At the start of June the Abbott Cabinet leaked about a discussion involving how Australia is kept safe in world where a few have resorted to random non State violence to get their own way. This leak is a breach of the law as well as a window into the hard line right wing group who have control of the top of the reins of Parliamentary power giving them an ability to control the political Agenda.
The discussion leaked was about a proposal to remove citizenship from those who may be eligible for citizenship elsewhere, but not actually citizens, by the Minister for Immigration albeit followed by a judicial review, not of the evidence but whether the process was properly followed.
Clearly the removal of citizenship from those holding dual nationality but who had served others against Australia’s interests has wide support throughout the community, an easy and perhaps irresponsible out sending them back to where they came from, the conclusion being they can be trouble there. This has been accepted and the Parliament now awaits legislation to pass as it has in-principle bipartisan support.
Problematical are the International legal obligations. Australia has agreed not to make any citizen Stateless. Therefore, as the Foreign Minister rightly pointed out in the Cabinet meeting that leaked almost verbatim, it is unlikely a suspected terrorist will be granted citizenship by another government when we are unwilling to deal with them.
The saga has led to a hunt for the leaker. With 6 suspects named denials have flowed and forces marshalled.
When Abbott was challenged in February 39 backbenchers voted for a spill of the leadership. This time 40 were marshalled to support giving a Minister of the government of the day the power to cancel citizenship. No proposed legislation, just a thought bubble.
By Wednesday Turnbull was asked by the press if he was the source of the leaks. He went further than simply denying that he was the source.
“The rule of law means that the law applies to everybody. It applies to all of us, it applies to big companies, little companies, it applies to the government,” he noted pointedly.
“You see that – what is the essence of a democracy? Some people would say a democracy is one where the majority get to do what they want. That’s not a democracy, that’s a tyranny. The genius of a democracy governed by the rule of law, our democracy, is that it both empowers the majority through the ballot box and constrains the majority, its government, so that it is bound by law,”.
It could not have been better described when Mark Kenny wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald on the 3rd of June
“Doubtless, Turnbull knew what he was doing. He knew he was putting himself at odds with the very MPs needed to attain the leadership should it become vacant.
Yet he proceeded.
The moral weight of that argument could not have been clearer. Ditto his defence of his own bona fides as a patriot.
It was Turnbull’s line in the sand.”
Turnbull continued “Some people like to suggest that some people are tougher on terrorism or tougher on national security than others. Let me say this to you. Honest people, knowledgeable people, really well-informed people can have very different views about what the right measures are on national security, and have very different views about the right balance between, say, citizenship and national security.”
What are some of recent histories lessons about due process?.
“If you don’t have enough evidence to charge them in a court, how can you have enough evidence to take away their citizenship?.” Barnaby Joyce.
William Joyce was also known as Lord Haw Haw, a civilian and an American Citizen with a British Passport. He spent from the start to of War in Europe to his capture at it’s end broadcasting and writing propaganda for Nazi Germany. Beyond his identification no other evidence would have been required by many Britons to determine if he had aided and abetted the enemy. They had heard his voice often,
However, due process was followed and a trial held at the Central Criminal Court. His American citizenship arose but because he had used a valid British Passport and broadcast for the Nazis the court deemed he had committed treason. He was sentenced to death.
His appeal to the Court of Appeals failed because it was ruled that a foreign national could commit treason against the king and he was hung in 1946.
Then there was John Amery who after living outside Britain since 1936 joined the Nazi effort and served in different roles. Initially he offered a complex defence against the charge of treason
In a preliminary hearing, he argued that he had never attacked Britain and was an anti-Communist, not a Nazi. At the same time, his brother Julian Amery attempted to show that John had become a Spanish citizen, and therefore would have been technically incapable of committing treason against the United Kingdom.
His counsel, Gerald Osborne Slade KC, tried to show that the accused was mentally ill, a defence some serving ISIS might be expected to make.
Amery’s sanity was questioned by his own father, Leo, but all efforts to have the court consider his mental state were unsuccessful.[3] Further attempts at a defence were suddenly abandoned on the first day of his trial, 28 November 1945, when to general astonishment, Amery pleaded guilty to eight charges of treason. He was immediately sentenced to death. The entire proceeding lasted just eight minutes.
Before accepting Amery’s guilty plea, the judge, Mr Justice Humphreys, made certain that Amery realised what the consequences would be, i.e. it guaranteed that he would immediately be sentenced to death by hanging, because there was no other permissible penalty. After satisfying himself that Amery fully understood the consequences of pleading guilty, the judge announced this verdict:
“John Amery … I am satisfied that you knew what you did and that you did it intentionally and deliberately after you had received warning from … your fellow countrymen that the course you were pursuing amounted to high treason. They called you a traitor and you heard them; but in spite of that you continued in that course. You now stand a self-confessed traitor to your King and country, and you have forfeited your right to live.”
What is this national security debate about?
Yes, it is about the obvious. Government’s main task is to preserve the safety of it’s citizens but it can also be about other things not s obvious.
It should not be a partisan matter yet we find the Abbott faction in the Liberal Party willing to make it so.
Attacking Labor for not supporting wholeheartedly and unquestionably even though Labor has offered in-principle support for lawful moves, Abbott is clearly trying to make himself popular as a strong leader. The Greens don’t get a mention.
But this is not simply a struggle between Government and the major opposition party by attempting to paint Labor as soft whilst showing Abbott as a decisive strong Australian leader. This struggle extends deep into the Liberal party, as Abbott’s faction tussles with the supporters of the rule of law and the values of jurisprudence, the main pillars of democracy, over whom will lead the Liberals.
Abbott may appear on the rise in popularity in the polls as his spruikers on the economy attempt to deny the figures that indicate a stagnation [spending and investment] and sell a budget that still contains many of the harsh and cruel measures from the 2014 budget.
Foreign Minister Bishop has manfully taken the task of fronting the ISIS chemical, biological and nuclear threat over the weekend, Australia making the running on ‘breaking intelligence’ when one would expect the US with all its abilities, or the more vulnerable Europeans, to have noticed this startling turn of events.
But no, as the Attorney General Senator Brandis was sinking from blowing his credibility on the handling of the Man Monis letter, readers of The Australian find a different issue is making the front running.
Unfortunately those who thought up this diversion seem to have forgotten the justification for the attack on Iraq being proved entirely false, no WMD’s even though Bush, Blair and Howard swore black and blue the intelligence services had the evidence, makes these singular accusations appear an act of desperation in the national security wars.
Whether ISIS is or isn’t trying to recruit people with the skills to make chemical, biological or nuclear weapons is not the question.
The question is are the Government manipulating national security for short term partisan ends whilst their eye is not on the juggling act that must include the economic, environmental and social health of Australia.
The Liberals leader is desperate to retain power by being returned for a second three year term and given his history of saying one thing to gain popularity and doing the opposite no one could trust them to not manipulate citizenship for his own ends dividing the Australian community and endangering citizens unnecessarily.
*phill Parsons continues to wonder why, having spent six decades doing so to date. He moved from Bilgola to dystopia after noting Australians believed a serial liar could change and elected his party to government. Sometimes seriously Left and occassionally seriously Right he finds it more and more difficult to be serious when it appears the only thing most are serious about is dough. However, he has been heartened by the sharpening of debate about the climate, by the rapid growth of the divestment movement and by the support for the principles of democracy coming from those who are more often seriously Right.
