzullo was now on the very fast track for ‘the chop’.

The Public Service Act provides that before recommending to the Governor-General to terminate a secretary’s appointment, the Prime Minister must have a report from the Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) prepared in consultation with the APS Commissioner.

To that end, de Brouwer provided a copy of Briggs’s report to PM&C Secretary Professor Glyn Davis and to Albanese’s Chief of Staff, Tim Gartrell. First Assistant Secretary of PM&C’s Government Division, Andrew Walter, then rushed to prepare a submission to the Prime Minister and draft Federal Executive Council papers, circulating a draft to Davis and de Brouwer mid-afternoon on Saturday, 25 November. de Brouwer indicated his concurrence in less than an hour. Davis probably did likewise that evening, and the Prime Minister likely gave his approval sometime on Sunday.

Pezzullo’s execution came on the morning of Monday, 27 November, at an Executive Council meeting comprised of Governor-General David Hurley, the Prime Minister and one other Minister (possibly Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, who is also Minister for the Public Service or Home Affairs Minister O’Neill, both having also received a copy of the Briggs report).

Interestingly, the explanatory memorandum that accompanied Albanese’s recommendation to terminate Pezzullo provided no detail other than the briefest of statements that the Home Affairs Secretary had breached the APS Code of Conduct on “numerous occasions” and confirmation that the Public Service Act requirements for termination had been fulfilled.

The Governor-General signed and the Prime Minister counter-signed and Pezzullo’s public service career came to an end.

Secrecy

Pezzullo’s fall was arguably the most dramatic and significant downfall of a departmental secretary in the history of the Australian Federation.

Secretaries have been sacked before, indeed on many occasions, but never before on the grounds of misbehaviour and breach of duty such as those alleged in relation to Pezzullo.

‘The Pez’ had secured a place in history, though not perhaps the one he had dreamed of when he first joined the Defence Department so long ago.

The Government was careful to manage the news of Pezzullo’s demise while parliament sat on 27 November 2023. Albanese put out a very brief media release, confirming the Home Affairs Secretary’s sacking and noting that Pezzullo “fully cooperated with the inquiry”. However, he only did so after Minister O’Neill had finished a press conference on another matter.

The APS Commissioner followed with a slightly longer statement that indicated Briggs had found Pezzullo breached the APS Code of Conduct “on at least 14 occasions in relation to 5 overarching allegations.”. However, there were no further revelations.

De Brouwer acknowledged it was in the public interest for the overarching breach findings to be made public, but beyond that, the public service blinds were pulled down. De Brouwer declared:

No further information regarding the contents of the inquiry will be provided by the Australian Public Service Commission.

Not everyone agreed. On the Parliamentary cross-benches, there was a strong view that the public interest would be better served by a more fulsome disclosure of the Briggs report. The Albanese Government had pledged itself to be more transparent than its predecessor, and this was a test of just how far that commitment would go.

Two days after Pezzullo’s demise, independent Senator David Pocock moved in the Senate “That there be laid on the table by the Minister for the Public Service, by no later than 1 pm on 6 December 2023, the full copy of Ms Lynelle Briggs AO’s final report … following her recent inquiry into possible breaches of the APS Code of Conduct by Mr Michael Pezzullo.”

However, when the motion was put without debate to a vote, Pocock’s initiative was defeated by 31 votes to 17. The Senate cross-bench and Greens were all in favour,

while Labor and the Coalition joined forces to keep the Briggs report secret.

Where the bodies are buried

One might have thought that Prime Minister Albanese and Labor would have seen some political advantage in revealing more of a story that, at least on the face of it, largely concerned bureaucratic and political machinations during the former Coalition Governments of Prime Ministers Turnbull and Morrison.

Yet the Briggs report remains under wraps, neither publicly released nor discreetly “leaked” as an “exclusive” to a carefully chosen journalist.

Labor collateral damage?

In the course of his long career, Pezzullo developed deep links with Labor. In 1993, he joined the staff of then Foreign Minister Gareth Evans and stayed with Evans after Labor’s 1996 defeat. In 1997, he became a senior adviser and then deputy chief of staff to Opposition Leader Kim Beazley, serving in the latter role until Labor’s further defeat in 2001. During that period, Pezzullo first articulated his vision of Home Affairs as a national security super department.

Pezzullo returned to the Defence Department in 2002, quickly moving to the top ranks, later heading the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service and eventually leading his bureaucratic empire of Home Affairs. All the while, however, he maintained discrete links with Labor, in opposition and government.

In their exposé, McKenzie and Bachelard briefly refer to Pezzullo’s links with Labor right-wingers, notably former Senator Stephen Conroy, and his intrigues against Labor figures he saw as threats to his notional security empire, notably Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus.

Although the Sydney Morning Herald’s primary focus was on Pezzullo’s relationship with Liberal operative Jamie Briggs, it’s quite possible his “thousands” of texts also shed rather more light on his relations with Labor figures than has been revealed.

At the time of Pezzullo’s sacking, Labor insiders worried that the former bureaucratic juggernaut “knows where all the bodies are buried”. Some wags jested that “The Pezz” had buried a few of those bureaucratic and political bodies himself.

Yet so far, Pezzullo has maintained a disciplined silence. Perhaps he’s waiting to see whether further developments are yet to play out.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

Further investigations

On 27 November 2023, the day of Pezzullo’s demise, we lodged a Freedom of Information application with the Australian Public Service Commission seeking access to the Briggs inquiry report and any related correspondence from Commissioner de Brouwer to the Prime Minister.

This seemed not an unreasonable request in the public interest and it’s significant that Australia’s FOI law overrides the secrecy provisions of the Public Service Act related to Code of Conduct investigations.

After much delay, the Commission has released a heavily redacted copy of de Brouwer’s letter of transmittal to Albanese. The Commission flatly refused to release the Briggs Report, not one paragraph, not one word.

The reasons include claims that the Briggs report contains information received in confidence as well as legal advice obtained by the government from an external law firm.

It is also asserted that the Briggs report includes information that, if disclosed, “would, or could reasonably be expected to, cause damage to the security, defence or international relations of the Commonwealth.”

Failure to maintain confidentiality

However, and perhaps most significantly, the Public Service Commission has also claimed exemption from disclosure of information that,

if revealed, could prejudice the conduct of a law enforcement investigation.

The Commission’s FOI decision-maker has stated, “I am satisfied that disclosure [of the Briggs Report] could reasonably be expected to prejudice the conduct of future investigations and other processes in a particular case … Accordingly, I find that the [Report] is exempt …”.

It remains to be seen whether these exemptions from transparency will hold up under review, at least as far as the entirety of the Briggs report is concerned.

Meantime, however, it appears that the matter of Michael Pezzullo may not yet be fully resolved.

Just what future law enforcement or other investigation might be involved can only be a matter of speculation, though it is of note that the published findings of the Briggs report include a finding that Pezzullo “failed to disclose a conflict of interest”.

Yes to Kathryn Campbell’s plum job Prime Minister, but why?

This post was originally published on Michael West.

Defence Minister Richard Marles is hoping today’s announcement about the restructuring of the Royal Australian Navy will keep us all feeling happy and safe. Rex Patrick warns a lot of caution is required.

On 16 September 2021 then Prime Minister Scott “from marketing” Morrison used his AUKUS announcement to bury the fact he was cancelling the troubled Attack Class submarine program – years wasted and $3B shredded. Today Defence Minister Richard Marles used the thrill of new purchases to bury the fact that Navy procurement is still an utter shambles.

After today’s announcement, we’ll see our navy moving forward as follows.

Submarines

There was no new announcement on our submarines; the status quo remains.

Our sailors will be sent to sea for the next decade on six aging Collins Class submarines that were supposed to retire in 2026. The life-of-type extension planned to keep them going will cost the taxpayer more than $6B dollars.

Sometime in the mid-2030s, if we can get the United States Congress to match Prime Minister Albanese’s $US5B submarine industry support donation (which Congress declined to match last week), and if isolationist and erratic Donald Trump doesn’t get elected, we’ll have the first of three Virginia Class submarines appear alongside a naval base in WA.

That’s the initial deal – if it happens. A decade will pass, and we might get some US-built vessels at full price plus a $5B sweetener. No significant Australian industry involvement in construction. Apparently, no refund if it all falls over.

We’ll then switch from the highly capable Virginia Class submarine to an unknown and unbuilt new design, the AUKUS-SSN, developed by the UK’s shipbuilding industry that has persistently been late and over budget on naval construction.

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

Air warfare destroyers

According to Marles, upgraded air defence and strike capability will be procured for our three Air Warfare Destroyers, but apart from that, it’s status quo.

The Government did announce that it will announce the Air Warfare Destroyer replacement program in the future.

Future frigates

There will be a reduction in the number of future frigates from nine to six, simultaneously raising the unit cost of the ships (assuming the budget remains at $45B for each of these ships, the price has gone from $5B per vessel to $7B per vessel) while reducing our anti-submarine capability, at a time when we have a record number of submarines in our region, with that threat only likely to grow further.

Whilst we’re buying nuclear submarines to station off ports in China, the Chinese Navy already has nuclear submarines to station off Sydney heads and Rottnest Island near Perth. The Chinese submarine commander’s job just got a bit easier today.

Marles mauled as Future Frigates farce lights up Defence fracas

General purpose frigates

The one positive announcement from today is the procurement of 11 general-purpose frigates, though the term corvette might be more appropriate for these smallish vessels.

There was little detail in the announcement today, but It’s reasonable to assume that Defence will eventually select some design of a ship that has not been fielded and try to load it up with ‘RAN special sauce’, an approach that added risk and guaranteed that future frigates blew out in cost and schedule.

The first three of these vessels look to be built overseas. That’s Australian jobs exported.

‘Optionally Crewed Surface Vessels’

The media loves novelty, and today’s announcement was loaded up with an exciting new element: six “Large Optionally Crewed Surface Vessels”. Cynics might think that these ships might be a solution to the Navy’s chronic recruitment and retention problems, and fielding autonomous platforms might help with that.

However, the thing to understand is that this is another ambitious venture into new and largely untried technology when the Navy and Defence really can’t afford another major project failure. Perhaps these still drawing board concept boats might be great, but one would want to see a lot more detail before seeing this as an assured capability that will be delivered on time and on budget.

Offshore patrol vessels

If you haven’t heard of the OPVs, these are vessels slightly larger than a patrol boat which the Navy decided to build 12 of. A construction contract was signed in 2018 and we still don’t have an operational vessel available to Navy use.

That’s correct; in the time it took for World War II to start and then end, we haven’t been able to build and commission one patrol vessel into the Navy.

The Government has cut the build number in half to 6.

The real problem left unsolved

Defence Minister Richard Marles left the Naval shipbuilding capability issue unsolved today; the “always choose something special and untested” problem.

He should have been looking through the track record of failure, of massive cost blow-outs, protracted delay and abrupt cancellations, to find a real fix necessary to solve the Navy’s (and Army and Air Force’s) woes.

Defence has consistently failed to manage project risk, taxpayers have been picking up the tab on every occasion.

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

This problem starts with our Senior military officers, who were no doubt great warfighters in their junior ADF years, having little project management experience. They’re the ones making high-risk purchase recommendations to Cabinet ministers – who have zero project management experience.

In choosing paper capabilities, Defence exposes its programs and taxpayers to budget blowouts that ultimately mean there’s less money to spend on other much-needed Defence capabilities and schedule blowouts that leave our service men and women without modern capabilities.

Repeated failures

Over the past decade, we’ve seen the cancelled Multiple-Role Helicopter program ($3.5B wasted), the cancelled Sky Guardian medium altitude long endurance attack drone program ($1.3B), the cancelled Army’s Battle Management system ($760M), the failed Spartan battlefield airlift aircraft ($900M), the failed Tiger helicopter program ($1.8B wasted) and the cancelled Attack Class submarine program ($3B).

Two weeks ago, the Auditor-General reported to the Parliament that, across 20 major Defence projects, the “total schedule slippage was 453 months (23%) when compared to initial project planning”.

There hasn’t been any accountability for past procurement failures or reform to ensure better performance in the future.

So, we need to put away the undue excitement of some from today’s announcement. We need to appreciate that today’s announcement will see the same incompetent organisations that consistently deliver failure put in charge of the announced programs.

The real change that’s needed from today moving forward is some real constraint on our Defence bureaucrats from doing anything remotely risky.

Our future ships need to be proven designs, built in Australia, and later enhanced by local industry to improve a working baseline design.

Big announcements and press conferences don’t deliver the goods. Effective project management by leaders and teams with deep expertise and experience do. That’s what Defence needs to build if they are to do better in the future.

 

This post was originally published on Michael West.

Last November, at the time the Coalition were furiously bashing ‘Airbus Albo’ for his penchant for overseas travel, Peter Dutton paid a low-key visit to India. Rex Patrick and Philip Dorling take a look at the Opposition Leader’s trip, which included a private dinner with an Indian billionaire with coal interests in Australia.

DFAT and LOTO

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) routinely use the acronym LOTO to refer to the Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton.

In late October last year, Australia’s High Commission in India was scrambling to facilitate an imminent visit by LOTO to New Delhi.  DFAT emails released under FOI show that the Department and the High Commission were first informed of Dutton’s prospective travel on 20 October, but it wasn’t until 23 October that Dutton’s office confirmed LOTO would be arriving in the evening of 31 October for a four day visit.

This gave the High Commission just five working days to sort out accommodation, logistics and most challenging, appointments with Indian Government ministers and officials.

Curiously Dutton’s office didn’t offer much, if any, guidance and by 26 October High Commissioner Philip Green found it necessary to email Dutton’s team to personally offer “support in engaging with the Ministry of External Affairs for any meetings you are seeking with Government of India officials or representatives”. 

With just a few days left before Dutton’s departure, LOTO’s office accepted the offer of assistance and the High Commissioner was fortunately able to secure a short-notice appointment with India’s External Affairs Minister, Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. The High Commission successfully also made another appointment for Dutton but the identity of that senior Indian official has been redacted from DFAT’s FOI release on grounds of diplomatic sensitivity. More about that later.

It’s also clear from the released DFAT records that these meetings weren’t LOTO’s top priority. In fact, much of Dutton’s program had already been organised outside of DFAT because his trip was much more about domestic Australian politics than international relations.

Currying favours

In many respects Peter Dutton’s decision to make visit to India was entirely unexceptional.

Although long neglected in Australian foreign policy, diplomatic, economic and strategic ties between Australia and India have grown apace over the past decade and a half as both countries have identified new trade opportunities and shared a growing concern about China’s geo-strategic rise.

In 2020 the bilateral relationship was elevated by agreement to what was proclaimed to be a “Common Strategic Partnership”. As Defence Minister Dutton participated in the inaugural India-Australia ministerial dialogue in September 2021 and in April 2022, shortly before Australia’s federal election, a bilateral economic cooperation and trade agreement was signed in April 2022.

Behind the diplomatic, strategic and economic relationships, migration from India has produced a rapid expansion in Australia’s Indian community with some 800,000 Australians having Indian heritage.

Indian Australians now account for nearly 3 per cent of the total population and comprise the second largest immigrant community in Australia. The influx of Indian migrants is having a significant cultural impact with Hinduism our countries fastest growing religion and Punjabi the fastest growing language.

Australia’s Indian communities have also emerged as a major factor on the political landscape.

Chefs and Indians

Prior to the 2022 federal election, both the Coalition and Labor furiously courted Indian Australian voters who are significantly concentrated in electorates in the outer west and south west of Sydney and the northern and north-western suburbs of Melbourne. Both sides made lavish promises of government grants for community projects and facilities. 

Prime Minister Scott Morrison tweeted selfies of himself cooking Indian flavoured curries while Anthony Albanese visited temples and applauded the contributions of Indian Australians to the nation.

Established political wisdom was that the Liberal Party had the edge in winning support from the Indian community, but surveys prior to the election strongly suggested that was mistaken with four out of ten Indian Australians signalling they intended to vote for Labor while about 25 per cent favoured the Coalition. The Greens placed third with ten per cent of the community’s vote.

After the poll, Labor Prime Minister Albanese continued his political engagement with his effusive embrace of visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in March 2023. 

For the defeated Liberal’s become a question of catch up politics, seeking to rebuild support in the Indian community as part of Dutton’s strategy to win outer suburban electorates in Sydney and Melbourne as the path to make gains and perhaps regain power at the next election.

The IASA and the Liberals

It’s in this context that LOTO Dutton arrived in New Delhi on the evening of 31 October 2023 accompanied, not by Shadow Foreign Minister Simon Birmingham or Shadow Defence Minister Andrew Hastie, but by the Shadow Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Jason Wood, the opposition’s point man for relations with Australia’s immigrant communities.

Filling out Dutton’s official party were three staffers from Dutton’s and Wood’s offices and no less than four Australian Federal Police close-protection officers, a security legacy from Dutton’s time as Minister for Home Affairs.

But that wasn’t all of Dutton’s delegation because his visit and itinerary had in fact been very largely orchestrated not by DFAT and the High Commission but by the Chairman of the India Australia Strategic Alliance (IASA), Dr Javinder Singh Virk, a long time Liberal Party member, friend of former Prime Minister Tony Abbott and supporter of numerous Liberal Party parliamentarians.

An influential and respected figure within Indian business and community organisations, Virk’s Liberal Party affiliation is amply demonstrated on his social media postings.

Joint Peacocks

In his media release on his visit to India, Dutton acknowledged the connection with the IASA, but omitted to say that he was accompanied by Virk and indeed by a delegation of some twenty Indian Australian business figures and local government politicians including Liberal Party, Blacktown Councillor Livingston Chettipally who gifted the Opposition Leader an ornamental peacock sculpture. (Jason Wood got a peacock as well.)

In an overlooked parliamentary speech close to the end of last year, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister Patrick Gorman was scathing of the delegation, claiming Dutton was accompanied to New Delhi by “an unlicensed real estate agent, a disgraced Liberal candidate, unregistered migration agents … property developers, people who’d had restrictions placed on them by ASQA [Australian Skills Quality Authority] and even those who were the subject of an Age investigation.”

That’s a highly partisan portrayal. However, aside from the quality or otherwise of Dutton’s delegation, it’s clear from DFAT’s emails and coverage of the visit in the Indian press that Opposition Leader’s official government meetings was squeezed into a program largely geared towards photo opportunities and networking events directed towards building Liberal Party ties with the Australian-Indian business community, and generating favourable publicity directed at the Indian community back in Australia.

And in the program curated by Dr Virk one name stands out.

Naveen Jindal the coal baron

Most Australians won’t know the name Naveen Jindal, but he’s a big deal in India and has significant Australian connections.

Jindal is an Indian billionaire industrialist, the chairman of Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL), a leading steel producer with worldwide coal and power interests including a 60.38% stake in Wollongong Resources which operates the Russell Vale and Wongawilli Collieries.

Jindal has long mixed business and politics. A decade ago Jindal was seen as one of India’s brightest younger entrepreneurs and a rising star within the Congress Party. He was elected to India’s Federal Parliament, the Lok Sahba, in 2004 and re-elected in 2009.

In 2012 Jindal and Linfox chairman Lindsay Fox were the inaugural co-chairs of the Australia-India CEO Forum, a bilateral government supported industry group to facilitate Australia-India business cooperation and trade.

Alongside his business and political ambitions, Jindal built his standing as a philanthropist, establishing the O.P. Jindal Global private university (named in honour of Naveen’s industrialist father).

Untidy allegations

In 2013, however, his political and personal fortunes were dealt a severe blow when Indian prosecutors with offences charged him with criminal misconduct, conspiracy and cheating for allegedly paying bribes to government officials to buy coal mining blocks at below-market prices.

As part of a wider “Coalgate” scandal that embroiled the Congress Government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation alleged that a former junior minister Dasari Narayan Rao received massive bribes from JSPL to influence coal block sales.

Jindal has strenuously denied the charges.

After protracted legal delays and complications including the disappearance of government files relating to coal allocations and the untimely death of former minister Rao, the case is still before a Delhi court a decade later.

Coal expansion

However, Naveen Jindal’s legal troubles haven’t held back his conglomerate’s performance and expansion.

JSPL shares of Jindal Steel and Power hit a record at the start of this month after the company reported a 272 percent rise in consolidated net profit for the quarter ended December 2023. JSPL stock has gained nearly 4 per cent since the beginning of this year and risen 32 per cent in the past year.

Last October the company broke ground for a new $US1 billion coal mine and power plant project in Botswana. This month JSPL offered a lazy $US1.7 billion for a distressed coal-fired power plant in eastern India.

In this context, JSPL’s recent failure to secure environmental approval for a $US2 billion iron ore mine in South Africa and the closure on safety grounds of the Russell Vale Colliery near Wollongong are relatively minor glitches in the company’s global fortunes.

At the time of writing, with permission from the Delhi court and a direction “not to tamper with any evidence or try to influence any witness” in his criminal trial, Jindal is on an overseas trip that includes travel to the United States, United Kingdom, Italy and Spain.

Coal baron dinner date 

This was the person who was at the top of Peter Dutton’s list to visit in New Delhi.

Indeed, centrepieces of LOTO’s itinerary were a dinner on 1 November at Jindal’s palatial 3.5 acre residence at 5 Man Singh Road in central New Delhi, and a speech by Dutton on 3 November to the India-Australia Studies Centre at Jindal’s O.P Jindal Global University.

Curiously, however, Dutton had made no mention of Naveen Jindal in the media release that announced his trip to India and although the text of his speech was distributed to the Indian media, it wasn’t publicised to the Australian press and was only being posted on his website sometime after his return to Australia.

Dutton wasn’t keen to publicise many details of his trip to India and he wasn’t interested in drawing attention to Naveen Jindal.  

Foreign Affairs

In his speech at O.P. Jindal Global University, Dutton presented a stark view of international affairs with the world divided in conflict between democracies such as Australia and India and authoritarian states such as Russia and others – China was not explicitly named.

“This is not a time for appeasement”, Dutton declared with a Churchillian overtone.

“Whenever we witnessed authoritarian coercion and aggression, it is vital that nations large and small link together to unequivocally condemn such behaviour.  Australia and India have collaborated with Japan and the United States, as part of the QUAD, which is an emphatic statement of our desire for peace in the region.”

Dutton proclaimed himself in favour of greatly increased defence cooperation between Australia and India, was hopeful for increased uranium Australian sales and for India’s nuclear power sector to set an example for similar development in Australia under a Coalition Government.    

It’s not known what India’s External Affairs Minister made of the Australian Opposition Leader.

Minister Jaishankar is a veteran diplomat of great subtly and sophistication and Dutton’s Manichean world view as expressed in his speech showed little understanding of the complexity of India’s strategic outlook, or the ambiguity of India’s foreign policy towards Russia – after all, for all Dutton’s talk about democratic solidarity, it’s Indian oil refineries that are providing Russia’s oil exports with a large backdoor to bypass Western economic embargoes and sanctions.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar murder

DFAT won’t reveal Dutton’s other high level, foreign policy related appointment but it was most likely Prime Minister Modi’s National Security Adviser, Ajit Kumar Doval.

We know this because the Opposition Leader’s parliamentary register of interests includes disclosure of the gift of an “ornamental sceptre from Ajit Doval”.

Doval is the kingpin of India’s intelligence community, having previously served as Director of India’s internal security agency, the Intelligence Bureau after serving for a decade of its operational wing. Doval’s career has very largely revolved around dealing ruthlessly with Kashmiri and Sikh separatists as well as Pakistani espionage.

Dutton’s meeting with Doval, and with External Affairs Minister Jaishankar, could have provided opportunity to raise the issue of alleged Indian Government involvement in the assassination in Canada of the Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in September 2023.

Nijjar’s murder was widely seen as a disturbing indication of the increasingly authoritarian tendances of Prime Minister Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP Government.

Canada expelled a top Indian diplomat, saying there was evidence the Indian Government was behind the murder of a Canadian citizen.

Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the Australian Government was “deeply concerned” by allegations that the Indian Government had orchestrated the murder and revealed those concerns had been raised at “senior levels”.  If anyone knows the inside story it would be National Security Adviser Doval.

Shyness from Dutton

However, Dutton’s office did not respond to questions from MWM about whether he raised the matter in his meetings with Doval or Jaishankar.  

Nor has LOTO been at all forthcoming about his meeting Naveen Jindal. It’s clear from his itinerary that this exclusive dinner on 1 November was a highpoint of his visit to New Delhi. 

Speaking at Jindal’s private university two days later, he paid tribute to Jindal’s entrepreneur father and heaped praise on Naveen, declaring him to be “a world renowned businessman, philanthropist and patriot in his own right.”

Yet Dutton remains deeply reticent about their encounter. It wasn’t in his media release and the hospitality he received at Jindal’s New Delhi residence isn’t recorded in his parliamentary declaration of interests — even though he took care to record various minor gifts including cufflinks and scarves from the India Australia Strategic Alliance and books and pictures from Delhi’s Akshardham Temple.

Dutton did not respond to MWM’s questions about the purpose of his meeting with Naveen Jindal or whether, apart from dinner, he had received any gifts or benefits from the billionaire.

Politics, not diplomacy  

Foreign policy doesn’t stop in Opposition.

Out of government MPs and especially Opposition leaders and shadow ministers need to travel overseas in order to gain international insights and prepare for government in the future. 

Australian embassies and high commission’s often find visits by Opposition parliamentarians advantageous because, given time to work up a good program, they provide useful opportunities to open doors and engage senior political figures and officials.

Aside from meeting Jaishankar and most likely Doval, Dutton met the Minister of Road Transport Nitin Gadkari and prominent government economist and planner Shri Suman Bery but those meetings were not facilitated by the High Commission.  

Dutton’s office did not response to questions from MWM about what meetings the High Commissioner or High Commission staff attended; however, DFAT’s highly abbreviated reporting cable suggests that the benefit to Australian diplomacy was not particularly significant.

For Dutton, however, his recent trip to New Delhi suggests he sees international engagement largely as an extension of domestic political strategy. It’s about the overseas side of political networking, building links with important communities and business interests to support the next federal election campaign.

In the case of New Delhi, it was about photo opportunities and engaging one of Indian’s wealthiest businessmen, a philanthropist, a political player and a figure tarnished by allegations of bribery and corruption.

Dutton’s office did not respond to questions about the purpose of his meeting with Naveen Jindal, but having flown 20,000 kilometres to New Delhi and back it’s unlikely LOTO just went for a social chit chat.   

Vision 2024: aim to “make Australia a better quarry” … and a CO2 dump

This post was originally published on Michael West.

The victim of the Sydney bomb threat was doxxed by Israel government supporters, and the investigation was handed to a junior constable at the local police station who went on leave, rather than Counter-Terrorism police. With anti-Zionism and Islamophobia on the rise, Farah Abdurahman reports on how authorities are handling the tensions.

A device planted on the hood of a car in the Eastern Sydney suburb of Botany was not “a fake bomb” as mainstream media and politicians have stated.

The victim of the terror-related incident, Theo, said the investigating officer confirmed the item was an improvised explosive device without the ability to detonate remotely.

Theo – who prefers his full name be protected for safety reasons – has criticised inaction by officers at the South Sydney Local Area Command who downplayed the incident, and after six-weeks failed to refer the matter to the Counter-Terrorism Squad.

He said the investigation has seemingly stalled while the junior constable in charge recovered from Covid, ahead of taking three-weeks of planned leave. 

Michael West Media reached out to the NSW Police for comment but received only a pre-drafted holding statement stating officers were called out on January 5 following “reports of a suspicious item”.

“Officers from the Rescue and Bomb Squad attended and deemed the item safe,” the NSW Police spokesperson said.

However Theo said it took various investigating teams more than three-hours to “deem the item safe”. 

“An exclusion zone was set up, our home was a crime scene; there were police, a bomb squad, a bomb disarming robot, and forensic teams on site. That statement by police is entirely dismissive of the incident and the police resources dedicated to the call out,” Theo said.

Doxing and the Z600

Theo said he fed entire dossiers of information to the police in early January including how he was doxed on the “Jews of Sydney” Facebook page, which published his home address back in December, and included hateful and racist comments with incitement to violence.

“The last contact I had with Police was back on January 28 and that was just an email from the junior constable to say he had Covid, and he’s headed off on leave. There was no mention as to who would be managing the case in his absence,” Theo said.

“The woman who doxed me did so under her own name, she has not been questioned by police regarding publishing my home address on the internet. 

“I also provided the police with a suspect and supporting evidence and he too has not been questioned.”

This week a leaked transcript from a clandestine social media group chat involving 600 Zionist creatives revealed large-scale doxing efforts and co-ordinated attacks on Palestinians and their allies.

The activist collectives who published the leaked chat said in a statement published to Four AM that the transcript was shared in the public’s interest.

The statement goes on to discuss how the leaked group chat provided critical insight into how Zionists organised and operated in the progressive arts, academic and media spaces, demonstrating coordinated efforts to silence criticism of Israel.

“Many of us were shocked and disturbed by the contents of the transcript as we read the tactics discussed to target and harm the livelihood and reputation of good and just people, some for simply being Palestinian, and almost all for calling for an end to the genocide against the people of Gaza,” the collective said.

“To frame the sharing of this information as antisemitic or ‘doxing’ is an attempt to distract and deflect from the bigoted rhetoric and organised aggression enacted by many in the Zionist group chat against activists, artists, academics and anyone who speaks up for Palestine.

The investigation

Theo said police were doing their utmost to not investigate the matter as a violent crime, which meant he and his family were excluded from receiving victim support or adequate protection.

“I have already lost more than a month of work from trying to do the police’s job and simultaneously deal with my own trauma and support my family,” Theo said.

“I have less than a month left of pushing this before the rent is at risk and I am financially stricken.”

Theo, a fourth generation white Australian, said he has no doubt in his mind that he was targeted because “people” thought he was Palestinian.

“I’m just a standard guy who looks like a bogan. But because I chose to oppose genocide and fly the Palestinian flag I was targeted. I know from the comments on social media under the doxing that they thought I was Arab or Muslim,” he said.

 

 

Doxxed

“I thought I was pretty aware of institutional racism, but it’s been heartbreaking to get even a small taste of what it’s like to not be afforded the white privilege I normally take for granted.

“This is systemic failure. The willingness of politicians and law enforcement to accept injustice, to issue human and civil rights selectively, to offer their protection selectively, it’s the same mechanism being used to defund UNWRA and provide military aid to Israel. 

“There is a structural, endemic failure to protect and treat equally any citizens perceived to be the wrong kind of minority. Political support of Palestine has grouped me and my family within this minority group despite our “whiteness.”

Former cop turned Barrister Mahmud Hawila, who is representing Theo, said his client was exploring his legal options and considering filing a complaint with the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission.

“This is one of the clearest examples of a terror related incident I have seen and the fact that the Counter-Terror Squad have not taken it on is a clear example of a failure to follow what is standard procedure in investigating these matters,” Mr Hawila said.

“Every member of the public is entitled to the same service from NSW Police, notwithstanding how they look, how they pray, or what flag is hanging outside their home. 

“If this bomb was placed in front of a house displaying the Israeli flag, I have no doubt in my mind that this would have been referred to the counter terrorism unit immediately for investigation.” 

Strategically stalled investigations?

It took more than 100-days for police to announce that footage of hate chants at the Sydney Opera House had been doctored and were fake.

In Victoria, it also took more than 100-days for arrests to be made in relation to an attack on a Melbourne fast-food restaurant – Burgertory.

While Police say the attack on the burger house was arson, Burgertory owner Hasheam Tayeh took to social media to maintain the firebombing was a hate crime, that followed weeks of targeted discrimination and assault on his staff and premises.

Theo believes high level political interference is at play to undermine the seriousness of the bomb threat, amid a pattern of burying cases against Palestine supporters through prolonged investigations and delaying charges and arrests.

Premier Minns’ weak response

“[NSW Premier] Chris Minns was quick to show his solidarity with Jewish communities after October 7. He wasted no time condemning what we now know were false allegations of hate chants at the Opera house, and he raced to do a photo op at a Jewish restaurant in Sydney after claims of a hate crime,” Theo said.

“I had someone plant a bomb on my car, right outside my home where I live with my family, and yet Minns has not so much as acknowledged it. No phone call, no condemnation, no public address.”

Theo said a note left with the Improvised Explosive Device made explicit demands that he remove the flag and any message boards expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people or expect another bomb. 

At an unrelated press conference around five days after the bomb incident, Premier Minns was asked to comment on the matter. In his response, the Premier referred to the item as a “fake bomb.”

“Minns reference to this incident as just a fake bomb and not a targeted political attack; intentionally, actively and knowingly provides political and legal protection for the bomber and demonstrates complicity at a state government level,” Theo said.

“Politicians who publicly disregard and vilify certain groups, while showing clear bias, create a laissez-faire environment of permissive impunity for targeting not just brown people, not just Muslims, but anyone who opposes genocide.

“If this continues not to be taken seriously and no one is brought to justice, I will hold the police responsible, I will hold politicians responsible and I will hold the broader action of the powers that be – who have drawn a wilful curtain of silence and ignorance around this – even more responsible than the bomber.”

After prompting by MWM, the NSW Police advised the case has been handed over to detectives at the South Sydney Local Area Command. 

The matter has still not been referred to the Counter-Terrorism Squad.

As the investigation continues, anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

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Editor’s Note: MWM understands mainstream media have been made aware of the police response to the bomb threat against Theo but have chosen not to publish the story.

This post was originally published on Michael West.

As a war breaks out between the Defence Minister’s Office and his Department, and as the Auditor-General hands down another scathing annual Defence Major Projects Report, Rex Patrick examines the Future Frigate Farce and explains why Richard Marles and the Defence Diarchy has to go.

A shambles in Defence leadership

On Tuesday we saw media reports that the Future Frigate Program will likely be reduced from nine ships to three. 

On Wednesday Senator Lambie stood up in the Senate chamber and sum up the Defence Department as a “very, very expensive basket case”.

Here’s @JacquiLambie in the Senate this morning discussing the “very very expensive basket case” that is @DefenceAust procurement. Calling it how it is. #auspol pic.twitter.com/AWsdGE8uPZ

— Rex Patrick (@MrRexPatrick) February 7, 2024

On Thursday there were more reports in the media, this time triggered by the blame game that’s erupted between Defence Minister Richard Marles’ office and the most senior officers of the Defence Force and his department. 

Competitive leaking has surged on both sides of Lake Burley Griffin, the likes we haven’t seen since Joel Fitzgibbon lost his job as Defence Minister back in 2009.

On Friday, the Auditor-General release his annual report into the 20 current major Defence projects revealing, “The total approved budget for the 20 Major Projects has increased by $22.8 billion (39%) since initial Second Pass Approval by government” and the “total schedule slippage was 453 months (23%) when compared to initial project planning”.

Something has to happen with the dysfunctional Defence leadership, and what’s required is not what happened on Australia Day with the award of the Order of Australia to the Secretary of Defence, Greg Moriarty, on Australia Day. For the past six years he’s presided, with a bloated salary of almost a million dollars per annum, over what can only be described a shambles. Talk about devaluing the honours system.

I’ll come back to what needs to happen.

Frigate trim

It’s an old joke from the BBC TV series “Yes Minister” that the ship of state is the only ship to leak from the top.  

It’s nowhere truer that in our Defence Department.  

This week another leak coming from inside Defence indicated that the Government may take the troubled nine ship future frigate program and chop it down to just three ships.

That could only be described as just plain stupid.

Most of the cost of designing and producing a new class ship comes with the first ship. Most of the cost of fixing problems with a new class of ship comes with the first second and third ship. It makes no sense at all to limit an order to three ships. 

If Defence think that the future frigate ship design is good enough to buy three to put our sailors in and send it in harm’s way, then they should continue with the nine build program so that they can bring the unit cost down over a large build.

If Defence thinks the ship is a dud, it should cut our losses now and move to an off-the-shelf design, built here in Australia starting later this year.

Of course, such a decision would involve admitting to another massively embarrassing failure.  

But it looks like dumb and dumber are again in charge.

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

 

Selection incompetence

It’s worth looking into the Future Frigate program.

When the program first became a topic of discussion inside Defence way back in 2014 (yes, to go from an initial thought to still having no future frigates at all has taken Defence the length of World War I and World War II and then some) the plan was to go with an off-the-shelf design – that is, a design that was already at sea working.

They set a budget at an eye watering $30 billion dollars.

When the tender came out in 2016 the position of the Department was clear – they wanted a military-off-the shelf design with minimal change.

Subsequent investigations by the Auditor-General and Senate have revealed that Defence departed from that tender requirement without any process. They selected a design, BAE’s Type 26 frigate, that was not off-the-shelf and involved significant engineering, weaponry and other technological changes (into what is now referred to as the Hunter Class).

We now know from an Auditor-General audit and formally Secret – Australian Eyes Only independent review, that the down selection process was fundamentally flawed. All the focus was on capability – paper capability as opposed to fielded capability – and, contrary to law, there was no value for money assessment.

Documents recording the decision making processes of senior defence leadership do not exist. Defence Secretary Greg Moriarty AO can’t explain any of this.

At down selection the program’s cost had risen to $45 billion – a fifteen thousand million dollar increase – and the program is now more than 18 months behind schedule. Even with a $45 billon budget, the Auditor-General has found a further bureaucratic shambles and run-away costs.

Overweight and other problems

One of the big problems with the Hunter Class is weight. It went from around 8,800 tonnes to 10,000 tonnes.

Significantly extra weight means the propulsion system can no longer achieve the planned top speed, and that for any given speed more strain will be put on the propulsion system, lowering the ships range and meaning that the ship is nosier. That’s not a good thing for an anti-submarine frigate.

The new Auditor-General’s report details the ongoing concern, “There is a risk that [the Hunter Class Frigate] design may exceed the naval architecture limits on weight and stability at the completion of the [design and productisation] scope, which may limit or provide in-service growth margins that substantially limit future capabilities.

There are a range of other technical problems that were discussed in the Senate in February 2022 after an internal Defence report was leaked to the late Senator Kimberly Kitching.

So far the project has spent $2.6 billion dollars and we haven’t started building a ship yet and by the time Defence gets a ship in the water, if one bravely assumes there will be no further delays, it will be after four World War timeframes.

While the taxpayer is now suffering, and national security has been harmed, the person who was instrumental in pushing the BAE option, Tim Barrett, has left his job as the Chief of Navy and taken up work as a paid advisor to BAE.

Groundhog Day – including for AUKUS

So, Defence contracted BAE to build a frigate that was not off-the-shelf. The first was to be built in the United Kingdom and the second was to be built in Australia.

With all that has happened, have we not learned? Apparently not, our Defence leadership are true masters of the flat learning curve.  

The five AUKUS SSN submarines Defence proposes to acquire from the UK are not even paper boats. The first will be built in the UK and the second will be built in Australia. The only difference is, with a budget of $368 billion, the outcome will be so much worse.

If Defence looked at the future Frigate program honestly, they’d cancel the AUKUS subs. But self-reflection and honesty are rare characteristics among our bloated Defence top brass.  

Instead, they’ve doubled their bets again and again, each time hoping they have something that’s too big to fail, or at least that they’ll have moved to a cushy consultancy before the proverbial hits the fan.  

No doubt some of our admirals, generals, air marshals and top Defence bureaucrats believe that AUKUS is too big to fail.  

But rest assured in the real world of military strategy, conflict and international relations, failure can come fast and hard.  

Services no longer required

Over and over Defence is failing the public when it comes to procurement.

The diarchy at the top of Defence needs to go, and so does the uninspiring Defence Minister. Services no longer required, gentleman!

We the need to bring project management discipline into procurement decision making. Right now, we have admirals, air marshals and generals with little project management experience making recommendations on procurement to cabinet ministers who have no project management experience.

The Defence Department often looks back to the First World War as the source of Australia’s military traditions.  

But it’s not the Diggers of ANZAC that our Defence elite today resemble.

They have much more in common with the medaled fools of the creaking Austro-Hungarian Empire; incompetent marshals and generals, commanders who preened themselves in peace before leading to catastrophe a military force bereft of adequate munitions, equipment and logistics.

Without radial reform, our current Defence leadership will at best cost us dearly in procurement ineptitude and financial waste.  They may well cost us much more than that.  

Drastic change is needed, for the sake of servicemen and women who are being asked to defend us with aged and obsolete capabilities, and for the sake of our national security.

The scam within a scam. US, UK officials are flying high on the AUKUS teat.

This post was originally published on Michael West.