Wall St was down 94 overnight, its biggest fall in a month, while the local market is down 66.
Ghosts of SIEV X still shadow the corridors of power
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I wish I could go along with Guy Rundle’s optimistically Manichean essay in yesterday’s Crikey contrasting Howard/Ruddock and Rudd in their treatment past and future of boat people, but I cannot. I suspect Rundle’s real target audience here was Kevin Rudd. His essay was essentially an encouraging homily directed at the Prime Minister, not an analysis. Granted, Howard was full of dark xenophobic attitudes which I do not think Rudd as a civilised person shares. However, my detailed analysis of how Australian policy towards boat people degenerated during the prolonged boat people crisis of 1999-2001 (see my book A Certain Maritime Incident and later follow-up writings) shows a more complex picture than Rundle offers. Howard and key senior officials pushed the border protection agencies (Defence Central and ADF, AFP, DIMIA, AMSA, DFAT) towards tougher and tougher policies aimed at discouraging boat people and disrupting their movements. These policies started with bluffs and phoney threats of crocodiles, sharks, towbacks etc. They finished with clear systemic human rights violations in laws and procedures. Very real questions have never been answered as to whether people (including the 353 mostly women and children on SIEV X) died as a result of increasingly harsh policies of forced towback, impoundment after interception in their own boats for prolonged periods under stress and danger, and deliberately delayed, perfunctory, or non-existent search and rescue procedures for anticipated or detected boats. Attitudes engendered by these callous policies sank deep into the culture of the agencies concerned, and are still apparently present there as seen in a recent interception incident. I know from my research into SIEV X — and this is confirmed by Marr and Wilkinson’s independent analysis in Dark Victory — that Howard and key Canberra officials led the agencies along this road to perdition one step at a time, as the pressure of boat people numbers increased through 1999-2001. There was quiet resistance on the way from some honourable officers. How far the agencies went along the road, in terms of outcomes, is something that only a judicial enquiry with access to all records of the time could answer. Labor in government is not pursuing this matter, choosing to let sleeping dogs lie. I do not assume that under pressure of a possible increase in boat people numbers, an Australian Labor government would not start down the same slippery slope of escalating threats and disruptions. Maybe it has started already? I can only hope, with Guy Rundle, that it will not go as far as Howard did. Sadly, those who care about Australia’s ethical standards must remain vigilant, as well as hopeful that Labor will go on doing the right thing. |
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9 Comments
Tony,
I’m fearful that with Rudd’s statements this week we are already going down the slippery slope.
Tony, I think you are being either optimistic or too polite! of course we are headed [again, now under Rudd] down the slope that Howard skied so enthusiastically.
(i) by not pursuing the truth regarding SIEVX Rudd’s government is already complicit in the tragedy — - the excuse of realpolitik does not wash
(ii) Rudd’s rabid language demonising the ‘smugglers’ hides him behind a thin veil — — the refugees are also implicitly targetted as collateral evils. It’s what people used to desc ribe as a dog whistle when we heard this kind of stuff from Howard/Ruddock et al. I thought for a moment the other day that in Rudd’s usual ugly, extravagent and painfully contrived language we were about to hear him say that we will decide who comes here and when etc etc.
(iii) If his real problem is with the smugglers and not the refugees he would be working with Indonesia not just to intercept the boats, but instead to speed up the latters’ almost interminable transit in our poorer neighbouring states
In any case, isn’t the real and wider issue that here we sit on a massive + wealthy land mass and we appear unable to summon enough compassion to take into our nation a few hundred people fleeing from a situation verging on genocide??????? The heartlessness continues, and the orwellian abuse of language prevails!!!!!
Come on, there is no question Science is a jellyback politician who will blow with the wind on the secret polling numbers regarding the 5-10% racist rump vote and his own electoral margin.
Indeed we saw his knee jerkery on abc tv news tonight. The guy is a news grab in search of a conviction.
can you pls explain “science is a ….. etc”?
Leigh: I’m also mystified as to why Tom nicknames Rudd as “Science” but I agree with him on the rest. Rudd is more strongman than any idealist, more streetfighter than intellect. Don’t let the glasses and the nerdy demeanor fool you. Even his economic views were completely overturned to seize the initiative and to contrast with the opponent he nicknamed the “member for Goldman Sachss”.
But “Science”? We’ll have to ask Tom about that one again when opportunity permits. Tom marches to a different drum but he picks up a lot that the rest of us miss, for example he was one of the first to figure out who “Sharon Gould” was in the Quadrant hoax.
And to be clear, I say “to a different drum” with admiration, not detraction.
Ah yairs, explained elsewhere on the comment strings here, only recently though.
Back on early election when Rudd was questioned on Tasmanian forests, and Michael O’Connor was appointed onto the national ALP execuitive from Forestry union within CFMEU (having condoned violent union protests against anti logging folks), Rudd said to the effect of:
We will decide forests on the “science”.
But over 100 best biologists wrote a letter Howard as PM prior to 2004 election where Latham flamed out, saying in clear language most of that forest should be saved. It was hard to reference but I found the list, first linked to defunct Earthbeat, also published by me at the time.
But Rudd didn’t follow the science. He is a, and I mean this in a front bar room and also legal technical sense, a big f*cking liar. The forests policy fraughtness is emblematic of Rudd on king coal climate (iCoal 2.0 indeed, as per Get Up).
So there we have it Kevin “Science” Rudd. A logical hook for him as an accomplished academic to grab at, his default rhetorical indeed. But when he said it under pressure in an interview, it was without sincerity or conviction. He is thus hoist on his own hook/petard. Science is a purely ironic term.
The fact he looks like a walking lab coat only amuses more even more. It’s a slow fuse this tag and joke. But it bears repeating, repeating, repeat ……..
ok thanks Tom, — - understood and fully agree
Yes, he has that “trust me, I’m an intellectual, I know what I’m doing and I’d explain it to you if I thought you’d understand” way about him.
Except that he’s not an intellectual, his understanding of most public affairs would barely pass muster in any self-respecting uni bar conversation (at least back when I was at uni, and students didn’t spend all their leisure time comparing features on their iphones), and the only time he really knows what he’s doing is when he is sticking it to the opposition. Which is why he spends so much time doing exactly that; it’s his comfort zone.