Mr. Philip Adams is obviously in need of the sort of history lessons the prime minister recently proposed.("Creative possies for used pollies", The Australian, 31 August, 2006 

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17985957%255E12272,00.html

 He says Mr. Howard, to head off any challenge from Mr. Costello, should follow the example of Sir Robert Menzies when he recommended Richard Casey be appointed Governor- General.

There are three flaws in Mr. Adams proposal.

 First, Casey was not Menzies’ first choice. That was war hero Admiral Sir John Collins, who declined the appointment.

Second, he had been ennobled as  Lord Casey.To have an Australian Prime Minsiter based in the House of Lords, rather than the House of Representatives would be constitutionally possible for a short period, but politically impossible.

 Finally, Casey had been out of politics for five years. So how could he challenge Menzies?

While in politics, Casey was never a serious challenger of Menzies either in the Liberal Party or its predecessor, the UAP. In 1956, he was defeated by Harold Holt in the first ballot for the deputy leadership of the Liberal Party.

Apart from his failings in Australian history, Mr. Adams could heed the call for a return to courtesy proposed by the Chief Justice of New South Wales.His attempt to insult the present Governor-General, Major General Jeffrey, who has served Australia well in peace and in war, was both infantile and ineffective

The Sydney Morning Herald, on its opinion page and in a long editorial on Australia Day, has been relying on the fiction that an overwhelming number of Australians would support a republic upon the succession of Prince Charles. This was based on, or magnified by, an error of columnist Gerard Henderson, who with his wife, heads the Sydney Institute, a conservative think tank. Dr Henderson’s weekly column is syndicated which means his error would have been seen in at least the West Australian.

In addition, The Herald has a freely accessible website, so the error is likely to have been seen by many more people world wide than actually buy the Herald. In addition, Dr Henderson and his wife, who is also deputy chairman of the republican movement, were actively involved in the latest republican campaign, a”mate for a head of state”, so they can hardly be seen as objective commentators.. At long last the Herald finally published a correction and an apology one week after the publication of the original error. This correction featured in Dr Henderson’s column on 31 January, 2006: http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/the-fascists-the-left-would-have-us-believe-in/2006/01/30/1138590440560.html?page=2

. Dr Henderson was advised, by Newspoll, about the error on the very day it was published. I informed the Herald on the same day by a letter to the editor, and over the next few days in two further letters. The last also related to an opinion piece which was again monumentally wrong about an opinion poll-this one being about the flag.

Not one of my letters was published.

The Herald was under no ethical obligation to publish any of them my letters, but according to the Press Council, it was and is obliged to publish corrections of errors both promptly and prominently. But the Herald has certainly been delinquent on the question of promptness. Whether the apology is sufficiently prominent is in the eye of the beholder.

In any event, at the end of Dr Henderson’s column, on an interesting but unrelated subject, the following appears, in italics: “.Postscript: In last week's column I incorrectly reported the Newspoll findings on support for Australia becoming a republic if Prince Charles becomes king. The figures are 52 per cent in favour, 29 per cent against and 19 per cent uncommitted. Apologies.”

The column in which the error occurred was published on Tuesday 24 January, 2006, under the headline:”Sorry, mate, but Her Maj's got that gig”. This may be found at: http://smh.com.au/news/opinion/sorry-mate-but-her-majs-got-that-gig/2006/01/23/1137864866329.html

A central argument in that piece was that the succession of Prince Charles “is one reason the debate about Australia's head of state will not go away.” Dr Henderson reported that a recent Newspoll found that 66 per cent of Australians would support a republic if Prince Charles became King.

“Herein lays the monarchists' long-term problem.” he concluded.

As I said above I remonstrated with the editor that day, and again on the following day when I saw an erroneous report on the Newspoll on a Canadian site.

Apart from automatic replies, on 25 January I received the following email from the Herald:

“Mr. Flint, The error has been noted and will be corrected in the Herald. Sincerely, Jennie Curtin, Letters editor”

So I thought it would be corrected on the following day, Australia Day.

Imagine my surprise when, instead of a correction, the editor wrote an editorial in which he referred to the support for a republic if Prince Charles became King. This was not an ordinary editorial; it was lager than usual, headed” The Australian republic must raise again.” http://smh.com.au/news/editorial/the-australian-republic-must-rise-again/2006/01/25/1138066861483.html

In it the editor said:

“At some point the present barriers to further progress on this issue will be removed. The Prime Minister, John Howard, will retire, to be replaced, in all probability, by one of the growing number of republicans in the Liberal Party. The Queen will either die or abdicate in favour of the Prince of Wales, removing a sentimental barrier in some Australians' minds to a republic. The republican side believes its support increased substantially when the Prince of Wales married Camilla Parker Bowles. That public judgment is undoubtedly cruel and may also be unfair to both those individuals - but that is politics” Republicans must be ready for the time when the barriers fall. “

The fault in this sorry tale is the Herald’s. Dr Henderson’s was a human error, his passion telling him that the wrong column he read was the percentage of Australians who wanted a republic.

This is the danger to media ethics. If  the media is passionately attached to some agenda, the first casualty will often be the truth.

A public figure has to expect greater scrutiny than a private person. As they say, if you don’t like the heat, don’t go into the kitchen.

Mark Latham has never left the kitchen, unlike Cheryl Kernot who went back into it. His book, and his early, generously taxpayer funded early retirement on the grounds of ill health, make him a public figure par excellence. To stop being a public figure, he has to wait until his book and his media interventions recede from the public memory, and until he chooses to come off the public purse.

 Until then, the media is entitled to report on all matters of public interest. As a public figure, he remains entitled to some privacy, but being photographed in a public place is hardly a breach of this.

Writing in The Australian on 5 January, 2005, Scott Davies, a former senior ALP adviser confirms that Mark Latham chose “evergreening” to draw attention away from his party’s unconscionable delay in approving the FTA with the US, and the fact that the party was so divided. Mark Latham admitted this in his diaries.

It was possible to mount an argument against this or indeed any FTA on economic and public benefit grounds, but these were thought too complicated to rise in an election. ( I would not agree with them-but they are arguable)

 What Latham wanted was to knock the gloss off Howard’s signing the FTA with the world’s super power.

Hence the "danger" of evergreening. Davies says an industry representative put it this way:

“.. it's a bit like saying we don't want sharks in Lake Burley Griffin; we will do all we can to protect the public from these sharks and, by the way, what has the Howard Government done to protect you from these sharks and why won't they pass our anti-shark amendments? “

Latham acieved his objective beyond his wildest dreams .The absolutely appalling fact is that most in the media went along with this. I wrote about this in Malice in Media Land in 2005.  This goes to the very state of investigative journalism in Australia today.

 Max Suich argues that while journalists in Australia now have more freedom to determine what goes in to the media than ever before. He says they have “blown” the opportunity to fulfill their primary function after informing the people that is “to persuasively scrutinize the centres of power and build their authority through credibility”

Instead, he says,  they have taken the easier path of “opinion dressed up as fact based comment”.

The fact is that our journalists too often ignore important issues such as electoral fraud. Or they treat important issues as a game rather than doing the hard work necessary to undertake the serious scrutiny that is warranted.

When in August 2004 Mark Latham finally persuaded a highly divided Labor Party to support the FTA with the US, he put two conditions.

One was that local content rules protecting Australian programming, hitherto determined by the ABA, be entrenched in legislation. This was in case the ABA, on a whim, suddenly decided to reduce them-which they could not do any way as the ABA was required to go to public consultation first. That is expressly stated in the Broadcasting Services Act. The only aspect to be so entrenched by legislation was the wholly cosmetic transmission quota, not the crucial drama and other sub quotas. Moreover there was already a fast track process for Parliament to overrule the ABA.

The second condition was ostensibly to protect the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).  So that generic drugs could enter Australia, Mr. Latham insisted that the lodging of a “bodgy “patent application attract enormous fines. Realizing legislation along these lines was never feasible, he later change his target to penalize any vexatious litigation instituted to prevent generic drugs entering Australia. The stated object of this condition was to ensure Australians could still buy cheap drugs on the PBS. But the price of any drug under the PBS is determined by the government.

All of this was clearly a transparent attempt at a distraction to hide and justify the reason for the delay. Apart from the editorial writers in The Australian and The Australian Financial Review, most journalists seemed unable or unwilling to examine the issues, some openly offering the excuse that it was all too complicated.

 Rather they decided and then reported, as news, that Mr. Latham, in defending the PBS, had outwitted the Prime Minister and were ahead in the opinion stakes.

True, but only because they, the journalists had decided to abdicate their function and to treat a serious issue as a sport, one in which they have a clear disdain for John Howard.

Irresponsibly and negligently, the greater part of the media  decided that the easiest way out was to award a victory, on points ,to Mark Latham

It was a relief to read Geoffrey Wheatcroft in The Australian on 12 January 2006 on the new Conservative leader, David Cameron.

Cameron is the sort of politician who thinks the public is concerned about matters which only concern the elites, eg., gender quotas for politicians, "fair and compassionate" trade ( whatever that is), socialised medicine and the distribution of other people’s money.

They need a leader to be a PM of the calibre of Disraeli, Churchill, Thatcher, and Tony Blair, not another Heath.

Some blame must attach to the method of having the whole party membership choose the leader from a short list. That is alright for a small party which has no serious aspirations for government, like the Australian Damocrats. It is no good for the Tories, whose leaders used to"emerge".

True, Ted Heath was not chosen this way. But at least the parliamentary party decided they had enough, and installed Margaret Thatcher in his place.

Before John Howard, and in the states, we too often had no real choice between two tweedledum and tweedledee

leaders of the principal parties, both mouthing the same platitudes about such matters as poverty gaps and , today, obesity, and when in government applying the agenda of the elites, most of which is never raised in elections.

Apparently the Mate for Head of State campaign launch was announced on the ABC’s Radio National at about 7.45AM on Wednesday, 11 January, 2005.

I suppose that Radio National, in the interests of balance, will in future also announce ACM campaigns.

The ABC interviewed two people. One, Ann Henderson, comes from the host organization for the launch, the Sydney Institute. But she also just happens to be the deputy chairman of the diminishing republican movement.

It seems the launch is going to be an intimate affair. Not only will Ms Henderson be there with her alter ego, but her husband, Herald columnist Gerard Henderson, is to be one of the speakers.

The other person the ABC interviewed was the former chairman of the republican movement , and its campaign director for the failed 1999 referendum, Mr.Greg Barns, who remains today a major spokesman and campaigner for republicanism

Mr Barns is implacably opposed to constitutional monarchy here, anywhere and everywhere, including Denmark. He cannot understand why, and is outraged that Australians are at all interested in Princess Mary.

We revealed on 22 December, Mr Barns, recently proclaimed Australia to be no more than “a pigsty, … a backwater, a racist and inward-looking country.”

Now you might wonder what sort of a mate for a head of state Mr Barns expects to find in the pigsty he says Australia is.

In the Cane Toad Republic I mentioned that the first and probably only martyr to the republican cause in Australia seems to have been... a pig!

Anyway the launch is to be at The Museum of Sydney, and there is a story about the museum which I found hard to believe.

This museum is on the very foundations of Governor Phillip's 1788 Government House. This is the site of Australia's first administrative, legal, political and social centre. This is where the authority of Australia’s oldest and most enduring institution, the Crown was based.

So this is,in anyone's terms,the oldest and probably the most important heritage site in the nation.

It is administered by the Historic Houses Trust of NSW, an instrumentality of the NSW government.

After its appointment as manager in late 1988, the Trust secretly changed the direction and name of the museum from the First Government House Museum to the vaguer Museum of Sydney.

Are you beginning to detect the slightest whiff of creeping republicanism in this? You are so right. Just read on.

In 2004, after concluding that the Trust was not at all interested, the Friends of the First Government House Site nominated the site for the National Heritage List. The site's permanent placement on the Heritage List was announced by the Federal Minister, Senator Ian Campbell, on 25 August 2005.

So, soon after being placed on the Heritage List, the site is to be used for a republican launch whose purpose is to abolish the very institution which was first based there!

Now we all now know that the Commissars at the People’s Republic of Bondi/Waverley have forbidden the flying of the Australian Flag over that icon, the Bondi Pavilion.

But if I were to tell you that the Historic House Trust has consistently refused to allow our Australian Flag to fly over the site, I suspect that you would probably find that difficult to believe.

But that, sadly, is the case.

Not only do they not allow it to fly there on ordinary days, they won’t even allow it on, of all days, Australia Day!

Now don’t think this is out of any excessive reverence for the site - it has been used for a rock concert and a book sale. I have nothing against either rock concerts or book sales, but surely, surely, our Flag could be flown, proudly, over this heritage site, and especially when we remember the foundation of the nation.

And don’t think for one moment that other flags haven't been seen there.While the Trust won’t allow our Flag to fly there, the museum, in partnership with Ausflag, actually launched in 1998 an exhibition there , on the site of the First Government House, for… a new flag!

In collusion with this outrage, the whole front page of the Sydney Morning Herald (or should it be the Sydney Republican Herald?) was brimming with a set of the mainly ghastly offerings for a new flag. Fortunately, at least on the Herald, the most appalling flag included in that other republican movement supported exhibition was not there. (This was of course the one which had those words emblazoned on it” F*** OFF BACK TO FAGLAND”)

And by the way, you may be interested to know when the Historic Houses Trust thought it would be appropriate to have this exhibition.

When do you think?

What would be the most inappropriate time of the year? What would be the greatest provocation to rank and file Australians?

Knowing what the elites are trying to do to our country, and their arrogance and disregard for the opinions of the rank and file Australian, it probably won’t surprise you to know it was on…... yes, the Australia Day weekend!

Now the Friends of the First Government House Site, who are not mentioned on the Museum's website, are campaigning to have the Museum fly the flag on Australia Day.

If the museum can be used for republican launches and flag change exhibitions, why can't they fly the Australian flag?

Let's hope the Friends are successful in this.The Trust's attitude is even worse than that of Waverley Council

The former NSW attorney general, and former Supreme Court judge, Jeff Shaw, has joined those few federal politicians left campaigning for a republic.

The trouble is, his opinion column, “Finetuning a republic”, in the Sydney Morning Herald on 31 December, 2005, to the extent that it relies on the Morgan Poll, is highly misleading.

It is surprising that the editor allowed such a misleading statement to be published.

So I sent the following  letter to the Herald:

Sir,

Misleading reference to Morgan Poll by Jeff Shaw

 Jeff Shaw (opinion: 31/12) claims a Morgan Poll finds (31/12) that support for a republic has risen to 61%.

Not exactly, Mr Shaw, not exactly.

In response to the question,”… should Australia remain a monarchy — or become a republic with an elected President?”, 51% of an Australia wide sample of 622 preferred a model which some republicans now think is their trump card, but which is anathema to conservative republicans .

The really interesting point was that of those under 18, support for this republic fell to 37%, surely a time bomb for republicans.

Respondents were then asked “If Prince Charles were to be crowned King, in your opinion, should Australia remain a monarchy - or become a republic with an elected President?"

Remember this was at a time when the media were continuing their campaign denigrating Prince Charles prior to his marriage.

(Indeed the media has been so biased on this issue that it is highly unlikely this letter will be published.)

It was in this context that 61% of respondents said yes to a republic, a fact which Mr Shaw should have mentioned.

In such an opinion poll, which has an inbuilt margin of error, respondents have not seen the exact changes proposed to the Constitution, nor have they heard the debate which the founders intended before change is made.

In the Morgan Poll of November 1999, 54% said Yes to a republic. In the referendum, more than that said No.

Yours, etc

……….

There is increasing excitement among the somewhat depleted ranks of republicans about two stunts they have scheduled for next year.

The one planned for March is to mix politics with sport at the Commonwealth Games. That will endear them to the average Aussie- I don't think!

Journalist Peter FitzSimons has been hinting at the other stunt for some time. He and a band of republicans have been furiously working on this for months at a secret location in Sydney's legal precinct, Phillip Street.

Their campaign can now be revealed. The Sunday before Australia Day, Sunday 22 January 2006, is to be..... “A Mate for Head of State Day!”

That’s it. “A Mate for Head of State Day.”

What a winner! That will persuade vast numbers of Australians to throw out their Constitution and to change the Australian flag.

But wait. That’s not all. There's something more.

The pièce de résistance has required a lot of careful thought. Top republican lawyers have been working on this. Before I tell you, you should sit down, just in case you swoon when you read about it... This will leave you really breathlesss.

Believe it or not, at these events for a Mate for Head of State, republicans will wear.... gold ribbons!

Don’t get too excited. Yes! They will all wear gold ribbons.

Just imagine, dozens of republicans wearing gold ribbons. Will there be as many as the first in a series of demonstrations against The Queen the ARM's Professor Warhurst called for her first visit since the referendum? There were more reporters there than demonstrators. They had to call the other demonstrations off.

Then there was the heavily advertised spectacular to be addressed by a cast of republican celebrities on a Friday lunchtime in the geographic heart of Sydney just before the referendum. The only people who turned up were the celebrities and the reporters-and of course that embarassment was not reported or shown on the news.

Perhaps they could revive the song popular in the fifties or sixties:” Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree!”

While they are free to cover themselves in as many ribbons of as many colours as they wish , they shouldn’t expect the taxpayer to foot the bill, as they have repeatedly for the last ten years. The then Lord Mayor Sartor even had the ratepayers of the City of Sydney pay for advertising around the city for the referendum Yes case!

Whether the media will take any notice  we do not know. But  you can be sure of one thing – a handful of republican activists bedecked in yellow ribbons will be no “barbecue stopper.”

Just as Mr Peter FitzSimons and the republican movement are about to pin on their gold ribbons and launch the “My little mate for Head of State” campaign, one of the nation’s most prominent republicans has dropped a bombshell.

The national campaign director for the 1999 referendum and the successor to Malcolm Turnbull as supremo, Greg Barns, has pulled no punches.

And it is not as if he is no longer a spokesman for republicanism. He uses his column for this, speaks publicly on the issue, and makes media appearances. His status as an accredited republican grandee has never been publicly questioned by the republican movement. Back in 1999, Mr Barns had been a particularly aggressive and at times unrealistic campaign director. I remember when he and Malcolm Turnbull tried to have two words deleted from the referendum question. Believe it or not, these were “president” and “republic”! Even the republican media wouldn’t swallow that.

When the results were coming in showing a landslide defeat, he actually wanted Malcolm Turnbull to claim victory! Sensing that this wouldn’t go down well, Mr Turnbull declined, but did make the claim that if John Howard were to be remembered for anything, it would be as the “man who broke the heart of the nation”

In the tradition of those newspaper letter writers who begin with that whinge: “I am ashamed to be an Australian, Mr Barns bitterly declared Australia to be “pigsty”, “...a nation which periodically makes world headlines for its racist outbursts…”

This was in his column in The Mercury on 19 December, 2005, republished in On Line Opinion, Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate.

He believes that Australia is “… a backwater, a racist and inward-looking country that turns its back on adventure and the opportunity to do better; a country that has rejected leaders who provide the chance for a multiracial, multicultural and independent nation to prosper in the region where it is, Asia-Pacific”.

He accuses Prime Minister John Howard of being partly to blame for the violence in Sydney and for the “persecution of Muslims and Arab Australians in the community”.

For 20 years Australia looked to Mr Barns as though it might move from its Anglo-European racist conservatism towards becoming truly cosmopolitan and modern. He claimed that Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating all believed in an Australia that was different from the one in which they had grown up.

Paul Keating, he wrote, promised an “exciting” Australia which finally rid itself of the British monarchy. But the electorate, though - selfish and materialist, if not racist - felt scared and voted him out, replacing him with the” most conservative” Prime Minister this country has ever had. They replaced the positive confidence of Keating with the” cringing, reactive conservatism” of Howard.

This didn’t, incidentally, stop Mr Barns from working for Mr John Fahey, a minister in the Howard government.

According to Mr Barns, John Howard’s conservatism dismantled the policy of multiculturalism, and refused to let Australia grow up. He said this conservatism “forelock tugs” before The Queen and a monarchy that is “rancid and corrupt”, a phrase Mr Barns has used before, and not only about our monarchy. He was most unimpressed by Australian’s interest in Princess Mary.

Forgetting that Canada is a constitutional monarchy with a miniscule republican movement, he asks:” Why can't Australia be more like Canada?”

Anticipating the inevitable question why doesn’t he leave, he says that to cut and run is cowardly

We are indebted to know what the republican leader thinks of his country. To what extent is this shared by the rest of them?

.

The polls on multiculturalism have limited utility.

Using a word which has a multiplicity of meanings makes the exercise pointless.

And the issue in Sydney, as Miranda Devine demonstrates in the Sydney Morning Herald of 22 December, 2005, is not race.

It is the abject failure of the state government to fulfil its basic function – the provision of law and order. While they came down hard on drunken vigilantes, and that infinitesimal minority, white supremacists, they typically gave that convoy of vicious and dangerous criminals the freedom of the city, to sail through red lights and to bash, vandalise and terrorise peaceful, law abiding citizens.

Multiculturalism was introduced by US academics when the only remnant of diversity was in the cuisine, and then often limited to one plate. In Australia it has been used by delinquent politicians to pervert immigration criteria to provide electoral fodder, and then to give criminal ethnic gangs carte blanche to build what is now the principal source of major crime in this nation.

The 'shock jocks' are in tune with the silent majority

December 15, 2005 : FROM THE AUSTRALIAN

David Flint* 

AMONG the reactions to last Sunday on Cronulla beach, one was entirely predictable: blame the principal messenger. Lebanese Muslim Association president Ahmad Kamaleddine spoke for many critics when he argued that the riots had "been motivated by people on talkback radio".

Talkback has indeed come of age. It is now conceded to be, albeit grudgingly on the part of mainstream media, a significant source of news and opinion. But to declare it to be an accessory to the commission of serious breaches of the law attributes to it not only gross impropriety and possibly criminal behaviour, but also unbelievable power and influence over an allegedly gullible audience.

Talkback began to emerge as a force at precisely the same time as much of the mainstream "serious" media had found a vocation other than objective news reporting. Journalists were in the process of emerging from being largely unknown and working in a trade under close editorial supervision.

Now enjoying their new-found celebrity status, they began to offer their personal views not only on, but inextricably mixed with, the news. (Note, for instance, how many times news reporters will describe an organisation or person as "right wing" if they are conservative but insert no qualifier if they are of the Left.)

Soon, these journalists would be interpreting the events of the day according to a preconceived and generally left-wing agenda. As the doyen of Fairfax and ABC journalists David Marr argues, if a journalist does not come from a "softie Left culture", they should "get another job". This is not an isolated view. Since dispensing with the services of Gerard Henderson last June, The Age in Melbourne no longer publishes a conservative columnist on its opinion page.

In the past 10 years, the ascent of John Howard has given a new impetus and authority to talkback.

He chose not to have his words mediated and interpreted by a hostile media. Instead, through talkback radio and also breakfast television, he speaks directly to the people more often and more effectively than any other leader. Talkback was now not only reporting and commenting on the news, it was the news.

Meanwhile, the move of much of the mainstream media to left-wing campaign journalism meant that many Australians moved to talkback radio, where opinions, often robust, are largely unfiltered and where the Left's agenda could be openly challenged.

This is what so upsets the David Marrs of the media. The elites believe that once part of their agenda is in place, it should not be reversed, and that criticism is out of bounds for any reasonable person. But while they can filter their letters columns, they just cannot control talkback.

Now among the favoured policies of the elites is the doctrine of multiculturalism. A Humpty Dumpty word, multiculturalism means whatever the user chooses it to mean, neither more nor less. If it is used in the sense requiring tolerance - and treating all Australians of whatever colour, religion or ethnic background in identical ways - then it is superfluous. Australians had already achieved that with the waves of migration after World WarII and well before they had ever heard that word, multiculturalism.

If it is used to mean that people should be classified and then advantaged or disadvantaged according to some ethnic tag, or that the essential principles and values of our Australian culture must give way, this is unacceptable to most Australians.

Australians have never agreed to this and they never would. The problem is, they have never been asked. No wonder they recorded their vehement opposition to the doctrine on one of the few places where this was tolerated: talkback radio.

When it comes to the events in Cronulla, the reality is that rank-and-file Australians have been long concerned about the problem they could see emerging, but which their state political elites refused to acknowledge. They have been raising this issue on talkback for years. They had strongly supported the Howard Government's firm policy of border control and the return to an immigration policy based on need and assimilability. But the problem was that in NSW, the state Labor Government had abdicated its responsibilities.

Cronulla was a response whose violence must be deprecated, and was deprecated, on talkback; it was never planned, called for or condoned. But it was a response that followed the failure of NSW governments for many years to perform their most basic function: the proper provision of law and order.

This resulted from a pincer movement. On one side, there was the progressive neutering of the police, which reached its zenith just as the most violent ethnic gangs emerged. On the other side of the pincer, the criminal justice system began to demonstrate an extraordinary bias towards the accused. The resulting and often unnecessary technicalities have made it difficult to obtain and confirm a conviction, or to impose adequate punishment.

The result were increasing no-go areas across Sydney, where the criminals and the drug dealers reigned supreme. The state Government even threw in its own heroin injecting rooms. All of this was reported, discussed and almost universally condemned on talkback for years. NSW governments took little notice, apart from the ritual of an appropriate expression of indignation by the premier or some minister at a press conference timed for the evening news bulletins.

After Redfern last year and Macquarie Fields earlier this year, there was widespread indignation on talkback. The bashing of the lifesavers was the last straw. In the vacuum of law and order that Bob Carr had bequeathed to the state, the youngbloods revolted and chose the only course that seemed to be left to them: the path of the vigilante.

As the rank and file know, this will not do. Innocent victims will suffer, and law and order is the function of the state, not the vigilante. Only a policy of zero tolerance by an empowered police force and by the courts will bring the gangs to reason, and that requires not more spin, but true leadership.

*David Flint, a former chairman of the Australian Press Council and the Australian Broadcasting Authority, is author of Twilight of the Elites and Malice in Media Land (both Freedom Publishing).

The trial of David Hicks by US military commission should satisfy not only the Australian and US governments, but also their critics -  which may come as a surprise to them.  Hicks should be able to test the legality of any term of imprisonment in an Australian court. Rather than seeking its delay, and even attempting to take British nationality, Hicks and his supporters should be anxious for the trial to take place.

Everyone  agrees that  the trial must be fair in that the tribunal must be  independent, that he be presumed innocent and the prosecution must prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.

 Hicks’ contention is that this cannot be realised by a US military commission. He says  the trial must be held under the criminal justice system if not of Australia, at least that of the US.

It is ironical, then,  that public confidence in the criminal justice system and its ability to ensure a fair trial, at least in Australia,  is at an all-time low

To a broad section of the public, the criminal justice system appears to be have changed, and changed inexplicably and excessively in favour of the accused  in recent decades. In their view, the result has been a serious decline in the quality of life in our cities, and a crisis in confidence in the ability of the state to perform what remains its fundamental duty - the provision of law and order.

If this is the way Australia and the US are now to run their criminal justice systems, it is surely no way to run a war, or the military trials which result from war.

Tat is why it is unlikely that the rank and file Australians, in contrast to our media, the political and  legal establishment and other elites see the need for Hicks to be tried in either an Australian or US criminal court to ensure he receives a fair trial

In fact, those calling for Hicks to be tried before a US civil court are either ignorant of American law, or they know that any such trial would be a pointless embarrassment.

Whatever we think of the changes wrought by the elites over the last few decades  on our criminal justice system, it is fortunate that a military commission will not have to operate this way. In fact, changes announced at the end of August 2005 will modify the process so that it more resembles a civil court, without the disadvantages.

Australians at large, the elites excepted ,sense that trial by a US military commission is not necessarily unfair. For example, they won’t complain if Hicks testimony on interrogation is not disallowed because some warning mantra was not administered first , or this or other evidence is automatically disallowed from any consideration merely because of some technical exclusionary rule.

Being made up of serving  officers, guided by a code of honour and endowed with good sense, the  military commission is also  less likely to be concerned with the argument invariably  advanced that the accused  himself was a victim, and that he was not fully responsible for his acts.

 They will hear and properly weigh evidence that might be technically inadmissible in an Australian criminal court- just as judges in France and Indonesia do. This is after all military justice, the sort of justice we dispensed after the Second World War.

 If the trial proceeds after the latest appeal to the US Supreme Court, the presumption of innocence and the need for proof beyond reasonable doubt will still prevail. Hicks will be legally represented, thanks to the US and Australian taxpayers. Any decision will not be final.

But there is another opportunity for review, and that is before an Australian court. This arises from the agreement between the US and Australian governments that if a custodial sentence is imposed, Hicks may serve this in Australia. Neither Parliament nor the government could exclude the jurisdiction of an Australian court at least to hear an application that his imprisonment is unlawful. There is of course no guarantee that an Australian court would find this way, but at least Hicks could challenge this 

In the meantime, surely it is wrong, indeed insulting, to assume that a military trial by officers from the very army we relied on to help save our country in the Second World War, and to keep it free must necessarily be unfair.

We should wait until his trial is concluded. If Hicks is found guilty and transferred to Australia, he is still not without recourse to the courts-at that time the Australian courts.

( This is an edited version of ‘Why David hicks Will Get a Fair Trial, Quadrant, December,2005, No.422,Volume XLIX, Number 12, pages 42-44)

The latest Morgan poll demonstrates Australians are overwhelmingly in favour of the death penalty, even if they have not been told the truth about the impact of international law on this.

Their approval is only when they are asked about the worst of crimes, such as the terrorist bombing of civilians or mass murder by a tyrant. But like Pilate, it seems some Australians are more comfortable with the death penalty in such cases, provided they are not responsible for pulling the lever, that is, when the execution is offshore.

 The same poll shows that only 25% of Australians are now in favour of the death penalty being re-imposed for murder. A majority, 56%, are even against mandatory life sentences for murder.

This may seem a final victory for the abolitionist cause, at least in Australia. But abolition was introduced against the very clear wishes of the people, and public preference for the death penalty returns whenever there is a particularly gruesome murder, for example that of Anita Cobby.

What the poll does show is that only a minority, around 20%, are likely to be against the death penalty in all circumstances, just as some people are totally opposed to war. The rest approve of the death penalty in principle.

During the weeks leading up to the Van Nguyen execution, the media indicated its strong disapproval, with one conservative talk back presenter even referring, regularly, to “judicial murder”. The claim was repeatedly made by lawyers, politicians and activists that either the death penalty itself, or at least the imposition of a mandatory death penalty, is a violation of international law. This was widely reported in the media, and little challenged. It must have had some considerable effect on public opinion.

 However, neither legal argument is true. There is a treaty, (the “Second Protocol”) signed or ratified by 50 states which have agreed among themselves to abolish the death penalty. But even then, the treaty itself allows a state, on ratification, to make a reservation allowing it to use the death penalty “for a most serious crime of a military nature committed during wartime.” This treaty binds the fifty states, but no one else. The treaty provisions could not be said to have become part of customary international law, and thus binding on the over one hundred states which have not ratified it . To apply to them, it would have to be established that there is, as international lawyers say, an "opinio juris". That is, that an overwhelming number of states are not applying capital punishment because they believe international law requires this. There is obviously no such opinion juris. How could there be when so many countries still employ the death penalty? The arguments are about what the proponents want international law to be, not what it currently is.

Singapore did not breach international law in executing Van Nguyen, however much most Australians would hesitate to suggest that Australian law should allow the execution of so called "mules".

In the meantime, the views of Australians on the death penalty will continue to fluctuate wildly depending on the circumstances. The conclusion must be that Australians overwhelmingly approve the death penalty in principle, reserving it for the most serious cases. We cannot say they disapprove of mandatory sentencing - it is likely they would want this for terrorist bombers.

And in the event of a general war, or the outbreak of a terrorist campaign in Australia, there would be a clamour for the reintroduction of the death penalty. If only to maintain morale in the fighting forces, who would understandably wonder why they should risk their lives while traitors and terrorists lived, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to avoid its restoration, at least for the duration.

 The debate about capital punishment is not closed, even in Australia. 

The ethnic violence at Cronulla, and other places, is a result of three policies, all against the national interest.

The first was bringing in migrants as electoral fodder, and not for need. Because of the resulting welfare and health costs, this imposed unfair burdens on all other Australians. Worse, it has been a disaster to our national cohesion; happily, the Howard government has ditched this policy.

The second was the progressive neutering of the police which reached its zenith just as the most violent ethnic gangs emerged.

 The third was the increasing bias of the criminal justice system towards the accused. The resulting, and often unnecessary technicalities have made it difficult to obtain and confirm a conviction, and even then, to impose adequate punishment.

These policies are part of the left agenda of our political, legal and media elites. Not only were they never approved by the people, they were adopted with little discussion and almost no public debate. At times this was by cross party agreement, especially at the state level.

 Fortunately, some of our leaders are now rejecting any such collusion  when it is so clearly against the public interest.

Rather than government by spin, which we have know for far too long, we need state governments as good as, say, Rudolph Giuliani’s administration which returned law and order to the city of New York.

I remember saying to an acquaintance at a function –it was a birthday dinner for the then Liberal grandee, Peter Cavanagh, held soon after John Howard became Prime Minister - that Howard would be one of our greatest leaders. My acquaintance, and those within earshot, looked at me in disbelief.

 So I explained that not only was John Howard guided by sound principles, the sort of principles which Edmund Burke espoused so cogently,  he had the ability, the political skills and the  experience to see them through.

So I am no campaigner, and have never been,  for the early accession of Peter Costello, or indeed anyone else.

That said, Peter Costello is being accused of an offence of which he is in now way guilty. It is always easy to speak with the benefit of hindsight, but no one knew of the smoking gun in the files of the Federal Court. Certainly no one in the media, the opposition or indeed the cabinet who appointed Gerard.

The mainline media have used this campaign against both Costello and Howard, and to excite a rift between them.

The real story remains, who guided the Financial Review to this obscure almost inaccessible document which , technically is on the public record and which contains the details of the tax commissioner’s case against one of Robert Gerard’s companies?

I was delighted to read Anthony McClellan, who has succeeded  Graham Morris as The Australian’s expert media columnist in The Australian ‘s Media section on 8 December, 2005.

In his column ‘Beyond Spin’, and under the headline’ Gerard: The Real Story’ he wrote that:

 “David Flint…has raised publicly what much of the media is pondering but not saying-

the fascinating point: just how did this story come about? In Flint’s words, that is the real story. And he may be right”

He says this story just didn’t happen. Somebody wanted it in the public domain. He believes the Financial Review journalist was tipped off.

“ It’s unlikely he was just browsing the Federal Court records…Someone trusted him to put it together. So, as Flint would ask, whodunit?”

Peter Costello first blamed the tax office. But Anthony McClellan says “There are several deep throat suspects , including members of Costello’s party”

Now the Fin will claim they can’t answer this question. Ethical reasons, you know. Not so. The code does provide  protection for an anonymous source. But the purpose of this is so that the sources can  provide confidential information  not otherwise available, even for malevolent reasons. Its not there to protect someone who does the journalist’s work in pointing them towards material which is hardly confidential-it was on the public record.

Any diligent journalist- there are hundreds on a typical “serious” newspaper, and heaven knows how many at the ABC – could have done this. The case was, after all reported.

Max Suich made the point sometime ago that journalists have never been as free from editorial or managerial control as they are today. Instead of subjecting centres of power to real scrutiny-for example actually doing the hard yards of actually following the clues and  looking through the public records - they spend far too much of their time  pontificating on what has happened , what will happen and what ought to happen.

Perhaps that is why they are avoiding the real story. Accusing Peter Costello of not looking into the case covers up their own embarassment in not doing their job.

So the question remains-who did it and why.

The Robert Gerard appointment was no scandal.

The practice is that the relevant minister discusses any relevant appointment with the prime minister. If there is no objection, the matter goes to cabinet.

And it’s for the appointee to certify that he or she is not aware of anything which could financially embarrass the Commonwealth. Not the other way around. Gerard was aware of the details of his company’s litigation with the tax office. He obtained a clearance from the commissioner. The commissioner obviously did not think the company’s tax dispute tainted Gerard personally. And Gerard seemed a very good appointment-not another New South Welshman or Victorian, and a successful entrepreneur.

His Liberal party connections were no barrier, but equally not the criterion for, or condition of  appointment. It just did not go against him.

Party connections are not as relevant as some in the media believe. When I was appointed in1997, no one asked me what party I belonged to. The answer would have been that I was a lapsed member of the ALP –and that I had been an ALP branch president, and occasionally a Labor Council delegate.  

In relation to Robert Gerard, nobody was aware of that time bomb in the court files, and technically on the public record. Nobody, except the tax commissioner-and he didn’t see this as affecting Gerard’s personal tax affairs. He was obviously not going to try to lift the corporate veil, as he can in certain cases. The cabinet was unaware of the time bomb - but so were the opposition and the whole investigative media who are now screaming scandal.

And no investigation by the media- or the opposition unearthed this.

Someone steered the Fin in the direction of that time bomb. Who and why?

 “ It’s a day with nothing in the media” said Alex Mc Taggart on the ABC 702 AM Sunday Brunch on 4 December, 2005 from 11.30AM to noon.

Alex  McTaggart was elected independent MLA  for the previously safe Liberal seat of Pittwater on the  weekend of 26/27 November, 2005.

The ABC presenter, Simon Marnie  described how he was arriving  at the McTaggart home on Sunday 4 December, knocking on the door and wondering whether Mr McTaggart had been surfing.

While both he and Mr. McTaggart insisted often that they were having brunch on Sunday, they were strangely   unaware of the fact that the Sun Herald had a front page exclusive that morning  about Mr McTaggart under the headline “NEW MP IS LANDLORD OF’DRUG HOUSE’” and “POLICE TARGET McTAGGART  PROPERTY” . The story by Eamon Duff and John Kidman with pictures went over  pages 4, with a comment by Alex Mitchell on page 5.

The programme ended  at noon, so that the presenter could get back to the ABC.

Perhaps neither Mr McTaggart nor the ABC had read the papers.

Or was the programme taped in advance?

And after all, why burden  the ABC listener with facts?

Liberal republican MP’s are no doubt embarrassed that on the inauguration of a new group of Labor Liberal and Democrat republican politicians, one of the co-convenors attacked the Prime Minister, John Howard.

Senator Stott Despoja told the ABC, one of the few media outlets to bother to report the event, that “one of the hurdles” to achieving a republic is “the current leader, that is, our Prime Minister”

Among the handful of Liberal politicians present was Malcolm Turnbull, who, when the results of the 1999 referendum were still coming in , said that if John Howard were to be remembered for anything, it would be as the man who “broke the heart of the nation”

Mr Turnbull was not one of the co-convenors, who have apparently been working on the project for months. While he did not think anything could be achieved during the present reign, Mr turnbull had previously wished the group well.

When the ABC’s Alexandra Kirk pointed out that the latest poll put public support for an Australian head of state at below 50 per cent, which raised the issue whether people really cared about a republic, Liberal co-convenor Senator Mitch Fifield said that one of the purposes of the forum is so that “politicians can actually lead the debate." He said politicians are in “the persuasion business.” Asked when action on achieving a republic would occur, Senator Fifield said:

“Well, 10 years, we're approaching 10 years since the last referendum, '99, 2009's not that far away. So I think some point beyond there is likely.”

Senator Stott Despoja is apparently not so patient. She said: “10 years is a long time. I don't know if I want to wait that long...”

Although the three politicians have been working on the project for months, they have clearly made no headway on two fundamental issues. The first is the form of a republic, and the second is process.

Senator Stott Despoja endorses the ARM policy which is to pretend that the convoluted and expensive process of the cascading series of plebiscites and referenda is not designed to favour the model in which the president is directly elected. But this was openly endorsed by the Labor leaders, Mark Latham and Kim Beazley.

Senator Stott Despoja was willing to talk about process, which is ARM policy. She said that it would be “possible for a plebiscite to be put at the next election.”

While this is the policy of this Democrat-Labor alliance, which seems to get its marching orders from the much diminished and unelected Australian Republican Movement, this is not the policy neither of the Liberals nor of the Nationals. (The Nationals are completely opposed to any republic.)

The outstanding question is whether Senator Fifield, whose views on this were not reported , is now at odds with his party's leadership on this.

Senator Fifield should tell the voters now whether he endorses the cascading series of plebiscites and referenda, or whether he is accepts government policy, which is that this issue was determined in 1999, and should not now be revisited.

(We wrote about these issues in our letter to The Age, which was included in yesterday’s column)

The three co-convenors did however agree on one matter. They all found a curious solace in the fact that the political class favours a republic.

Senator Stott Despoja reflected this view when she said that surveys of political candidates’ views “say around three quarters of political candidates and politicians support an Australian head of state”

Actually they don’t.

A 2004 study by ANU shows that 73.5% of candidates from all parties described themselves as favouring an Australian republic, which is an entirely different matter. We already have an Australian Head of State, a point conclusively established in the only authoritative work on the subject, Sir David Smith’s book, Head of State, recently launched by the former Governor General and Labor leader, the Hon. Bill Hayden.

Senator Stott Despoja said the views of the political class are “pretty good figures to be working with”

In fact these figures demonstrate just how out- of- touch many candidates for political office are these days. I referred to this phenomenon in my 2005 book, Malice in Media Land, where I concluded that candidates for political office today are “more likely to adopt the views of the elites than their own supporters”

Last year, 2004, a Senate committee spent a vast amount of time and money – not theirs, yours- in producing a report on their inquiry into how to force a republic on to a reluctant electorate. The report was such a travesty it was released at a time when no one would notice.

This was partially because of the irreconcilable differences among the committee, involving the extraordinary spectacle of a Senator, who is also an ARM leader, actually dissenting from the ARM’s policy.

People are entitled to argue for a republic. But can anyone possibly justify one more cent of the taxpayers’ hard earned money being spent on this folly?

The real story about the Gerard affair is surely not that Mr Robert Gerard was appointed to the Reserve Bank board when one of his companies was in dispute with the taxation commissioner over the use of a tax haven.

However much this excited the Gallery, this is certainly not a “barbecue stopper” out there in mainstream Australia.

The real story is obviously how it came into the hands of the Australian Financial Review.

In response to the protest that a person’s tax affairs should remain private, or that  Mr Costello could not have known of them, it was pointed out that the salient facts were already on the public record at the Federal Court.

So why did the Financial Review sit on this for years, only revealing them last week?  Had a diligent Opposition found this out and  handed their file to the Review? No, they would have understandably wanted all the credit. They would have raised it first in Parliament.

Nor can the Financial Review say that some noble person, acting in the public interest, had handed them some otherwise confidential material, and that the journalists’ code required that person’s name remain secret. Instead, someone contacted the Review and drew their attention to this material. They may have even given them a copy to save them the trouble. They were not a confidential source.

 Nor was this done  in the public interest but to inflict the maximum damage. On whom?  Not on Mr Gerard-he was to suffer, as they say, collateral damage. The target was the Treasurer,  although the Cabinet also suffered some  marginal collateral damage.

Now with significant appointments under this government, the relevant minister advises the Prime Minister of his choice, and if the Prime Minister raises no objection, the nomination goes to the Cabinet.

The obligation is squarely  on the appointee to certify that nothing of a financial nature in his or her background that could be embarrassing to the government. In this case, Robert Gerrard appeared to be an admirable appointment.

He was not from the over represented Sydney- Melbourne- Canberra triangle, he was a successful entrepreneur and large employer in his state. His Liberal connections did not go against him, but would have hardly determined the choice. The income tax commissioner confirmed there was nothing in his personal tax affairs that caused him concern. The commissioner lacked the   willingness   to  rip away and totally ignore  the veil of incorporation  the indignant editorial writers would later demonstrate when they thought they finally had the stick they needed to beat a government perceived to be getting away with far too much with their Senate majority.

 But given the prime minister’s clear but probably peripheral involvement in the appointment , it is as infantile to blame his office for tipping off the Fin  as it was   for the desperate  President  Mitterrand to blame the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior on MI6.

No one  will believe this information  fell off the back of a truck, or that someone came across it while browsing.

The Financial review has to come clean.

So who did the Fin’s dirty work? Who pointed them in the direction of this document on the public record? Certainly not a journalist, nor a member of the opposition or the crossbench, nor the cabinet.

Who, and why?

 That is the real story.