..in place. The fact that the country was a democracy, beholden to the separation of powers, was regarded as an inconvenience to be circumvented by any means. The law and the legislature were routinely ignored by hiding activities behind a wall of secrecy justified by legal opinions that were never revealed to those who asked. Any opposition was cowered by the open condemnation that if you weren’t with the government you were supporting terrorism.
Looking back it is still incredible that citizens of foreign countries were routinely kidnapped by the CIA under the policy of Extraordinary Rendition and taken to friendly countries and tortured or rather subject to “enhanced interrogation techniques”. It was ineffective and totally against the conventions and treaties that the United States had signed. One of these unfortunate individuals (Mamdouh Habib ) was an Australian citizen, who though innocent, received not one bit of help from his own government. The presumption being that if the United States had done this, he must be guilty.
Now if you look at the opening paragraph and rephrase it slightly, the worrying thing is that it seems quite believable – to me at least.
“……………Tony Abbott. A man of no particular intellectual qualities, a dogmatic Christian and unreformed bully, a person resistant to self-criticism, intellectual rigour and empirical fact-finding who stumbles forward with a look of benign viciousness dragging the country from one moral and financial quagmire to the next. Abbott is surrounded by a clique of right-wing ‘libertarians’ who see the position of the Prime Minister as one almost equivalent to a king ordained by God to rule his people. And thus, with an executive of unparalleled power, they would be able to see their ideals and ideas put in place. The fact that Australia is a democracy is regarded as an inconvenience to be circumvented by any means. ……………. Any opposition is cowered by the open condemnation that if you aren’t with the government you are supporting terrorism."
The odd thing about this cabal of putative libertarians is that whilst saying that they are passionate about individual freedom they discuss ever more draconian limitations on free speech and individual liberty. Nor, given that many have legal backgrounds, do they seem interested in legal niceties. Rather they are of the opinion that they are best fitted for judge, jury, and given half a chance, executioner. I am sure that many of us have fantasised about having such unfettered powers, but the last person that I would want to have them is an ex-Queensland flatfoot.
Democracy is a frustrating thing but it is, as Winston Churchill commented “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”
It is disturbing that we are treated to Orwellian silences, dystopic lies and character assassination instead of reasoned debate as if this was all we deserved. Oh well, perhaps it is because we thought that politicians were there to represent their electorate. But we stand disabused by a letter to ‘The Age’ where a MP revealed to a humble voter in his electorate that his parliamentary vote was prioritised as (1) the party (2) his conscience (3) his electorate .
But this is just a detour on the way to another salient point, which is that we the mug punters who elect these individuals from a lack of choice as to anything better are rather stuffed when it comes to the possibility of meaningful change. Many of us, the children of the innocent, naively gullible sixties and seventies, have literally seen our dreams for a better future sold to the highest bidder. Whilst we were all being virtuous long-haired slackers listening to Spectrum, the political hacks, money-shufflers, carpet baggers, cardsharps and assorted MBAs laughed quietly and organised the world to their liking.
Ties between politics and big business are in danger of becoming as incestuous as the United States, where the roundabout role-swapping between lobbyists, special interest groups and politicians that was once decried as ‘selling out’ is now merely referred to as ‘cashing in’. And where the cost of being elected to any public office in America is now so large that all candidates are almost totally beholden to those who have financed their campaigns.
I don’t know if this has anything to do with this but I was reminded of a story from 2013 that has recently resurfaced – one that is extensively embroidered with government denials and the froth of lips sealed for national security reasons
In 2006 the then Howard government signed the Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS) treaty with East Timor, negotiations that if we were, being frank, verged on the coercive. The two countries were working on a deal to share revenue from the oil and gas deposits under the Timor Sea, called The Greater Sunrise fields.
Woodside Petroleum, which wanted to exploit the field, had a close relationship with the Australian government and senior ministers possibly to arrange best possible deal for both parties. To ensure that Australia had better odds, it would seem that ASIS bugged the Timorese cabinet offices, which might have given them a bit of an advantage. Naturally Australia is all for fair play, so when the Timorese government found out and took Australia to the Hague arbitration panel to have the treaty looked at the current government, Mr Brandis (again) authorised ASIO officers to raid the Canberra office of lawyer for East Timor, seized pertinent documents and cancelled the passport for a retired spy expected to give evidence. Which meant he couldn’t go the Hague to testify.
As the Sydney Morning Herald said when reporting on June 22 this year that the ex-agent was facing the strong possibility of criminal prosecution; “The minister for foreign affairs, Alexander Downer, who ordered the ASIS eavesdropping in 2004, later worked for Woodside as a consultant. The then head of the department of foreign affairs Ashton Calvert joined the energy giant's board after he retired. ASIS is part of the foreign affairs department.”
The paper quite properly added that they were not suggesting they made their decisions to assist Woodside. I am sure that Alexander Downer knew as much about this as he did the Iraq oil-for wheat scandal.
Because it was a national security issue, the government, of course, doesn’t comment.
Let me leave you with the one quote that actually makes me think that George W Bush may not have been quite as stupid as we thought. ‘You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.’
It is all coincidence I am sure.

I am sure that you are, like me, an eminently reasonable person. A person who listens to both sides of the argument, weighs up the pros and cons and on the basis of the evidence and makes a rational decision. Unmoved by preconceptions and biases, the peculiarities and fervours of popular opinion that bubble from the media swamp – the vaporous glitterati of the twitterati, the oily intromittent organs of the internet, and the pricks of the popular press.