This week we will learn how successful the government has been in trying to cover up its prosecution of Witness K and Bernard Collaery, when the matter returns to the ACT Magistrates Court.
Under the pretence of national security, prosecutors want to conduct the trial out of the public eye to avoid embarrassment — and perhaps worse — for a number of figures, while K and Collaery’s lawyers are arguing the prosecution should be conducted in open court. In a hearing originally set down for today but now to be held Thursday morning, we’ll find out whether the two sides have been able to reach agreement.
But who are Timor-Leste 12 who could gain from keeping the prosecution secret?
Alexander Downer
Role in scandal: ordered ASIS to illegally bug the Timor-Leste cabinet, taking resources away from the fight against terrorism in Indonesia to do so. Later took a job with the principal beneficiary of Timor-Leste’s undersea oil and gas reserves, Woodside.
Benefit of closed trial: an open trial will shine light on Downer’s decision to use ASIS for the commercial benefit of a company and its impact on ASIS. Should be called as a witness.
John Howard
Role: approved Downer’s decision to redirect resources from the fight against terrorism to looking after Woodside’s commercial interest.
Benefit: like Downer, has never been held to account for his actions, or his broader policy of bullying Timor-Leste over its energy resources.
Julia Gillard
Role: responded aggressively to then-prime minister Xanana Gusmao’s attempt to resolve the issue confidentially in 2012, then commenced the pursuit of K and Collaery.
Benefit: has flown under the radar, and has never had to explain her handling of Timor-Leste’s attempt to resolve the bugging. A potential witness.
Bob Carr
Role: foreign minister and joint author of the actual confirmation of the bugging allegations two weeks before the first media coverage.
Benefit: like Gillard, Carr’s role in a Labor attempt to protect the Howard government from embarrassment has received little attention.
Mark Dreyfus
Role: as attorney-general, approved the bugging of Witness K and Bernard Collaery (and jointly authored the May 2013 media release).
Benefit: what was the basis on which Dreyfus approved the bugging? Why did he permit the breaching of K and Collaery’s legal privilege? Such questions will remain secret in the event of a closed trial.
David Irvine
Role: head of ASIS when the bugging took place, head of ASIO when K and Collaery were bugged and raided.
Benefit: Irvine’s dual role makes him potentially one of the biggest beneficiaries of a secret prosecution — though it is understood he did not favour a prosecution.
Nick Warner
Role: now Director-General of National Intelligence, the ham-fisted Warner was head of ASIS when the K scandal broke and vetoed the return of K’s passport despite ASIO indicating no national security concerns about its return.
Benefit: Warner occupies the new position of overarching intelligence bureaucrat and is thus one of the most powerful, but shadowy, people in the country, with virtually no public or parliamentary accountability.
Woodside
Role: the greatest beneficiary of the whole scandal. Has employed DFAT officials as well as Downer and had the late DFAT secretary during the bugging, Ashton Calvert, on its board.
Benefit: the more information emerges about not merely the scandal but the conduct of Australia’s regional foreign policy, the clearer it becomes that the commercial interests of Woodside and other resources companies have been a determining factor in Australia’s foreign and security policies.
Sarah McNaughton
Role: Director of Public Prosecutions.
Benefit: serious questions exist about the role of McNaughton, who was handpicked by the Coalition as DPP after her performance at the Trade Union Royal Commission: why McNaughton finally launched the prosecution five years after the events, and why News Corp is mysteriously unmentioned on the charge sheet despite The Australian first revealing the bugging.
Christian Porter
Role: current Attorney-General, approved prosecution.
Benefit: as with McNaughton, there are serious questions about Porter’s actions. Moreover, there is the separate issue of who leaked highly sensitive — perhaps national security — information to News Corp commentator Nikki Sava, so that she could defend the prosecution on Insiders.
George Brandis
Role: former attorney-general, signed off on the raid on K and Collaery, threatened Collaery in parliament.
Benefit: why did Brandis approve the raids and use parliament to threaten Collaery? What due diligence did he perform in relation to the role of David Irvine? Again, questions that will likely remain out of sight.
Margaret Twomey
Role: ambassador to Timor-Leste starting August 2004, covering the period when much of the bugging took place, sent by Gillard back to Dili in 2013 in response to Gusmao’s complaint, thus insulting the Timorese government.
Benefit: What did Twomey know about the operation and the Howard government’s wider policy to bully Timor-Leste? Did she raise concerns about it? The answers may well not look too flash on the public record.
A historical who’s who of some of the major players who spawned the current Australian political pox. Remove the perks and benefits being shovelled into this scum.
Agree. An accurate, if incomplete – there are couple, at minimum, of myrmidons highly pissed off at having to do the dirty nuts & bolts shit work who are shit scared of Crimes Act s70 (i) & (ii) – precis which I have copied to Docs. so that I may refer to it if/when such details are disappeared from the public record.
Sadly the Laberal Party will continue their ongoing protection racket of corporate self-interests, whilst still conning the Australian people into believing the lie of “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”.
..err, Gillard & Dreyfus are similarly complicit, whether coerced (!?!) or so inclined (my, cynical, belief).
When will it dawn on people that it doesn’t really matter for whom one votes, government always wins?
Notice I said “Laberal”-aka Labor/Liberal as an almost merged entity.
Agree – that is my point on so many issues.
Not a cigarette paper between them, except one might just possibly, if you close one eye and hold your nose, be slightly less reprehensible than tuther.
And we need to stop them winning to get our freedom back!
“The Dirty Dozen”
What an excellent fact sheet on this most serious affair. Let us hope it is taken up far beyond Crikey!
Indeed. But by whom? The ABC is the best option & this would be an ideal story for Lateline. How convenient that Lateline was a victim of stringent cuts by the Coalition.
7.30 might cover it but air time is at a premium as a third of the programme is now devoted to ‘human interest’ stories.
Let the BBC’s Panorama do it. Out of the reach of the dirty dozen.
Hey, there are cute puppies or whining wankers which are far more important to the (perceived) 7.30 rusted ons.
4 Corners still seem to retain their independence. Not for long if the Librorts Party have any say in the matter.
Having travelled around Timor Leste in 2011 & again in 2012, the devastation wrought by the Indonesians on that country and those warm and generous people was emotionally challenging. The gutted buildings and infrastructure was distressing enough but nothing compared to the evidence of torture, physical & mental , I saw & experienced, more than a decade after their courageous election and its bloody aftermath.
Then we as a wealthy nation behave like this towards them. Regretably Bernard Collaery and witness K are the wrong people on trial. These 12 people you profile Bernard are the ones who should be on trial.
I leave you with this excellent article by Michael Sainsbury in May.
https://uat.crikey.com.au/2018/5/17 australias-silence-on-timor-leste-election-speaks-of a-guilty-conscience/
corrected link
https://uat.crikey.com.au/2018/05/17/australias-silence-on-timor-leste-election-speaks-of-a-guilty-conscience/
Never forget that, after the Referendum went strongly in favour of Independence, Australia turned a blind eye to the murderous rampage committed by Indonesian backed militias. Worse still, they brazenly LIED to the international community, claiming the violence was being committed by disgruntled East Timorese, not West Timor thugs being transported across the border by the Indonesian Military.
In the end, the US had to shame the Australian government into accepting the need for armed Peace-keepers, after one of their envoys visited East Timor at the height of the violence. Not that this stopped the Australian Government from pretending to be the saviours of East Timor.
My nephew spent a couple of tours of East Timor, fishing bodies out of wells.
Not only did they murder, they then left the survivors without clean water.
Sometimes the ghosts visit him.