Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to express my concern at some outrageous comments made by an online journalist called Antony Loewenstein in an article about Australian soldiers in the online publication Crikey. The article was entitled ‘Elite Oz soldiers in covert operations for top-secret base’. Neil James of the Australian Defence Association has written a brilliant response to this article and I want to read some of it into the record. What Crikey alleges about Australian soldiers is so irresponsible that the editors of Crikey and its owner Mr Beecher should hang their heads in shame. Mr James says that the article is:

… merely a mixture of undergraduate-level urban rumours, historical myth … and … conspiracy theory, flavoured by numerous factual mistakes, misrepresentations and misunderstandings about our defence force, its compliance with international law and, indeed, the way Australia actually works as a democracy ruled by law. Even the two Australian sources cited … a six-year-old, long-discredited article by Brian Toohey in the “Australian Financial Review”—

and another article in the Australian

… Our soldiers are deployed in Afghanistan … fighting a UN-endorsed conflict at the lawful direction of our elected Australian government.

As we heard during the debate, this effort has bipartisan support. Those soldiers are fighting on Australia’s behalf. Mr James continues:

It is unfair at best for any Australian to make their job harder or more dangerous by writing or publishing biased nonsense that could be so easily misused in Al Qa’eda propaganda. There is no excuse to betray the men and women of our defence force by such stupid, thoughtless and irresponsible claims. If you disagree with the war in Afghanistan, argue with our government (using facts), not endanger our troops (by wild claims).

These claims are that, somehow, Australian soldiers would allow themselves to be deployed by private American companies to murder selected people in Afghanistan. Mr James’s response to the Crikey article continues:

Let us be clear what “Crikey” boldly stated. “Crikey understands Australia has been engaged in such behaviour [alleged assassinations contrary to the Laws of Armed Conflict] in the past decade, leaving Canberra and its officials open to potential charges of war crimes and prosecution in an [sic] criminal court”.

I do not know how Crikey could have published such an irresponsible and, frankly, thick article. Neil James goes on to say:

Previous Ministers for Defence and the current Chief of the Defence Force have pointed on several previous occasions—when journalists have made incorrect claims about “assassinations”—that the ADF, including its Special Forces, have not and do not ever assassinate anybody. They do not deliberately kill anyone, except in battle, and where authorised by Australian rules-of-engagement grounded in the Laws of Armed Conflict and the ethics of a professional force made up of fellow Australians. Similar denials have been made by Ministers responsible for ASIS. No journalist, or polemicist, has ever been able to back up such a claim with a single substantiated fact. Furthermore, as in this case, every journalist’s sole defence when challenged to prove it has been merely to cite older unsubstantiated claims by other unprofessional … ideologues.

… The numerous denials by the Ministers and CDF are not even mentioned. No military or intelligence historian was cited either. The only two academic experts consulted, a defence finance expert and a lawyer who does not specialise in LOAC … commented on a hypothetical basis only …

Mr James and the Australian Defence Association suspect they were not quoted accurately anyway. Mr James concludes:

Both made the unsurprising qualified observation that, if true, such acts would be illegal. Neither, however, offered any confirmation of the wild claims or that they considered such claims might or could be true. Moreover, neither the ADA as the relevant public-interest watchdog, or the Australian Institute of Professional Intelligence Officers as the relevant professional body, were asked for any opinion.

Mr Loewenstein consulted the ADA but did not, as usual, check these sources out. This article is a disgrace to Crikey and I call on Mr Beecher to apologise. (Time expired)