Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Many Australians were shocked this week that the Prime Minister would step away from a G7 meeting—a meeting ostensibly about tackling the greatest challenge of our time, climate change, and about nations decarbonising through a green led recovery from COVID—and do a personal address to the APPEA, the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association in Perth, where over 2,000 companies in the fossil fuel sector were meeting. He addressed this conference personally from London and issued 80,000 square kilometres of new ocean acreage for these companies to carve up and profit from, putting our oceans at risk.

If Australians are shocked at the influence of the oil and gas industry on this government then they will be especially shocked and outraged at the story and the matter that we are debating in the Senate today, which relates to Bernard Collaery—an Australian lawyer, who I'll talk about in a minute—and a whistleblower, witness K. Unfortunately, we don't know his name. In fact, we know very little about this courageous man except that he stepped forward with moral conviction and blew the whistle on something he thought was wrong and in the public interest.

I want to read from an article that anyone can access online. It's from redflag.org and is titled "Gangsters for capitalism: Downer, Woodside and 'Witness K'". It says:

In 2004, then foreign minister Alexander Downer presided over an Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) operation to install listening devices in the offices of the government of the newly independent, and desperately poor, nation of East Timor.

The operation, which was carried out under the cover of an aid project, aimed to give Australia an advantage in negotiations over a new maritime border between the two countries.

Among the main stakeholders in these negotiations was Australian oil and gas giant Woodside Petroleum. Woodside leads a consortium of companies with rights to exploit gigantic reserves in the Greater Sunrise oil and gas fields, which lie in the Timor Sea around 150km from East Timor and 450km from Darwin.

Senator Patrick has already gone into some of the history about East Timor and Australia and the toing and froing between the two nations. Essentially East Timor, as they would as a poor country, wanted to lay claim to these fields. It turns out that in negotiations, according to this article, Australia 'played hardball'. It says:

At one point in the negotiations, Alexander Downer reportedly shouted across the table "Your claims go almost to Alice Springs. You can demand that forever for all I care. We are very tough … Let me give you a tutorial in politics—not a chance".

Perhaps part of the reason why Downer could be so "tough" was that, thanks to ASIS—

and the bugging of the Timorese cabinet—

he knew exactly what the Timorese negotiating strategy would be.

I differ slightly from Senator Carr. I know many Australians were outraged when they heard that we would bug the cabinet of a poor nation to get a national advantage. But I don't know, sadly, in this day and age, whether Australians would actually be that surprised or outraged that we might do that to a foreign country in our national interest. What I can absolutely assure you is that they would be deeply shocked and surprised if they knew that these negotiations were actually to get a commercial interest to favour a series of corporations and a large fossil fuel project.

It hasn't been pointed out yet in debate today that witness K, an intelligence analyst, came forward to blow the whistle on this when, in 2008, four years after Alexander Downer authorised this bugging of the Timorese cabinet, Alexander Downer left the government and got a job at Woodside Petroleum. The revolving door between politicians and Woodside Petroleum is on the public record, and it is a significant cause for concern. Woodside are one of the biggest donors in this place, giving $1.4 million to the coalition and to Labor. But when Witness K, a man who'd served our country, saw that the man that had presided over this had personally benefited from his role as a senior minister in bugging the East Timorese cabinet and aided and abetted the highway robbery that occurred on behalf of Woodside Petroleum and other fossil fuel interests, he blew the whistle. Do you know why? It was probably because he thought it was corrupt. We may never know exactly what he thinks, because these trials are going be held in secret. But this revolving door between senior ministers and profit-seeking corporations who they have just exerted influence over is seen by many in the community as corruption, if not personal corruption then institutional corruption—a corruption of the institutions of our democracy. That is an important distinction that I would like to make and another reason why we continually push for an independent commission against corruption.

It's also been outlined in the debate today that Witness K, this brave whistleblower, sought legal advice and went through the correct channels to do so. It turns out that his lawyer, Bernard Collaery, has now also been dragged into this. He's been charged by the Australian government, by the Attorney-General, and faces up to 10 years imprisonment for representing a client. I want to take the opportunity today to say some words about Bernard Collaery, because, while many people have read his name in the paper and have read about Witness K, they probably don't know much about the man Bernard Collaery. As I highlighted, we'll probably never know much about Witness K.

Three words describe Bernard Collaery: courageous, honourable and compassionate. In fact, the depth of this man's compassion is endless, and to many people he is a true hero. Let me tell you why. Over the years, as a lawyer, he's taken on countless pro bono human rights cases. He's advised the East Timor resistance for over 30 years. He represented plaintiffs in the Thredbo landslide, Canberra bushfires and Royal Canberra Hospital implosion cases. He founded the Immigration Reform Group. He represented West Papuan refugees and Vietnamese boat people over many decades. He drafted the discrimination act as Attorney-General of the Australian Capital Territory. He is an honorary solicitor for Aboriginal health services, the Australian Bravery Association, the National Brain Injury Foundation—and the list goes on and on. He was awarded the 2020 UK's Blueprint for Free Speech prize, which is awarded to whistleblowers in recognition of bravery, integrity and commitment to the public interest. He was awarded the 2018 Australian Lawyers Alliance Civil Justice Award, which is awarded to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the pursuit of civil liberties in Australia What justice is being served by this prosecution? What is it about this man that sounds like he's a criminal? He is not. He is not a criminal. Yet this government is treating him and Witness K like criminals. It goes without saying that the acts they exposed certainly raised very serious questions, including, at the senior levels of the Howard government, about criminality. While the rest of the country, even the world, celebrates this man's courage, bravery, integrity and commitment, the Australian government is continuing to prosecute him and to drag out this prosecution and make his life a misery.

This prosecution is one of the gravest acts of this government and one of the greatest threats to freedom of expression in this country right now. The world is on the side of Bernard Collaery, and the Australian government is on notice. This debate today is just one of many things that will be happening in relation to this. It's on notice that those who speak up for justice and for the rule of law in this country will not be silenced.

I will finish up, because I understand that there are other speakers. But I would like to acknowledge Chloe Preston, who has worked as a staffer in my office, in Rex's office and Senator Xenophon's office. Chloe Preston was a young barrister who was working for Bernard Collaery when his office was first raided by the Federal Police in relation to these charges. Chloe had to represent Bernard in court while he was overseas. As someone who had only been in the job for a few weeks she was well and truly thrown in at the deep end. She has maintained an abiding interest in and friendship with Bernard Collaery, Senator Patrick and a number of people over the years, and she feels very deeply about this issue. I've reflected her words in the Senate today, and I'm very proud to have read them into Hansard on her behalf and on behalf of all those Australians who deeply care about this issue.