Lessons from Mumbai

The ill will sometimes displayed by the Australian Federal Police towards ASIO, often with justification; or by the State Police towards the AFP, has to be seen to be believed. Turf battles, which diffuse and waste energy, can be damaging. Political eagerness to score points in the fight against terror can lead to pre-emptive action that lessens or destroys a likely operational outcome. Police have a healthy propensity to patiently monitor target groups until they can “cut all the cancer out”. Politicians like quick results, often regardless of cost.

The Clarke Report on the Dr Mohamed Haneef case, a public version of which is due for release later in December (with any luck, not on Christmas Day) should tell us whether political interests were at work in that Gold Coast investigation.

If agency chiefs can’t win respect and trust in the engine rooms of the intelligence community how can their organisations possibly maintain the trust of Australians as a whole? That trust is vital to the fight against terror. Rather than clever intercept work and skilful sleuthing, it’s usually tip-offs from informants that provide the most valuable insights into what’s brewing.

Potential informants have been put off by unnecessarily draconian anti-terror legislation; they simply won’t take the risk of getting involved. Most people though, are deterred by a perception that the agencies - as well as the government of the day - are largely unaccountable.

The Haneef case has certainly been harmful in this sense. Why, many ask, has the truth (if indeed that is what we are going to get) had to be rung out of the agencies involved, particularly out of the AFP, by a costly inquiry? Shouldn’t the quest for the truth and a wish to learn from mistakes and hence cleanse the system, be a standard requirement within the system?

As a backdrop to this public perception is the widespread disdain that many Australians have for the 2007 Cole Royal Commission into the Iraqi food-for-oil scandal. The Iraqi money that the Australian Wheat Board purloined through bribery - nearly $300 million worth, which made Australia the biggest international offender - was held in trust by the United Nations. It was the Australian Government that had pledged to the UN that it would scrutinise the activities of all Australian exporters involved. It was the government that let us down, not just the AWB. Yet the Cole Royal Commission was never given, nor sought, powers to investigate the abysmal failure of government to acquit itself. One of the bureaucrats involved in conveying vital AWB information to the government, who was never called to give evidence on oath and should have been, is now running an intelligence agency.

Likewise, few Australians have forgotten the ABC-TV Chaser team antics during last year’s APEC meeting in Sydney. It has never been explained to the public how such a major breach of security could have occurred, despite more than $100 million being spent on measures to protect the 21 world leaders in the city for that event. They managed to bring three sizeable vehicles to within metres of President Bush’s hotel. Shouldn’t we want to know what went wrong?

Most Australians recall the speed with which ASIO recently informed the Clarke Inquiry that it had informed the government, as well as the AFP and anyone else that needed to know in July last year, that it saw no reason to charge Dr Haneef. And yet, we still don’t know why Scott Parkin, an American protestor visiting Melbourne for a G20 meeting in 2005, was extradited from Australia as a threat to national security. A court ordered this year that Parkin be provided with the assessment but ASIO is still resisting. These sorts of contradictions only diminish public trust and faith in accountability.

Unsurprisingly, the perception is that national security plays second fiddle to regime survival and that bureaucrats are put in charge of agencies to ensure that that priority is rigidly maintained.

Though Australia’s circumstances are very different to those of India, the danger of a terrorist attack here is still real. Put simply, there is a better chance of avoiding one by having experienced men and women in charge of our agencies than people with no track record at all. Not to put an end to this long-running political indulgence is nothing short of a national crime.

The highly qualified operatives who work silently and assiduously on our behalf in the intelligence system ask nothing more than for Australians to bother to take an interest in having those responsible for this Alice-in-Wonderland situation called to account.

Think of that when you see someone from Canberra on TV lamenting the loss of life in Mumbai.