Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

There is an appropriation for the Australian Electoral Commission and I speak, as members do in the appropriation debate, to matters of government expenditure and the provision of government services. Some years ago, the Labor Party stopped accepting political donations from the tobacco industry and it is time that the Liberal Party did the same.

I turn to the issue of Regional Partnerships. I have on a number of occasions previously raised in the House the abuse of the Regional Partnerships program by the Liberal and National parties for political advantage. I was therefore very concerned to learn on a recent visit to Mackay that the government had decided not to reappoint the chairman of the Mackay Regional Area Consultative Committee, Mr Col Meng. Mr Meng is extremely highly regarded locally. There was a near riot in the local paper and on radio and TV about his sacking. I am concerned that the decision to replace him will diminish public confidence in the integrity and transparency of the Regional Partnerships program.

There is already substantial public disquiet at the way in which Regional Partnerships moneys have been administered and concern that taxpayers’ money has been wasted on projects chosen for their political value to the government rather than on their merits. This decision suggests that the government have learnt nothing from the regional rorts scandal of 2004-05, Tumbi Creek, Beaudesert Rail or the A2 milk debacles. They are recidivists, serial offenders, and what everyone in Mackay suspects is that Col Meng has been sacked because the member for Dawson wanted him out. The question Minister Vaile must answer is: did he discuss with the member for Dawson the reappointment of Mr Meng prior to deciding not to reappoint him? The people of Mackay want an answer to that question. They are entitled to one. I have written to the Auditor-General asking him to add the issue of Mr Meng’s sacking to the long list of dealings he is investigating in relation to Regional Partnerships.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

One of the largest appropriations in the last few years has been that for the war in Iraq—$2 billion and still, sadly, no end in sight. The Prime Minister is so unwilling to admit that he got it wrong on Iraq that not only will he not contemplate any deviation from our present disastrous course but also he will not even contemplate the United States rethinking its position. His remarkable attack on Sunday on the Democratic Party shows this. In the Prime Minister’s view, even though the war in Iraq has now cost more lives of American servicemen and women than the September 11 attacks—3,000 killed and 20,000 wounded—and even though the United States has spent over $360 billion on the war, the United States has no business and no right to reconsider its own position. It is little wonder that some of the American commentary in response has been: ‘We’d take you more seriously if you had a fraction of the military investment in Iraq that we do.’

What is now out there for all the world to see is that our Prime Minister does not have a special relationship with the United States; he has a relationship with the Bush administration. He is prepared to allow that relationship to get in the way of managing Australia’s alliance relationship with the United States—an alliance between the people of both countries, beyond party politics. It means that the Prime Minister has a political use-by date. After the end of next year, when George Bush ceases to be President, the Prime Minister becomes a foreign policy liability. By contrast, the Labor leader—the Leader of the Opposition—is an experienced diplomat who would never offend a prospective US President with such an offensive claim. The Democrats, after all, control the congress. The Prime Minister’s approach is risky and reckless.

In recent days, the Prime Minister and other Liberals have been talking a lot about experience. Experience is not much use unless you actually learn from it. The trouble is that we have a Prime Minister who is, on the two biggest issues facing the world today, utterly unwilling to admit he has got them wrong. On the war on terror, it was a debacle to go into Iraq. It had no weapons of mass destruction; more American lives were lost there than in the September 11 attacks, to say nothing of the innocent Iraqi men, women and children who have died there; we have let Osama bin Laden run free in the meantime and given him a magnificent recruiting pitch, and there is no end in sight. It is not Vietnam; it is worse than Vietnam. But the Prime Minister will not admit that he got it wrong on Iraq, and that refusal, stubbornness and pig-headedness make him a foreign policy risk. He is carrying baggage.

It is the same thing with the other great threat facing the globe—global warming, also called climate change. The Prime Minister has experience all right, but his obstinate refusal to admit he got it wrong on climate change means that he is a risk to our future economic prosperity. He keeps saying that action on global warming could threaten jobs and the economy. He still does not get it. Inaction on global warming will threaten jobs in agriculture and tourism and will condemn our children to a bleak economy where droughts, floods, storms and bushfires are routinely the order of the day. It is another week, another blunder from a Prime Minister who is living in the past and incapable of admitting he got it wrong.

The final thing I want to talk about is the issue of David Hicks. The Attorney-General has entered what amounts to a not guilty plea to the charge of abandoning David Hicks in Guantanamo Bay. The government, he wants us to believe, has done all it can and continues to do all it can to help David Hicks. Let us look at the evidence. The Attorney-General says that a comparison of conduct of the Australian government with the British government, which had its citizens released, is not valid because the released UK citizens had not been designated as eligible for trial. In fact, in July 2003, US President George W Bush determined that six people were eligible to stand trial by military commission. One was David Hicks and two were British citizens, Feroz Abbasi and Moazzam Begg. But their government—the UK government—said that the military commissions did not meet their requirements for a fair trial by international standards. They said that the British detainees should be either tried in accordance with international standards or returned to the UK. Mr Abbasi and Mr Begg were returned to the UK.

The Attorney-General says that the UK made it clear early on that a detainee would not be repatriated unless the detainee would be prosecuted. Under our law at the time, he says, that was not possible. He is wrong on both counts. The US-released British detainees were held by British police for questioning for a day and were then released without charge. So clearly it could happen in the case of the British detainees. It did happen in the case of the British detainees.

It is also noteworthy that a spokesperson for the Attorney-General has said that Australian citizens who engage in hostile activity in a foreign country face up to 20 years in jail under the Crimes (Foreign Incursions and Recruitment) Act 1978. When you talk about this question of David Hicks being tried in Australia, the Attorney-General responds that things like the likelihood of success, the facts in question and the rules of evidence in Australian courts must all be considered—and indeed they must. But the point here is that no government has a right to seek a guarantee that an individual will be successfully convicted. The Attorney’s obligation was to point this out to the United States—not to meekly accept such an idea.

The Attorney-General says that the new US military commission process ‘incorporates a number of fundamental safeguards’. He apparently thinks, or wants us to think, that a military commission constitutes a fair trial. He is wrong again. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

This is also set out in the Geneva convention, which recognises the right to trial before an impartial and regularly constituted court. It is also set out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that ‘everyone shall be entitled to a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal’.

A military commission consists of officers appointed from the US armed forces who work for the person who appoints them. This is not trial by a jury of your peers. Furthermore, the military commission rules do not exclude evidence obtained by coercion—and that is a breach of the Geneva convention; they do not exclude hearsay evidence—that is a breach of the Australian Criminal Code; and they do not permit the accused to be privy to all the evidence. The military commissions are not independent or impartial, and it is noteworthy that the US Military Commission Act 2006 expressly stipulates that no American citizen can be dealt with by a military commission. If it is not good enough for American citizens, why is it good enough for Australian citizens?

I know that there are people out there who say and think that David Hicks is a terrorist and deserves all he gets. There are two problems with this approach. Firstly, that is for a properly constituted court to decide. Secondly, this issue has long since ceased being about David Hicks; it is about us. It is about whether we still stand for habeas corpus—that is, no imprisonment without trial—and its proud 800-year history. It is about whether we still believe in a fair trial and understand that the right to be tried by a jury of our peers is part of the package.

Labor believes that the rule of law should be universally applied. Anyone accused of a crime should be afforded a swift and fair trial, irrespective of the nature of the allegations or of political sensitivities. A fair trial is the legal form of a fair go. When we hear the Attorney-General saying that what he is seeking in David Hicks’ case is ensuring that any process is as fair as possible, that is not good enough. Either the process is fair or it is not fair. We have a situation where David Hicks is being held, right now, without charges having been laid, whereas the British citizens who were deemed fit to be charged have long since been returned to Britain.

As I said, the US government itself knows that military commissions do not constitute a fair trial. It has banned any US citizen from being tried under them. The point here is that deviations from the rule of law undermine the system and expose individuals to risks, physical abuse, injustice and the like. There is no doubt that the allegations against David Hicks are very serious, and what Labor is calling for is a fair trial, not special treatment.

I also raise concern about the issue of the current physical and mental health of David Hicks. I note that the Attorney-General has not been willing to seek an independent mental health assessment for him. The Melbourne psychiatrist Paul Mullen visited David Hicks in February 2005 and, in light of recent concerns that have been expressed about him, it is my view that a follow-up assessment should occur. But we have not seen it. It is also my view that this government needs to reacquaint itself with the tradition of a fair go, and these legal cases, which highlight the adverse consequences of government policy, should be no exception. Australian law should be administered without prejudice and every Australian given access to justice.

I note that there were reports that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had in fact requested an independent health assessment of David Hicks. We have got that on the one hand and we have the Attorney-General saying that the government had not asked for an independent health assessment of David Hicks on the other hand. When asked why, the Attorney-General said that it is a question of sovereignty—it is the prerogative of the United States to refuse such an assessment—and that there are 500 Australians held in overseas jails and we do not normally ask for independent medical assessments of them. He did not say whether any of those 500 had been held in overseas jails for five years without trial. It should be a matter of shame for the Attorney-General that he has not had the courage to ask for an independent assessment. At least the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has had the audacity to ask for an independent assessment.

I also note that the United States military prosecutor does not seem to hold the view that time already served should be deducted from any sentence which David Hicks might receive. I regard this as at odds with the basic principles of fairness and justice in the legal system. Again this does not seem to be something that has been raised by the Attorney-General. Rather than meekly accepting everything he is told by the Bush administration, the Attorney-General should be doing as the British government did and demanding that David Hicks be returned to Australia to face prosecution or be tried in America before a properly constituted United States court, not a military commission with a jury of military officers.

I note also that the Minister for Foreign Affairs said that he had received advice that David Hicks was in good shape. It turned out that this advice came from a consular official who had visited David Hicks for five minutes and had not even spoken with him. For the minister’s benefit, some consular official waving as he walks past on a tour of inspection does not constitute an independent mental health assessment.

The Attorney-General should release the advice that he has received from the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions as to whether David Hicks can be tried under Australian law. The Attorney-General has been claiming that Labor wants David Hicks to avoid prosecution. That claim is completely and utterly without foundation. It is expressly contradicted by the wording of the parliamentarians’ letter to the United States congress that asks that David Hicks be returned to Australia to face prosecution. The Attorney-General refers to the Director of Public Prosecutions as independent. This reference would carry more weight if the advice from the Director of Public Prosecutions was public rather than the private plaything of the Attorney-General which is presently being used for his own political purposes.

Furthermore, when the Attorney-General says that David Hicks cannot be prosecuted under Australian laws, he goes on to admit that he has not even seen the United States evidence. If we are to have a serious debate about this issue, we need to have the advice of the Director of Public Prosecutions made public so we can all have a look at it. We need to have a serious debate about this matter of great national importance. (Time expired)

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