The Last (Online) Stand Of Piers Akerman

By Darryl Mason

For the benefit of our thousands of regular international readers, Piers Akerman is a newspaper columnist for Sydney's 'Daily Telegraph' and 'Sunday Telegraph'. Akerman was once an immensely popular opinion maker, in the days when there were only a handful of journalists making most of the published opinions in Sydney. Of course, the online revolution has leveled that playing field.

Akerman is also famous as a near full-time propagandist for the Howard government, who spent years watching Howard lock away four and five year old children in detention centres in the middle of the Australian desert, leaving them in those brutally hot camps until the children beat their heads against concrete walls in frustration, and then blamed their parents for daring to seek refugee status on Australian shores. Howard never did anything wrong in Akerman's world. He was a prime minister who shat pure gold and then gave it to the poor, who Akerman would claim never really appreciated the gift.

American readers will recognise the likes of Akerman from their own mainstream media's stable of aged opinion makers, who still have jobs despite being wrong about WMDs in Iraq, wrong about leaving Afghanistan in 2002, wrong about the strength of the Iraqi insurgency, wrong about post-invasion Iraq, wrong about the global threat of terror and wrong about the reality of climate change.

Akerman's speciality is smearing people who are trying to create new energy industries, through solar power and other renewable energies, and baiting Muslims by defaming their heritage and mocking their beliefs, be they fundamentalist or moderate.

Akerman is a spectacularly cliched old school anti-Green, anti-environmentalist, campaigner who still clings to his increasingly eccentric and bizarre belief that fighting the effects of climate change, by reducing pollution and increasing energy efficiency, is a vast left-wing conspiracy designed to destroy the Australian economy.

Akerman, of course, loves conspiracy theories. You can usually find a good one in nearly ever column he writes.

There's the global warming conspiracy. The gay conspiracy. The Caliphate conspiracy. The anti-white Australia conspiracy. The 'Aboriginal Industry' conspiracy. The Hitler-Stalin-Mao Imitating Union conspiracy. And let's not forget the all purpose Greenie conspiracy, which he actually believes is connected back through the decades to...Hitler. But of course.

Akerman has served, and served well, as the Daily Telegraph's hitman on all things Islam and Green for more than a decade. He's even devoted occasional column space attempting to draw his Muslim and Green conspiracy theories into a joint Greenie-Jihadi conspiracy. It's been fun to watch.

But as the readership of the Daily Telegraph drops, as it circulation shrinks, and as Sydneysiders become increasingly ready to sue newspapers for defamation and libel, Akerman is finding it harder and harder to use his anti-Islam hammer on people with real names.

To get around this, he now employs a particularly absurd and credibility-defying methodology of using variations of the Fox News trademarked "Some people say..." mantra.

His column 'Magnet For Madmen' on July 4 was absolutely chockers with the stuff. Clearly the News Limited lawyers have been working Akerman over. How much veracity can you place in any of his claims when he has been forced to place the word "alleged" in a sentence like this?

The detention of a Gold Coast doctor shows the alleged sweeping extent of the global links of international terrorism.

But there was plenty more in a column that contains the name of no-one bar the new British PM Gordon Brown : "alleged activities...possible risks...apparently fanatically shouting..it has been suggested...by all accounts... alleged actions... alleged wannabe terrorists...it may be wise...alleged connection..."

Is Akerman now afraid of being sued for defamation by the Global Jihad Conspiracy?

No, he's just too lazy to supply links to back up his claims in his blog and to gutless to stand by his words.

Repeated use of words like "alleged" and "suggested" and "apparently" and "possible" doesn't exactly make Akerman sound like he either know what's he jabbering about, or that he even holds the strength of his "alleged" convictions.

Although Akerman's increasingly vague, misinformed, hilariously cliched columns are syndicated through the rest of the Murdoch owned state capital newspapers, his spiels are often cut down, or censored, by local editors who are clearly becoming frustrated by Akerman's inability to do what a columnist is supposed to do - inform, opine and make clarity-rich arguments supporting his/her position - and his increasingly, potentially, libelous and defamatory bile.

Reading Akerman's columns today is like leafing through the pages of some old yellowed Australian newspaper from the 1950s. Substitute Italian for Muslim and Communist for Greenie and there's little difference to be found in the rhetoric. You end up thinking, who is this guy trying to convince? Himself? His bosses? His mates?

Akerman is becoming a liability for the Rupert Murdoch media in Australia. In the past few years, News Limited has had to pay, by some estimates, more than $1 million in out of court settlements, and court-awarded damages, for people he has told lies about in his columns, or just blatantly defamed and smeared, not caring who will pay the bill in the end.

In awarding a successful defamation payout in October, 2006, a NSW judge said this to say about Akerman's journalistic standards of accuracy :

"The inaccuracies of fact by the defendant... are gross... so extreme a misstatement of fact as to vitiate any defence of comment for any imputation based on it."

It didn't used to matter so much to the Murdoch tabloid media. These were the old rules of the tabloid game, following the well established British tabloid model : defame whoever you want, because in the end it will only cost a few hundred grand, at the most, if it even gets to court, and the extra sales and controversy generated by all the lawsuits will boost circulation and market brand prominence.

While Akerman was once a popular columnist in the Daily Telegraph (and its former incarnations) and the Sunday Telegraph, some journalist-circle rumours claim that he is nearing the end of his long run of low-to-medium six figure salary years at News Limited.

Not only because he is such a costly columnist as far as the legal bills go, but because he refuses to engage his readers enough on his blog. Akerman hates his blog. He despises the idea of having to answer to, or interact, with anyone who can be bothered typing a few comments into the box below his online blurtings. He was disgusted at even the idea of allowing someone, anyone, to write a comment that would be published below his own words. Akerman resisted moving his columns into the News Limited blogs, but only for so long.

His boss, Rupert Murdoch, loves blogs. Rupert Murdoch believes the future of the news is blogging, and blogs. So much cheaper than having to pay bloated old wind bags like Piers Akerman a few hundred grand a year to toss off two or maybe three short columns a week to
an increasingly disinterested readership.

What amazed Rupert Murdoch when he first took a serious look at the sprawl of blogs is that these people were writing all this stuff for free. For free! An idea began to form in Murdoch's mind of a day when he could dump expensive journos, or columnists, like Akerman and fill the space around the ads with any number of blogs written by freelancers, or non-professionals, who were happy just to take a cut of the ad revenue their blogs generated.

Rupert Murdoch announced a few months back that News Limited was going Green, and that he would restructure its global operations to become a carbon neutral corporation. Murdoch made a commitment to his shareholders that he would use his newspapers, online media, magazines and television channels to educate the public to the reality of climate change, and that initiatives to fight climate change would become a regular feature in his media outlets.

Akerman continues to pump his Great Global Warming Conspiracy guff, even though his own boss has apparently been taken in by it. Of course, Akerman, like his counterpart at the Herald Sun in Melbourne, Andrew Bolt, attacks those advocating measures to limit the effects of climate change, but would never dream of attacking Rupert Murdoch, who by his own admission, will become the world's most influential peddler of what Akerman and Bolt still refer to as a "myth".

To Akerman, like many millions around the world, Al Gore is an idiot, and a liar. But Rupert? Well, the silence from Akerman, and Bolt, is deafening.

Rupert Murdoch keeps a close eye on his Australian newspapers, particularly the online versions. He gets the data on how much traffic each of the News Limited blogs are generating, how many people are commenting, which issues are stirring controversy and how much ad revenue is generated through each blog via the the ads now peppered liberally through the comments pages.

When the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age newspapers move to tabloid size, Murdoch knows the sales of the Sydney Daily Telegraph and the Melbourne Herald Sun will go drop. The Telegraph and the Herald Sun will have to share the shrinking tabloid newspaper marketplace with the Herald and the Age. Murdoch's Sydney and Melbourne newspapers will still make money, but as classified advertising, the backbone of newsprint, continues its exodus to the online media, his newspapers will thin and revenue will continue to decrease.

Murdoch sees the future of news, and New Limited, in the online world, particularly in Australia. He will keep the Telegraph and the Herald Sun in newsprint for years to come, but the high-cost columnists like Akerman will find they are not so highly-prized, particularly if their main beat is denying climate change reality (thereby making their own boss as much of an idiot and a liar as Al Gore), and baiting Muslims, who are more often choosing to sue for defamation and libel, even if they are not targeted by name.

Akerman will soon have to prove he is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a year online, in his blog, or take a big pay cut. He will have to deliver the audience, and the ad revenue, primarily through his blog. That blog he hates and despises so very, very much, mostly because it allows the public to near instantly respond to his bizarre conspiracies and absurd generalisations.

But if online defamation and libel laws, including News Limited taking responsibility for the comments made on an Akerman blog, continue to tighten the noose of opinion making freedom around his neck, Akerman's diatribes will become more general, more vague, less genuinely offensive and therefore less biting and less controversial.

That Akerman had to censor himself, and throw in "alleged" every few sentences in his 'Magnet For Madman', even when mentioning the now well established linkages of global terrorism, shows just how constrained he now is. But that's just the beginning.

The more Akerman's rantings are contained and toned down, the less people will visit his blog and bother to leave comments, which, as we mentioned above, will eventually be the major source of the ad revenue that will pay Akerman's salary.

If all that wasn't bad enough, Akerman's key platforms of outrage - Islam in Australia and climate change - are already losing their power to generate waves of comments at his blog. He can still pull 100+ comments for a column like 'Magnet For Madmen', but for how much longer?

The more the media hysteria over the threat of terror turns out to be massively overblown, like the Doctors Of Terror workout last week (five were released without charge after questioning, one may, or may not, be charged), the less such stories will generate controversy and, in turn, comment. The less comment, the less ad revenue generated by Akerman's blog.

Most Australians understand that Islam will not spell the ruin of Australia, as they understand that taking part in a measured and responsible global fight against climate change will not reduce the nation to candle-powered ruin.

And when the Howard government loses office at the end of the year, Akerman will find himself, and his views, even more isolated from the mainstream media, increasingly dominated by less conservative, more open-minded, and far less judgmental, young people.

The worst thing that can ever happen to a columnist is to wear out his chief issues, or to cease finding anything new to say about the society on which he is handsomely paid to opine. Akerman is a loser on both fronts. The adoption of climate change by Rupert Murdoch, the appalling degradation and loss of life of the Iraq are only two issues that have completely shot Akerman's remaining slivers of credibility to dust.

It must have a black day indeed in the festering hellpit of Akerman's mind when he learned that the majority of Australians were more concerned about how climate change might affect their children's future than they were about the threat of terrorism.

The reason why most Australians are more concerned about the effects of climate change than terrorism is a simple one : they keep hearing from friends or relatives about flooding, savage storms, furious winds, decaying beach fronts and spreading drought, or they are experiencing the destruction of such events for themselves, plus their insurance bills are going up and up. But they aren't getting blown up by, in Akerman's pulp-horror speak, "panting, hot-eyed fanatics".

Wow. Hot-eyed fanatics?

"Mohammed? Why are you panting?"

"My eyes are hot."

Fantastic stuff. No wonder Akerman gets the big money. For now.

Should he stick around long enough, Akerman is likely to find himself battling for an audience share in the Australian blog world, happily dumped by the daily newspapers that once carried his hastily written, poorly sourced, screeds, because he is too expensive and no longer pulls a huge ad revenue generating crowd.

Akerman will be forced to compete in a media to which he has been vehemently opposed and barely understands. Like the rest of us, Akerman will eventually be just another voice in a media filled with unique, funny, brilliant, opinionated, well-informed, well-researched voices, many of whom have plenty of relevant and interesting things to say about the world and the city and the society we live in. Without having to resort to a blunted arsenal of decades old cliches and comic-book pap like "hot-eyed fanatics".

Of course, Akerman wouldn't stick around for that humiliation. His enormous ego couldn't take it.

But you must wonder how he feels, this former king of opinion, how lost and out of sorts he must be, when he discovers that news.com.au online polls pull thousands more participants, and generate far more ad revenue, than his online writings. The online polls are almost pure profit because they are mostly automated and people find it nearly irrisitable not to cast their vote on the more contentious issues of the day.

Akerman's time in the sun is almost over. Will he be missed? Hardly. The online world is full of mad ranters, loose with the truth, brimming over with bile and prejudice and unwilling to put sources to their wild and bizarre accusations.

Sometimes you can even find them right here.


Daily And Sunday Telegraph Forced To Issue Online Apology For Readers Comments

Akerman Busted Passing Off Hundreds Of Words From An Israel Defence Force Press Release As His Own

Blast From The Past : The "Hot-Eyed" 2001 Sunday Age Profile Of Piers Akerman

Climate Change Believers Are "Running Around With Their Petticoats Pulled Firmly Over Their Heads"...But Not Rupert

When The Unions Host A BBQ For Hitler, Stalin And Mao...Who Brings The Snags?

Howard Hits Iraq Oil Slick As Truth Becomes A WMD

Murdoch's Media Rewrites Stories After Furious Calls From Prime Minister's Office

Howard : I Didn't Say What I Just Said

By Darryl Mason

The phone calls from John Howard's office to the head office of Rupert Murdoch's News Limited in Sydney yesterday were less than pleasant.

The News.com.au website, the main portal for Murdoch's network of Australian newspaper websites, reaching some more than 1.5 million Australian readers per day, ran a number of headlines claiming John Howard had said that oil was now a key reason to stay in Iraq. Some of the headlines said the Iraq War was a war for oil. Just like all those protesters back in early 2003 claimed it would be.

By the time Howard moved to deny he said anything such thing, it was too late. The story was out, columns and articles had been written and sent to the printers for today's news racks, and there was no going back.

The furore started early yesterday morning when online news stories began appearing claiming that John Howard was going to unveil a new defence strategy for Australia, and mention would be made that we had to secure oil supplies in Iraq, as part of that strategy.

Yesterday morning, before flying out for a visit to Indonesia, defence minister Brendan Nelson did a radio interview where he reacted to the headlines hitting news stands :

"...obviously the Middle East itself, not only Iraq but the entire region, is an important supplier of energy, oil in particular, to the rest of the world, and Australians and all of us need to think well what would happen if there were a premature withdrawal from Iraq."

The two words "oil" and "Iraq" in the same sentence were enough for Nelson's few words to become the main, and most controversial, story of the day.

By the time John Howard delivered his speech, shortly after Nelson's interview, the thrust of the story for most of the media, including the Murdoch media, was already fixed.

Howard's speech only added to the furore :

Addressing an Australian Strategic Policy Institute conference, Mr Howard said events in the Middle East had long been important to Australia's security and its broader interests.

"Many of the key strategic trends I have mentioned, including terrorism and extremism, challenging demographics, WMD aspirations, energy demand and great power competition, converge in the Middle East," he said.

"Our major ally and our most important economic partners have crucial interests there."

It was on for young and old. First Nelson, then Howard, had admitted that Australia was in Iraq for the oil.

Most Australian newspapers are still written in the late afternoon, early evening, of the day before they're published. The front pages, the editorials, the letters, were all set down before Howard's retraction of his own words, and Nelson's words, could impact. No doubt some editors chose to ignore Howard's ridiculous quibbling and denials that he said what he said, barely a few hours before.

After all, when it comes to the Middle East, "energy" is "oil" and everybody knows it.

Howard tried to roll back the unexpected emergence of some hot truth about the Iraq War late yesterday afternoon, but it was pointless. Clearly the word "energy" had disappeared from his vocabulary, now he had become obsessed with the word "oil" :

“We are not there because of oil and we didn’t go there because of oil,” Howard protested. “We don’t remain there because of oil. Oil is not the reason.”

And then it was on to defending America :

“Are people seriously suggesting that it won’t matter to Australia if America is humiliated?” asked Howard.

It's sad, indeed it's horrifying, to think that the prime minister of Australia doesn't grasp that the US has been steadily humiliated in Iraq, month in, month out, for at least two years, if not longer. There are few military analysts or historians of any credibility who would even think of trying to deny the very clear fact that an insurgency that didn't exist, according to Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, has all but laid waste to the most powerful military machine in the world.

The United States is now spending an estimated $20 billion on a program to replace all their armoured Humvees with the new, supposedly bomb proof, MRAP vehicles, because the Iraqi insurgency has been so effective at using World War 2 guerilla technology - IEDs, or improvised explosive devices - to disable, literally, thousands of Humvees and trucks in the past three years. 17,770 MRAP vehicles are on order to fight the Iraq War for the next decade.

John Howard's office knew there was little point trying to get Fairfax newspapers to retract their stories, in print or online. Howard Admits War For Iraq's Oil was the story many journos for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age had been waiting more than four years to write.

But Howard knew the Murdoch media were likely to play ball. If not in print, then at least online, where news.com.au now reaches more Australians than the same company's newspapers do, in print.

But even until the early afternoon today, almost 24 hours later, some of the Murdoch websites were still carrying 'Howard Says Iraq War For Oil' headlines and stories, even though the main news.com.au site had rewritten headlines and stories, inside its own archive, and published the following correction....oh sorry, clarification :

An earlier version of this story from the Australian Associated Press incorrectly reported the Prime Minister as saying oil was a reason for Australia's continued military presence in Iraq.

He said "energy", but as we all know, "energy" is "oil" when it comes to the Middle East, unless Howard is thinking about cutting natural gas deals with Iran sometime soon.

The phone calls from Howard's office to News Limited HQ clearly worked.

News.com.au chose to blame Australian Associated Press for supplying the wire news story that claimed Howard had admitted to a war for oil in Iraq.

Here's the pre-furious phone calls from Howard's office Uncorrected Version as it appeared online yesterday :

And here's the spiffy new Corrected Version :

Note that the sub headlines now put the words relating to 'Iraq War For Oil' squarely in the mouth of defence minister Brendan Nelson, when it was also Howard who publicly talked of needing to "secure" energy resources in Iraq and the Middle East.

The sub headlines were also edited to remove the dead giveaway line 'Another Reason Is To Uphold Prestige Of US, UK', to be replaced with the far more Freedom And Democracy Agenda-friendly 'We'll Stay Until Iraq No Longer Needs Us, Says PM'.

But perhaps more importantly, note that on both the 'corrected' and 'uncorrected' stories above, the byline clearly reads "By Staff Writers And Wires".

AAP may have supplied a story that claimed Howard said Australia had an interest in staying in Iraq to secure future oil supplies, which is, of course, exactly what he said, but unless the byline is a total lie, more than one journo rewrote or added to the text and headline and sub headlines before it went online. Hence "by staff writers and wires".

But to Howard's utter horror, that correction, sorry clarification, only made it onto the story on the main news.com.au site.

The calls for clarifications to the story must not have gotten through to other city newspaper editors and staff in Murdoch's network. Unless, of course, they chose to ignore the clarifications because the story didn't need any clarifying at all. It was true.

And if that was the case, then good on them for not following directions from head office, via the Howard office.

story continues below....
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From other blogs by Darryl Mason :

Go Here For The Latest Stories From 'Your New Reality'

Go Here For The Latest Stories From 'The Last Days Of President Bush'

Go Here For The Latest Stories From 'The Fourth World War'
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story continues....


The below pages were all still online through the Murdoch online stable at 10-11am today, and later.

You will notice that the headlines and intros are almost riotously scathing for the Murdoch media's notoriously pro-Iraq and pro-Howard coverage, especially considering the absolutely vile smears these very same newspapers spewed onto the more than 600,000 Australians who marched in opposition to the Iraq War, many of whom, including thousands of World War 2, Korea and Vietnam veterans, claimed it was going to be a "War For Oil."

From the Adelaide Advertiser :



Australia's biggest selling daily newspaper, The Herald Sun, ran the following editorial today, hitting the presses before it could be pulled, and staying online, unchanged, well into the late morning :



The Tasmania Mercury still had this up on their site at midday :


And the Murdoch site in Perth still had this posted after midday today :



Even though the story of Howard's Iraq Oil Slick was running up hundreds of comments an hour on websites around Australia, any mention of it was gone from the news.com.au front page by 10.30am this morning.

Over at Murdoch's flagship 'The Australian' newspaper website, at least three key columnists weighed in supporting Howard's claim that he didn't say what he said, and it really didn't matter even if the prime minister and the defence minister did say what they said. Which they did.

Columnist Matt Price even went so far as to write that Nelson was wrong, dead wrong :

"I don’t think oil plays any remotely significant role in the government’s Iraq strategy."

Hell, clearly a newspaper columnist would know more about Australia's reasons for staying in Iraq than the defence minister. Right?

By 9am, more than a hundred people had hit Price's blog to castigate him for spinning on behalf of the government, and most of the commenters mocked him soundly.

Just to jog your memory, here's a reminder of what John Howard had to say about claims that the, then still coming, war on Iraq was about something other than WMDs and deposing Saddam Hussein back in February, 2003 :

"No criticism is more outrageous than the claim that US behaviour is driven by a wish to take control of Iraq's oil reserves."

And here's what the Murdoch media's favourite political whipping post, Greens Leader Bob Brown had to say in that same week, in 2003 :

This is not Australia's war. This is an oil war. This is the US recognising that, as the economic empire of the age, it needs oil to maintain its pre-eminence.

Back then, 76 percent of Australians were opposed to a War On Iraq.


By midday today, the Australia In Iraq For The Oil scandal was making international news, in a big way.

And the hundreds of headlines from around the world were immune to Howard's attempt to reframe his own comments, and those of his defence minister. They went in hard, using Howard as the first leader of a Coalition Of The Drilling country to finally admit the truth about a war so blackened and poisoned with so many lies :

Herald Sun, Melbourne : PM's war for oil

Daily Times, Pakistan - Oil key motive for Iraq involvement: Australia

The Scotsman, Scotland - Oil keeps Australia in Iraq

The Independent, UK : Australian troops 'in Iraq because of oil'

RTE, Ireland : Mideast oil priority for Australia

The BBC : Australians 'are in Iraq for oil'

Turkish Press, Middle East : Oil a factor in Australian role in Iraq: minister

Voice Of America : Australia Says Oil Key Motive for Involvement in Iraq

The Guardian, UK : Oil a factor in Iraq conflict, says Australian MP

Xinhau, China : PM: Australian troops to stay in Iraq for oil

Aljazeera : Australia admits Iraq war about oil

Forbes : Australia says securing oil supply means no Iraq withdrawal

Press TV, Iran : Aussies in Iraq for Oil

Gulf News, United Arab Emirates : Oil 'key factor for Australia's role in Iraq'

Stratfor (key military intel site) : Australia: Oil A Reason For Iraq Presence

Alsumaria, Iraq : Oil supply is an essential factor

Zee Tv, India : Mid-east oil crucial to our future: Australian PM

Alalalam News Network, Iran : Australia: Oil Means no Iraq Pullout


Some of those same news sites ran Howard's attempts to deny that he said what he said, but his retraction was given mostly backwater coverage. Those international editors knew, like some editors of Murdoch's Australian newspapers knew, that Howard was trying to scam them.

Like he scammed the entire back in late 2002 when he said he hadn't decided whether or not he would send troops to Iraq, when they were already in the Gulf. And in early March, 2003, when he said he hadn't decided yet whether or not commit troops to the coming war, when some of those already deployed troops had already written letters to their children in case they died during their war.

Howard's complete failure to keep the 'Iraq War For Oil' controversy in check couldn't have come at a worse political time for him. Today and tomorrow, the dreaded Newspoll surveys are taken, and Howard was counting on the poll, published early next week, to show the Liberal Party that is still a viable, respected, trusted and popular party leader and prime minister.

The rumours a few months back were if Howard didn't snap the polls back up in his favour by late July, his career was over. He would be rolled, and the federal election would be delayed until early 2008 to give time for a new leader to try and make his mark, and chase away some of the foul stench of the Howard years. If that's at all possible.

After 11 years as prime minister of Australia, John Howard stands today a doomed man. And he knows it.

And early next week, terrible poll numbers, and sweeping rumours of a leadership challenge, will confirm it for the entire nation.

Prime Minister Finally Admits Iraq Was A War For Oil

Blogocracy : Oils Ain't Oils, Apparently

Matt Price : Howard Didn't Say What He Said, And Neither Did Nelson

Howard Denies Linking Oil To Iraq

Rudd : Iraq Oil Claim Conradicts Goverment's Story

Government Admits Oil Behind Iraq Stay

Ninemsn Your Say : PM Links Oil To Iraq War

PM And Minister At Odds Over Iraq's Reasons

More Fury, More Outrage In Comments At The Courier Mail

Nelson's Iraq War For Oil Claim Spreads Around The World

"I Can't Believe I Voted For Him" - West Australians Rip And Shred Howard

London Bomb Victim Slams Howard For Increasing Terror Risk For Australians



Louise Barry is a young Australian who barely survived the July 7, 2005 bombings in London. She hit the headlines two weeks after the terror attacks when she confronted prime minister John Howard, during a hospital visit, on whether the bombers had attacked London because of the US-UK-Australian War On Iraq.

Two years later, and only days after another series of attempted bomb attacks on London and Glasgow, Louise Barry will appear in a TV commercial where she demands that John Howard get Australia out of the Iraq War before more Australians are killed or injured in revenge terror attacks.

Barry reportedly thought up the idea of the commercial, and wrote her own lines.

"You got us in this mess," Barry says, addressing the prime minister, "it's your responsibility to get us out."

"The situation clearly is not getting any better. I don't want what happened to me to happen to
other Australians, or anyone else for that matter."

“The recent attacks in the UK brought back some really painful memories."

“Wasn't going to war in Iraq supposed to make us safer, not put us in more danger?

“I don't have all the answers and I'm not an expert, but I do know something about the real cost of terrorism.”

During the July 7, 2005, attacks in London, Barry was on a train hit by one bomber. She was uninjured. But the bus she was directed to get onto, after being evacuated from the underground train line, was torn apart by another bomber an hour after the first blasts.

John Howard visited Barry in a London hospital on July 20, 2005. She was recovering from a broken neck, shrapnel wounds and severe burns. Howard was expecting to visit an Australian victim of the bombing who would be thankful for his visit, and might want to ask him some questions about terror. He had no idea she was going to confront him over the connections between the increased threat of terrorism to Australia resulting from its involvement in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

During that hospital visit,Louise Barry's concerns about the links between the July 7 bombings and the Iraq War were all but dismissed by the prime minister :

LOUISE BARRY: What do you think about all this sort of stuff then? Do you reckon... 'cause everyone says that it's all about 'cause of the Iraq War. Do you reckon?

JOHN HOWARD: No, I don't. But, you know, different people have different views. I don't. I mean, they had a go at us and they had a go at other people before Iraq started. I think it's less likely in Australia.

LOUISE BARRY: You reckon?

JOHN HOWARD: A bit less likely, yeah. Less likely in Austra...

LOUISE BARRY: Why?

JOHN HOWARD: Why? I don't think there's the concentration of groups in Australia that might produce it, that's why.

LOUISE BARRY: Yeah.

JOHN HOWARD: But I think it's still possible, and I've said that, and it could happen.

LOUISE BARRY: Pretty scary stuff though.

JOHN HOWARD: It can happen anywhere, unfortunately.

LOUISE BARRY: Yeah, I know.

She sure does.

Howard was clearly uncomfortable during the questioning by Barry, which is the usual reaction from Howard when he hears something he doesn't like, or is confronted by an Australian who hasn't been screened by his minders, in case they raise too much truth reality or truth in his presence. When Barry confronted Howard, he quickly became annoyed, dismissive and rude. Like a petulant child.

The commercials are being paid for by political action group GetUp, who are also using Barry's commercial to solicit donations to buy more ad time and raise funds for further campaigns.

It's interesting to note one of Howard's comments to Barry :

"I don't think there's the concentration of groups in Australia that might produce (terror attacks)..."

But that's not what Howard and terror fear mongers tell us now. We're supposed to have thousands of young Muslims in Australia who subscribe to Islamist ideology, and we could be attacked in our streets at any time.

Nothing to do with the half million people killed in the Iraq War, of course.

You can expect the usual Howard and Iraq War supporters to take cheap and nasty shots at Barry. No doubt they will claim she is being used by those evil Lefties for political purposes. Their response to Louise Barry's plea to lessen the terror threat to Australians by getting our troops out of Iraq will be as tired, propagandist and cliched as their arguments for why the War On Iraq must continue, for years to come.

Howard Finally Admits Iraq War Was A War For Oil

There's Bullying, And Then There's Burying

A series of savage and cruel assaults were allegedly inflicted on a 13 year old Perth boy through more than six hours of brutality at the hands of five other boys aged 12 to 14.

Police and a prosecutor claim the 13 year old was subjected to painful "wedgies" and then hung from a tree by his underpants. He was also punched, whipped and "prodded" with a plank of wood bearing exposed nails.

The other boys smeared his lunch across his face and clothes and pissed in his lunchbox. One boy allegedly dug a grave and the 13 year old was told to lie down in it. Other boys are said to have then shoveled dirt in on top of him.

The 13 year was forced to crawl around like a dog while the boys verbally abused him. He was allegedly threatened with an ax. Not surprisingly, the 13 year old was so terrified he wet his pants and was said to have cried and screamed throughout the horror :

Five boys, ranging in age from 12 to 14, have each been charged with deprivation of liberty, threatening to kill, and assault occasioning bodily harm after the "horrendous" attack at a government high school in the Perth hills last week, Perth Children's Court has been told.

The victim and his alleged attackers are all Year 8 students.

The alleged ringleader's mother told reporters her son was a sweet child and that she had lost faith in the justice system.

Aren't they always?

PM Finally Admits Iraq Was A War For Oil

Howard To Iraq : We're Not Leaving Until You Say We Can

Howard Shoots For National Security Poll Rise In Desperate Attempt To Stave Off Leadership Challenge


Update : According to this story from the Melbourne Age, on today's speech by PM Howard on national security and the Iraq War, detailed below, Howard will say that Australia has a "major stake of oil dependency", and this is one of the key reasons why we had to become involved in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. So it was a war for oil after all.

Perhaps by no coincidence, The Australian newspaper also features a major story today on how we are now entering an age when Australian will suffer from major oil deficits, where in the past we had enjoyed locally sourced oil supply surpluses.

Update II : Both John Howard and defence minister Brendan Nelson discussed the need for Australia to continue the occupation of Iraq to secure future oil supplies, and all hell broke loose.


Original Story Follows :

John Howard will move today to dispel any doubt about his intention to keep more than 550 Australian combat troops in Iraq until the Iraqi government says they can go home.

Which raises doubts about this story from last week, which claimed Howard had a secret plan to pull out most of Australia's fighting forces from Iraq in early 2008. The doubt raised, then, is that the leak used in the story was a plant, a set-up to gauge the public reaction to a withdrawal of Australian troops. The reaction from most Australians was "yeah, so what?" Howard can now dismiss any notion raised by Labor on the way to the federal election that he is planning to pull troops out once the election is over.

Off the back of the currently very weak links between the spectacularly hopeless car bombing attempts in London and Glasgow and an Australian-based doctor, Howard is expected to ramp up both the threat of homegrown terror, and the threat of terror attacks from non-Australians who are visiting, or working, here.

Howard's core message will be simple : Australia is not pulling its fighting forces out of Iraq, and Australia is not withdrawing from Afghanistan. Not until the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan say our troops are no longer needed :

In a major security speech, Mr Howard will stress the stark consequences of a failure by the US and its allies to secure Iraq.

He will argue that the military coalition cannot allow weariness, frustration or political convenience to dictate strategy in Iraq.

Mr Howard today will launch a new defence policy statement, which underscores the strategic importance of the Middle East to global security and Australia's broader national interests.

The document warns of a far more complex and challenging global environment facing Australia's military.

It says Australia's new security challenges dictate a military force able not only to play a lead role in the region, but also to operate in an expanded range of operations further afield with close allies.

The 65-page defence update declares that violent extremism will remain a threat around the world for a generation "and probably longer".

It says the stakes are high in Iraq and Afghanistan, not only for the peace and stability of those countries, but also because the outcome will influence how the US will deal with future global security challenges.

A critical danger remains the prospect of terror groups such as al-Qa'ida getting hold of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons.

Increasingly, military technology once available only to nation states is being used by terror groups and other non-state actors. Organisations such as al-Qa'ida are unlikely to be deterred from using WMDs by the threat of military retaliation.

The update says extremist terrorism continues to draw funding, support and people from Middle Eastern states.

"For as long as that is true, Australia and like-minded countries need to fight terrorism at its source rather than wait for it to come to our shores.

"To help defeat terrorism Australia must have patience, a sustained military commitment, a willingness to adapt to conditions on the ground and work closely with our friends and allies."

It forecasts the defence force will increasingly be called on to fight irregular opponents and be capable of mounting counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations.

In short, Australia will keep fighting the 'War on Terror' for as long as the 'War on Terror' helps to keep spawning new terrorists.

Which also means Australia will keep spending more than $23 billion a year on defence, the second highest per person defence spend in the world (after the United States) for years to come. Not much is expected to change on that front even if Kevin Rudd, and Labor, win the federal election later this year.

Don't expect Howard to do much talking up of the Australian-United States alliance between now and the federal election. He will acknowledge it, but he is unlikely to be seen publicly praising President Bush. At least if his advisers have any say in it.

Pledging a strong and ongoing commitment to fighting the 'War on Terror' is now a coded way for Howard to say that he will continue to support Bush-led American military misadventures around the world for the foreseeable future.

It will be surprising if Howard has anything to say about Australia's involvement in the US 'missile shield' between now and the election, or Australia's involvement in helping the United States to 'encircle' China, in anticipation of a coming trade war between China and the US.

Howard's speech today on Australia's future security "challenges" and his government's role in helping to fight the 'War on Terror' will be seen as probably Howard's last major chance to buzz up his own dismal standings in the polls before Parliament resumes, and to tamp down the grumblings within the Liberal Party on whether or not Howard will destroy their chances of holding onto power in the coming elections.

There was speculation a few months back that Howard had to score a decent rise in national polls, like Newspoll which will begin collecting data on Friday, after Howard's key speech today, or he could be rolled by his own party and removed from the leadership. If Howard was replaced, the coalition government could delay the federal election until early 2008 to give themselves a fighting change. But they still need someone to replace Howard. Someone from the front ranks of the government who doesn't make most Australians wince every time they open their mouths.

Howard may see a slight rise in the polls from today's speech, partly due to unease caused by the, however weak, Australian links to the London car bombing attempts, but he will really have to rally the nation to knock Rudd and the Labor Party off their election winning perch, which they have enjoyed for all of 2007. This seems incredibly unlikely.

The chief problem for Howard today is that while he can pledge to try and keep Australians safe from terror, Australians are more concerned about who is going to keep them safe from Howard and his dishonest, double-dealing, secret agenda heavy, gang.


March, 2007 : Howard Sees Only "Faint Glimmer Of Hope" In Iraq

February, 2007 : Howard Keeps "Own Interest" Option For Early Troop Withdrawal From Iraq

Australian Defence Minister Says There Is No Hope Of Victory In Iraq War

The Skies Have Opened, And The 'City Of Drought' Eases Back Water Restrictions

Many residents of Goulburn, in the NSW southern highlands, used to shower with buckets around their feet to collect every spare drop of precious water. Water was precious they weren't allowed to wash their cars or water their gardens.

For more than two years, Goulburn was the largest 'dry' town in Australia, and the savage drought that almost emptied local dams looked like it was never going to end. Lawns turned to dust, gardens died and people all over the country saw in Goulburn a dawning reality that they feared they would soon have to deal with themselves, in their own towns and cities.

But the skies have opened up over Goulburn and the primary dam for the city's water supply is now more than 50% full, after a low of a mere 12% capacity.

Goulburn residents may not be dancing in the streets, but they are watering their gardens.

In a number of interviews with locals aired on television and radio today and tonight, Goulburn residents talked about how they would never take water for granted again, and how the drought and increasingly harsh water restrictions had changed their lives.

Many seemed to think the changes are for the better.

They said they had learned that water could not be wasted, and some shook their heads in disbelief at how, years before, they had treated water as a commodity that would never run out.

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

The NSW southern highlands city, which had come to symbolise the plight of the state's drought-stricken rural areas, will go from level 5 to level 3 water restrictions following June's heavy rain.

But one nursery owner said it wouldn't make much difference to his business as most residents had already adapted to the dry conditions.

"When it first started [in 2002], well, you could stand in the store and there would be no one around,'' said Shane Nelson, 42, who owns the Gehl Garden Centre & Wholesale Nursery in Goulburn.

"As time has progressed people have actually seemed to have adapted pretty well to the restrictions. People started adjusting to the conditions and got water-tanks on their houses, used grey or bore water. We definitely diversified ourselves into other things like garden furniture and pots.''

Mr Nelson said the restrictions had meant his customers moved towards plants that were less thirsty and more able to cope with the dry conditions.

"Roses have done very well as they actually seem to thrive a lot better in the dry conditions,'' he said. "They are very disease and pest-prone in moisture.

Plants such as camellias and rhododendrons, which favour moist positions, are not as popular now, Mr Nelson said.

"I talk to customers now and they use more water than they've ever done because of their tank supply,'' he said. "The first couple of years of the restrictions, if I could have picked up my plants and left, I would have. But soon we were holding our own.''

After strong June rains Goulburn's dam levels more than quadrupled, with one of its storages spilling over for the first time in six years.

Greer Vs Ackerman On The 'Aboriginal Intervention'

Two columns about prime minister John Howard's 'Aboriginal Intervention' campaign from two of Australia's most hysterical, hyperbolic, clarity-challenged blabbermouths - Piers Ackerman and Germaine Greer.

One of the two thinks Howard is just brilliant and never puts a foot wrong and has a heart of pure gold and would never let politics or the thought of winning the coming election influence his decision making, particularly when it comes to the fate of Australia's Aborigines.

The other thinks Howard is the scum that grows on scum and wants to drink the blood of abused Aboriginal children while stealing their tribes' land so his rich mates can move in and start mining more uranium.

You can guess for yourself which one is which.

Ackerman : While a majority of Labor supporters (80 per cent, according to Galaxy) believe the move is an election stunt pulled by Prime Minister John Howard, those most affected see it as an attempt to remedy a disaster long-neglected by governments. ...those who stupidly claim the Federal Government could have acted sooner are ignoring the tens of millions Canberra has given the states and the Northern Territory to deal with the inherent problems faced by those who have been kept subject to abuse in their isolated reserves by the appalling policies so warmly embraced by misty-eyed members of the kumbaya crowd.

Greer : Ever since white men set foot in Australia more than 200 years ago, they have persecuted, harassed, tormented and tyrannised the people they found there. The more cold-blooded decided that the most humane way of dealing with a galaxy of peoples who would never be able to adapt to the "whitefella" regime was to eliminate them as quickly as possible, so they shot and poisoned them. Others believed that they owed it to their God to rescue the benighted savage, strip him of his pagan culture, clothe his nakedness, and teach him the value of work. Leaving the original inhabitants alone was never an option; learning from them was beyond any notion of what was right and proper. As far as the pink people were concerned, black Australians were primitive peoples, survivors from the stone age in a land that time forgot.

Ackerman : Those most to blame for this horror are the promoters of the Aboriginal industry - from H.C. "Nugget" Coombs and his successors to the legislators who disenfranchised rural Aboriginals from the economy through the equal wage case 30 years ago, to the jurists who conspired to concoct the Mabo case and the authors of flawed reports on Aboriginal deaths in custody and the so-called "stolen generations".

Greer : As commander-in-chief of an army of police, the Australian Defence Force and hordes of doctors and nurses, (John Howard) will storm the 70 or so autonomous Aboriginal settlements in the Northern Territory.

Ackerman : It comes as no surprise that Labor's true believers - the dilettante North Shore doctors' wives - are loathe to support genuine action - because it focuses attention on the abject failure of the ill-conceived apartheid policies they marched for and in which they placed their deluded, emotive trust.

Greer : The name of the game, as usual, is bad faith. Everything Howard does is calculated to win him votes. The suffering of Aboriginal women and children at the hands of their deranged menfolk has been going on all Howard's life. For most of that time whitefellas made a joke of it. At this late hour, on the eve of a general election, he is suddenly taking it seriously. It is of no consequence that what he is doing is illegal. His treatment of asylum seekers and boat people is just as illegal, and it is widely admired by Australians and people who should know better.

Ackerman :The dewy-eyed media handwringers and academics who rarely miss an opportunity to bray their compassion for Aborigines are now silent....It's time these poseurs said sorry to the generations they have so tragically exploited.

They both need to take a cold shower. Together, to save water. But for God's sake, don't post the footage of it on YouTube. We might accidentally stumble across it and then have to gouge out our eyeballs and use the new memory flush pill to empty our minds of that horrific vision.

But in reality, Germaine Greer's article is one of the better, and more comprehensive, stories on the realities of the 'Intervention' you'll find online today. She's spent plenty of time in Aboriginal communities up north where the elders have already intervened and worked out most of the problems of their society and want to be treated with the respect they deserve. They're still waiting. Greer is harsh on the history of the whitefellas treatment of the blackfella, because that treatment has been appallingly bad, more often than not, for more than 200 years. And not much has changed in the 11 years John Howard has been running the country.

Ackerman, meanwhile, just provides another example of why he is one of the highest paid propagandists in the country. He is so good at it. Never has a failing, disconnected and inherently dishonest Australian government as John Howard's had such a master of The Big Lie so firmly on their side. In Australia, there are few, if any, more rehearsed proponents of the vile, insidious personal attack, and practitioners of The Big Lie than Ackerman.

Greer still has hope for the communities she spent time, and believes that most Aboriginals need less interference from the whitefella, not more, particularly from those whitefellas who sell them booze and drugs and buy sex from their children, or just rape them for nothing. Almost nowhere in the storm of media coverage about the appalling child abuse in some Aboriginal communities was it mentioned just how often whitefellas with a few cartons of booze, or a cheap bottle of scotch, were the perpetrators.

Greer also believes the Aboriginal people still have a lot to teach white Australia about this massive country where we all mostly cling and congregate near the coastlines.

As Greer points out, on behalf of the female Aboriginal elders she calls friends, it doesn't seem to occur to the Howard government that the whitefella might actually have something to learn from the people who lived in these lands for more than 50,000 years.

Ackerman, meanwhile, is just dripping with his trademark rancid snobbery and dealing from the same tattered deck of tired old cliches he was already wearing out back when he was still even remotely relevant. And that was a long time ago. His bile and bitterness is so toxic, you might need to eat a big spoonful of honey after reading this to get back your sense of taste.

The Great Australian Beer Disaster

It's not really a disaster, for most of us, I just wanted to use that headline.

But in a cynical, purely capitalistic attempt to boost profits, the makers of the beer VB - or Victoria Bitter, or Vitamin B, as we used to call it - are slashing the iconic brew's alcohol content, and raising the price.

There'll be rioting in the streets. Slightly less drunken rioting :

The alcohol content of Victoria Bitter is to be cut as brewer Foster's tries to slash millions of dollars from its tax bill.

Foster's will also raise the wholesale price of all its packaged beers by about 2 per cent next month.

Industry experts say the VB alcohol content reduction - from 4.9 per cent to 4.8 per cent - could save Foster's $20 million in beer tax a year.

But the company has assured drinkers the taste of the iconic VB will stay the same.

Yeah, that's what they want us to think. But VB afficionados will be able to taste the difference.

"The taste will stay exactly the same. Our master brewers have done a lot of work to make sure of that."

Master brewers? For VB?

Clearly a boycott is in order. Maybe.

Beer sales, according to this story, are actually showing a "long-term decline" in Australia. But we spend more on beer, because we're going for the premiums now.

Clearly it's a dirty, nasty conspiracy to make our booze-heavy beer more like the Americans - weak as piss.

BTW, the (staged) photo that goes with the story here, of a clearly shattered old VB lover, is excellent.

Australian Military "Unlikely" To "Pressure" Other Countries To Change Carbon Emissions Policies

Not Yet, Anyway

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has issued a report explaining how the Australian military will likely become engaged in dealing with the results of a rapidly changing climate in the Pacific and South East Asia in the coming years.

The military may find itself engaging in more relief missions and disaster recovery work within Australia, and the region, and there may be a need to also "defend" Australia's borders against expected flows of "climate refugees" once a number of Pacific islands go under, or widescale water and food shortages force people our way.

More cyclones, extreme weather events, bushfires and flooding will also need the resources of the Australian military, and the report urges the military to think about the kinds of gear and equipment they will need to deal with such work in the future. In short, start buying more trucks than can drive through five feet of water and pick up some more rubber dinghies while you're at it.

Nothing all that new in all this, but clearly these are important events and situations for the military and its related agencies and policy boards to discuss and plan for.

But here's the bit that really caught my eye :

...the paper said it would be unlikely the Australian Defence Force (ADF) would be deployed to pressure another nation to change its carbon emissions policies.

Wow. Has that even been under discussion? That the Australia's military might be deployed in the future to "pressure" another nation into lowering its carbon emissions?

Close down those coal-fired power stations, buddy, or we're sending in the troops.
Which raises the very interesting question : If Indonesia was found to be in violation of its allowed carbon emissions quota in 2026, and the EU and the North American Union demanded it shut down 56 coal-fired power stations to get those emissions levels down, would those who support the war against climate change also support going to war, actual war, to make sure Indonesia met its targets?

Anti-Oil & Anti-War activists could find their children growing up to become Anti-Climate Change But Pro-War.

Of course, the carbon emissions produced by the military during any such intervention to force a neighbouring country to lower its emissions would need to be factored in. Naturally.

Claim : Howard Has Top Secret Plan To Abandon America In Iraq

Australia Tells Iraq : We Ain't Leaving

Howard Admits ADF Role In Iraq Should "Already Be Over"

Stuck for an attention grabbing story for the front page, or early pages, of your Sunday newspaper? No sweat, just hype the rumours about Australia pulling its troops out of Iraq just in time for the federal election. Don't worry about whether the story is true or not, or whether your newspaper is ramping up the hopes of military families keen to see their loved ones return home sooner rather than later.

Just concoct a semi-legitimate sounding theory to go with the claims from your "senior military source" and you've got an attention grabbing, newspaper selling story.

From the Sunday Telegraph :

Prime Minister John Howard has a secret plan to begin withdrawing Australian troops from Iraq by February, a senior military source has revealed.

And Mr Howard intends to use the plan to ambush Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd at this year's election.

Mr Rudd has committed Labor to pulling out Australian troops from the increasingly unpopular war, if he wins.

A well-placed source said the plan is one of the most closely guarded secrets in the top levels of the bureaucracy.

It is understood the plan has not yet been put to the Bush Administration or even gone before the National Security Committee of Cabinet.

Is that because it's complete and utter bullshit?

"The Government is quietly saying to Defence: 'We don't want to get caught in Iraq if it comes unstuck for the Americans'," another well-placed source said.

"They want to be ready to go, even before the Americans."

Australia's planned troop withdrawal is expected to begin at the same time the US military is expected to begin drawing down its presence in Iraq in February.

Ha! Bush isn't pulling American troops out of Iraq. At least, not until the shattered US military pull George W. Bush out of the White House.

Most Australians will laugh long and hard to hear that John Howard is planning to do anything in relation to Iraq without first seeking the approval of President Bush.

This whole bucket of rotting fish-heads, passing as a news story, is little more than an attempt to bolster John Howard's appalling poll ratings by making it appear he intends to bring the troops home, after the election, and is planning to do so without seeking the permission of Bush Co. first.

It's little more than an attempt to paint Howard as something other than the Bush Co. bootlick that so many Australians, rightly so, now believe him to be.

The majority of Australians are not going to vote for John Howard again, whether he promises to bring the troops home or not. The prime minister's credibility stinks as badly as that news story.

Although the Australian foreign minister, Alexander Downer, is infamous for lying even when he says "Good Morning", he was doing his master's bidding (Bush, not Howard) when he was in Iraq just the other day, stating Australian troops will remain in Iraq "for the foreseeable future" :

Speaking after talks with Iraqi Government and US military leaders in Baghdad, Mr Downer emphasised there were no plans for a pre-election pullout and that Australia would not walk away from the difficult challenges facing Iraq.

"I made it very clear to the Iraqis while I was there that we would not abandon them," Mr Downer told ABC radio yesterday. "I made it clear Australian troops would stay."

Mr Downer said it was vital that extremism in Iraq was defeated.

What happened to defeating terrorism? Terrorism's okay, is it, now we can't stop it? So we're going to "defeat" extremism instead.

Maybe we should just go for the enforcement of a total ban on smoking in Iraqi restaurants. You know, something clear and achievable.

Another story of interest here, attempts to reframe Howard and his faithful lackeydom when it came to following Bush Co. orders on deploying Australian troops to Iraq back in late 2002, in anticipation of the war that he claims he wasn't sure was actually going to happen when most of the Australian troops had already been told it was going to happen, because that's why they were all there in the first place :

Mr Howard told the Ten Network that he spoke with US President George W. Bush and then defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld about an Australian deployment....

And that was back in mid-2002, but Howard insists to this day it was much later in the year than that.

"The understanding we had with the Americans, when we originally participated, was that after the sharp end was over we weren't going to have any troop presence," he said. "I made it very clear that we would commit forces - if we did commit forces, they'd be committed for the sharp operational stage, the invasion stage if you like, and then after that, we would not be leaving forces on the ground."

Except for all the forces we would be having on the ground, because we told Bush Co. we would be having those forces on the ground, that we were in fact committed, while John Howard was still telling the Australian public that we hadn't yet committed to the war, something he continued to do only 48 before the war began when dozens of missiles ploughed into Baghdad .

Howard has lied so often and spun himself into so many confusing circles about Australia's involvement in the Iraq War, he can no longer keep track of all the threads of disinformation and obfuscation he has hurled at the public over the past five years.

Mr Howard was...forced to defend the role of Australian troops in Iraq, after recent complaints from soldiers that they were being accused by some coalition partners of not pulling their weight.

When Defence Minister Brendan Nelson visited troops in Iraq in April he was questioned about Australia's participation.

"There's really a very real sense that our forces are being withheld from actual combat roles with the exception of the special forces," one soldier said.

"I think that some of our coalition partners are starting to certainly make comment on the ground to soldiers about that."

Yes, they are. And it's been a personally degrading embarrassment for many Australian soldiers in Iraq, who trained to fight a war, who went to Iraq to fight a war, and then found themselves locked out of key battles because the prime minister was, and remains, so utterly terrified of the reaction of the Australian public if military casualties started to enter double digits.

Go To 'The Fourth World War' Blog For More News On Iraq

Australia's Secrets - Media Losing Battle To Access Truth

Lives Destroyed When Whistleblowers Tell The Public What They Have A Right To Know

A remarkable coalition of Australian media giants are fighting to protect journalists right to report the news and to free up access to government documents and records, as Howard Corp. tightens the rules of access, and extends the time that government records can be kept from the public. This huge media vs government battle comes as two court cases about government secrets and whistleblowing roll through the courts.

Two journalists from the Herald Sun were recently slapped with criminal records, and fined $7000 each, because they would not give up their sources.

A senior public servant had leaked documents to the journalists two years ago that exposed a Howard government plan to cut funding for the ongoing care and rehabilitation of Australia's war veterans. A disgusting, cynical and stunningly Un-Australian move by Howard's people, particularly when the country has thousands of soldiers deployed to two major war zones.

The senior public servant was rightly disgusted by what he learned, and believed the public should have been informed. So he blew the whistle, and almost found himself in jail for doing the right thing.

In another case, an officer with Customs found his department was trying to suppress a report that exposed just how vulnerable Australia's major airports were to drug smugglers and terror attacks. He found serious security flaws and he went public, and had his life destroyed by the vindictive federal government, and his retirement funds depleted trying to keep his freedom.

Again, a whisleblower did the right thing by bringing to the attention of the public important information they should have been aware of.

There's a good story on all this from 7.30 Report. You read the full transcript of the report, and watch the show here :

Unlike countries like Britain, Australia has no national laws to protect so called 'whistle blowers'. In the eyes of some observers, such prosecutions are symptomatic of a new climate of secrecy that has seen Governments clamp down on the release of sensitive information in the public interest.

Allan Kessing is the second public servant to be prosecuted for leaking to the media in the past two years (over airport security flaws). Desmond Kelly, a senior Veteran Affairs officer, was found guilty of leaking a government email to Herald Sun journalists McManus and Harvey.

It was another embarrassing expose revealing Federal Cabinet plans to knock back a proposed $500 million increase in war veterans' entitlements. The conviction was later thrown out, but the Secretary of the Prime Minister and Cabinet Department, Dr Peter Shergold, is unrepentant about the Government's aggressive pursuit of public servants, telling the National Press Club last year that he regarded all leaks, even those in the public interest, as democratic sabotage.

...prominent Australian author and journalist David Marr says the silencing of public servants reflects a disturbing pattern in the last decade. His thesis outlined in the latest 'Quarterly Essay' warns thuggish spin doctoring and punitive legislation like the 2005 sedition laws, have been used by all Australian governments to shut down criticism, and starve journalists of information the public has the right to know.

The coalition of Australian media giants have formed The Right To Know Committee to fight state and federal government suppression of information, to broaden the Freedom Of Information Act, and to find ways to protect the rights of whistleblowers. Well, to give rights to whistleblowers. They don't have rights at the moment.

More on all this from David Marr :

The rules of secrecy have been policed as they have never been before in Australia in peace time. There is a squad, the Australian Federal Police. They work tens of thousands of hours chasing down leaks to the press. That's their work. They prosecute. People are supposed to go to jail for telling the public things the public needs to know.

News Limited's John Hartigan, who is the force behind the Right to Know Committee, is no whingeing leftie, take it from me. This is a problem in Australia now which is recognised to span right across the media and political spectrums. The head of News Limited, the head of the ABC, the head of Fairfax... these people have unparalleled access to Government. Their capacity to privately lobby to fix these problems is almost limitless, but they haven't been able to do it privately.

The press is being locked out, the public servants are scared, they're shutting up and as a result, public debate in this country, which is a crucial part of democratic government in this country, is closing down.

What's most troubling about all this is that the governments involved in suppressing the truth, and punishing the whistleblowers, are not doing it for the good of the public. They are doing it to protect themselves from criticism and accountability.

The formula is simple : the more secrets they can hold onto, the more powerful they are.

It's a shocking state of affairs for a democratic country.

Our politicians continually forget that they are our employees. They are not rulers of a kingdom, or dictators, as much as they sometimes appear to wish to be so.


As far as the media goes, the gags on what journalists can and can't report, in this 'War On Terror' age, are getting tighter :

This automatic preference for concealment means Australia's record on press freedom is a national disgrace. The latest index published by Reporters Without Borders puts us in 35th place, behind South Korea and Namibia, and alongside such bulwarks of democracy as Bulgaria and Mali. Politicians from all sides are guilty. They may parrot cliches about freedom of information when in opposition; in government they obey the instinct of the powerful to gag and to ban.

The Right To Know Is At The Heart Of Freedom

Andrew Wilkie, Australia's Most Famous Whistleblower On The False WMD Intelligence That Led Us Into The Iraq War, Vindicated After Shocking Smear Campaign By Politicians And Media

Blowing The Whistle On Hypocrisy - Hundreds Of Comments From Australians In Support Of Whistleblowing

Blogocracy - Governments Don't Like Sunlight

The Gags On The Media Are Getting Tighter