If you didn’t catch 4 Corners last night you can catch it in ABC Iview. It is a must watch if for no other reason than you can see and understand what goes on in Australia’s name by a totally corrupt political class.
If youre not across it the backcgound to the full story is HERE
By way of background, a couple of weeks ago I found myself transfixed while listening to an interview on ABC RN, which was essentially phase two in a long running saga of the absolutely embarrassing, corrupt and appalling behaviour by Alexander Downer and the Howard government in the bugging of the East Timor government offices to get the upper hand in negotiations over the deep sea oil and gas fields that are 150 kilometres from East Timor and 400 kilometres from Australia.
Australia was determined by any means necessary to find ouyt East Timor’s bottom line. This was Downer and the Libs morphing into Richo and Labor, with his own ‘..whatever it takes..’ moment.
Given the proximity of each country, why Australia believed it had any claim is beyond me other than it was designed to benefit Woodside for which Downer went on to become a consultant in 2008 and the head of DFAT at the time of the bugging, Ashton Calvert went on to become a board director of Woodside in 2005.
How cosy.
As happened against Trump in a move by the Obama administration in orchestrating and weaponising the intelligence community against a political opponent, the Australian government did similar against our near neighbour by weaponising DFAT and buried the illegitimacy of their appalling behaviour and illegal activity under the guise of ‘national security’ so anyone blowing the whistle on it would be hounded and dragged before the courts.
Well, someone did blow the whistle and the subsequent raids on the whistleblower and his lawyer, Bernard Collaery and the seizure of privileged documents has been to the International Court of Justice in 2014 and the case was found in favour of East Timor by a majority bar one and Australia had to hand back all the seized material.
After all that East Timor has endured since the Indonesia invasion and annexure of 1976 and finally having its independence restored in 2002 the very idea of bugging the government offices under the pretext of an aid project runs is unconscionable and one can only draw the conclusion that it was at the behest of corporate players in the oil and gas business. It runs totally counter to everything we’ve imbibed with our mothers milk about Australia believing the idea of fair play and a fair go.
It is Downer et al who should be looking down the barrel of serious jail time and not witness K or his Lawyer Bernard Collaery