as posted here
21 September 2009 | by The New Lawyer Print this article Comments Share this article
THE lawyer for former Guantanamo Bay inmate, Mamdouh Habib, claims any victory in his compensation claim against the Australian Government is likely to be another three years away because of the unprecedented nature of the case and the Government's secrecy and stalling tactics.
Solicitor Peter Erman and his legal team have been have excluded from the legal proceedings by government lawyers, reports The Sydney Morning Herald.
Appearing before a full bench of the Federal Court, the lawyers argued that Australian courts have no jurisdiction to find foreign government officials tortured Habib in Pakistan, Egypt, Afghanistan and Cuba, and therefore cannot compensate him for the alleged complicity of ASIO, Australian Federal Police and Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officers.
The court has not yet had to rule on allegations that Australian officials were involved in his treatment including being beaten unconscious, shocked with electric prods, sodomised with sticks, smeared with menstrual blood and threatened with rape by a dog.
Howard government ministers repeatedly denied knowledge of his rendition to Egypt or maltreatment in Guantanamo.
Former president of the Law Council of Australia, John North, commented on the circumstances surrounding Habib and David Hicks and the legal implications.
"We're not saying Habib or Hicks are innocent or guilty, but what we are saying is that they are Australian citizens and they should not be left in legal limbo by their own government," he said in 2005.
"It's also disgraceful that the Australian Government has allowed Habib and Hicks to be treated differently – they are allowing Hicks to still be held in Guantnamo Bay facing a kangaroo military tribunal."
Last December, Justice Nye Perram of the Federal Court struck out part of Habib's claim while indicating how his lawyers might put the case forward in a more legitimate manner: by alleging that Canberra broke its obligations under the Geneva Conventions banning torture.
On 4 September, Habib won leave to appeal to the High Court over the Government's refusal to reissue his passport. At an earlier hearing in November 2007, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal upheld the passport cancellation by the minister for foreign affairs and trade and the director-general of security, but Habib and his lawyers are not allowed to see the full judgment and were excluded from the court while ASIO officers gave evidence.
Habib says he is still being watched, and confronted a government lawyer, Andrew Berger, in court this week, saying, ''Tell your spy to leave me alone''.
Meanwhile, Erman said his phones had been tapped and his family followed since he took the case on.
''It's like something out of the Bourne Conspiracy,'' he said, referring to the Robert Ludlum spy novels.
But his client and a team of pro bono lawyers working on the case, including barristers Robert Beech-Jones, SC, Ian Barker, QC, and Clive Evatt, were determined to see it through despite the hurdles they had encountered.
He added that the more they learn about Guantanamo Bay the more they realise it was an overreaction by security forces.
as posted here
public news and things I spy ..
Monday, 21 September 2009
Saturday, 19 September 2009
Cloak and digger
as posted here
Bringing Kim Beazley in from the cold completes a new foreign policy and security apparatus for the Rudd Government. But it has many parts, report Deborah Snow, Jonathan Pearlman and Cynthia Banham.
Kevin Rudd put the final touches to his newly-shaped foreign policy hierarchy this week. Kim Beazley's appointment as Canberra's man in Washington redefines Australia's most important bilateral relationship on Rudd's own terms. Beazley is a man with significant standing in both countries. He commands bipartisan respect, and has a great fondness for the US.
But with Afghanistan the top immediate issue for Australia as it navigates its relationship with the US, it is Beazley's formidable background in defence that will play to Canberra's advantage.
Coming on the heels of a slew of recent appointments to top foreign and domestic security apparatus, and in tandem with Brendan Nelson's appointment as EC and NATO representative, the Beazley job completes the biggest rewrite of foreign policy pecking order since John Howard's election 13 years ago.
Unlike Howard's night of the long knives - when the then new prime minister cut through the upper ranks of the public service in 1996 - Rudd bided his time. For his first year and a half in government he left in place most of his predecessor's appointments even though, said one insider, Howard ''promoted more people from his personal staff into senior positions in government than any other prime minister''.
At the change of government in 2007, the heads of Defence, Foreign Affairs, ASIO and the Office of National Assessments had all worked on Howard's personal staff. Now Rudd, the former diplomat, has remade the chessboard. And with half a dozen key appointments he has woven a tight net of carefully-picked, tried and tested individuals across the top of the security and intelligence community.
After Rudd became Labor's foreign affairs spokesman in 2001, David Irvine, a senior diplomat who would soon become the head of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, asked to see Alexander Downer on a matter of some sensitivity. He told the Foreign Minister he had served with Rudd as a diplomat in Beijing and was godfather to a Rudd son.
Irvine went on to take the helm of ASIS, Australia's overseas spy outfit, and acquitted himself so well that in February this year Irvinsky (as Rudd calls him) was handpicked to head the domestic spy agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, making him the first man to have led both ASIS and ASIO. Irvine is described by one longtime associate as an astute operator with ''a slight touch of the 19th century bureaucrat-scholar about him''.
Rudd's and Irvine's personal connection was not raised publicly when Irvine moved to ASIO seven months ago. The latter's credentials were impeccable, flying against any suggestion of cronyism. But insiders see the appointment as carrying Rudd's strong personal stamp.
Signs Rudd wanted change were there in his first national security statement last December.
His call for ''seamless'' relationships across Australia's intelligence and law enforcement agencies hit a raw nerve for those reading between the lines. The 2007 Haneef debacle - which saw ASIO and the AFP dramatically split over whether the Indian doctor was a terror suspect - loomed like Banquo's ghost over that part of the speech.
Rudd spoke of achieving a ''cohesive national security culture''. But no simple redrawing of management diagrams would deliver that. Chemistry at the top needed changing.
The Australian Federal Police got a new broom in the shape of Tony Negus, sworn in this week to replace Mick Keelty. Nick Warner, the bruised head of Defence, is moving to fill Irvine's vacancy at ASIS, a much better fit for Warner. Ian Watt, a tough numbers man, moves into the Defence chair.
And in August Peter Varghese left the helm of the Office of National Assessments (the premier intelligence analysis agency) to become the ambassador to Delhi. Moving into Varghese's spot is Allan Gyngell, a former Keating adviser who has become prominent in recent years as head of the private think-tank, the Lowy Institute for International Policy.
But the pivotal appointment, apart from Beazley's, is that of Dennis Richardson, a former ASIO head who is returning from the Washington ambassadorship to reinvigorate a demoralised Foreign Affairs and Trade Department.
Richardson was Rudd's first boss at Foreign Affairs, and worked in Immigration and Prime Minister and Cabinet before joining Bob Hawke as the prime ministerial foreign affairs adviser in 1990 - for the year leading up to Hawke's ousting by Paul Keating.
Having reviewed the intelligence services, Richardson was made head of ASIO when Howard won government in 1996. The agency had been regarded as something of a backwater but the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington changed all that. He was well regarded in Canberra's inner councils and he and Irvine know each other's modus operandi intimately.
The plain-speaking Richardson will need toughness at DFAT, a department sluggish and demoralised and a long way from its glory days at the pinnacle of the public service.
Rudd has been unimpressed with the quality of its advice, particularly around the time of the G20 leaders meeting in London last April. ''DFAT's response was not up to scratch,'' says a senior diplomat. ''It was slow to recognise the centrality and importance of the G20 summit to the government's priorities, and indeed slow to recognise its importance to Australia.''
It is instructive to witness the flurry of activity in the run-up to the next G20 meeting, to be held in Pittsburgh next month.
Michael L'Estrange, the outgoing head of DFAT , was closely associated with Howard and the Liberal Party, having headed up the Liberal think tank the Menzies Research Institute in 1995. After the 1996 election, he joined Howard's inner team as cabinet secretary for four years before the high commissioner posting to London and, then, the DFAT job from early 2005.
His relationship with Downer became strained. The latter has told colleagues he wanted L'Estrange to clear out senior echelons of the DFAT to make way for new blood, but the cautious L'Estrange would have none of it.
The department's budget languished under Downer, says one insider, and that ''ate into its morale and confidence''. Over the past eight years, DFAT's funding rose by 45 per cent; ASIS's rose by 357 per cent and ASIO's by 521 per cent.
Says a former official who has seen Richardson at close quarters: ''Dennis is the critical appointment because it brings back into the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade a very strong personality, a person with real policy passions, who has views and expresses them strongly. I think he will probably energise the policy debates. He is always prepared to take people on, including ministers and prime ministers.''
Rudd told a US-Australia dialogue in Melbourne last month that ''there are those who doubt that the words Dennis and diplomacy belong in the same sentence''.
Richardson was one of the few Howard government ambassadors to buck a departmental requirement that all speeches by senior diplomats first be cleared with Canberra.
Not all share the high hopes associated with Richardson's return, however. ''He's still got a minister [Stephen Smith] who's subservient to Rudd and Rudd's own foreign policy team in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, which has grown enormously,'' one sceptic said. "Dennis will be a much stronger leader and far more prepared to lay things on the line with the minister … [but] he's got to get him [Smith] to stand up and take a line."
Rudd has coralled much decision-making into the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Capability and experience has been drafted in and Duncan Lewis, a former SAS commander, last year was made Rudd's first national security adviser.
Another burden on Richardson will be the boom in consular work pressed on DFAT by Australians getting into hot water overseas. ''Governments now think they have to give Australians overseas a higher service level than they would get here,'' says an insider.
Irvine's challenges include getting ASIO's relationship with the AFP back on track. Like L'Estrange, the outgoing ASIO head, Paul O'Sullivan, worked as a Howard adviser and kept a low profile at ASIO, failing to prosecute the agency's interests in the tussle with the AFP over Haneef, say internal critics. The police pursued Haneef long after ASIO concluded the Gold Coast doctor was not a threat.
A former senior ASIO officer told the Herald that O'Sullivan ''cocooned himself inside the organisation".
Mick Keelty, by contrast, aggressively promoted the AFP. Howard ministers knew him as ''Media Mick''. Keelty, who retired on September 2, hit his heights in the aftermath of the Bali bombings, but allegedly soured relations with NSW and Victorian police forces for not sharing credit sufficiently on joint operations.
The AFP decision to open a war crimes investigation on the killing of five Australian journalists in Timor more than 30 years ago could unwind Keelty's greatest legacy - the strong relationship he built with Indonesian police after the Bali bombings. Proof enough, it seems, you cannot control all outcomes.
as posted here
Bringing Kim Beazley in from the cold completes a new foreign policy and security apparatus for the Rudd Government. But it has many parts, report Deborah Snow, Jonathan Pearlman and Cynthia Banham.
Kevin Rudd put the final touches to his newly-shaped foreign policy hierarchy this week. Kim Beazley's appointment as Canberra's man in Washington redefines Australia's most important bilateral relationship on Rudd's own terms. Beazley is a man with significant standing in both countries. He commands bipartisan respect, and has a great fondness for the US.
But with Afghanistan the top immediate issue for Australia as it navigates its relationship with the US, it is Beazley's formidable background in defence that will play to Canberra's advantage.
Coming on the heels of a slew of recent appointments to top foreign and domestic security apparatus, and in tandem with Brendan Nelson's appointment as EC and NATO representative, the Beazley job completes the biggest rewrite of foreign policy pecking order since John Howard's election 13 years ago.
Unlike Howard's night of the long knives - when the then new prime minister cut through the upper ranks of the public service in 1996 - Rudd bided his time. For his first year and a half in government he left in place most of his predecessor's appointments even though, said one insider, Howard ''promoted more people from his personal staff into senior positions in government than any other prime minister''.
At the change of government in 2007, the heads of Defence, Foreign Affairs, ASIO and the Office of National Assessments had all worked on Howard's personal staff. Now Rudd, the former diplomat, has remade the chessboard. And with half a dozen key appointments he has woven a tight net of carefully-picked, tried and tested individuals across the top of the security and intelligence community.
After Rudd became Labor's foreign affairs spokesman in 2001, David Irvine, a senior diplomat who would soon become the head of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, asked to see Alexander Downer on a matter of some sensitivity. He told the Foreign Minister he had served with Rudd as a diplomat in Beijing and was godfather to a Rudd son.
Irvine went on to take the helm of ASIS, Australia's overseas spy outfit, and acquitted himself so well that in February this year Irvinsky (as Rudd calls him) was handpicked to head the domestic spy agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, making him the first man to have led both ASIS and ASIO. Irvine is described by one longtime associate as an astute operator with ''a slight touch of the 19th century bureaucrat-scholar about him''.
Rudd's and Irvine's personal connection was not raised publicly when Irvine moved to ASIO seven months ago. The latter's credentials were impeccable, flying against any suggestion of cronyism. But insiders see the appointment as carrying Rudd's strong personal stamp.
Signs Rudd wanted change were there in his first national security statement last December.
His call for ''seamless'' relationships across Australia's intelligence and law enforcement agencies hit a raw nerve for those reading between the lines. The 2007 Haneef debacle - which saw ASIO and the AFP dramatically split over whether the Indian doctor was a terror suspect - loomed like Banquo's ghost over that part of the speech.
Rudd spoke of achieving a ''cohesive national security culture''. But no simple redrawing of management diagrams would deliver that. Chemistry at the top needed changing.
The Australian Federal Police got a new broom in the shape of Tony Negus, sworn in this week to replace Mick Keelty. Nick Warner, the bruised head of Defence, is moving to fill Irvine's vacancy at ASIS, a much better fit for Warner. Ian Watt, a tough numbers man, moves into the Defence chair.
And in August Peter Varghese left the helm of the Office of National Assessments (the premier intelligence analysis agency) to become the ambassador to Delhi. Moving into Varghese's spot is Allan Gyngell, a former Keating adviser who has become prominent in recent years as head of the private think-tank, the Lowy Institute for International Policy.
But the pivotal appointment, apart from Beazley's, is that of Dennis Richardson, a former ASIO head who is returning from the Washington ambassadorship to reinvigorate a demoralised Foreign Affairs and Trade Department.
Richardson was Rudd's first boss at Foreign Affairs, and worked in Immigration and Prime Minister and Cabinet before joining Bob Hawke as the prime ministerial foreign affairs adviser in 1990 - for the year leading up to Hawke's ousting by Paul Keating.
Having reviewed the intelligence services, Richardson was made head of ASIO when Howard won government in 1996. The agency had been regarded as something of a backwater but the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington changed all that. He was well regarded in Canberra's inner councils and he and Irvine know each other's modus operandi intimately.
The plain-speaking Richardson will need toughness at DFAT, a department sluggish and demoralised and a long way from its glory days at the pinnacle of the public service.
Rudd has been unimpressed with the quality of its advice, particularly around the time of the G20 leaders meeting in London last April. ''DFAT's response was not up to scratch,'' says a senior diplomat. ''It was slow to recognise the centrality and importance of the G20 summit to the government's priorities, and indeed slow to recognise its importance to Australia.''
It is instructive to witness the flurry of activity in the run-up to the next G20 meeting, to be held in Pittsburgh next month.
Michael L'Estrange, the outgoing head of DFAT , was closely associated with Howard and the Liberal Party, having headed up the Liberal think tank the Menzies Research Institute in 1995. After the 1996 election, he joined Howard's inner team as cabinet secretary for four years before the high commissioner posting to London and, then, the DFAT job from early 2005.
His relationship with Downer became strained. The latter has told colleagues he wanted L'Estrange to clear out senior echelons of the DFAT to make way for new blood, but the cautious L'Estrange would have none of it.
The department's budget languished under Downer, says one insider, and that ''ate into its morale and confidence''. Over the past eight years, DFAT's funding rose by 45 per cent; ASIS's rose by 357 per cent and ASIO's by 521 per cent.
Says a former official who has seen Richardson at close quarters: ''Dennis is the critical appointment because it brings back into the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade a very strong personality, a person with real policy passions, who has views and expresses them strongly. I think he will probably energise the policy debates. He is always prepared to take people on, including ministers and prime ministers.''
Rudd told a US-Australia dialogue in Melbourne last month that ''there are those who doubt that the words Dennis and diplomacy belong in the same sentence''.
Richardson was one of the few Howard government ambassadors to buck a departmental requirement that all speeches by senior diplomats first be cleared with Canberra.
Not all share the high hopes associated with Richardson's return, however. ''He's still got a minister [Stephen Smith] who's subservient to Rudd and Rudd's own foreign policy team in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, which has grown enormously,'' one sceptic said. "Dennis will be a much stronger leader and far more prepared to lay things on the line with the minister … [but] he's got to get him [Smith] to stand up and take a line."
Rudd has coralled much decision-making into the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Capability and experience has been drafted in and Duncan Lewis, a former SAS commander, last year was made Rudd's first national security adviser.
Another burden on Richardson will be the boom in consular work pressed on DFAT by Australians getting into hot water overseas. ''Governments now think they have to give Australians overseas a higher service level than they would get here,'' says an insider.
Irvine's challenges include getting ASIO's relationship with the AFP back on track. Like L'Estrange, the outgoing ASIO head, Paul O'Sullivan, worked as a Howard adviser and kept a low profile at ASIO, failing to prosecute the agency's interests in the tussle with the AFP over Haneef, say internal critics. The police pursued Haneef long after ASIO concluded the Gold Coast doctor was not a threat.
A former senior ASIO officer told the Herald that O'Sullivan ''cocooned himself inside the organisation".
Mick Keelty, by contrast, aggressively promoted the AFP. Howard ministers knew him as ''Media Mick''. Keelty, who retired on September 2, hit his heights in the aftermath of the Bali bombings, but allegedly soured relations with NSW and Victorian police forces for not sharing credit sufficiently on joint operations.
The AFP decision to open a war crimes investigation on the killing of five Australian journalists in Timor more than 30 years ago could unwind Keelty's greatest legacy - the strong relationship he built with Indonesian police after the Bali bombings. Proof enough, it seems, you cannot control all outcomes.
as posted here
Habib lawyer lashes out at 'stalling tactics'
as posted here
JOEL GIBSON LEGAL AFFAIRS REPORTER
September 19, 2009
A FORMER Guantanamo Bay inmate, Mamdouh Habib, has already been seeking redress in the Australian courts for longer than the three years, three months and 23 days he was held without charge as a suspected terrorist.
But any victory in his compensation claim against the Australian Government is likely to be another three years away because of the unprecedented nature of the case and the Government's secrecy and stalling tactics, his lawyer, Peter Erman, said.
In their bid to block Mr Habib's claim for unspecified damages and his attempts to regain his passport, government lawyers have excluded Mr Habib and his legal team from proceedings and challenged the release of documents for national security reasons.
Before a full bench of the Federal Court this week, they argued that Australian courts have no jurisdiction to find foreign government officials tortured Mr Habib in Pakistan, Egypt, Afghanistan and Cuba, and therefore cannot compensate him for the alleged complicity of ASIO, Australian Federal Police and Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officers.
The court has not yet had to rule on shocking allegations that Australian officials were involved as he was beaten unconscious, shocked with electric prods, sodomised with sticks, smeared with menstrual blood and threatened with rape by a dog.
Howard government ministers repeatedly denied knowledge of his rendition to Egypt or maltreatment in Guantanamo but the head of ASIO, Paul O'Sullivan, said last year that his predecessor, Dennis Richardson, had been asked for a view on the rendition and said Canberra could not support it.
Mr Erman said even if the Government loses its argument that the Federal Court cannot decide the compensation case, it has indicated the discovery process alone for a full hearing could take at least two years.
Meanwhile, on September 4, Mr Habib won leave to appeal to the High Court over the Government's refusal to reissue his passport.
At an earlier hearing in November 2007, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal upheld the passport cancellation by the minister for foreign affairs and trade and the director-general of security, but Mr Habib and his lawyers are not allowed to see the full judgment and were excluded from the court while ASIO officers gave evidence.
Mr Habib says he is still being watched, and confronted a government lawyer, Andrew Berger, in court this week, saying, ''Tell your spy to leave me alone''.
The mild-mannered Mr Erman said his phones had been tapped and his family followed since he took the case on. ''It's like something out of the Bourne Conspiracy,'' he said, referring to the Robert Ludlum spy novels. But his client and a team of pro bono lawyers working on the case, including barristers Robert Beech-Jones, SC, Ian Barker, QC, and Clive Evatt, were determined to see it through despite the hurdles they had encountered.
Mr Erman said the more people learn about Guantanamo Bay the more they realise it was an overreaction by security forces.
as posted here
JOEL GIBSON LEGAL AFFAIRS REPORTER
September 19, 2009
A FORMER Guantanamo Bay inmate, Mamdouh Habib, has already been seeking redress in the Australian courts for longer than the three years, three months and 23 days he was held without charge as a suspected terrorist.
But any victory in his compensation claim against the Australian Government is likely to be another three years away because of the unprecedented nature of the case and the Government's secrecy and stalling tactics, his lawyer, Peter Erman, said.
In their bid to block Mr Habib's claim for unspecified damages and his attempts to regain his passport, government lawyers have excluded Mr Habib and his legal team from proceedings and challenged the release of documents for national security reasons.
Before a full bench of the Federal Court this week, they argued that Australian courts have no jurisdiction to find foreign government officials tortured Mr Habib in Pakistan, Egypt, Afghanistan and Cuba, and therefore cannot compensate him for the alleged complicity of ASIO, Australian Federal Police and Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officers.
The court has not yet had to rule on shocking allegations that Australian officials were involved as he was beaten unconscious, shocked with electric prods, sodomised with sticks, smeared with menstrual blood and threatened with rape by a dog.
Howard government ministers repeatedly denied knowledge of his rendition to Egypt or maltreatment in Guantanamo but the head of ASIO, Paul O'Sullivan, said last year that his predecessor, Dennis Richardson, had been asked for a view on the rendition and said Canberra could not support it.
Mr Erman said even if the Government loses its argument that the Federal Court cannot decide the compensation case, it has indicated the discovery process alone for a full hearing could take at least two years.
Meanwhile, on September 4, Mr Habib won leave to appeal to the High Court over the Government's refusal to reissue his passport.
At an earlier hearing in November 2007, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal upheld the passport cancellation by the minister for foreign affairs and trade and the director-general of security, but Mr Habib and his lawyers are not allowed to see the full judgment and were excluded from the court while ASIO officers gave evidence.
Mr Habib says he is still being watched, and confronted a government lawyer, Andrew Berger, in court this week, saying, ''Tell your spy to leave me alone''.
The mild-mannered Mr Erman said his phones had been tapped and his family followed since he took the case on. ''It's like something out of the Bourne Conspiracy,'' he said, referring to the Robert Ludlum spy novels. But his client and a team of pro bono lawyers working on the case, including barristers Robert Beech-Jones, SC, Ian Barker, QC, and Clive Evatt, were determined to see it through despite the hurdles they had encountered.
Mr Erman said the more people learn about Guantanamo Bay the more they realise it was an overreaction by security forces.
as posted here
Friday, 18 September 2009
Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation
as posted here
Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation - Page 1
The Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation (DIGO) is an Australian government intelligence agency responsible for the tasking (collection), exploitation (analysis), and dissemination (distribution) of geospatial intelligence (GEOINT). DIGO is part of the Australian Department of Defence.
DIGO was created on 8 November 2000, by amalgamating the Canberra-based Australian Imagery Organisation and Directorate of Strategic Military Geographic Information, and the Bendigo-based Defence Topographic Agency (now called the Geospatial Analysis Centre).
as posted here
Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation - Page 1
The Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation (DIGO) is an Australian government intelligence agency responsible for the tasking (collection), exploitation (analysis), and dissemination (distribution) of geospatial intelligence (GEOINT). DIGO is part of the Australian Department of Defence.
DIGO was created on 8 November 2000, by amalgamating the Canberra-based Australian Imagery Organisation and Directorate of Strategic Military Geographic Information, and the Bendigo-based Defence Topographic Agency (now called the Geospatial Analysis Centre).
as posted here
Australian Intelligence Community
The Australian Intelligence Community (AIC) comprises six Commonwealth intelligence agencies, each with distinct responsibilities and functions. They include the Office of National Assessments (ONA), the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD), the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO), the Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation (DIGO) and the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS). There are three collection agencies (ASIS, DSD and DIGO) and two assessment agencies (ONA and DIO). ASIO's role incorporates collection and assessment, as well as policy formulation and advice. For more information about the AIC, visit www.ona.gov.au/publications/htm
Difference between ASIS & ASIO
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) is Australia’s national security service. As set out in the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979, ASIO’s main role is to gather information and produce intelligence that will enable it to warn the government about activities or situations that might endanger Australia’s security. ASIS and ASIO have in common the fact they both collect intelligence from human sources and are both members of the Australian Intelligence Community (AIC). However, there are substantial differences between the two agencies. ASIS’s work relates to foreign intelligence in the interests of Australia's national security, foreign relations and national economic well-being, whilst ASIO’s work principally relates to security intelligence. ‘Security intelligence’ is not a synonym for ‘domestic intelligence’ - ASIO’s role is limited only by its function of security intelligence as defined in the ASIO Act, not by geography. Another important difference is that while human intelligence is the vast majority of ASIS’s work, ASIO’s human collection is one part of its work as an integrated collection, assessment and advisory agency.
as posted here
Book review: Document Z, Andrew Croome
as posted here
SAMANTHA BOND
18/09/2009 4:00:00 AM
Winner of the 2008 Vogel Award, Document Z is a fictionalised account of “the Petrov affair” – a bone fide Cold War episode that took place in 1950s Canberra.
The Vogel is one of Australia’s most prestigious literary awards, responsible for launching the careers of writers such as Kate Grenville, Andrew McGahn and Tim Winton, and offering a prize of $20,000 (Croome got an extra $50,000 to mark the prize’s 50th anniversary). However, I was sadly disappointed by the 2008 winner.
Based on extensive research of recently declassified records of the 1954 Royal Commission on Espionage, Croome fictionalises the characters of Evdokia Petrov, her husband Vladimir and another important player, Michael Bialoguski. The life Croome breathes into these characters – including his exploration of the personal cost of their defection – is the most successful aspect of this novel.
Most notably, Croome succeeds in bringing Evdokia to life, giving her a personality beyond that which can be gleaned from documents; likewise, he builds a believable character for Bialoguski as the Polish immigrant intent on recognition for his role in securing their defection.
Document Z’s main failing is that it lacks narrative drive – there is a certain “so what?” factor.
It starts with a good hook: Evdokia Petrov, wife of a Russian defector, is being put onto a plane to be flown back to Russia to face punishment and even death for her husband’s crimes. The book then goes back three years in time to tell the Petrovs’ story and how it all came to this.
The main setting for the early part of the novel is the newly minted Soviet embassy in the newly minted national capital, Canberra. It is 1951, the height of the Cold War, and paranoia, rumour and suspicion run rife at the embassy. Both Petrovs are party loyalists also working for the MVD, Moscow secret intelligence. ASIO, often referred to as “the competitors”, is determined to discover who in this group works for the MVD.
The first part of the novel sets the stage for the action that eventuates, but it does so at extreme leisure.
Historical fiction has become a massive genre over recent decades. A problem with the fictionalisation of more recent history is that events remain in living memory and thus can’t be as easily manipulated as history of a hundred years ago or more. Croome sticks to the facts … and perhaps this is the problem. The facts aren’t that interesting and so neither is the story.
Document Z also ends fairly weakly, but this, too, is true to life. Here, at novel’s end, I began to envisage the difficulty that must have confronted Croome when trying to shape these events into a narrative.
While his narrative style and prose is excellent, this alone does not a story make. If I haven’t spent much time here describing the plot, it’s because there isn’t much of one. The second half was better, but I still struggled to finish the book.
Document Z seems to be a novel about politics, but not a political book. Soviet Russia is 20 years dead; why is there now a need for this book, retelling what is a minor footnote in Australian history? Was it simply that the ASIO documents had been declassified, thus providing a wealth of useful material for a novel?
Still, if you are interested in Australian history, the Cold War and espionage, you may enjoy it more than I did. – Allen & Unwin, $23.99
as posted here
SAMANTHA BOND
18/09/2009 4:00:00 AM
Winner of the 2008 Vogel Award, Document Z is a fictionalised account of “the Petrov affair” – a bone fide Cold War episode that took place in 1950s Canberra.
The Vogel is one of Australia’s most prestigious literary awards, responsible for launching the careers of writers such as Kate Grenville, Andrew McGahn and Tim Winton, and offering a prize of $20,000 (Croome got an extra $50,000 to mark the prize’s 50th anniversary). However, I was sadly disappointed by the 2008 winner.
Based on extensive research of recently declassified records of the 1954 Royal Commission on Espionage, Croome fictionalises the characters of Evdokia Petrov, her husband Vladimir and another important player, Michael Bialoguski. The life Croome breathes into these characters – including his exploration of the personal cost of their defection – is the most successful aspect of this novel.
Most notably, Croome succeeds in bringing Evdokia to life, giving her a personality beyond that which can be gleaned from documents; likewise, he builds a believable character for Bialoguski as the Polish immigrant intent on recognition for his role in securing their defection.
Document Z’s main failing is that it lacks narrative drive – there is a certain “so what?” factor.
It starts with a good hook: Evdokia Petrov, wife of a Russian defector, is being put onto a plane to be flown back to Russia to face punishment and even death for her husband’s crimes. The book then goes back three years in time to tell the Petrovs’ story and how it all came to this.
The main setting for the early part of the novel is the newly minted Soviet embassy in the newly minted national capital, Canberra. It is 1951, the height of the Cold War, and paranoia, rumour and suspicion run rife at the embassy. Both Petrovs are party loyalists also working for the MVD, Moscow secret intelligence. ASIO, often referred to as “the competitors”, is determined to discover who in this group works for the MVD.
The first part of the novel sets the stage for the action that eventuates, but it does so at extreme leisure.
Historical fiction has become a massive genre over recent decades. A problem with the fictionalisation of more recent history is that events remain in living memory and thus can’t be as easily manipulated as history of a hundred years ago or more. Croome sticks to the facts … and perhaps this is the problem. The facts aren’t that interesting and so neither is the story.
Document Z also ends fairly weakly, but this, too, is true to life. Here, at novel’s end, I began to envisage the difficulty that must have confronted Croome when trying to shape these events into a narrative.
While his narrative style and prose is excellent, this alone does not a story make. If I haven’t spent much time here describing the plot, it’s because there isn’t much of one. The second half was better, but I still struggled to finish the book.
Document Z seems to be a novel about politics, but not a political book. Soviet Russia is 20 years dead; why is there now a need for this book, retelling what is a minor footnote in Australian history? Was it simply that the ASIO documents had been declassified, thus providing a wealth of useful material for a novel?
Still, if you are interested in Australian history, the Cold War and espionage, you may enjoy it more than I did. – Allen & Unwin, $23.99
as posted here
AWB makes progress in search for Mid-East grain export evidence
as posted here
AWB will soon have access to reports that may advance the grain exporter's defence that the Department of Foreign Affairs was aware of its payment of "transport fees" to Saddam Hussein's regime, The Age reported.
The Federal Court has ordered the Office of National Assessments (ONA) to make available 15 reports that may be used in a $100 million class action against AWB, beginning in November.
The federal intelligence agency must produce reports, and lists of officials who saw them, which may add to AWB's defence.
ONA had resisted producing the edited documents, on the grounds the material it contained may endanger national security.
The provision of the reports to the Cole inquiry into the wheat payment scandal had been at the request of the United Nations, and then-prime minister John Howard.
as posted here
AWB will soon have access to reports that may advance the grain exporter's defence that the Department of Foreign Affairs was aware of its payment of "transport fees" to Saddam Hussein's regime, The Age reported.
The Federal Court has ordered the Office of National Assessments (ONA) to make available 15 reports that may be used in a $100 million class action against AWB, beginning in November.
The federal intelligence agency must produce reports, and lists of officials who saw them, which may add to AWB's defence.
ONA had resisted producing the edited documents, on the grounds the material it contained may endanger national security.
The provision of the reports to the Cole inquiry into the wheat payment scandal had been at the request of the United Nations, and then-prime minister John Howard.
as posted here
Intelligent design in Bomber Kim Beazley and Doc Brendan Nelson
as posted here
KIM Beazley is the best possible choice to be Australia's new ambassador to the US.
The only possible limitation is that, if anything, Beazley has better contacts on the Republican side of the aisle than the Democratic side.
However, Beazley is liked and admired across American politics and across the great institutions of the US government: the Pentagon, the State Department, the Trade Representative and many others.
Beazley, a former defence minister, succeeds Dennis Richardson, a former boss of ASIO.
This demonstrates the high priority national security matters continue to hold in the Australia-US relationship.
The same is true for the intriguing appointment of former opposition leader Brendan Nelson as ambassador to the EU, to Belgium and to a number of multilateral organisations.
Nelson, like Beazley a former defence minister, will be Australia's ambassador to NATO.
Upgrading Australia's relationship with NATO has been a priority for the Rudd government since it came to power; indeed, Kevin Rudd himself attended a NATO summit.
Australia is deeply involved with NATO in Afghanistan, and the government has consistently sought closer, deeper, more intimate input into NATO policy and planning for Afghanistan.
Both Beazley and Nelson will have their work cut out for them making a splash in two of the great centres of global diplomacy, Washington and Brussels.
If anyone can make a splash in Washington, it is the Bomber, as Beazley is affectionately known. His personality, his deep knowledge of military history, his devotion to US history and his long record of involvement in the US-Australian relationship at the highest levels, all contribute to his ability to make an impression in the US.
When Beazley was deputy prime minister, he got deeply involved in the Australian American Leadership Dialogue.
The founder of that dialogue, Phil Scanlan, one of Beazley's closest friends, is now Australia's consul-general in New York.
Beazley knew many of the American participants in the dialogue, such as former deputy secretary of state Rich Armitage, well, and knew them independently before the dialogue was founded in 1993.
However, through the dialogue, he has also become close to such pivotal US figures as Kurt Campbell, the US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific.
The appointments of Beazley and Nelson represent an intelligent use of scarce, high-quality human resources by the Rudd government.
as posted here
KIM Beazley is the best possible choice to be Australia's new ambassador to the US.
The only possible limitation is that, if anything, Beazley has better contacts on the Republican side of the aisle than the Democratic side.
However, Beazley is liked and admired across American politics and across the great institutions of the US government: the Pentagon, the State Department, the Trade Representative and many others.
Beazley, a former defence minister, succeeds Dennis Richardson, a former boss of ASIO.
This demonstrates the high priority national security matters continue to hold in the Australia-US relationship.
The same is true for the intriguing appointment of former opposition leader Brendan Nelson as ambassador to the EU, to Belgium and to a number of multilateral organisations.
Nelson, like Beazley a former defence minister, will be Australia's ambassador to NATO.
Upgrading Australia's relationship with NATO has been a priority for the Rudd government since it came to power; indeed, Kevin Rudd himself attended a NATO summit.
Australia is deeply involved with NATO in Afghanistan, and the government has consistently sought closer, deeper, more intimate input into NATO policy and planning for Afghanistan.
Both Beazley and Nelson will have their work cut out for them making a splash in two of the great centres of global diplomacy, Washington and Brussels.
If anyone can make a splash in Washington, it is the Bomber, as Beazley is affectionately known. His personality, his deep knowledge of military history, his devotion to US history and his long record of involvement in the US-Australian relationship at the highest levels, all contribute to his ability to make an impression in the US.
When Beazley was deputy prime minister, he got deeply involved in the Australian American Leadership Dialogue.
The founder of that dialogue, Phil Scanlan, one of Beazley's closest friends, is now Australia's consul-general in New York.
Beazley knew many of the American participants in the dialogue, such as former deputy secretary of state Rich Armitage, well, and knew them independently before the dialogue was founded in 1993.
However, through the dialogue, he has also become close to such pivotal US figures as Kurt Campbell, the US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific.
The appointments of Beazley and Nelson represent an intelligent use of scarce, high-quality human resources by the Rudd government.
as posted here
Thursday, 17 September 2009
AWB has small win in big grain hunt
as posted here
ELISABETH SEXTON
September 18, 2009
AWB has made some progress in its search for evidence about the Howard government's knowledge of the grains exporter's payment of ''transport fees'' to Saddam Hussein's regime.
The Federal Court yesterday ordered a federal intelligence agency, the Office of National Assessments, to produce 15 edited reports for potential use in a $100 million shareholder class action against AWB beginning in November.
Justice Lindsay Foster said it was ''sufficiently on the cards'' that the reports, and lists of officials who saw copies of them, would advance AWB's defence that the Department of Foreign Affairs knew about the payments.
ONA had resisted a subpoena from AWB, arguing that producing the reports would endanger national security.
Justice Foster ruled that there was little risk of that because the material had already been exposed during the 2006 commission of inquiry into the Iraqi kickbacks headed by Terence Cole, QC. Mr Cole, who did not have a security clearance, published a ''distillation'' of the contents of the reports. Parts of the reports had been masked on security grounds before Mr Cole distilled them by lawyers assisting him who had security clearances. Justice Foster accepted AWB's submission that the rules of evidence would require it to tender the edited reports, rather than the distillation. ONA will have another chance to object to AWB using the reports after Justice Foster has read them.
ONA's director-general, Allan Gyngell, gave evidence that Australia's intelligence partners would be ''extremely anxious and displeased'' if any of the information in the reports was disclosed ''for the purposes of civil litigation between private citizens''.
The provision of the material to the Cole inquiry had been at the request of the United Nations and the then prime minister, John Howard, Mr Gyngell said. Foreign intelligence agencies had expressed ''considerable displeasure'' that any disclosure was made to the Cole inquiry, he said.
The shareholders allege they suffered loss because AWB concealed its payment of transport fees to the former Iraqi government in breach of United Nations sanctions. They argue that if Australian officials had known about the payments, ministerial permission would not have been granted for AWB's shipments of wheat to Iraq.
The ONA had a partial victory when Justice Foster upheld its claim for public interest immunity in relation to 47 reports, which were read by lawyers assisting the Cole inquiry who had security clearances but not given to Mr Cole because they were deemed insufficiently important to his inquiry.
as posted here
ELISABETH SEXTON
September 18, 2009
AWB has made some progress in its search for evidence about the Howard government's knowledge of the grains exporter's payment of ''transport fees'' to Saddam Hussein's regime.
The Federal Court yesterday ordered a federal intelligence agency, the Office of National Assessments, to produce 15 edited reports for potential use in a $100 million shareholder class action against AWB beginning in November.
Justice Lindsay Foster said it was ''sufficiently on the cards'' that the reports, and lists of officials who saw copies of them, would advance AWB's defence that the Department of Foreign Affairs knew about the payments.
ONA had resisted a subpoena from AWB, arguing that producing the reports would endanger national security.
Justice Foster ruled that there was little risk of that because the material had already been exposed during the 2006 commission of inquiry into the Iraqi kickbacks headed by Terence Cole, QC. Mr Cole, who did not have a security clearance, published a ''distillation'' of the contents of the reports. Parts of the reports had been masked on security grounds before Mr Cole distilled them by lawyers assisting him who had security clearances. Justice Foster accepted AWB's submission that the rules of evidence would require it to tender the edited reports, rather than the distillation. ONA will have another chance to object to AWB using the reports after Justice Foster has read them.
ONA's director-general, Allan Gyngell, gave evidence that Australia's intelligence partners would be ''extremely anxious and displeased'' if any of the information in the reports was disclosed ''for the purposes of civil litigation between private citizens''.
The provision of the material to the Cole inquiry had been at the request of the United Nations and the then prime minister, John Howard, Mr Gyngell said. Foreign intelligence agencies had expressed ''considerable displeasure'' that any disclosure was made to the Cole inquiry, he said.
The shareholders allege they suffered loss because AWB concealed its payment of transport fees to the former Iraqi government in breach of United Nations sanctions. They argue that if Australian officials had known about the payments, ministerial permission would not have been granted for AWB's shipments of wheat to Iraq.
The ONA had a partial victory when Justice Foster upheld its claim for public interest immunity in relation to 47 reports, which were read by lawyers assisting the Cole inquiry who had security clearances but not given to Mr Cole because they were deemed insufficiently important to his inquiry.
as posted here
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ...
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BENJAMIN MERHAV, PART FIVE
By Justice Lover
The appeal to ICJ and to all other jurists followed my 76 open letters to
the Attorney-General of Australia, letters which detailed my complaint
against ASIO, but rejected by him. My first open letter him was emailed on
the 10th of ...
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BENJAMIN...
Have included this one here but it appears the page has disappeared so not really sure about the content other than the words "complaint against ASIO" stood out ???
By Justice Lover
The appeal to ICJ and to all other jurists followed my 76 open letters to
the Attorney-General of Australia, letters which detailed my complaint
against ASIO, but rejected by him. My first open letter him was emailed on
the 10th of ...
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BENJAMIN...
Have included this one here but it appears the page has disappeared so not really sure about the content other than the words "complaint against ASIO" stood out ???
Secretive spending on U.S. intelligence disclosed
as posted here
By Adam Entous
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Intelligence activities across the U.S. government and military cost a total of $75 billion a year, the nation's top intelligence official disclosed on Tuesday, revealing publicly for the first time an overall number long shrouded in secrecy.
The disclosure by Dennis Blair, President Barack Obama's director of national intelligence, put a spotlight on the sharp growth in intelligence spending as well as on the huge and long obscured role of military intelligence programs, which, based on previous disclosures, would account for roughly $25 billion to $30 billion of the $75 billion total.
In comparison, when total intelligence spending was accidentally published in a congressional document in 1994, it totaled about $26 billion, including $10 billion for military intelligence programs, according to Steven Aftergood, an expert on intelligence spending with the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy.
Blair cited the $75 billion figure in releasing a four-year strategic blueprint for the sprawling, 200,000-person intelligence community.
In a conference call with reporters, Blair brushed aside as "no longer relevant" what he called the "traditional fault line" separating military programs from overall intelligence spending.
Blair's national intelligence post came into being in 2005 to oversee spy agencies after they failed to prevent the September 11, 2001 attacks and wrongly concluded that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
In an unclassified version of Blair's blueprint, intelligence agencies singled out as threats Iran's nuclear program, North Korea's "erratic behavior," and insurgencies fueled by militant groups including al Qaeda.
Blair said the "accumulation of knowledge" about al Qaeda has made the U.S. intelligence community more effective at preventing attacks.
The intelligence assessment also pointed to growing challenges from China's military modernization and natural resource-driven diplomacy.
Blair cited Beijing's "aggressive" push into areas that could threaten U.S. cyber-security.
'IT'S ABOUT TIME'
The $75 billion figure incorporated spending by the nation's 16 intelligence agencies, referred to collectively as the national intelligence program (NIP), as well as amounts spent by the Pentagon on so-called military intelligence program (MIP) activities in support of troops in the field in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, officials said.
Under pressure from Congress and advocacy groups, the U.S. government has taken some steps in recent years to open its books on some intelligence spending.
The Bush administration, for example, disclosed the amount spent by the 16 intelligence agencies under the NIP -- $47.5 billion in 2008 alone -- but those figures did not incorporate the military intelligence program, officials said.
Aftergood said there was "no good reason" to keep information about those military programs secret.
"Its disclosure does not reveal any sensitive sources, methods or operations," he said, adding that Blair's disclosure "suggests that a more rational approach to intelligence secrecy may be around the corner. And it's about time."
(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart and Paul Eckert; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
as posted here
not really about our own Int Agency but such organisations have to cost and one has to imagine that the costs are high - webyter
By Adam Entous
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Intelligence activities across the U.S. government and military cost a total of $75 billion a year, the nation's top intelligence official disclosed on Tuesday, revealing publicly for the first time an overall number long shrouded in secrecy.
The disclosure by Dennis Blair, President Barack Obama's director of national intelligence, put a spotlight on the sharp growth in intelligence spending as well as on the huge and long obscured role of military intelligence programs, which, based on previous disclosures, would account for roughly $25 billion to $30 billion of the $75 billion total.
In comparison, when total intelligence spending was accidentally published in a congressional document in 1994, it totaled about $26 billion, including $10 billion for military intelligence programs, according to Steven Aftergood, an expert on intelligence spending with the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy.
Blair cited the $75 billion figure in releasing a four-year strategic blueprint for the sprawling, 200,000-person intelligence community.
In a conference call with reporters, Blair brushed aside as "no longer relevant" what he called the "traditional fault line" separating military programs from overall intelligence spending.
Blair's national intelligence post came into being in 2005 to oversee spy agencies after they failed to prevent the September 11, 2001 attacks and wrongly concluded that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
In an unclassified version of Blair's blueprint, intelligence agencies singled out as threats Iran's nuclear program, North Korea's "erratic behavior," and insurgencies fueled by militant groups including al Qaeda.
Blair said the "accumulation of knowledge" about al Qaeda has made the U.S. intelligence community more effective at preventing attacks.
The intelligence assessment also pointed to growing challenges from China's military modernization and natural resource-driven diplomacy.
Blair cited Beijing's "aggressive" push into areas that could threaten U.S. cyber-security.
'IT'S ABOUT TIME'
The $75 billion figure incorporated spending by the nation's 16 intelligence agencies, referred to collectively as the national intelligence program (NIP), as well as amounts spent by the Pentagon on so-called military intelligence program (MIP) activities in support of troops in the field in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, officials said.
Under pressure from Congress and advocacy groups, the U.S. government has taken some steps in recent years to open its books on some intelligence spending.
The Bush administration, for example, disclosed the amount spent by the 16 intelligence agencies under the NIP -- $47.5 billion in 2008 alone -- but those figures did not incorporate the military intelligence program, officials said.
Aftergood said there was "no good reason" to keep information about those military programs secret.
"Its disclosure does not reveal any sensitive sources, methods or operations," he said, adding that Blair's disclosure "suggests that a more rational approach to intelligence secrecy may be around the corner. And it's about time."
(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart and Paul Eckert; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
as posted here
not really about our own Int Agency but such organisations have to cost and one has to imagine that the costs are high - webyter
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
Lawyer tells court Habib case outside its jurisdiction
as posted here
THE Federal Court is being asked to decide what comes up trumps in the torture case of former Guantanamo Bay inmate Mamdouh Habib: Australia's relations with foreign states or its laws against torture.
Mr Habib is suing the Federal Government for damages over his alleged torture in Guantanamo Bay, Egypt, Pakistan and Afghanistan while he was being held as a suspected enemy combatant.
He says Australian Federal Police and ASIO officers aided and abetted the torture and were present on some occasions, such as when he was threatened with rape by a US marine.
Government lawyers urged the court yesterday to stay out of the dispute. The Commonwealth Solicitor-General, Stephen Gageler, SC, said an established "act of state" doctrine urged courts not to pass judgment on the actions of foreign government agents in foreign lands.
Compensating Mr Habib could "vex the peace" between Australia and the US, Mr Gageler said, and was not within the court's jurisdiction.
But Robert Beech-Jones, SC, counsel for Mr Habib, said Parliament made the Crimes (Torture) Act applicable outside Australia so that it would apply to cases like Mr Habib's.
Mr Beech-Jones said the law formalised a clear international standard to which the US had signed up. Courts had made exceptions to the act of state doctrine for grave violations of international or human rights. "[The Parliament] has said no matter who does it, no matter where it's done, it's unlawful," he said.
Mr Habib was arrested in Pakistan less than a month after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US and taken to Egypt, then Afghanistan, for interrogation before being moved to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he was held until 2005.
He was never charged and says he was in Afghanistan on a business trip when accused of training with al-Qaeda.
The hearing continues.
as posted here
THE Federal Court is being asked to decide what comes up trumps in the torture case of former Guantanamo Bay inmate Mamdouh Habib: Australia's relations with foreign states or its laws against torture.
Mr Habib is suing the Federal Government for damages over his alleged torture in Guantanamo Bay, Egypt, Pakistan and Afghanistan while he was being held as a suspected enemy combatant.
He says Australian Federal Police and ASIO officers aided and abetted the torture and were present on some occasions, such as when he was threatened with rape by a US marine.
Government lawyers urged the court yesterday to stay out of the dispute. The Commonwealth Solicitor-General, Stephen Gageler, SC, said an established "act of state" doctrine urged courts not to pass judgment on the actions of foreign government agents in foreign lands.
Compensating Mr Habib could "vex the peace" between Australia and the US, Mr Gageler said, and was not within the court's jurisdiction.
But Robert Beech-Jones, SC, counsel for Mr Habib, said Parliament made the Crimes (Torture) Act applicable outside Australia so that it would apply to cases like Mr Habib's.
Mr Beech-Jones said the law formalised a clear international standard to which the US had signed up. Courts had made exceptions to the act of state doctrine for grave violations of international or human rights. "[The Parliament] has said no matter who does it, no matter where it's done, it's unlawful," he said.
Mr Habib was arrested in Pakistan less than a month after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US and taken to Egypt, then Afghanistan, for interrogation before being moved to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he was held until 2005.
He was never charged and says he was in Afghanistan on a business trip when accused of training with al-Qaeda.
The hearing continues.
as posted here
Monday, 14 September 2009
Recruitment Drive
as was posted here
as posted here
Intelligence Officer
A career as an Intelligence Officer (IO) means you get to make the most of your skills. You’ll think, develop and apply yourself in unique, interesting, and challenging ways.
Helping to gather information and produce intelligence, you’ll play a crucial role in providing advice to government on matters of national security. It’s important work. Which is why you should take the time to understand if the role, and ASIO, is right for you.
If you’re looking for the chance to become the best you can be - you’ve come to the right place.
The Intelligence Officer Role
ASIO can help you develop a career that counts no matter your working background. Within a changing security landscape, the intelligence community is growing – meaning our operations are expanding. This growth has brought about unique opportunities to work at the very centre of security intelligence.
As an IO you’ll be more than just a talker, listener, thinker. You’ll be called upon to cross cultural boundaries, generating solutions to interesting and complex problems. Highly creative, your critical thinking and problem solving skills will adapt to meet the situation at hand.
Following the 12 month training program in Canberra, you’ll be posted to Collection, Analysis or other areas. These postings can be based in any capital city in Australia, with operational requirements and your geographical preferences being considered. It’s a mobile role, so you can expect significant travel and relocation throughout your career.
Expect a uniquely varied career. Further down the line you may have the opportunity to work across other functions, helping you develop new skills in areas as diverse as HR, Finance, IT and more.
As an IO, the two main investigative roles you’ll undertake involve the collection and analysis of information through overt and covert sources.
Collection
Communicate with a variety of people, including members of the public who are volunteering information.
Analysis
Evaluate and analyse information, providing verbal and written briefings concerning assessments and recommendations.
Overt
Collect information from publicly available sources, including talking to people externally, internet-based research and liasing with government departments.
Covert
Occasionally it’s necessary to use covert and sometimes intrusive methods of investigation, most of which require the approval of the Attorney General and a warrant. This can include the use of listening/tracking devices, interception of telecommunications, access to restricted information and the searching of premises.
Be an IO
Not just anybody can do this job. It takes a special type of person to succeed. Given the challenging and complex nature of the work we’re looking for unique people. Those who are at ease talking and listening to people from all walks of life; creative thinkers, critical minds, with the ability to take a step back and see the bigger picture. Are you that person?
Confident and astute, you’ll be adept at documenting information clearly and in a targeted manner. Mentally resilient, you’ll be prepared to undergo our psychological assessments and background checks.
Additionally, you’ll need to meet the following requirements:
- A university degree (any discipline), completed by 30 June 2010 for the July 2010 Training program
- Australian citizenship
- A driver’s licence
- Willing to relocate to Canberra for your 12 month training program
- Flexibility for a mobile career.
You can learn more about these and other things you should consider before applying for the IO role, on our 'Should I Apply'page.
We will offer successful IO candidates a salary between $59,223 and $75,403 plus superannuation for the period of the training program. In determining your starting salary, we will consider your education and employment history.
ASIO is a special organisation, but we’re focused on the everyday. Our people are supportive, down-to-earth and quick to encourage
Intelligence Officer Training
The IO Training Program and Probation runs across 12 months, commencing in July and January of each year. The program is based mainly in Canberra and includes class-based and on-the-job training, all carefully designed to equip you with the skills and knowledge you’ll need to be a successful IO. You’ll soon find your confidence, self-reliance and flexibility increase as you develop key technical and professional abilities.
The Program will:
- Introduce you to the concepts of intelligence collection and analysis work
- Develop your existing abilities and generate new skills, including management, leadership, critical thinking and information/communications technology
- Provide support throughout with regular feedback on performance.
As a competency based Program, you’ll need to demonstrate a satisfactory standard of performance to complete each section. We want all our trainees to succeed, so we’ll offer you as much support as possible to this end. If despite our assistance you’re unable to meet the required standards during or by the end of the Program, you may be offered another role in the Organisation, your probation may be extended, or your employment may be terminated in accordance with your staff agreement.
Meet Our People
Those who have made it through our recruitment process have a variety of life and work experience. From teachers, managers and lawyers through to psychologists, engineers and social workers, there’s no set mould or magic formula – it’s about you as a person.
Recruitment Process
The ASIO recruitment process is designed to test a range of role-specific competencies. You’ll need to be prepared to undergo various selection stages, including aptitude testing, interviews, assessment centres, psychological assessments and extensive background checking to obtain security clearance.
The Process - July 2010 Training Program
| September 2009 | Applications open |
| October 2009 | Application screening |
| November 2009 | Aptitude testing |
| January to June 2010 | Initial Interviews |
| Background checking | |
| Assessment centres | |
| July 2010 | Training commencesShould I Apply?Becoming an Intelligence Officer (IO) is not for everyone. Our IO selection process is necessarily both personally and professionally demanding. Unfortunately, due to the complexity and significance of the role many well-intentioned candidates will be turned away. Before considering applying you must:
Once you have satisfied the technical aspects of your application, it is important that you honestly evaluate your motivation for this role, including the requirement to relocate to Canberra if you are from interstate. Ask yourself the following questions: Do you feel comfortable interacting with people from diverse backgrounds, idealogies, and opinions? Could you approach someone you don't know and strike up a conversation? Can you think on your feet, develop new ways of doing things, assess yourself objectively, and sacrifice your own interests for the bigger picture? Are you willing to change your life to be an IO? The life of an ASIO Intelligence Officer is not easy, but it is uniquely rewarding. If you meet all the above criteria and believe you have the personal and professional skills to succeed as an IO ApplyPlease make sure you have taken the time to read our'Should I Apply' page on this website before continuing. If having done so, you think you fit the mould of an Intelligence Officer please visit www.hitsubmit.com.au to apply. Due to the comprehensive nature of our application process, we advise you to start the process as early as possible to avoid disappointment. The closing date for applications is Friday, 2 October 2009. Applicants must be available to attend each stage of the selection process - unfortunately we're unable to alter our timeframes. You'll be advised of the outcome at each stage of the selection process, however we cannot provide detailed feedback to unsuccessful candidates. Please note: All applications for employment with ASIO are handled in the strictest confidence. It is essential that you DO NOT discuss your application with others as doing so may adversely affect your application. The recruitment process is lengthy, but necessary. We thank you for your efforts in submitting an application, and for investing your time in our selection process. |
Escapee from Nazis fought for Aborigines
September 14, 2009
Hans Bandler.
Hans Bandler, 1914-2009
HANS BANDLER bore witness to two great struggles of the 20th century: the war against Nazism in Europe and the equal rights campaign in Australia for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island peoples.
As a Jew in Vienna before World War II, Bandler was ordered to scrub street walls and pavements, while caustic soda was poured over his hands. He was incarcerated in the concentration camps of Dachau and Buchenwald.
In Australia, he married Faith Mussing, an Australian South Sea Islander who became a leader of the successful 1967 referendum campaign that changed the constitution, included Aborigines in the census and is often referred to as the first stage of the reconciliation movement.
Bandler, who has died at 94, was born in Vienna to Elsa Blumenthal and Ludwig Bandler, a typesetter. After the marriage ended when Hans was a toddler, he and his mother moved in with his maternal grandparents, and his aunt, Fritzi Blumenthal, although his father still took him on excursions. Both his grandparents had died by the time Hans was 12, and his mother had moved to Bulgaria and remarried. He never saw her again and his aunt continued to care for him.
Graduating in mechanical engineering, he worked with an engineer and taught English as a sideline. He had joined the student Labour Club and the Socialist Youth Movement. His Jewish origins and political activism made him a target when Hitler went to Vienna in March 1938.
The Germans took over the firm for which he worked and told him Jews could not work there. Failing to find work anywhere, he approached foreign consulates with a view to emigrating, while improving his English by guiding visiting doctors, including Australians, around the city.
Bandler was taken to Dachau in June 1938 and transferred to Buchenwald in September. Watching people die instilled in him a fervent love of life and an indomitable will to live. He was appalled by racism, injustice and inequality.
Fighting for her nephew's freedom, Fritzi Blumenthal sold much of what she owned, including paintings and furniture, went to the Berlin SS headquarters, bribed officials and guards and bought documents. Hans was finally released in January 1939, on condition that he leave Vienna within a week.
He flew to London, to be met by a penfriend, Olive, and from where he organised for his stepbrother, Bernard, to get out of Vienna. Olive, who had studied at Oxford University, arranged for Bandler to address the Ruskin Society on the horrors of the concentration camps.
Arriving in Australia, with the help of Australian doctors he had met in Vienna, Bandler pursued a new life. He took jobs washing dishes before working on the design of a Holden car assembly plant in Sydney. When his Austrian qualifications were not recognised, he enrolled in a civil engineering diploma course at the Sydney Technical College.
Wanting to contribute personally to the fight against fascism, he tried to enlist in the army but was told he was an enemy alien. His application to the RAAF was similarly rejected. He finally joined the Ministry of Munitions and became an Australian citizen.
Bandler met Faith Mussing at an Australian Peace Council musical evening, where she was a speaker and he, a member of the Sydney Film Society, screened documentaries about Aboriginal culture. He had a spare ticket to a Sydney Symphony Orchestra concert and asked her to join him. She already had a ticket and they attended together. Music proved a binding force.
He worked with the Hydro-Electricity Commission in Tasmania, where he was tracked by ASIO, before joining the Sydney Water Board in 1952 as a design engineer.
Bandler had been married, briefly, in Australia but the 1952 Youth Carnival for Peace and Friendship brought him and Faith together again. He was helping to build a huge map of Australia for the carnival, featuring scientists' visions for the future of the continent. It was called Australia Unlimited.
They met at concerts at Sydney Town Hall and he showed Faith a block of land he had bought in Frenchs Forest, and architect's plans. He started to build in his spare time; soon she was joining him. They married in 1952, with Margaret Fulton providing the wedding breakfast.
Bandler loved water - damming it, piping it, making it potable, conserving it, reading about it and writing about it. He worked as a senior design engineer on the Warragamba Dam, responsible for the inside of the dam, with its complex network of tunnels and corridors.
He walked and camped in the Australian bush, particularly the Blue Mountains, and became an ardent conservationist, taking a postgraduate course in environmental studies at Macquarie University in 1973 and a master of science degree in 1978.
He published on environmental engineering, lectured overseas and became a potter.
Hans Bandler is survived by his wife, Faith, his daughter, Lilon, her husband, Stephen Llewellyn, and their daughters, Olivia and Nicola.
as posted here
Habib case raises complex issues
as posted here
VINCENT MORELLO
September 14, 2009 - 7:19PM
Civil action brought by former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib against the Australian government will require the Federal Court to pit national sovereignty against human rights to determine if his torture case should go ahead.
Mr Habib is suing the government over allegations that Australian authorities were complicit and sometimes present during torture he allegedly endured while detained in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.
Commonwealth solicitor-general Stephen Gageler, SC, argued before a full bench of the Federal Court in Sydney on Monday that Mr Habib's claims could not be heard by an Australian court because of the "act of state" doctrine.
The principle, acknowledged in previous court cases in Australia, states that a nation is sovereign and its domestic actions may not be questioned in the courts of other nations.
The government is arguing that Mr Habib's case should be struck out on the basis of this doctrine.
In its submission to the Federal Court on Monday, the government referred to a ruling by the US Supreme Court case that "rejects the notion that the act of state doctrine is inapplicable merely because international law (such as human rights) has been violated".
The commonwealth also referred to a position of the Australian, Swiss and UK governments that "the creation of a federal cause of action against foreign lands would interfere fundamentally with other nations' sovereignty" and would "complicate international law and local efforts to halt and punish human rights violations".
Mr Habib's claims that Australian Federal Police and ASIO officers were complicit and sometimes present during his torture were not enough to usurp the act of state doctrine, the government submitted.
"The fact that the alleged conduct constitutes a serious violation of international law is not sufficient to give rise to an exception to the doctrine," its submission states.
Mr Habib's legal team also presented a submission to the Federal Court, arguing the application of the doctrine in Australia was unclear in relation to human rights violations and "may be subject to an exception in respect to international law".
"...it is sufficient to say that the doctrine does not apply in certain circumstances," their submission reads.
A "grave" breach of international human rights laws may be enough to supplant the doctrine, it says.
"However, a violation of this kind identified in these proceedings is more than sufficient," it adds.
Court documents show Mr Habib was first detained in Pakistan in October 2001, and was moved to Egypt a month later, to Afghanistan in 2002 and finally to Guantanamo Bay in May 2002 where he was held as a terror suspect until his release in January 2005.
His legal team will conclude its submission before the Federal Court on Tuesday, when it is expected the bench will reserve its judgment to a later date.
as posted here
VINCENT MORELLO
September 14, 2009 - 7:19PM
Civil action brought by former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib against the Australian government will require the Federal Court to pit national sovereignty against human rights to determine if his torture case should go ahead.
Mr Habib is suing the government over allegations that Australian authorities were complicit and sometimes present during torture he allegedly endured while detained in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.
Commonwealth solicitor-general Stephen Gageler, SC, argued before a full bench of the Federal Court in Sydney on Monday that Mr Habib's claims could not be heard by an Australian court because of the "act of state" doctrine.
The principle, acknowledged in previous court cases in Australia, states that a nation is sovereign and its domestic actions may not be questioned in the courts of other nations.
The government is arguing that Mr Habib's case should be struck out on the basis of this doctrine.
In its submission to the Federal Court on Monday, the government referred to a ruling by the US Supreme Court case that "rejects the notion that the act of state doctrine is inapplicable merely because international law (such as human rights) has been violated".
The commonwealth also referred to a position of the Australian, Swiss and UK governments that "the creation of a federal cause of action against foreign lands would interfere fundamentally with other nations' sovereignty" and would "complicate international law and local efforts to halt and punish human rights violations".
Mr Habib's claims that Australian Federal Police and ASIO officers were complicit and sometimes present during his torture were not enough to usurp the act of state doctrine, the government submitted.
"The fact that the alleged conduct constitutes a serious violation of international law is not sufficient to give rise to an exception to the doctrine," its submission states.
Mr Habib's legal team also presented a submission to the Federal Court, arguing the application of the doctrine in Australia was unclear in relation to human rights violations and "may be subject to an exception in respect to international law".
"...it is sufficient to say that the doctrine does not apply in certain circumstances," their submission reads.
A "grave" breach of international human rights laws may be enough to supplant the doctrine, it says.
"However, a violation of this kind identified in these proceedings is more than sufficient," it adds.
Court documents show Mr Habib was first detained in Pakistan in October 2001, and was moved to Egypt a month later, to Afghanistan in 2002 and finally to Guantanamo Bay in May 2002 where he was held as a terror suspect until his release in January 2005.
His legal team will conclude its submission before the Federal Court on Tuesday, when it is expected the bench will reserve its judgment to a later date.
as posted here
Keep courts out of Habib case: Government lawyers
as posted here
JOEL GIBSON
September 14, 2009 - 3:37PM
Australian courts should stay out of a dispute between former Guantanamo Bay inmate Mamdouh Habib and the Commonwealth because passing judgment on his alleged foreign torturers could damage Australia's relations with other states, Government lawyers argued today.
Mr Habib is suing the Federal Government in the Federal Court for damages over his alleged torture as a suspected enemy combatant in Guantanamo Bay, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
He was accused of training with al-Qaeda but was never charged and says he was in Afghanistan in October 2001 on a business trip that went awry.
He says Australian Federal Police and ASIO officers were complicit in the torture and, in some instances, were even present at the time.
But a legal principle known as the "Acts of States" doctrine meant courts in the US, Britain and Australia were usually reluctant to condemn the action of agents of foreign governments, in case they usurp the foreign affairs role of the legislature or the executive arms of government, Commonwealth Solicitor-General Stephen Gageler SC told the Federal Court this morning.
Only when there is a grave violation of international or human rights law would a court make an exception, he said.
Mr Gageler is expected to argue this afternoon that the alleged torture of Mr Habib did not fall into this category.
The "Acts of States" rule has been applied by Australia's High Court in the famous Spycatcher case, in which Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull as a young barrister took on Margaret Thatcher's British government when it attempted to stop an Australian publisher from releasing the memoirs of former British spy Peter Wright.
The hearing continues.
Joel Gibson is the Herald's Legal Affairs Reporter.
as posted here
JOEL GIBSON
September 14, 2009 - 3:37PM
Australian courts should stay out of a dispute between former Guantanamo Bay inmate Mamdouh Habib and the Commonwealth because passing judgment on his alleged foreign torturers could damage Australia's relations with other states, Government lawyers argued today.
Mr Habib is suing the Federal Government in the Federal Court for damages over his alleged torture as a suspected enemy combatant in Guantanamo Bay, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
He was accused of training with al-Qaeda but was never charged and says he was in Afghanistan in October 2001 on a business trip that went awry.
He says Australian Federal Police and ASIO officers were complicit in the torture and, in some instances, were even present at the time.
But a legal principle known as the "Acts of States" doctrine meant courts in the US, Britain and Australia were usually reluctant to condemn the action of agents of foreign governments, in case they usurp the foreign affairs role of the legislature or the executive arms of government, Commonwealth Solicitor-General Stephen Gageler SC told the Federal Court this morning.
Only when there is a grave violation of international or human rights law would a court make an exception, he said.
Mr Gageler is expected to argue this afternoon that the alleged torture of Mr Habib did not fall into this category.
The "Acts of States" rule has been applied by Australia's High Court in the famous Spycatcher case, in which Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull as a young barrister took on Margaret Thatcher's British government when it attempted to stop an Australian publisher from releasing the memoirs of former British spy Peter Wright.
The hearing continues.
Joel Gibson is the Herald's Legal Affairs Reporter.
as posted here
Rudd hackers escalate threats against .gov.au websites
The hackers who brought down the Prime Minister's website this week have already outlined their plans for round two, signalling a marked escalation in their attacks.
A new message posted on their website, which has been used to rally supporters of their anti-internet filtering hacking campaign, outlines plans to attempt to break into back-end government systems rather than simply knocking government websites offline by flooding them with traffic.
A security consultant, who declined to be named, said: "It won't take them long to get to a more dangerous and annoying skill level, which enables them to perform more successful and damaging attacks on the .gov.au domain space.
"Hope the Government has been performing their own penetration testing of their systems."
The website zone-h.org details a slew of government websites that have been hacked and defaced in the past few years, including 68 so far this year. Evidence of each attack is included.
But the hackers, who say they belong to a group called Anonymous, are now taking their attempts further underground after this website yesterday revealed embarrassing chat discussions between them, which occurred while they were carrying out the attacks on pm.gov.au on Wednesday night.
The chat logs revealed that the hackers considered their attacks to be a failure as they brought down Kevin Rudd's website for only a few minutes.
The logs also showed that their main aim was to achieve publicity for their campaign against Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's internet censorship policy.
They are calling for the policy to be dropped and for Senator Conroy to resign.
"It seems the Government isn't afraid of us and the media thinks we are a joke. We need to fix this," the call-to-arms message posted by the hacker reads.
Wednesday night's attacks are known as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks and involved them flooding government sites including pm.gov.au with traffic.
However, now the hackers have signalled an attempt to move beyond DDoS and to start attacking government back-end systems in an effort to retrieve data such as usernames and passwords.
This could be achieved by using a method called "SQL injection", which exploits security vulnerabilities in websites' databases.
"DDoS is like trying to break into a building by making hundreds of people run into its walls," the hackers wrote.
"I'm talking trying to sql inject any gov.au page or just get into the back end and retrieve data aka Usernames and Passwords.
"If you do find anything do not talk about it in the IRC [internet relay chat] due to spais [spies] and the AFP being in there and they blocked us out from accessing a previous exploit found."
Yesterday, a spokeswoman for the Attorney-General's Department said the Cyber Security Operations Centre in the Defence Signals Directorate was providing IT security advisers in each of the targeted Australian government agencies to assist with monitoring and responding to the threats.
Today, the department refused to comment on the escalation in threats or whether the matter had been referred to police.
The Australian Federal Police also refused to comment, referring all queries to the Attorney-General's Department.
as posted here
2degrees partner rubbishes spy claim
as posted here
Huawei, the Chinese company that helped design and build 2degrees' mobile network, has brushed off a report that Australia's spy agency was investigating links between its technicians and the People's Liberation Army, hinting at dirty tricks by rivals.
The Australian reported Huawei employees in Sydney and Melbourne approached the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) with claims.
Huawei Australia managing director Guo Fulin says the allegations are false and irresponsible, and he is not aware of any investigation.
Earlier false allegations prompted the company to provide a briefing to ASIO on its business in June, he says.
Mr Fulin says the company has not engaged with any intelligence agencies in New Zealand. He pointed to another media report that said traditional American and European suppliers had their "noses put of joint by being undercut and rivalled technically by a growing Chinese upstart".
Bloomberg reported that Huawei's business in the United States had been stymied by security concerns that had also scuttled a US$2.2 billion takeover bid for rival 3Com.
as posted here
Huawei, the Chinese company that helped design and build 2degrees' mobile network, has brushed off a report that Australia's spy agency was investigating links between its technicians and the People's Liberation Army, hinting at dirty tricks by rivals.
The Australian reported Huawei employees in Sydney and Melbourne approached the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) with claims.
Huawei Australia managing director Guo Fulin says the allegations are false and irresponsible, and he is not aware of any investigation.
Earlier false allegations prompted the company to provide a briefing to ASIO on its business in June, he says.
Mr Fulin says the company has not engaged with any intelligence agencies in New Zealand. He pointed to another media report that said traditional American and European suppliers had their "noses put of joint by being undercut and rivalled technically by a growing Chinese upstart".
Bloomberg reported that Huawei's business in the United States had been stymied by security concerns that had also scuttled a US$2.2 billion takeover bid for rival 3Com.
as posted here
Saturday, 12 September 2009
AWB case to probe government role
as posted here
HOW much the Federal Government knew about AWB's payments to Saddam Hussein's regime will be freshly examined in a shareholder class action starting in November.
Lawyers for the grains exporter told the Federal Court yesterday its defence would include proving that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade knew that ''transport fees'' were going to the Iraqi Government despite UN sanctions.
AWB's barrister, Matthew Darke, said the 2006 inquiry into the kickbacks scandal headed by Terence Cole, QC, had concluded there was no ''direct'' evidence that the department knew about the fees.
But Mr Cole's investigation, Mr Darke said, ''may have been somewhat limited because he concluded it was outside his terms of reference to consider whether any officer of the Commonwealth or the Commonwealth itself had contravened any law''.
AWB disclosed some of its tactics for the $100 million damages suit yesterday during a pretrial debate over whether the Office of National Assessments was entitled to avoid producing documents to the court on national security grounds.
Justice Lindsay Foster asked whether AWB would argue that ''these so-called transport fees were a mask for what was in effect a bribe''.
''No, because we don't accept that they were in fact a bribe,'' Mr Darke replied. ''We do say that the department knew they were being paid to [Jordanian transport company] Alia and knew that Alia had a close connection with the Iraqi Government.''
The investors allege they suffered losses when the Cole commission exposed the payments. They claim no damage would have occurred if AWB had not kept the nature of the payments secret because ministerial permission for its shipments to Iraq would not have been given. Mr Darke said officials did know and permission ''was granted anyway''.
Justice Foster asked Mr Darke to speculate whether the shareholders might call ''the minister'' to give evidence.
Mr Darke said no outline of proposed evidence from the minister had been filed. Neither named former Foreign Affairs minister Alexander Downer.
Lawyers for the shareholders have previously told the court they intended to call a senior Foreign Affairs official, Robert Bowker, a former senior Austrade official, Alistair Nicholas, Alia's general manager, Othman Al-absi, and five former AWB executives.
as posted here
HOW much the Federal Government knew about AWB's payments to Saddam Hussein's regime will be freshly examined in a shareholder class action starting in November.
Lawyers for the grains exporter told the Federal Court yesterday its defence would include proving that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade knew that ''transport fees'' were going to the Iraqi Government despite UN sanctions.
AWB's barrister, Matthew Darke, said the 2006 inquiry into the kickbacks scandal headed by Terence Cole, QC, had concluded there was no ''direct'' evidence that the department knew about the fees.
But Mr Cole's investigation, Mr Darke said, ''may have been somewhat limited because he concluded it was outside his terms of reference to consider whether any officer of the Commonwealth or the Commonwealth itself had contravened any law''.
AWB disclosed some of its tactics for the $100 million damages suit yesterday during a pretrial debate over whether the Office of National Assessments was entitled to avoid producing documents to the court on national security grounds.
Justice Lindsay Foster asked whether AWB would argue that ''these so-called transport fees were a mask for what was in effect a bribe''.
''No, because we don't accept that they were in fact a bribe,'' Mr Darke replied. ''We do say that the department knew they were being paid to [Jordanian transport company] Alia and knew that Alia had a close connection with the Iraqi Government.''
The investors allege they suffered losses when the Cole commission exposed the payments. They claim no damage would have occurred if AWB had not kept the nature of the payments secret because ministerial permission for its shipments to Iraq would not have been given. Mr Darke said officials did know and permission ''was granted anyway''.
Justice Foster asked Mr Darke to speculate whether the shareholders might call ''the minister'' to give evidence.
Mr Darke said no outline of proposed evidence from the minister had been filed. Neither named former Foreign Affairs minister Alexander Downer.
Lawyers for the shareholders have previously told the court they intended to call a senior Foreign Affairs official, Robert Bowker, a former senior Austrade official, Alistair Nicholas, Alia's general manager, Othman Al-absi, and five former AWB executives.
as posted here
Rudd's new vision for Asia-Pacific
as posted here
KEVIN Rudd is determined to create his Asia Pacific Community. And you know what? He just might succeed.
This initiative of the Prime Minister's has been mocked by some commentators. The Age revealed last weekend it had obtained an essay Rudd submitted unsuccessfully to the US journal Foreign Affairs that dealt in part with the APC.
But instead of reporting and evaluating the substance of Rudd's article, The Age merely mocked a few inevitably Latinate formulations in the piece of analysis.
I now have a copy of the article too, and I think it the best thing Rudd has written. Foreign Affairs thought it too long and diffuse. It is really a piece in three parts: the Asia Pacific Community, the G20 and the task of managing US-China relations.
Rudd will attend the G20 summit in Pittsburgh later this month. This will focus on economic issues, but Rudd will discuss his APC proposal with some of his counterparts.
In October, he will attend the East Asia Summit at Phuket. Rudd is on the EAS agenda to brief the other leaders there about Australia's APC initiative. He will be reporting in part on the consultations carried out in 21 countries by Dick Woolcott.
The Woolcott appointment was criticised as hastily concocted. But the Woolcott mission has been fruitful. His legendary status in regional diplomacy has allowed him to undertake a purely consultative mission.
In December, Rudd will convene a conference on the APC concept in Sydney, which will be attended by leading politicians, decision-makers and opinion leaders from around the region, and then later in the same month he will attend the APEC summit in Singapore.
Australians have grown too cynical about Asian institutions and regional diplomacy. To paraphrase the great English poet Francis Thompson: "Our hearts, with many schemes so flawed, have grown cynical and bored."
In fact, this attitude is completely mistaken. Australia has had a brilliant history in regional institution-building, and has reaped enormous benefits from this.
Our involvement with the Colombo Plan, with ASEAN, and our founding of APEC, have all had inestimable benefits for us.
Rudd's view now is that there is a synergy between the inadequacies of the old global economic institutions, which have led to the formation of the G20 as a heads of government organisation, and the inadequacies of Asia Pacific institutions, which make an APC necessary, or at least desirable.
On the G20, Rudd makes a strong case. He offers a new conceptual framework for the group. He wants it to become the "driving centre" of the entire global system.
This is Rudd's most ambitious statement for the G20 yet. The organisation was founded because of the Asian financial crisis a decade ago. It is small enough to be manageable but big enough to have the clout to affect all parts of the globe.
Rudd writes: "(The G20) is not an almost exclusive Western enclave, as is the case with the G7. It contains the major emerging powers of China, India, Brazil and Mexico.
It includes the largest Muslim nation in the world, Indonesia. "Its combined membership makes up 80 per cent of global GDP and 85per cent of global trade, and two-thirds of the world's population. It is small enough to take decisions and large enough to be representative. It bridges the strategic and economic weight of the present and the future."
But here is Rudd's most important judgment: "The G20 contains aninherent alignment of means andends."
Australia's embassy in Washington has been conducting a vigorous campaign on behalf of the G20, although Rudd naturally does not include this information in his article.
Although it was George W. Bush who convened the G20 at heads of government level to respond to the global financial crisis, the Obama administration appreciates the strength and relevance of the organisation and its effectiveness in responding to the financial crisis.
But there are strongly contradictory views within Washington over whether to stick with the G20 after the economic crisis passes, or revert to the G7 or some halfway house, such as a G14 that would not include Australia.
Rudd's ambassador in Washington, Dennis Richardson, who is soon to be the head of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, is exceptionally gifted at the somewhat undiplomatic task of conveying blunt messages bluntly.
He has been telling his Washington interlocutors that Australia would find it profoundly unsatisfactory if a new body grew up that included economies such as South Africa or Saudi Arabia, half the size of Australia's economy, but not us. This is a message which invokes the full range of the US-Australian relationship.
Australian embassies in all the relevant nations have been delivering the pro-G20 message.
But Rudd's ambition for the G20 does not end here.
In the Foreign Affairs piece, he argues that the G20 as the driving centre of global governance should also tackle issues such as UN reform, climate change, food and energy security, non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and other threats to security.
Rudd is not arguing that the G20 should take over the work of the international bureaucracies already labouring at these issues, but saying it should, at heads of government level, provide the political impetus for breakthrough on such matters.
Rudd's view is breathtaking in its ambition and an attempt to deal Australia into the heart of global governance.
He also outlines his rationale for an APC in the Foreign Affairs article.
The Asia Pacific is being driven by the rise of India and China, he argues. The weight of the global economy moved across the Atlantic in the 20th century to the US, and is now moving across the Pacific. But hear this message loud and clear. At every point Rudd rejects the notion of US decline, stating explicitly: "The rise of the Asia Pacific is not a story of US decline."
He reiterates his view that US power underlies Asian strategic stability and that the US will remain the dominant global and Asian power at least for decades ahead.
Rudd's thesis on the APC is deceptively simple: "Currently there is no single institution in the Asia Pacific with the membership and the mandate to address both economic and strategic challenges."
He then says explicitly there is no appetite for new institutions, and that the most likely way forward is to build on APEC or the EAS.
With APEC, it would only be necessary to add India. Rudd doesn't allude to this, but the three Latin American nations wrongly in APEC would then probably agitate for Colombia and Ecuador, and possibly even Brazil (which like India doesn't have a Pacific coast) to join, rendering APEC, which has served Australian interests magnificently, useless. The EAS is therefore considered slightly more likely. This would involve adding the US and Russia. While the Office of National Assessments is understood to have had some reservations about adding Russia, Russian inclusion seems now to be the consensus view.
The bigger question is whether the US would join, and whether the US President would commit to another Asian summit meeting. Possibly the ASEAN, EAS and APEC summits would need to be rationalised or amalgamated in some way.
There is also talk, not in Rudd's essay, of a smaller Asia Pacific group, perhaps a sub-group of the G20 - namely the US, Australia, Japan, India, China, South Korea, Indonesia and Russia.
This would be a very delicate initiative for Australia, as it would involve excluding a lot of the ASEAN members.
The chief strategic rationale for the APC that Rudd offers in his Foreign Affairs piece is the need to manage the US-China relationship.
He correctly states that this is chiefly the responsibility of Washington and Beijing, but believes supportive regional architecture can help.
His argument that the habits of consultation would help in this diplomacy, and in wider Asian diplomacy, are a little less convincing, however, because the panoply of existing institutions means such habits of consultation exist already.
Although I think Rudd in this essay focuses too much on China, at the expense say of India, he makes his usual sound case that China should have a more prominent role in global governance institutions.
However, his balanced view on China is explicit. Rudd writes that he is "neither naive nor idealistic about China's nationalist ambitions".
"China is significantly expanding its military. China is leveraging its foreign policy influence, and at times in a direction with which we have not agreed - for example, in Darfur, Zimbabwe and Burma," he writes.
"China is deploying its considerable financial power to purchase assets that secure its long-term economic interests - most particularly in energy and resource security - sometimes rubbing up against the interests of other states.
"Similarly, China's continuing record on human rights puts it at odds with the West and with the Universal Declaration.
"The US, its friends and allies must therefore remain vigilant against the possibility of alternative contingencies should China choose alternative paths for its future."
Honest words well said. Overall Rudd's is an ambitious vision with a lot going for it, and at least a reasonable chance of success.
as posted here
KEVIN Rudd is determined to create his Asia Pacific Community. And you know what? He just might succeed.
This initiative of the Prime Minister's has been mocked by some commentators. The Age revealed last weekend it had obtained an essay Rudd submitted unsuccessfully to the US journal Foreign Affairs that dealt in part with the APC.
But instead of reporting and evaluating the substance of Rudd's article, The Age merely mocked a few inevitably Latinate formulations in the piece of analysis.
I now have a copy of the article too, and I think it the best thing Rudd has written. Foreign Affairs thought it too long and diffuse. It is really a piece in three parts: the Asia Pacific Community, the G20 and the task of managing US-China relations.
Rudd will attend the G20 summit in Pittsburgh later this month. This will focus on economic issues, but Rudd will discuss his APC proposal with some of his counterparts.
In October, he will attend the East Asia Summit at Phuket. Rudd is on the EAS agenda to brief the other leaders there about Australia's APC initiative. He will be reporting in part on the consultations carried out in 21 countries by Dick Woolcott.
The Woolcott appointment was criticised as hastily concocted. But the Woolcott mission has been fruitful. His legendary status in regional diplomacy has allowed him to undertake a purely consultative mission.
In December, Rudd will convene a conference on the APC concept in Sydney, which will be attended by leading politicians, decision-makers and opinion leaders from around the region, and then later in the same month he will attend the APEC summit in Singapore.
Australians have grown too cynical about Asian institutions and regional diplomacy. To paraphrase the great English poet Francis Thompson: "Our hearts, with many schemes so flawed, have grown cynical and bored."
In fact, this attitude is completely mistaken. Australia has had a brilliant history in regional institution-building, and has reaped enormous benefits from this.
Our involvement with the Colombo Plan, with ASEAN, and our founding of APEC, have all had inestimable benefits for us.
Rudd's view now is that there is a synergy between the inadequacies of the old global economic institutions, which have led to the formation of the G20 as a heads of government organisation, and the inadequacies of Asia Pacific institutions, which make an APC necessary, or at least desirable.
On the G20, Rudd makes a strong case. He offers a new conceptual framework for the group. He wants it to become the "driving centre" of the entire global system.
This is Rudd's most ambitious statement for the G20 yet. The organisation was founded because of the Asian financial crisis a decade ago. It is small enough to be manageable but big enough to have the clout to affect all parts of the globe.
Rudd writes: "(The G20) is not an almost exclusive Western enclave, as is the case with the G7. It contains the major emerging powers of China, India, Brazil and Mexico.
It includes the largest Muslim nation in the world, Indonesia. "Its combined membership makes up 80 per cent of global GDP and 85per cent of global trade, and two-thirds of the world's population. It is small enough to take decisions and large enough to be representative. It bridges the strategic and economic weight of the present and the future."
But here is Rudd's most important judgment: "The G20 contains aninherent alignment of means andends."
Australia's embassy in Washington has been conducting a vigorous campaign on behalf of the G20, although Rudd naturally does not include this information in his article.
Although it was George W. Bush who convened the G20 at heads of government level to respond to the global financial crisis, the Obama administration appreciates the strength and relevance of the organisation and its effectiveness in responding to the financial crisis.
But there are strongly contradictory views within Washington over whether to stick with the G20 after the economic crisis passes, or revert to the G7 or some halfway house, such as a G14 that would not include Australia.
Rudd's ambassador in Washington, Dennis Richardson, who is soon to be the head of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, is exceptionally gifted at the somewhat undiplomatic task of conveying blunt messages bluntly.
He has been telling his Washington interlocutors that Australia would find it profoundly unsatisfactory if a new body grew up that included economies such as South Africa or Saudi Arabia, half the size of Australia's economy, but not us. This is a message which invokes the full range of the US-Australian relationship.
Australian embassies in all the relevant nations have been delivering the pro-G20 message.
But Rudd's ambition for the G20 does not end here.
In the Foreign Affairs piece, he argues that the G20 as the driving centre of global governance should also tackle issues such as UN reform, climate change, food and energy security, non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and other threats to security.
Rudd is not arguing that the G20 should take over the work of the international bureaucracies already labouring at these issues, but saying it should, at heads of government level, provide the political impetus for breakthrough on such matters.
Rudd's view is breathtaking in its ambition and an attempt to deal Australia into the heart of global governance.
He also outlines his rationale for an APC in the Foreign Affairs article.
The Asia Pacific is being driven by the rise of India and China, he argues. The weight of the global economy moved across the Atlantic in the 20th century to the US, and is now moving across the Pacific. But hear this message loud and clear. At every point Rudd rejects the notion of US decline, stating explicitly: "The rise of the Asia Pacific is not a story of US decline."
He reiterates his view that US power underlies Asian strategic stability and that the US will remain the dominant global and Asian power at least for decades ahead.
Rudd's thesis on the APC is deceptively simple: "Currently there is no single institution in the Asia Pacific with the membership and the mandate to address both economic and strategic challenges."
He then says explicitly there is no appetite for new institutions, and that the most likely way forward is to build on APEC or the EAS.
With APEC, it would only be necessary to add India. Rudd doesn't allude to this, but the three Latin American nations wrongly in APEC would then probably agitate for Colombia and Ecuador, and possibly even Brazil (which like India doesn't have a Pacific coast) to join, rendering APEC, which has served Australian interests magnificently, useless. The EAS is therefore considered slightly more likely. This would involve adding the US and Russia. While the Office of National Assessments is understood to have had some reservations about adding Russia, Russian inclusion seems now to be the consensus view.
The bigger question is whether the US would join, and whether the US President would commit to another Asian summit meeting. Possibly the ASEAN, EAS and APEC summits would need to be rationalised or amalgamated in some way.
There is also talk, not in Rudd's essay, of a smaller Asia Pacific group, perhaps a sub-group of the G20 - namely the US, Australia, Japan, India, China, South Korea, Indonesia and Russia.
This would be a very delicate initiative for Australia, as it would involve excluding a lot of the ASEAN members.
The chief strategic rationale for the APC that Rudd offers in his Foreign Affairs piece is the need to manage the US-China relationship.
He correctly states that this is chiefly the responsibility of Washington and Beijing, but believes supportive regional architecture can help.
His argument that the habits of consultation would help in this diplomacy, and in wider Asian diplomacy, are a little less convincing, however, because the panoply of existing institutions means such habits of consultation exist already.
Although I think Rudd in this essay focuses too much on China, at the expense say of India, he makes his usual sound case that China should have a more prominent role in global governance institutions.
However, his balanced view on China is explicit. Rudd writes that he is "neither naive nor idealistic about China's nationalist ambitions".
"China is significantly expanding its military. China is leveraging its foreign policy influence, and at times in a direction with which we have not agreed - for example, in Darfur, Zimbabwe and Burma," he writes.
"China is deploying its considerable financial power to purchase assets that secure its long-term economic interests - most particularly in energy and resource security - sometimes rubbing up against the interests of other states.
"Similarly, China's continuing record on human rights puts it at odds with the West and with the Universal Declaration.
"The US, its friends and allies must therefore remain vigilant against the possibility of alternative contingencies should China choose alternative paths for its future."
Honest words well said. Overall Rudd's is an ambitious vision with a lot going for it, and at least a reasonable chance of success.
as posted here
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