Book review: “ A Certain Maritime Incident - the Sinking of SIEV X’. Review by Mark Hanna, Committee Member, NSW Council for Civil Liberties, published in “Civil Liberty: Journal of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties Inc”, pp 29-30, September 2005.

“A Certain Maritime Incident—the sinking of SIEV X provides a compelling and engaging examination of an incident whose importance in Australian political and social history should not be underestimated”.

Despite the antics of Barnaby Joyce and the efforts of the federal government to focus the media spotlight on the sale of Telstra, national security and civil liberties are issues that refuse to disappear. The recent shooting by English police of a Brazilian electrician is a case in point. The original police account implied the man shot was a terror suspect shot trying to escape. That the victim was really an innocent unarmed man shot seventeen times in the head while sitting in a train has helped re-ignite public concern that the powers of police and security organisations may have gone too far.

It is into this environment that Tony Kevin has released his book, A Certain Maritime Incident—the sinking of SIEV X. The book reviews facts and allegations surrounding the sinking of the SIEV X in October 2001 and the drowning of 353 persons onboard trying to reach Australia to claim asylum as refugees.

To a few, this incident may seem old, tired, or of little relevance to current political or social debate. Tony Kevin thinks otherwise. His view is that the truth has been hidden, intelligence manipulated and the deaths of 353 men, women and children shamelessly twisted for political advantage and used to expand police and security powers in Australia. He believes that uncovering the full facts is vital to the integrity of the political, social and legal fabric of Australia and can only be achieved through an independent judicial inquiry.

Kevin is well credentialed. He worked 30 years as a senior Australian diplomat and worked in both the Prime Ministers and Foreign Affairs departments. In fact it is he who invented the name “SIEV X” for the otherwise unidentified fishing boat that sank in questionable circumstances somewhere between Indonesia and Christmas Island [suspected illegal entry vessel unknown].

ASIO, the Australian Federal Police, other security and police forces have greatly increased powers since 2002... A Certain Maritime Incident – the sinking of SIEV X dispels the notion that 9/11 was the catalyst for the changes and outlines an earlier beginning. It charts the covert war the Australian government had been waging for two years against people smugglers in Indonesia at the time of the sinking, the intricate Government cover-up of the true facts of the incident and why this may have occurred. It also details how Howard twisted the affair to popularize national security as an issue in order to get re-elected and how and why the Federal Government used the sinking to increase police and security powers.

The author’s aim in writing the book was to reignite the issue, force a judicial inquiry into events surrounding the sinking of SIEV X and to bring the truth of the issue to light. He contends that under Australia’s legal system and parliamentary system, the separation of powers between executive and legislative is unclear and that there was little difficulty for the government in concealing damning facts of the incident and their handling of it. He feels that without voluntary disclosures from those in the national security system, only a judicial inquiry has any hope of shedding light.

Books of this nature are not usually easy to read and often discarded midway. The discussion of conflicting facts and hypotheses can easily become confusing and monotonous to a reader, especially without sufficient pictorial or diagrammatical assistance. I found Kevin’s style passionate and engaging. Rather than detail endless argument and supporting facts chapter after chapter, he uses liberal quotes, headings, poses questions and uses a number of writing stratagems to keep the reader engaged. What may be questionable is whether the author is sufficiently objective. He makes his position clear from the preface and, surprisingly for someone who has been a career diplomat, appears to sometimes overstep the mark in making conclusions and assigning complicity rather than letting the reader decide.

The lack of cold facts available would be a handicap for any author seeking to expose the issue of SIEV X. Kevin’s method of overcoming this is to use “the highest-probability hypotheses that best explain the accumulations of facts that cannot be reasonably explained in any other way.” It may be that a few readers find this unacceptable. Personally I enjoyed the style the author employed to outline the events surrounding the sinking and the consequent government cover-up. Readers may find themselves examining not just a series of events surrounding a somewhat grubby and ignominious moment in Australian political history, but wondering just how systematic of a general malaise in Australian democracy it is.

Despite the obvious difficulties the book has to overcome, I believe A Certain Maritime Incident – the sinking of SIEV X provides a compelling and engaging examination of an incident whose importance in Australian political and social history should not be underestimated.

Mark Hanna is a member of the NSWCCL Committee