Senator Andrew Bartlett
Sunday, September 12, 2004
 
The ABC news website is easily my most frequently visited site and their election section is quite comprehensive. Antony Green does a fairly comprehensive analysis and Matt Liddy has a good, eclectic election blog at http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2004/weblog/default.htm (which mentioned this blog, so he obviously notices the important things.)

It also mentioned a site I hadn’t seen before, but which I'd recommend for any election junkie. It's the election tracker http://www.cpod.ubc.ca/tracker/index.cfm which lists upcoming elections all over the world (next up Kazakhstan on Sept 19th).

It reminded me that there's another election on October 9th – in Afghanistan. It's a fairly sad indictment that the Afghan Government has been pleading for more support from other countries – including Australia – to help them rebuild their country and to manage to hold a credible election. Given all the chest-puffing of John Howard and President Bush about supposedly being strong on security and tough on terror, it's pretty pathetic how Afghanistan has been left to struggle on with so little support, while heaps more resources gets put into Iraq.

I still find it extraordinary that so many people actually believe John Howard is strong on security issues. The gross misuse of our defence forces to 'defend' ourselves against refugees in leaky boats fleeing persecution was bad enough, but to so enthusiastically and inflexibly support an international policy which unnecessarily alienates allies and dramatically inflames resentment, just so you can look tough and portray others as soft is mindblowingly irresponsible and dangerous.

I can't see how anyone can suggest Australians are safer now than we were three years ago, or that our defence, security and intelligence resources are being directed to maximum effectiveness. In the final Senate Committee hearing, just after the election was called, the whistleblower Mike Scrafton said that "from within Defence’s perspective, I would say that on one hand there is nowhere near the rigour and analysis put into the advice that goes forward now. It is much more tailored, I think, in lots of ways, to what wants to be heard.

There is not the same strength internally to critically filter out bad advice." This not only seems to me like the situation of someone who is a failure on security and is more interested in using such situations for political posturing than public gain, but also a situation which reduces the effectiveness of our actions on security issues.

Of course, we have the very unfortunate situation following the Embassy bombing in Jakarta of not being able to believe what our Prime Minister and Foreign Minister are telling us. No doubt there will be the usual careful choice of words to protect against being accused of outright lies, as well as the catch-up caveat of "I am advised that" or "advice available at this time" to provide protection if they have to change their story.

I had a briefing from the head of the Office of National Assessment (ONA) in Canberra last Friday on the day after the bombing. It wasn't a full briefing as the Democrats have never been allowed to get access to full security information, despite being a Parliamentary political party for over 20 years. I can't specifically quote what I was told either. However it hasn't made me any more likely to trust the thrust of the Prime Minister's public statements.

This does NOT mean that ONA contradicted something the PM has said, simply that it is so easy for the PM to emphasise some bits and downplay others. The Prime Minister's record of distorting the truth for his own political ends speaks for itself, not least his willingness to do so during an election campaign. This in itself weakens our nation's ability to properly respond to security risks, as half the population is not likely to believe what they are told about such matters, even when they are true.

One area where I believe there is a lot more to be done is in improving relations with countries in our region, along with their capacity to handle terrorist threats and improve their political and economic stability. There is a real risk of this being used as a cover for human rights abuses (after all, it's being done in Australia so we can hardly not expect it to be possible in other countires) which we have to be sensitive to and guard against, but it needs to be done none the less.

The level of ignorance amongst Australians about the reality of life and of governance and its infrastructure in nearby countries is woeful (myself included). I spent 2 days in Jakarta in July 2002, mainly examining the issue of asylum seekers. I learnt an enormous amount in just 2 days (albeit fairly intensive days) and still only learnt just enough to realise I hardly know anything. It is hard to overestimate the scale and range of problems which the Indonesian Government has to try to overcome, not least of which is widespread poverty and corruption.

It is easy to look down our noses at endemic corruption and seemingly incompetent bureaucracies, but we should remember that democracy is still very much in it's infancy in Indonesia and many other parts of the region, and it is incredibly large, diverse and disparate nation. Every country is a product of its history and it is not realistic to expect Indonesia or other countries in our region to operate similarly to Australia in the near future.

Whilst there is now good cooperation between Indonesia and Australia in tackling extremism and terrorism, there is a lot more than can be done to help most of the other countries in our region. In addition, there is a enormous amount more that can be done to encourage better understanding and awareness amongst Australians of these neighbouring countries.

The links at a government to government level, may be improving, but at general community level they are still very poor. If we can get stronger links amongst the general Australian population with other people and areas in our region and perhaps provide more mechanisms for people from those regions to travel, study and work in Australia and get a better understanding of us and our society, then that will be a major advance if stifling the risk of terror and handling it more rationally when it does occur.



posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Sunday, September 12, 2004
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