Howard must go!
By February 22, it appeared that former defence minister Peter Reith had finally decided to hang on to the hot potato of blame in the children overboard scandal.Admitting that he knew the federal Coalition government had told untruths to the media, Reith went out of his way to clarify that he had not passed on information regarding the affair to Prime Minister John Howard.
The scenario, as the government is now telling it, is: On October 7, the government told the media that asylum seekers had thrown children into the water in an attempt to force Australian sailors to rescue them and bring them to Australia.
This was on the basis of verbal advice from the HMAS Adelaide, confirmed by the Office of National Assessments. The ONA prepared its advice on the sole basis of government press releases and media reports based on these press releases (i.e., it told the government that its claims were true because the government had said they were!).
On October 10, Reith released pictures of children in the water to the media. These pictures had been supplied to his office along with other pictures that made it clear that they were taken when the boat was sinking.
That same day, the captain of the HMAS Adelaide took 16 statutory declarations from his crew. Nobody reported seeing children thrown overboard. The captain told an internal defence force inquiry he did not go public because: I was directed not to.
(Also on October 10, a telegraph from the HMAS Adelaide confirmed that reports of children being thrown overboard were false. This telegraph was monitored by the Defence Signals Directorate. The DSD did nothing with the information.)
On October 11, Reith's office was informed that the photographs were taken while the asylum seekers' boat was sinking on October 8. Reith, claims he was not informed of this. He claims he was first informed in November that there was no evidence for the children overboard claim.
By this time, John Howard's three chief advisers Max Moore-Winton, Miles Jordana and Jane Halton were definitely aware that the children were not thrown overboard.
Despite this, on November 8, Reith released a inconclusive video of the incident and Howard publicly read out the ONA report at the National Press Club. Two days later, the federal election occurred.
The argument that Howard is now making is that the lie is not his fault, because, despite being prime minister, despite his defence minister being aware, and his key advisers also being aware, that it was a lie, nobody told him. Can't be blamed for that, can he?
It is a moot point whether Howard did know, or whether he simply surrounded himself, and his ministers, with people not willing to bring him bad news. Howard was the head of a government that lied to an electorate in the middle of an election campaign.
Two reasons compel his resignation, and the resignation of the entire government.
First, the Coalition government has betrayed its electors. Whether the lie was enough to swing the election is not the key point deception should have no place in an election campaign. (The fact that it routinely does is all the more reason to aggressively punish those who are caught out.) A prime minister who tolerates deception in his staff is as culpable as a prime minister who practices it himself.
Second, and most importantly, Howard, Reith and immigration minister Philip Ruddock have viciously defamed people who are fleeing persecution. The defamed asylum seekers are unlikely to bring a legal case. Many asylum seekers view it as (literally) suicidal to do anything to antagonise a government that has the power to deport them back to where they came from. Even those refugees processed and released from detention are on temporary protection visas, lacking the same legal protections available to all other residents.
Howard used the February 16 Daily Telegraph to apologise to anyone who feels they were misled. He has not apologised to the asylum seekers he accused of attempted murder, nor the thousands of other refugees who have to live with the impact of his government's demonisation of them.
The vilification of asylum seekers should not be rewarded Howard and the Coalition government must go.
From Green Left Weekly, February 27, 2002.
Visit the Green Left Weekly
home page.