Crikey

Who’s watching the back door? For all the fuss outside the front of the PM’s building in Sydney, all one need do is walk around to the back where there’s no security whatsoever other than a few static cameras.

APEC CIA watch. Being a resident in the Potts Point, Woolloomoloo area for nearly five years you become aware of the “regular” tramps that walk the streets. It was interesting to read that the CIA are apparently dressing up as tramps and placing themselves throughout the city during APEC. I saw one such “spook tramp” sitting on the pavement straight across the road from Harry’s cafe de wheels this morning watching the front gates of Garden island. He was decked out so obviously I could have sworn I saw the gaffer tape holding his beard on!

Stolen: That Bush banner. Sadly, the peripatetic Bush banner was stolen overnight. I have posted notices in the area for its return — it did cost $300 after all — but I don’t expect people that sneak around in the dark to express their reactionary politic will have the bottle to confront me face to face anyway.

APEC stops Socialists, briefly. Yesterday 15 members of the Socialist Party were pulled over by 30 cops slightly north of Albury. The lead officer identified himself as an APEC officer, and they proceeded to pat everybody down, check everyone’s names for bail conditions (fair enough) search through all of everybody’s bags (piece by piece), run a sniffer dog over everybody, and they indicated that they’re going to check the three vehicles for roadworthiness. Seemed like overkill. They were held for 8 hours overnight and released at 9am this morning without charge.

Woolworth’s, the APEC people. Is it any wonder Woolworth’s profits go from strength to strength? Staff who have been rostered to work the APEC public holiday in Sydney’s west have been told penalty rates will not be paid because “we’re too far from the city”. Never mind that they are clearly in the areas covered by the public holiday. John Howard must be so proud that not only is he sticking it to the workers with WorkChoices but he has also managed to use APEC to put them in their place as well — with a little help from the corporate sector, of course.

APEC kills restaurant trade. From my partner, who manages a restaurant in The Rocks — not in the APEC exclusion zone but still suffering. Thursday night shift takings are normally almost $10k, last night down to $4.5k. A 20-person booking was cancelled because they’re “afraid they can’t get past road blocks. Wednesday night takings are normally $9k, this week $3k. However police are taking advantage of the in-uniform discount — and unlike the locals, they’re tipping.

A post APEC retirement. On 5 September: “Australian soldiers will remain in Iraq … not based on any calendar but based on conditions on the ground,” Howard said during a joint news conference with US President George Bush. “We believe that progress is being made in Iraq, and we do not believe this is any time to signal a scaling down of Australian forces.” But he insisted that although Australian troops may later serve in more of a training capacity, “their commitment, their level … will not change under a government that I lead.” The last line is revealing. Australia’s commitment will last only for so long as he leads the Government. If he isn’t leaving soon, why does he need to qualify the statement? A post APEC retirement from office must be on his mind.

APEC police can’t count . It seems that NSW police can’t count to well either, their press release after The Chaser proved how effective security is, claims that 10 men and one woman were arrested, but the list directly below this statement clearly has two women in it.

Some things in Australian journalism never change. In the tradition of ”How many in your quartet Mr Brubeck?” comes the Seven network’s Mark Riley at this week’s press call at Sydney’s Intercontinental Hotel for President Bush and Prime Minister Howard. This would be the Australian media’s only chance to shine. Local questioning was limited to just three journalists. One of them was Riley. So, what did he ask in this rare opportunity to quiz the leader of the free world? Iraq? Greenhouse? Trade? Wrong. What a waste of space.

MARK RILEY : Mark Riley for Seven Network Australia. Mr. President, welcome to Sydney.

PRESIDENT BUSH : Thank you, sir.

MARK RILEY : I can assure you it doesn’t always look like this, with steel fences and concrete barricades and armed guards on the street. But I wonder, is the…?

PRESIDENT BUSH : I hope you feel safe.

MARK RILEY : I feel…

PRESIDENT BUSH : You feel inconvenienced, obviously. Let me just say, before you get - you’re trying to maybe get a response. But to the extent I’ve caused this, I apologise. Look, I don’t want to come to a community and say, you know, what a pain it is to have the American President. Unfortunately, however, this is what the authorities thought was necessary to protect people. And you live in a free society. People feel like they want to protest; fine, they can. And unfortunately, evidently, some people may want to try to be violent in their protests. But I apologise to the Australian people if I’ve caused this inconvenience.

MARK RILEY: Well, I wasn’t going to blame you personally, sir. But anyway…

PRESIDENT BUSH: I guess I must be feeling guilty, you know what I’m saying?

MARK RILEY: The point I was going to make is, as leader of the free world, the people of Sydney don’t see their city looking all that free at the moment. And how’s that going? We thought that we weren’t going to allow terrorists to do this to our free society. And so your very positive view on Iraq and progress towards reconciliation there is of interest to us if you’re meeting the Opposition Leader tomorrow, and his view is that there should be a staged withdrawal of troops from Iraq next year. How would that affect the positive view you put today? And what will you say to disavow him of that decision?

They give us three questions and we give them Mark Riley. Good grief.