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The Australian"’s whitewash of Australia’s accountability in the unresolved SIEV X story is now complete - commentary by Tony Kevin , 27 January 2004
This is a subject I have been thinking of tackling publicly on my website for a long time. I was finally goaded into writing this essay, by this outrageous little comment from today’s "Australian" editorial (January 27, 2004) on Mark Latham’s proposed new Labor Party refugee policies. The editorial said: "Only the most soft-boiled definition of 'compassion' would deny that label to a tough-minded policy that has achieved such an obvious deterrent effect, and prevented any repetition of disasters such as the Siev-X sinking in 2001, in which 350 people died". I sent off a short protest letter to "The Australian", which almost certainly won’t be published. Then I decided – finally – to write this piece.
Both under its present Editor-in-Chief Chris Mitchell and his predecessor David Armstrong (who retired from the job in mid-2002) – both men assisted by their ongoing Editor, Michael Stutchbury – "The Australian", which is the flagship national print and internet newspaper in Australia owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited, has more often than not been a major information asset to the Australian federal government led by John Howard, in that government’s ruthless war (since around 1999-2000) on boat people asylum-seekers and on some of the people smugglers who have allegedly tried to bring them from Indonesia to Australia. At senior editorial level, "The Australian" has in these recent years judged maritime border protection against the threatened entry of a few thousand unauthorised boat people to be a grave issue of national security. "The Australian" – Australia’s only national newspaper - has usually given the Howard Government’s policies on this issue full support. Only rarely, mostly during 2002, did "The Australian" exercise some flashes of journalistic independence and integrity in its coverage of the SIEV X Senate investigation. Those days are now past. Senior editorial management during 2003 and so far in 2004 has not encouraged sustained investigative reporting of the ongoing SIEV X issue or of other suspected people smuggling disruption program voyages, eg "Minasa Bone" (which brought 14 Kurds to Australia’s Melville Island in December 2003) , "Palapa" ( the boat whose passengers were saved from death by "Tampa" in August 2001) , "Olong" (SIEV 4 – the "children overboard" boat in October 2001 ) , and of the news histories of failure to prosecute suspect people smugglers who may have been Australian-supported disruption agents e.g.Kevin Enniss or Abu Quassey. A period of serious news reporting in ‘The Australian" during 2002 was prompted by my action in raising the SIEV X issue with the Senate "Children Overboard" Committee. Generally, "The Australian"’s interest in the SIEV X story was not sustained into 2003. Now in 2004, "The Australian" has already emerged as an unabashed and unquestioning defender of the Howard government’s bona fides on SIEV X and on people smuggling disruption issues in general. This article sets out my case that sustains such propositions. I will welcome any serious response from "The Australian". ** Going back over newspaper files starting in about 1999, one sees clearly in "The Australian" and other News Limited papers the nurturing of people smuggling from Indonesia as a favoured news story and feature story major theme. From mid-1999 onwards , "The Australian" led Australian news reporting of this issue. I believe its intense coverage helped to put people smuggling firmly on the agenda of major national "challenges", and helped to build a public climate of fear and dislike for asylum-seekers that is only now beginning to abate as people come better to understand the great and shameful cruelties resulting from government policies in this area. Looking at the "People Smuggling" archive of articles on www.sievx.com , the large number of archived articles from "The Australian" during the second half of 1999 neatly illustrates this point. "The Australian" carried more stories on people smuggling than any other newspaper. It put the issue on the national news agenda, and other media later followed suit. Note in particular the choice of words in the titles, always a good guide to the slant or spin that senior management wishes to put on stories. (Writers are rarely responsible for the titles of stories): Fishers of men find
holes in our coastwatch net ~ Paul Toohey, 14 August 1999 (Aus) I suggest that such frequent and high-profile news reporting and feature writing did not happen accidentally. I believe it reflected the news agenda-setting priorities of senior editorial management at "The Australian", which wanted in 1999 to help the Howard government imprint this issue on the public mind as a serious national problem for Australia. At the same time, the Howard government was initiating serious official national security planning of a range of new policies aimed at deterring and halting the feared build-up of Middle Eastern boat people asylum-seekers. These new policies involved the whole of government – defence forces, intelligence agencies, police, Coastwatch, maritime safety authority, and the public service generally . Naturally, the new policies had a public information or propaganda component as well. "The Australian" – whether or not it realised it at the time – was by the nature of its news coverage helping to create a national climate of apprehension that would facilitate public acceptance of the cruel excesses of Australia’s people smuggling disruption program in Indonesia, the Temporary Protection Visa system, the new detention camps in Australia, the "Pacific Solution", the ADF’s Operation Relex border protection military operations in 2001, and failures to search properly for SIEV boats in distress at sea.. In 2000, as the numbers of arriving boat people fell sharply back to a little over half the 1999 total, newspaper coverage diminished. But in 2001, as numbers of boat people seeking entry to Australia started to rise again, "The Australian" returned to the people smuggling theme with even greater vigour. Once again, note the titles:
Race on to find
25 stranded illegals ~ Megan Saunders, 28 March 2001 (Aus) After the SIEV X tragedy on 19 October 2001, such reporting fell away virtually to nothing, because effectively there were no more boats coming. After the well-publicised human horrors of the sinking of SIEV X, the trade was destroyed at a stroke.
The other interesting thing about "The Australian"’s reporting of the people smuggling issue is how consistently well-sourced its database was, both in Australia and Indonesia. One might attribute this simply to the high professionalism of writers on "The Australian" – and I do not doubt their high professionalism. But writers like Don Greenlees in Jakarta were consistently making public a great deal of highly detailed information about people smugglers’ names, businesses, including and detailed case histories about their voyages that had succeeded or failed. This is not the kind of information that would be publicly accessible in Indonesia. This kind of information must, I believe, have been greatly assisted by detailed off-the-record briefings from Australian police and intelligence sources in Jakarta and Australia . I am not suggesting that reporters on "The Australian" should not have used such information when they were offered access to it. Journalists must get their information where they can, and presumably they tried to check such information for accuracy before filing stories based on it. Where this becomes important in the SIEV X story – as my forthcoming book "The Sinking of SIEV X" will discuss – is how (curiously – because their activities were well known to Australian authorities), some big people smugglers’ names did not figure in these news stories at all: smugglers like Kevin Enniss and Abu Quassey. The highly detailed stories as in "The Australian" helped to expose and root out numbers of "real" people smugglers in Indonesia, leaving disruption agents like Enniss and, I believe, Quassey, in increasing command of the people moving trade. So that by the time of SIEV X, Abu Quassey was the only game left in town on the West Java– Christmas Island route area; and Kevin Enniss (until he was accidentally outed by an alert "Sunday" team visiting Kupang, led by Ross Coulthart) had shortly beforehand become the only game in town on the Eastern Indonesia –Ashmore Island route. Asylum-seekers had little alternative but to buy passages from these men or their associates. To put the point bluntly, I think there is reason to believe that Australian national security agencies were exploiting "The Australian" as a public information arm of their people smuggling disruption program activity. It is called news management, and in Howard’s Australia it happens all the time. ** In one of those curious paradoxes that makes the SIEV X story so fascinating, it was two news stories in "The Australian" that first alerted me to the puzzling inconsistencies and gaps in the official SIEV X story and started my personal "whistleblowing" public investigation: ... Survivor granted asylum ~ Vanessa Walker, 21 December 2001 (Aus) Overload Kills... ~ Don Greenlees, 24 October 2001 (Daily Telegraph)
In early 2002, I knew a lot less than I do now about "The Australian" ‘s position on the people smuggling issue. Rather naively, at the same time as I was launching my submissions to the Senate Children Overboard inquiry asking them to also investigate SIEV X, I offered to write a feature story on SIEV X for "The Australian". For three weeks I dealt, first with the Features Editor, and then with the Acting Opinion Page editor, Bernard Lane. Initially, "The Australian" was very interested in the proposed feature. I duly submitted a 3000 word draft. Over the next two weeks, we discussed my text and sources. Then, with some regret, The Features Editor told me that "The Australian" now invited me to submit a shorter 800-word Opinion Piece instead, because it was impossible in the short time available to verify and "legal" my claims, and because I could "write more freely" in the format of an opinion piece. I was disappointed because I had seen my article as the first opportunity to set out publicly the basis for my concerns about SIEV X . But I agreed, and quickly submitted the requested 800 word opinion piece. Over the next week Bernard Lane and I fine-tuned my original language till we had finally agreed a text. Then I was told finally by Lane that, though the article now seemed alright, it would next have to be sent to Defence Minister Hill to see if he wanted to respond to it or "correct" any errors in it . I was frankly amazed and said so. At that point I realised finally that I had been suckered by "The Australian" – I had neatly been sucked dry in terms of checking where my information might be coming from , whether I had access to a whistleblower within the ADF system( I did not) , and what questions I might be putting before the Senate Committee.. "The Australian" had wasted three weeks of my time and writing effort, collected some useful information about my work on SIEV X for Defence, and left me - with the Senate Committee about to begin its public hearings on 25 March – high and dry, without a public venue for my story. I was quite angry, and declined to have my article given to Senator Hill in advance of its publication ( it turned out Bernard Lane had already briefed Hill’s office on my main points). Fortunately then I was able, at very short notice, after reworking the two pieces into two new texts, to have them published on 25 March in the "Canberra Times" and "The Age": Twisting tale of dog that didn't bark ~ Tony Kevin, 25 March 2002 (CT) Who'll rescue the truth? ~ Tony Kevin, 25 March 2002 (Age) I invoiced "The Australian" for kill fees for the two failed pieces. I felt I deserved some compensation for my work and odd treatment by "The Australian". My invoices and subsequent enquiry letters and phonecalls were never replied to. I wrote to Michael Stutchbury and David Armstrong. These letters were ignored too. Months later, I was told in a possibly unguarded moment by Tom Switzer, the regular Opinion Page Editor, who had been absent at the time of the above events, and with whom I had previously had a good writer-editor relationship, that as a result of the above events I had now been "banned" as a writer for "The Australian", and that I was now regarded by his senior editorial management as "not a credible figure". So far as I know, this ban still exists. A number of my opinion pieces had been published in "The Australian" before that time - I had been one of a favoured stable of "contrarian" writers. But I have not since that time been invited to write any opinion piece on any subject for "The Australian". ** During the five months of public hearings of the Senate enquiry, Cameron Stewart (a Melbourne-based "Australian" reporter, and a former ADF officer ) emerged as a key reporter on SIEV X . At my suggestion, I met Cameron Stewart in Melbourne and we soon developed a good working relationship on SIEV X. I gave him as much background help as I could. On 3 July, "The Australian" published its first editorial on SIEV X: Boatpeople tragedy must be explained ~ Editorial, 3 July 2002 (Aus) A well-written and strong piece, this editorial concluded with these
true words: Yet "The Australian" was at the same time receiving privileged government information about SIEV X. Even before the Senate Committee was receiving such information, the government was using "The Australian" to tell the public its side of the story and thereby to try to influence the public environment for the Senate’s inquiries into SIEV X . On 29 June, "The Australian" reported official briefing given to Senator Hill’s office on reasons why the ADF’s Operation Relex had failed to detect SIEV X, and , even more remarkably, published that day a copy of an RAAF official surveillance flight map that had not yet been advised or given to the Senate Committee Spy plane patrolled ocean... ~ Cameron Stewart, 29 June 2002 (pp. 1, 4) (Aus) In effect, the potentially damaging SIEV X story was now being publicly packaged and spun for readers of "The Australian", before Senators had a chance to examine and interrogate in Committee this important new evidence. The Senate Committee did not get a chance to interrogate an ADF witness on these maps until two weeks later – 11 July. A pattern of similar leaked stories out of Senator Hill’s office and senior Defence officials continued through July. The last public hearings of the Senate Committee were at the end of July. From then onwards, there was rather less coverage of SIEV X in "The Australian". Reporting of the Senate Committee’s findings on SIEV X was correct but fairly minimal.. The tabling debate in the Senate on 23 October 2002 – when important individual statements were made by Senators Cook,. Faulkner, Collins and Bartlett - was not reported as such. Cameron Stewart wrote a few more analytical pieces which left public questions open, at least on the Australian government’s people smuggling disruption program, e.g., : Defence forces off the hook on Siev X ~ Cameron Stewart, 22 October 2002, (Aus) Intelligence of a Leaky SIEV ~ Cameron Stewart, 26 October 2002 (Aus) There was a final significant article by Stewart in December 2002 about John Faulkner’s Senate Committee questioning of the disruption program: Rocking The Boat~ Cameron Stewart, 14 December 2002 (Weekend Aus) That was it, in terms of Stewart’s investigative reporting. As far as I know he did not write again on SIEV X. He told me that without new proof, the story was dead, and nothing I had to say on it was of any further interest, judged as a news story. He said my work was just "putting new flakes on the layer cake " that the SIEV X story had become . In 2003, no writer from "The Australian" reported on the continuing Senate Estimates Committee questions, or on the four Senate motions demanding an independent judicial enquiry into SIEV X that were passed in 2002 and 2003. For "The Australian" the SIEV X story, as a story demanding serious public judicial investigation, seemed to have ended in December 2002 . We were never told why. People smuggling news stories as such have kept appearing in "The Australian" from time to time in 2003/2004. There were some news pieces by Sophie Morris and others on the protected return home to Egypt and subsequent questionable trial of the alleged SIEV X voyage organiser Abu Quassey, and on the extradition to Australia and forthcoming trial of his alleged bookkeeper Khaled Daoed. I must admit that in May 2003 "The Australian" ran a well-balanced magazine feature on my SIEV X work, by Perth-based staff journalist Victoria Laurie, "The Whistleblower". The process of disengagement by "The Australian" from the substance of the SIEV X issue reached its nadir in the second "Australian" SIEV X –related editorial, on 30 December 2003. This editorial commented (in terms very similar to Australian government ministers’ welcoming comments at the same time) on Abu Quassey’s derisory sentence of seven years gaol for the "accidental manslaughter" of 353 drowned victims on SIEV X : " Justice, of a sort, for a people-smuggler" http://sievx.com//articles/psdp/2003/20031230Australian.html This editorial managed not to quote the words "SIEV X" at all, and not to recall the Senate’s unmet demands for an independent judicial enquiry into SIEV X and the disruption program. Remarkably also, it made this assertion: "But whatever the failings of the Howard Government, it has not tricked desperate people into risking their lives on the high seas on vessels of doubtful safety to travel illegally to Australia". This editorial has an interesting background history, because I had offered to "The Australian" on the day before an opinion piece on the Quassey sentence. My piece criticised the judicial process and sentence in Cairo, and recalled the Senate’s motions on SIEV X, Abu Quassey and the disruption program. It was initially accepted by the Acting Opinion Page Editor Ean Higgins over the phone - somewhat to my amazement, given my knowledge of the "ban" imposed on me in April 2002. I asked Higgins to check "up the line" that my piece had indeed been accepted. He phoned back ten minutes later to say that he had checked and it was OK. I then asked him: "Well, if anything goes wrong with this piece, will "The Australian" pay me a kill fee?" He said that in that unlikely event, "The Australian" ‘s usual kill fee would be paid to me An hour later, another national newspaper, (I had offered the piece to four leading national dailies in the hope of one using it), phoned me to say they wanted to run my piece. I said that I was sorry but it was already spoken for. I at once informed Ean Higgins of this by email. An hour or so later I received this email from Higgins: "Tony -
But by now, it was too late for me to place the piece elsewhere – Opinion Pages had been already set, and I had missed the news moment for my piece (then or later in that week) . The next day, I read "The Australian"’s own editorial. I phoned Higgins to suggest it had been triggered by my piece, which seemed to have been used as a "chopping block" to be countered. I said it seemed that I had been neatly snookered (again! ) by "The Australian" ‘s senior management. My subsequent invoices to "The Australian" and phone messages to Higgins and Switzer for payment of the promised kill fee were not replied to It seems clear by now – 27 January – that there will be no reply ( as in 2002). It seems "The Australian" ‘s senior management has again sent me its desired message: to piss off. Telling the story here is a small revenge, but I would rather have had the promised kill fee. Readers can judge this story for themselves. ** Finally today we see "The Australian"’s third SIEV X editorial. From this editorial and the earlier December 30 2003 editorial, , we now know that , according to "The Australian", not only does the Howard government have no case to answer on SIEV X (whatever the Australian Senate might have demanded, "The Australian" apparently knows better). Not only that, but "The Australian" assures us now that the Howard government’s "tough-minded policy" …"has achieved such an obvious deterrent effect" as to have "prevented any repetition of disasters such as the Siev-X sinking in 2001, in which 350 people died". ** Thus the knife has been turned in the SIEV X wound. "The Australian" ‘s whitewash of any possible degree of Australian accountability for the SIEV X human tragedy is now complete.
Tony Kevin, Canberra 27 January 2004
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