Belgium-style Attack Could happen in Australia The New Daily 23 March 2016

http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2016/03/23/belgium-style-attack-happen-australia-experts/

Belgium-style attack ‘could happen in Australia’


Mar 23, 2016
JOHN STAPLETON

15


Security at Australian airports is flawed, dysfunctional and uncoordinated.


Airports are 'soft targets' for terrorists, warn experts. Photo: AP


Anti-terrorism measures at Australian airports may not be enough to stop a Brussels-style attack happening here, experts including a former head of Qantas security have warned.

Following a plea from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, border force personnel have cancelled planned strikes over Easter, including a 24-hour stoppage planned for Thursday at all major airports.

Following the Belgian attack, Australian Federal Police also announced heightened security measures and patrols at major international airports.

Airports around the world are on high alert following the attacks in Belgium, which have claimed 31 lives with almost 200 injured.

• Brussels suicide bombers were ‘known to police’
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London, Paris, New York and Frankfurt have all stepped up the number of police patrols around their airports.


A Belgian Army soldier patrols at Zaventem Airport in Brussels.Photo: AP

The Brussels attacks occurred on what aviation experts call the “land side” of airports – the public areas where travellers can check in before passing through immigration and security checks.

The suicide bombers in Belgium – named on Wednesday as brothers Khalid and Ibrahim El Bakraoui – passed through no security checks.

Roger Henning, a security expert with Homeland Security Asia/Pacific, told The New Daily there were “chilling” similarities between Sydney and Brussels airports.

“The attacks could be duplicated here,” he said. “Both Brussels and Sydney airports have underground access to their terminals, both have unfettered access to their check-in areas and no one working at major airports in Australia is trained to handle a response if it does occur.”

Mr Henning said the only safe airport in Australia was Avalon Airport in Victoria, which had instituted security procedures compliant with UN protocols.

“The rest are wide open,” he said.
Security needs to be tightened

Mr Henning launched a scathing attack on successive prime ministers for government failure to implement a string of recommendations by security experts.


Security in Australia needs to be beefed up, experts say. Photo: AAP

He said few of the recommendations of the 2005 Wheeler Report had been put in place.

That report found security at Australia’s airports was seriously flawed, dysfunctional and uncoordinated, with no one taking control of policing and agencies failing to share information.

Geoff Askew, who was head of Qantas security for 20 years, told The New Daily a Brussels-style attack could happen in Australia.

“It would be naive [to say] it couldn’t happen here,” said Mr Askew.

He called for a government agency to be made responsible for all screening at airports, rather than the present situation where the responsibility fell to airlines and airports. This would allow proper training and standardised procedures.
‘Terrorists are going after soft targets’

When asked if a terrorist attack like that in Belgium could occur in Australia, John Kendall, the director of Border Security Solutions for technology company Unisys, told The New Daily: “Of course it could. Terrorists are going after soft targets and anywhere where you have a lot of people gathered is a soft target.”

Mr Kendall said airports were difficult to secure on their so-called ‘land side’, but in terms of impact offered opportunities beyond comprehension.


Candles and flowers on Place de la Bourse, a square in central Brussels. Photo: AP

Neil Fergus, chief executive of Intelligent Risks and a consultant to the government on security, said that nothing beat human intelligence.

“There are no guarantees in relation to the security of mass transit nodes and areas of mass assembly if and when a determined asymmetrical terrorist element has capability and intent to attack those types of targets,” he told The New Daily. “Therefore proactive intelligence collection and risks assessment are key elements in the security architecture.”

Transport Workers Union Secretary Tony Sheldon toldThe New Daily security at the nation’s airports was a massive problem, with a deadly combination of poor training, high staff turnover and lack of experience.

“We have long been concerned about the impact of a high turnover of a mainly casual and poorly-paid workforce on security at our airports.”

Anti-protest laws 'draconian' and 'oppressive' The New Daily 20 March 2016

http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2016/03/20/freedoms-attack-australia/

Anti-protest laws ‘draconian’ and ‘oppressive’

Mar 20, 2016
JOHN STAPLETON

7


Harsh new laws to quell protesting have sparked outrage from several quarters.



The mining sector could be the big winner from the anti-protest laws. Photo: AAP


Emotions have been running high following the passing of laws in NSW which will see political protesters fighting against the coal seam gas industry, even on their own properties, face large fines and up to seven years in jail.

Hundreds of people demonstrated outside NSW Parliament last week against the harshness of the new laws, which were specifically designed to quell protests against the actions of mining and coal seam gas companies.

Critics say the laws achieve little more than restricting free speech.

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Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham described the laws as a “jack-boot police crackdown on democratic rights”.

Protestors affected by the legislation go way beyond eco-warriors. Civil libertarians, farmers and unionists are all up in arms.

President of the NSW Law Society Gary Ulman told The New Daily the laws were draconian and interfered with people’s ability to engage in demonstrations vital for a democratic state.


The laws were designed specifically to protect coal mines like this. Photo: AAP

“The Law Society is very concerned with the trend of expanding police powers without corresponding judicial and other safeguards,” he said. “In our view, such a trend represents an erosion of long-standing democratic institutions and individual rights.”

Mr Ulman said the laws affected a broad cross-section of the community and could be used, for example, against people protesting the removal of trees in Centennial Park.

• Click here to read the Law Society’s concerns, plus a summary of the changes

Narrabri landholder Phil Laird, national co-ordinator for the anti-CSG Lock the Gates Alliance, told The New Daily: “The government has deliberately removed access to the courts. Farmers can be arrested on their own properties for hindering the working of CSG equipment driven onto their property by a multinational mining company.

“They can stop you, detain you, put you in jail, fine you, seize whatever you have in your possession. This is anti-democratic.”

President of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties Stephen Blanks told The New Daily: “There are reasons to regard Australia as a police state now. There are so many draconian powers that police have. It is completely oppressive.


Some say Mike Baird has not listened to concerns about the laws. Photo: AAP

“What is particularly concerning is that the NSW laws criminalise intent. If police form a view that you intend to do something, even if you have done no act towards illegal activity, police can charge you and the penalties are draconian.”

Premier Mike Baird told journalists: “Those that decide to protest and put not only their lives at risk or try to interrupt businesses that are going about their day-to-day life, well we’re asking them not to do it and we’re putting measures in to ensure they don’t.”

NSW Minerals Council CEO Stephen Galilee, a former chief of staff for Mr Baird, issued a statement saying the new laws would be particularly welcomed by mining workers.

“These tougher penalties are a strong deterrent that will mean less people doing dangerous and stupid things that put themselves and others at risk,” he said.

The Inclosed Lands, Crimes and Law Enforcement Legislation Amendment (Interference) Bill passed through NSW Parliament last week with the support of the Shooters and Fishers Party and Christian Democrat Fred Nile.

A recent Reachtel poll showed 61.4 per cent of the public opposed the laws.

John Stapleton has worked as a reporter for both The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian. His book Hunting the Famous, which includes details of encounters with Anthony Burgess, Joseph Heller, Gore Vidal and Dirk Bogarde, will be available mid-2016.

Why Killer Robots Must Be Stopped 17 March 2016 The New Daily

Why killer robots ‘must be stopped’

Mar 17, 2016
JOHN STAPLETON

THE ADVISOR
3


The latest weapons technology is so frightening that there are calls for it to be banned.


Isaac Asimov's 'I, Robot' predicted a future where humans lost control.


Humanity is on the verge of experiencing a “nightmare scenario” of robot warfare that until now has been confined to the realms of science fiction, experts have warned.

Killer robots are far smarter than any soldier, physically tougher, not prone to battle fatigue, not subject to human error and not beset by emotions, such as inconvenient compassion. Or guilt.

With rapid developments in Artificial Intelligence, the machines are already far more intelligent than any individual could possibly be.

The Pentagon is seeking $15 billion in next year’s budget for AI and related research, including “deep learning” machines which could think and act on their own.

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The arrival of killer robots, more academically known as “autonomous weapons”, is being compared with the invention of gunpowder and nuclear weapons.

Leading AI expert Professor Toby Walsh of the University of NSW is giving a public lecture this month titled Killer Robots: The Third Revolution in War . The talk will be broadcast on Radio National’s Big Ideas program.

Prof Walsh told The New Daily the history of warfare was the history of ever more efficient killing technologies.

“We are not very far from nightmare scenarios,” he said. “That is why we have a small window of time in which to ban this technology.

“They would be terrifying weapons to come up against as a human. The worry is that they will be making their own targeting decisions.”


People argue that it is a moral line we should not cross. They will completely transform warfare.

Prof Walsh believes that if any military power pushes ahead with AI weapons, a global arms race is inevitable.

He said the release of the Drone Papers, where whistleblowers within the United State’s national security apparatus revealed President Barack Obama’s extensive use of the remotely controlled weapons, illustrated the problems involved in relying on machines.


The civilian death toll from US drones is a blight on Barack Obama’s legacy. Photo: Getty

The Papers revealed that nine out of 10 of those being killed were the “wrong people”, and drone strikes inevitably involved the deaths of large numbers of women, children and the elderly, one of Mr Obama’s most controversial legacies.

Prof Walsh said drones were being controlled by military personnel, but it was a very short step to taking humans out of the loop, allowing them to make their own life and death decisions.

He said robots were ideal for tasks such as assassinations, destabilising nations, subduing populations and killing particular ethnic groups.

Prof Walsh’s lecture comes at a time when killer robots are coming ever closer to being deployed on battlefields and worldwide consternation over their use is escalating.

The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots is an international coalition of 59 groups, including Human Rights Watch and the Nobel Women’s Committee.

Spokesman Peter Asaro, an affiliate scholar at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, said an international treaty to ban the weapons was urgent.

He told The New Daily killer robots would make it difficult to hold anyone accountable for war crimes and atrocities.

“In practical terms they could be subject to hacking, spoofing, and hijacking, and they could initiate or escalate conflicts without human approval,” he said.


Scenes from the Terminator film franchise may not be as farfetched as they once were.

“The delegation of the authority to kill people to an opaque and unaccountable algorithm raises serious moral concerns.”

Later this month there will be a Stanford University symposium on the ethical and moral problems of using non-human agents in warfare, while next month will see a meeting in Geneva of experts under the auspices of the UN.

Prof Walsh was one of the driving forces behind an open letter calling for the banning of killer robots which has been signed by 22,000 people, including the world’s most famous physicist Stephen Hawking, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Skype Yaan Tallinn and the author of more than 100 books, philosopher Noam Chomsky.

Signatory Professor Stuart Russell, AI pioneer and founder of the Centre for Intelligent Systems at the University of California, Berkeley, told The New Daily that in the absence of a treaty, there is the prospect of an arms race with negative outcomes for both humanitarian and strategic concerns.

“In particular, it may lead to a new class of scalable weapons of mass destruction. Weapons that even small groups could use to attack human populations,” he said.

Time is of the essence, and the UN meeting could kick the can down the road or take effective steps, such as setting up a group of governmental experts, that would reflect the wishes of the vast majority of humanity to avoid a future in which humans beings are utterly defenceless.”

Middle East Threatens to Bubble Over The New Daily 11 March 2016

Middle East threatens to bubble over


Mar 11, 2016
JOHN STAPLETON

8


A disillusioned Islamic State fighter gave anti-terror fighters a big win, but IS remains more dangerous than ever.


Photo: Iraqi Shiite fighters with a captured Islamic State flag. Getty


The cauldron of the Middle East continues to grow more dangerous by the day, as new details emerge of an old enemy’s presence within the ranks of the so-called Islamic State.

This week a disillusioned defector leaked the identity of 22,000 Islamic State (IS) supporters in more than 50 countries, including Australia.

He cited as one of his motives the growing influence of former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party inside Islamic State. He believed they were corrupting the purity of the group’s Islamic beliefs.

• Islamic State defector outs 22,000 terrorists
• Hackers breach Australian banking apps

Following the revelations, terror experts have lined up to point out that Islamic State would be nowhere near as powerful as it is today without the many former military offices of Saddam Hussein who have joined the group.

And they point the finger of blame firmly at the American invasion of Iraq.

The 2003 de-Baathification law promulgated by Administrator of Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, Paul Bremer, barred 400,000 members of the defeated Iraqi Army from government employment and pensions.

Unemployed and with families to feed, they were a large pool of disenfranchised men with significant military experience.


The spectre of Saddam Hussein, and his Baath party, looms large over the current conflict. Photo: Getty

Author of Australian Jihad and one of the world’s foremost experts on Islamic State, Beirut-based journalist Martin Chulov, told The New Daily Bremer’s decision to dissolve the Iraqi Army was one of the the most decisive factors in the disenfranchisement of the Sunnis.

“The officer class was largely Sunni and lost a great deal; careers, status, pensions – and dignity,” Mr Chulov said.

“This was one of the the most significant factors in the rise of IS over the next decade, eventually uniting highly organised, efficient and vengeful Baathists with driven ideologues.

“The Baathists and the jihadists were operating in unison by 2007 and, during the latest incarnation of ISIS, have been central to their growth.”

Leader of Islamic State Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, while not a Baathist himself, built his organisation by actively recruiting former Baathists, who have now taken many of the group’s senior leadership positions.

They have been pivotal in the group’s ability to take and hold territory.

Terror expert Professor Clive Williams of the Australian Defence Force Academy told The New Daily the American incarceration of hundreds of extremists and by then unemployed and severely disillusioned former Baath Party members in the notorious prison known as Camp Bucca had thrown together extremists and government functionaries.

The Americans essentially gifted some of Saddam Hussein’s most brutal, and most capable generals and administrators to Islamic State.

“Imprisoning Baath party members along with extremists was a mistake by the Americans,” Mr Williams said.

“They are better organisers than the extremists. With those two working together they got the best administrators and best generals from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, which has made them formidable.”

A recent investigation by the Reuters News Agency also concluded that former Saddam Hussein military officers had strengthened the group’s spy networks and battlefield tactics and were instrumental in the survival of its self-proclaimed Caliphate.


An anti-Baath party demonstration in Basra, 2013.Photo: Getty

Former Baathist intelligence and army officers officers oversee a network of informers across the country and have been a critical factor in their military successes.

The old saying from the Saddam era, “the walls have ears”, can once more be heard across Iraq.

Iraq’s Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari told Reuters: “They know who is who, family by family, name by name.”

The investigation revealed that of Islamic State’s 23 portfolios, former Saddam regime officers run three of the most crucial, security, military and finance.

Former Australian army officer and Research Fellow at the Lowy Institute, Associate Professor Rodger Shanahan, told The New Daily that once a group is disempowered they are going to look at ways to regain power.

The existence of so many Baathists within IS had enabled them to seize and hold territory.

“This is a consequence of cutting them out,” he said. “The 2003 invasion, an absolutely horrendous foreign policy mistake, wasn’t well thought out in second-order effects and this is one of those.

“We have seen the effect the Baathists have had already. They are adaptive, they think in longer terms of campaign planning, not just individual operations.

“They have shown the kind of military capabilities that professional military officers understand and practice.

“It takes a long time to get those professional skills. It’s the competent ones IS want, those who understand planning and military planning processes and how to construct campaigns.”

John Stapleton has worked as a general news reporter for both The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian. His book Hunting the Famous, which includes details of encounters with Anthony Burgess, Joseph Heller, Gore Vidal and Dirk Bogarde, will be available in paperback mid-year.

Margie Abbott sidelined by Credlin, author claims The New Daily 7 March 2016

http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2016/03/07/margie-kept-dark-former-pm-tony-abbott/

Margie Abbott sidelined by Credlin, author claims

Mar 7, 2016
JOHN STAPLETON

27


New book reveals how Tony Abbott’s wife and daughters were increasingly kept on the sidelines.


The PM's wife was rarely seen by his side. Photo: Getty


As a staunch Roman Catholic, Tony Abbott campaigned on traditional family values.

But with his wife Margie barely in evidence throughout his time as Prime Minister, at the same time as his chief of staff Peta Credlin was constantly at his side, traditional family roles were not what the rumour mill of Canberra suspected was being played out inside the PM’s office.

News of the widespread but previously unpublished perception that Mr Abbott and Ms Credlin were having an affair has been headline news in Australia for days. Both parties have denied it.

“I’m not in the business of raking over old coals nor am I in the business of responding to scurrilous gossip and smear,” Mr Abbott said on Monday.

• There’s a sense of deja vu on the road to ruin
• Credlin attacked Abbott publicly and often: book• Why the ‘s’ word strikes fear into politicians’ hearts

In The Road To Ruin, author Niki Savva claims Mrs Abbott was denied any of the normal assistance a Prime Minister’s wife can expect.

“The edicts on Margie’s isolation, such as making her sit well away from others in the office when she was there for a social engagement, made staff uncomfortable, especially those who had worked in other offices for either leaders or senior ministers. Staff struggled for explanations for Margie’s exclusion.”


Prince Harry (C) is greeted by then-PM Tony Abbott, his wife Margie and daughters Bridget (L) and Francis (R) in Sydney in 2013. Photo: Getty

During the election campaign, Liberal Party apparatchiks recognised what the Labor Party already knew, that Mr Abbott had an image problem with women. He was seen constantly in the company of his wife and three daughters.

The day after his election win, they became virtually invisible. The excising of Mrs Abbott began early.

At a celebration dinner party the evening after Mr Abbott’s election victory, businessman Alf Moufarrige hosted a celebration at his plush Hunters Hill home in Sydney. Arriving guests saw place settings for the entire Abbott family arranged on one table. When they next looked, the settings for Margie and the girls, which had included specially created laminated placemats, featuring photos of the Abbott women, were gone.

Disappointed Abbott staff, there with their own partners, who had been looking forward to congratulating Margie and the girls for their efforts during the campaign – as well as hoping that Margie would become a regular fixture in the PM’s schedule – asked what had happened. The response: an edict from Mr Abbott’s chief of staff.

The treatment of Mrs Abbott not only disturbed staffers and supporters; many believe it was a principal factor in the PM’s downfall.

Support staff were not permitted to inform the Prime Minister’s wife, or family, about any invitations until Ms Credlin had sifted through them. Former staff confirmed that a request from Margie for diary details was denied.


Tony Abbott’s chief of staff Peta Credlin has been accused of coming between him and his wife Margie. Photo: AAP

According to one former adviser: “Margie was kept in the dark.” According to another: “Peta did not want Margie to have access to staff, despite staff wanting to go to events with her.”

Mr Abbott’s behaviour has continued after the Malcolm Turnbull coup.

Ms Savva records: “His private behaviour continued to puzzle colleagues, while his public behaviour infuriated or disappointed them.”

Before he flew out to the Margaret Thatcher lecture in October last year, an excited Mr Abbott told a friend: “I am being taken to the south of France. I don’t know where – it’s a surprise.”

The books reveals details of the trip.

“News broke that a villa had been rented. He was going to spend time there with Credlin and a couple of other former staff. His wife, Margie, who had accompanied him to London … flew back home on her own. He flew to Paris. He spent his 58th birthday in France with Credlin … For many of his colleagues, the whole thing was as bizarre as some of the events they had witnessed during the Abbott–Credlin tenure. It sent the rumour mill into overdrive.”

But while accused of running unsourced scuttlebutt and innuendo, Ms Savva defended her work. A number of high-profile figures went on the record, and as one of the nation’s most respected journalists, few doubt the veracity of her sources.

“It is important for people to know what happened, and how the peculiar dynamic between the Prime Minister and his chief of staff, and her level of control, affected every aspect of his life – usually, to his detriment,” Ms Savva writes.

“Credlin exercised an unprecedented level of control over the activities of the Prime Minister’s wife.”

Credlin attacked Abbott Publicly and Often: Book The New Daily 6 March 2016

http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2016/03/06/abbott-openly-abused-sworn-credlin-book/

Credlin attacked Abbott publicly and often: book


Mar 6, 2016
JOHN STAPLETON

28


It was a pivotal relationship but its dysfunction has been laid bare in a new book.



High office was not enough to protect Tony Abbott from Peta Credlin's temper.


Tony Abbott was abused by his chief of staff Peta Credlin at such a volume that her swearing over the phone could be heard by others in his presence, according to a new book.

The Road to Ruin by journalist and former Liberal Party staffer Niki Savva, released on Monday, contains numerous well-documented examples of expletive-laden explosions by Credlin.

Many of the tirades, kept private until now, were excruciatingly embarrassing to witnesses, including staunch Abbott supporters.

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On one occasion in the lead-up to the 2013 election, Murray Cranston, one of Abbott’s most devoted advisors, was travelling to the airport in the back of a Commonwealth car with senior press secretary Tony O’Leary. Abbott, in the front seat, was on the phone to Credlin. The conversation got so heated that the two other men could hear her shouting at him to “f*ck off”.

On others occasions, she would yell at Abbott that, without her, he would not have gotten where he was or that he would be nothing without her.

“The truly sad part was that he believed it,” Savva writes.

But, by Monday afternoon, Abbott had hit back at his time in office, saying his government substantially delivered on its commitments.

Abbott said the best response to the book was the objective record of his government.

“The boats were stopped. The carbon tax and the mining tax were repealed. Three free trade agreements that had languished for years were finalised,” he said in a statement.

Mr Abbott said infrastructure got under way under his leadership, including the western Sydney airport that had been talked about for 50 years.

“Our country was kept safe. And a strong start was made to the vital task of budget repair,” he said.

The former prime minister claimed a “dysfunctional opposition” couldn’t win an election and a “dysfunctional government” couldn’t have got so much done in just two years.

“That said, I’m not in the business of raking over old coals nor am I in the business of responding to scurrilous gossip and smear.”

Speaking to The New Daily, Savva revealed that Tony Abbott rang around senior staffers and cabinet ministers asking them not to speak to her. But many of them did.

“This is an important piece of Australian political history, and I think people were keen to have a more complete version of it told,” she said.

As to why so many of the detailed revelations in the book have never been published before, she says: “Previously people were too frightened to speak out.”
Offshore eruptions

Not even being on a sensitive diplomatic mission could curtail Credlin’s behaviour, the book alleges.

On a trip to Indonesia, Credlin and Abbott reportedly had a confrontation at a critical meeting between Australian officials and the Indonesian President Bambang Yudhoyono.

Savva writes that the meeting was to restore the bilateral relationship after a spying scandal and controversy over boat turnbacks. But their dispute quickly escalated. Credlin and Abbott were forced to retreat to an anteroom to argue while numerous Australian and Indonesian officials were kept waiting.

“I remember thinking how indulgent, irresponsible, and arrogant it was to hold everyone hostage to her mood, even on Batam Island in Indonesia,” recalls Jane McMillan, the director of Abbott’s press office during the first year of government.

“It was pitiful to watch.”


Credlin faced intense scrutiny as the chief-of-staff to Tony Abbott. Photo: AAP
Margie marginalised

The most difficult material in The Road to Ruin is the relationship between the former Prime Minister and his wife Margie, whom Savva describes as “a woman of warmth and dignity with the potential to be his greatest asset”.

But Crelin put her in the chiller.

It was this treatment that most bothered staffers. Astonishingly, she insisted that staff at Kirribilli could not order food for Margie or shop for family meals, despite the Abbotts residing at the official residence.

Mrs Abbott may have been prominent during the election campaign, but she soon became the prop of last resort, with her access to the normal assistance offered to a Prime Minister’s wife, including access to his diary, denied.

“He was either oblivious to this or complicit in it,” Savva writes.

“He either simply tolerated it or he incited it. It was one of the biggest single factors in his loss of the prime ministership, wreaking on him the humiliation he feared most: dismissal at the hands of his own colleagues. The fact he could not see it coming, could not see how bizarre his behaviour appeared to others, or what effect it had on their opinion of him and his fitness for the job, was a most worrying aspect of it. It was pitiful to watch.”

According to the book, Ms Credlin not only adjusted her boss’s ties, she shared his desserts in restaurants and fork fed him food off her plate. At the same time she was making life a living hell for almost everyone working in the Prime Minister’s office, ridiculing her co-workers as incompetents.

Savva suggests that Credlin believed Abbott could not govern without her. And as Savva acidly observes, his self-esteem was so low he believed her.

“Even if she had offered to resign, he would not have allowed it. He would have been completely lost, so low was his opinion of his own abilities. Credlin was almost certainly right … Abbott would not have been able continue without her. It was utterly bizarre.”

While the relationship between the pair was apparently toxic, one important question remains. What sort of damage has been done to the Liberal Party by the dethroning of Abbott?

Savva told The New Daily: “Whether any lasting damage is inflicted depends on how serious Abbott is when he says he wants the Turnbull Government to win.”

The Road to Ruin: How Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin destroyed their own government by Niki Savva. Scribe Publications, 336pp. Published today.

Father of Reconciliation Patrick Dodson to Enter Senate The New Daily 2 March 2016.

http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2016/03/02/labors-senate-hopeful-patrick-dodson/

‘Father of Reconciliation’ Patrick Dodson to enter Senate

Mar 2, 2016
JOHN STAPLETON

4


A giant of Australia’s aboriginal human rights movement will enter the Senate for Labor.


A Senate spot would extend what has been an extraordinary life so far. Photo: AAP


Patrick Dodson, a Yawuru man from Broome in Western Australia, is distinctive in appearance, with a long flowing beard and a trademark black Akubra hat marked with the Aboriginal colours.

He is also one of the country’s most distinguished Australians, combining sharp intellectuality, deep spirituality and a common touch to become almost universally respected.

Mr Dodson was endorsed on Wednesday to replace the controversial Labor Senator Joe Bullock, who has announced his resignation, citing the Party’s refusal to allow a conscience vote on gay marriage.

For Mr Dodson, his likely ascension to the Australian Senate will be just one achievement in a long and extraordinary life.

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Born in 1948, he was orphaned in 1960 upon the death of his father, when he and his brother Mick Dodson were made wards of the state.

Mick went on to become a barrister and academic who was made Australian of the Year in 2009.

Patrick’s achievements are equally remarkable. He was formerly Commissioner into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, the 2008 winner of the prestigious Sydney Peace Prize and Chairman of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation between 1991-1997. He has held numerous other positions, including director of the Central Land Council.

His biographer, anthropologist Kevin Keeffe, wrote in Paddy’s Road: Life Stories of Patrick Dodson about his distinguished style, the way he could make other indigenous people comfortable with the lilting rhythms of Aboriginal English, and then switch easily into the formal tones of the business and political establishment.


The distinctive Patrick Dodson is a fierce advocate for Indigenous human rights. Photo: AAP

Yet the softly spoken Patrick Dodson has not always had the same public profile as other Aboriginal political figures such as Warren Mundine, Lowitja O’Donoghue or Noel Pearson.

During the 1990s, when he was chairman of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation and sentiment was running strongly on both sides of the divide, Mr Dodson was often enough nowhere to be found, off in his hometown of Broome fishing, or attending an event in a remote outback settlement. Media stories ran without the voice of the chairman.

Which was fine by him.

There is no doubt of the respect with which he is held across Australia’s not always unified Aboriginal groups. “He talks up for all our mob,” is a typical sentiment.

The late 1990s were a period of heightened tensions in Aboriginal politics.

The 1997 Australian Reconciliation Convention, where the crowd turned their back on the then-Prime Minister John Howard, the Wik land rights decision by the High Court and the Bringing them Home Report, along with the issue of a national apology, all of these elements were reverberating in the national psyche.

Mr Dodson, unfailingly polite, found himself increasingly at odds with the Howard government, and within months of the close of the Convention left his job as Chairman of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, “rolled his swag” and returned to his roots among the Yawuru people of Broome.

In a sense he was making his own journey home.
Love of his land

Like almost all indigenous people, Mr Dodson has a unique attachment to the land of his birth, and amongst the many curiosities of his life, early in his career he became Australia’s first Aboriginal ordained Catholic priest. He attempted to blend Catholicism and traditional Aboriginal spiritual belief, which brought him into conflict with the ecclesiastical hierarchy.

After many years of confrontation he finally left the priesthood, decrying the “plague of intolerant self-righteousness” from preachers, who condemned the conduct of Aboriginal people even as they buried them.

He once asked Christian readers to imagine themselves as Aboriginal Australians before the white invasion: “As to your knowledge of the land, your country, you would know every tree, every rock, because through the Dreaming, the great ancestors came this way.


Mr Dodson poses with Professor Noam Chomsky in 2011.Photo: Getty

“And they are still here. They live. They must be revered, appeased, paid attention to. It is they who cause conception as a woman walks near. When the child is born he calls that part of the country Father.”

Most Australians have never seen and will never see the many remote Aboriginal communities of Australia, or ever appreciate both their beauty, their triumphs and, over the decades, their appalling tragedies.

Mr Dodson has seen them in their hundreds, at one time being ranked the most travelled passenger on Australian airlines, and has seen firsthand the devastating impacts of westernisation.

But he has also spoken eloquently about shifting the dynamics of the public sector towards policies and strategies which raise up Aboriginal people’s lives and status in a way which is fair and beneficial to all Australians: “I think at some point you’ve got to stop proclaiming the sense of loss if you’re no longer prepared to do something about those losses.”

A long beard and an Akubra hat wreathed in Aboriginal colours, inside the Australian Senate. Don’t be surprised.