What joy, to hear Bernard Collaery is finally free from prosecution by my government for conspiracy.
Witness K wanted to blow the whistle on my government for bugging the governmental offices we were building for our fledgling neighbour Timor-Leste. Collaery was K’s lawyer.
The purpose of my government’s bugging operation was to get on top of Timor-Leste in Australia’s negotiations with them over profits from the Timor Sea oilfields, which btw lie closer to Timor-Leste than to us.
Many Australians, including me, and the ADF who served in Timor-Leste in its time of need in 1999, when it voted for independence from Indonesia, helped to establish great faith during that hardship. And the not-so-mysterious murders of five Aussie journalists at Balibo in 1975 meant we shared in blood as well as in toil.
It is despicable that my government in 2004 thought it okay to use any means it wished to grab as big a share as possible of the loot from joint oil production. Why not let Timor-Leste have the bloody lot, please!
Only guilty as alleged would explain why my government spent $5.8million on shutting up Bernard Collaery. Do we know the other bill, for shutting up Witness K? Why would you do this if you weren’t guilty, Australia?
What is really needed here is what we are lousy at giving – an apology.
I apologise, on behalf of my government (OBMG), for buggering up the lives of Collaery and Witness K. I apologise OBMG for interfering with sovereignty and for trying to steal from Timor-Leste. I apologise OBMG for squandering taxpayers’ money on suppressing the truth.
And I thank the new Labor government for making a start on decent behaviour.
Duncan Dey, Main Arm
The wrongful prosecution of Collaery lies only partly at the door of the utterly corrupt Howard Government. Yes, Howard, Downer and Brandis corruptly gave the gas deposits of Greater Sunrise to Woodside and Shell. Yes, they corruptly accepted in exchange a generation of campaign donations. Yes, a generation of Australian prosecutors have yet to prosecute them for fraud committed in the ACT. Yes , those prosecutors have failed to protect our public assets and the Ministers sworn to administer them in the public interest wholly, fundamentally breached their sworn duty and should swing.
It is time to get back to fundamentals here. The big issue is not the relief of Collaery from persecution by successive incompetent Australian governments. The big issue is having justice catch up with the fraudsters of the Howard government.
Why is anybody surprised we will only vote Independent?
Why is anybody surprised that all major Parties are branded as utterly corrupt when their funding sources are wholly driven by graft?
The whistle has been blown. The Collaery case illustrates only the extremity of the corruption of our major Parties.
When Howard, Downer and Brandis are convicted and imprisoned for the corruption that their successors seek to keep secret, Party politics might again find a legitimate role in Australia. Until then, major Parties are the most evil, disruptive force in Australian public life and deserve our complete derision.
Baycomber
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