Has anyone asked Costello about the PMs “children overboard” claims? Maybe he’d respond along the lines of John Anderson, saying Prime Minister John Howard is a trustworthy individual and most Australians know it. Or maybe we’d get one of the more equivocal formulas (perhaps a quote from Howard himself) of which Costello is so fond. Unless things get drastically worse for Howard, I can’t see Costello making a challenge (Chris Sheil discusses this further) but I also doubt that he’d be willing to tie his own credibility to Howard’s.
As the story keeps running, I’m beginning to think it possible, albeit remotely, that Howard might be forced to ‘fess up. There’s been a new development every day, and there’s at least one more to come – the Liberal Party dirt unit’s campaign against Scrafton for having porn on his computer here’s an old newspaper article [PDF], linked by Crikey which reports the dirt unit’s role (hat tip to Ron, commenting on Ken Parish) This story gets a blogospheric run from Bernie Slattery here. This may damage Scrafton, but it will also remind everyone of previous similar campaigns, against Mick Keelty, the “doddering daiquiri diplomats” and so on.
In addition Howard’s attempt to parse as supporting his own story a statement from the former head of the Defence Department public affairs unit, Jenny McKenry, confirming Scrafton’s story invites a clarification from her.
And so far, I have yet to see a single person, no matter how vehemently they support Howard, willing to say that they believe he is telling the truth[1].
fn1. To be clear here, I don’t mean something “morally true” or “true enough to satisfy the Australian people” or “true in the postmodern sense”, or “true, given appropriate rules of grammatical construction”. I mean that when Howard says something like “at no time during his telephone calls with Mr Scrafton had he discussed photos relating to the sinking of Siev4 on October 8, 2001”, this actually means that the photos were not mentioned by either party.
John Quiggin 
john Anderson made the extraordinary claim that this was part of the ALP election campaign.
If this was so why would they do it in the FIRST week of the Olympics?
John Anderson is a bumpkin wouldn’t know if his backside was in fire.
John, why do you think the Scrafton intervention will make any difference?
We have known since the Senate Inquiry that: (1) Admiral Barrie told Reith the photos were from the next day; (2) Brigadier Bornholdt told Reith’s media advisor that the photos were from the next day;(3) Brigadier Silverstone told Reith that the video didn’t show children being thrown overboard; (4) Howard spoke to Rieth on the phone about the video and the photos several days before the election.
If this isn’t enough to convince people, how will Scrafton’s revelations make any difference?
James, it is one thing to have overwhelming circumstantial evidence, it is another altogether to have complete empirical proof. The difference may appear slight, but it’s the difference between an argument on the balance of probabilities and placing the issue beyond all reasonable doubt.
You may be right, Chris. Let’s just hope the jury is well instructed.
Jenny McKendry has duly made the clarification – reported on the 7.30 report just now.
Should we teach our kids to tell the truth?
Or tell them to lie whenever this is to one’s advantage.
Did john and jeanette exhort their children to be truthful at all times?
They are christians are they not?
I wonder if these are the values that John Howard was saying were absent from our public schools?
Possibly the same values he was congratulating private schools for instilling in their students?
Now let me get this right…
* Big business rewards those who lie whenever it’s to their advantage and wherever they can get away with it
* Private schools cater for the parents from the ‘big-end’ of town
* The kids from the ‘big-end’ of town tend to end-up occupying most of the positions of power in big business
* So maybe the behaviour of big business can be attributed to these values conveyed to students in private schools?
I’m sure this can’t be right because…
– Big business acts in our best interests
– The people that run it like Alan Bond, Rodney Adler, Brad Cooper, Rene Rivkin, James Hardie Directors, Enron Directors etc. don’t lie and always pay their fair share of taxes like the rest of us
– These honest citizens learnt the values of honesty and fair play at private schools
– Private schools would never ever tolerate or quietly turn a blind eye to cheating, bastardisation or bullying…especially if the boy in trouble had a rich and powerful dad who would pick up the phone and have a quiet word to someone at the school in a postion of power
– Therefore there can be no connection between culture and values implicitly conveyed to rich private schoolboys and what they get up to later in life when they are rewarded with plum jobs entirely on merit of course and not on their social position.
If we’re talking evidence that could be used in court, most of the supposed new stuff is hearsay- utterly inadmissable.
Fact is I don’t think Howard lied, he may have given more emphasis to a view that suited his purpose. Fact is the latest witness produced (gunner off a navy vessel) has stated that a passenger held a child over the side of the SIEV. The passengers also disabled the boats steering gear, sabotaged the engine and scuttled the boat- not just the munchkins wound up in the drink, the whole boatload did, trying to prey of the inate decency of Australians to achieve an outcome to which they were not entitled- exacly the point the government was making, and the electorate agreed in droves. The policy was also successful in stopping boat arrivals. What’s the fuss?
Fact is I don’t think Howard lied
Yes, Paul, but we are talking about whether Howard did lie, not about what you think.
When the Royal Commision (lynch squad) looked at Carmen Lawrence the standard of proof was on the balance of probabilities was it not? I suggest we are entitled to use that standard of proof with Howard in view of his track record.
More to the point, none of what Paul Bickford says is relevant to whether Howard is telling the truth. This is all claims that the children overboard story was “morally true”.
The question I’d like Paul and others to answer is the straightforward one I mentioned in the footnote. Howard says he was never (before the election) told the photos weren’t what he had said they were. Scrafton says he told him. Do you believe Howard?
Claude Cockburn dictum applies today as much to bloggers as it does journalists: Never believe anything until it is officially denied.
After almost 20 years of watching how the sausages were made at the Bear Pit, I tend to disbelieve what most party apparatchicks from major parties say in public.
The amount of whispering dirt thrown at characters like John Hatton by major parties would bury any normal human being. It always amazes me how people with huge poles in their eyes tend to scream and shout about those who happen to have a speck or two in their eyes.
The stakes have never been higher and the claims by the major parties of all sides need to be taken with a grain of salt. Many people forget that if the Webdiary existed in mid nighties that the title of the book by Margo Kingston, who gave so much space for the children over the board affair, would likely be Not Happy, Paul!
Will we ever know the total truth, I doubt it as the current search for the truth seems to be more political rather than moral…
The man who tells you that there is no such thing as truth, or that truth is relative, is asking you not to believe him. So don’t…
-Roger Scruton
Jozef, Margo may have called a book “Not Happy, Paul” in the mid-nineties, but from what she has said, for very different reasons. Like many, she thought that Howard was a standard conservative, who would do no great harm, whereas Paul’s neoliberal economic policies had caused a lot of grief. It was therefore reasonable to put Labor back into opposition to sort itself out and find its values.
On asylum seekers, they have been with us in waves since 1975. Labor did some draconian things in the early nineties, but was always on the job and I think acceptably transparent about what was happening. (Don McMaster’s book, “Asylum Seekers: Australia’s response to refugees” is the standard text, based on his PhD thesis covering the story up to 2000.)
Compare this with Howard, who let 220 plus boats come and then cracked down on the Tampa in a brutal and opportunistic way. During the election period they were intentionally letting the boats coming further south so their interception was high profile and dramatic in the media, which is where they may have come unstuck with SEIV X.
Labor played their politics hard, but there wasn’t the consistent use of fear to influence the Australian electorate, and there wasn’t the serial lying and misleading both the parliament and the people. There also wasn’t the blatant manipulation of events for political purposes and the total subvention of foreign policy to domestic politics, with scant regard for human rights and our international reputation.
Howard has now added some more lies, on the balance of probabilities, about conversations with a public servant whose advice he sought as a trusted source.
Scrafton strikes me as a very competent and professional public servant who deals in the truth as his normal MO. You need a good motive for lying and a good memory. Scrafton’s MO was to tell only the truth, but be selective according to the circumstances, but sometimes to tell the truth in a way that gave the opposite impression to throw the enquirer off the scent. This is a survival skill for top bureaucrats.
Now he is beyond retribution. His motivation now is a concern for truth in politics, a concern for how the public service has been used and offence at the denigration of 43 distinguished servants of the crown. I believe him. He becomes a very credible witness for those of us who have had experience of those levels of the public service that interface with politics.
The Liberal party must be worried about having Howard front their campaign right now, as his serial deception and lying is beginning to cut through to public consciousness. His main hope is that having consistently trashed politics and the political processes, he has devalued the currency to the piont where people expect no better from their politicians.
What an achievement!
Jozef, if we are going to talk about truth, the basic distinction is between the words in a ‘truth statement’ and the phenomena they refer to.
Scruton’s comment is clever play on words that doesn’t address the real issues. I suggest we ignore him.
OK, let’s talk balance of probabilities then- one is a statement from a former senior public servant who may have left under a cloud, with revelations of mis-use of commonwealth property and breaches of the Public Service Act (how’s he going to play with the sistahood as well- downloaders of pornography being one level below rapists in their eyes), the other is a denial from the senior officer of government, one of the longest-serving prime ministers ever. Bit of a credibility gap here, chaps. Even Michael Brissenden (no Howard fan) admitted as such on the 7.30 report last night- a jaundiced media has been trying to nail him since 1996, with about as much success as the Burkina Faso swim team.
Keep on trying, it gives us something to talk about.
Was that a “Yes” or a “No”, Paul ? Do you find it so hard to say
“I believe Howard is telling the truth”?
To put my position in the kind of terms I’d like to hear from even one of Howard’s defenders:
I believe Scrafton is telling the truth and Howard is lying.
Paul, as I’ve said elswhere I got onto a tangle of porn sites once just checking out Anna Kournikova. Mary Pierce had just won something and from memory I was trying to check Anna’s tennis record, which was ordinary.
If I’d done that in my lunch hour at work in the public service, I may well have ended up being counselled.
I’ve worked in a large bureacracy, at the second level of substantive responsibility, with weekly meetings with the Minister. I reckon I can recognize a good bureaucrat when I see one. Both Scrafton and McKenry impress. Communication, remembering what you said, saying no more than necessary, operating precisely within your role and defined resonsibilities are hallmarks of good bureacrats, which both show.
Howard has mislead parliament on at least three occasions – on the refugees, on Manildra/ethanol and on Iraq. His credibility is becoming a major issue.
Brissenden doesn’t impress. He incorporates two standard features in his reports. One is a political balancing statement to save himself from the bias charge. The other is a smart concluding comment to show how clever he is.
Don’t think naivete would be a charge readily laid at the feet of Scrafton. Given the matter of accessing pRon was on the public record (1990?, did the crime, paid the time, didn’t leave under a cloud related to that matter, or any other that is on the public record) and given the exposition of his failed marriage, the “mentally unstable” scuttlebutt and the “so junior a person” that he wouldn’t know a burkha from a Birko aimed at Wilkie, Scrafton would have known he would be subject to mudslinging.
Don’t know how many people would speak out knowing an inevitable ad hominem attack is the best defence waited in the wings.
But no doubt there are some who will endlessly speculate about a *hidden agenda* until the election cows come home to roost.
I don’t think it is necessary for Howard to admit he has lied. A public officer who does not vigorously deny or refute some claimed fact after persistent allegations can be taken as tacit acceptance of wrongdoing. This is pretty much the standard of public office (I think the standard is a bit higher with newspaper editors).
He left the commonwealth prior to retirement age and bobbed up working for the most Stalinist of state labor governments, Victoria. I’m a former senior public servant as well, and I know what the usual penalty for surfing for porn on departmental computers is- charges under the PSA, and often dismissal. don’t really swallow the line about accidental either- the firewalls are so savage on C’wealth pcs that you couldn’t access an underwear catelogue without serious bypassing of filters. Personally I believe Howard is telling the truth when he says he discussed the video with Scrafton, who admits to telling Howard that the video was inconclusive.
That’s the whole story- the rest is a beat-up from a media who hates Howard and is getting increasingly desperate now it appears Ol’ Eyebrows is going to be around for another couple of years at least. I’m no Howard fan- I think the government are incompetent spendthrifts, but the alternative are potentially disasterous, both domestically and internationally. Once again it’s the choice between proven failure and potential catastrophe- little wonder I haven’t been registered to vote since 1998.
C’mon Paul! Just admit you love Howard. Don’t be ashamed to admit that you voted for him. No one wants to hear the “they’re as bad as each other” crap anymore.
Are all the supporters of Howard such flip-floppers?
“…Scrafton…admits to telling Howard that the video was inconclusive.”
Paul implies that if the video did not somehow prove conclusively that children were not thrown overboard, it was entirely reasonable for Howard to conclude they were. Thus it’s a point in Howard’s favour that the video was inconclusive, and Scrafton ‘admits’, rather than asserts it. But why didn’t you go the whole hog, Paul, and say that Scrafton ‘concedes’ the video was inconclusive?
I would be fascinated to know how you spin this:
KERRY O’BRIEN: How clearly did you spell out to Mr Howard that you knew of no-one in Defence who still believed that children had been thrown overboard?
MIKE SCRAFTON: Directly.
Once again unsubstantiated hearsay- I hope I never front a jury made up by you ratbags. I can’t say conclusively whether or not Howard lied, because I was not a witness to the conversation, and neither were any of you. Conjecture and wishful thinking are not evidence. I think Howard is a rather dull man but is genuinely comitted to what he believes in. If the matter of flip-flops is now in the arena, let’s look at someone who doesn’t seem to believe in anything except which way the polls are blowing and what his advisers tell him- Iron Mike’s had more directional changes than I’ve exchanged shreddies this year. If credibility is going to be the crunch item in this election, the ALP is in big trouble.
Ratbag I may be, but Howard is a rat in a trap.
Paul,
I’m a former senior public servant as well, and I know what the usual penalty for surfing for porn on departmental computers is- charges under the PSA, and often dismissal. don’t really swallow the line about accidental either- the firewalls are so savage on C’wealth pcs that you couldn’t access an underwear catelogue without serious bypassing of filters.
Yep, Scrafton was surfing the Pr0n at work in the late 1990s.…
…he was subject to an internal Defence investigation and subsequently counselled for accessing pornographic websites on the Department’s computer system. This did not prevent him from being hand-picked in 2000 by his departmental boss, Allan Hawke, to work for then defence minister John Moore and his successor, Peter Reith.
As Sedgwick said: did the crime and did the time… on a counsellor’s couch. This happened at least some years before Tampa. Can we now conclude that Scrafton’s fall from grace has nothing to do with naughty URLs? His later promotion is another point to argue against this. It’s a distraction from the main issue: did the PM lie or not?
Who’s the more credible witness- someone with a conviction or someone without? If I was preparing a brief, I know who’d I’d be putting up out of the two. Any of you done any court time? I’ve done 38 prosecutions. What you’ve got at the moment would be laughed at by the DPP. (In fact would probably noy even constitute grounds for an investigation). Like it or not, we’re bound by rules when it comes to evidence.
While we’re on the subject of credibility, how credible are arguments put forward by someone who (apparently) seriously suggests that that most anodyne of governments, led by Steve Bracks, is Stalinist?
Paul, mate, you really lost me with that one!
Scene: Bracksy’s office
Premier Bracks: “Traitor! You employed Jewish doctors in our hospitals!”
Health Minister: “But Comrade …”
Premier Bracks: “Silence! It’s off to the Ballarat Gulag for you!”
When will you lefty tossers get it into your heads that to the average Joe if the illegals didn’t chuck the kids in the water, they scuttled the boat, achieving the same outcome. The lefties I work with are rubbing their hands with glee at Scrafton’s revelations. The intelligent majority, on the other hand, are just reminded of how effective the government has been at stopping illegals smuggling while at the same time increasing our intake of fair dinkum refugees. And Bahnisch, did you access Anna 1300 times, at weekends? Scrafton’s a wanker and not a very smart one at that.
Even if Mr Howard didn’t know the story was false, it’s obvious that he could have found out if he wanted to. As Prime Minister of Australia, an elected leader of a democratic nation he should have found out.
I can only conclude that either (a) he acted incompetently, (b) he did know and is still lying about it, or (c) he was deliberately ignorant.
Being deliberately ignorant is worse the lying, and lying is worse than incompetence, but any way I look at it, his handling of this matter has not displayed the qualities I would like to see in my Prime Minister.
John asks if anyone really believes JH told the truth. Well you can look at it from a number of points of view.
1st the intelligence v. fact. When intelligence become a fact it ceases to be intelligence. You can have one or the other, but you can’t have both at the same time.
As Howard said when he first raised the throwing allegations” if the reports are true”. Obviously he was told they were, so he included the qualifier”if”
When did he become aware that the intelligence had become fact, so that he could then say “the facts are”
I don’t know when, and frankly I don’t think it is established beyond reasonable doubt.
However we can always move into postmodern mode, so beloved of the luvvies, and agree with William James that “An idea is ‘true’ so long as to believe it is profitable to our lives”. So if that is the case, there is no doubt that what Howard says is “essentially true” or another instance of valid “alternative histories” of the awfulness of that most dispicable people trafficking trade, that was being promoted so enthustically by the mindless left, before Howard put an end to it.
…I’m sitting here with the mental image Sedgwick’s left me with (and are his images ever anything but mental?) of the cows coming home to roost.
While I also find Bracksie to be narcolepsy-inducing, I’m surprised you don’t detect just a whiff of the authoritarian, the autocratic and even a bit of the auto-erotic about Brackstoria; a more rule-happy, intrusive and obsessive regime hasn’t been seen in this neck of the woods, with the possible exception of Helengrad.
If my time lines are correct Scrafton went to Reith’s office AFTER the said offence.
He was then promoted.
Why the whispering campaign by Hanke who does not do such things then?
I think Paul’s that rarest of birds, a Howard supporter who still says the PM didn’t lie on this. Slatts is in the ‘he lied but it doesn’t matter’ camp, while Tipper can only deal with the confusion by having a bet each way: claiming ‘on the balance of probabilities’ Howard didn’t lie while – just in case he did lie – using a belief system he or she claims to despise to declare that it doesn’t matter anyway.
This is getting ridiculous.
Tipper, intelligence is the interpretation of known facts. In 2001, the “facts” known to the Department of Defence about the children overboard amounted to Sweet Fanny Adams. That is, there was no conclusive evidence that children were being thrown overboard. Against the advice of objective counsel within the Department of Defence, Howard wilfully drew the wrong conclusion. Moreover, he lied to the electorate for no other reason than political gain in the context of an election. He’s a lying bastard and needs to go ASAP. You don’t have to be a “leftie” or a “luvvie” to be sickened by the Howard government’s behaviour.
Can we also lay off Scrafton? If he’d been reading porn magazines on weekends would we care so frigging much? Why is this issue at all relevant? I suppose if you can’t beat the argument, attack the man. However, “divide & conquer” only works so long as the oppressed don’t gang up on the bully. It’s very telling that Scrafton only came forward after Howard vilified the 43, and Jenny McKenry came forward to defend him. It’s heartening to see more and more public servants (and I mean that literally) standing up for integrity in government.
And ignoring their non-disclosure agreements signed before departure. If any of them disclose operational matters, it’s off to the hoosegow under the Crimes Act.
I know there’s so much you can do with Movable Type templates. Still, isn’t it odd how slatts‘s site is so similar to John Quiggin’s, it’s eerie? Viewing it felt like falling through a dimensional rift into Bizarro World. Shall we now call him the anti-Quiggin?
Paul and Slatts, I’m willing to bet youse guys would have looked at naughty pictures online in your time, so why should we trust your take on the matter?
Not on Commonwealth computers, or at my own office for that matter- slight matter of ethical standards gets in the way (and the fact that I’m usually too busy generating wealth and paying tax to surf for stick movies).
Bracks as Stalinist? Paul, that’s really a sign of desperation.
There’s plenty of evidence that there’s a bit too much secretiveness, insider deals and centralising of decisions, but that’s more a pinch from Kennett (he’s retained a lot of Kennett managers, and they all seem to jump to a managerialist drum).
No secret police or gulags yet. That’s closer to Howard territory if you count Manus Island, Nauru, and especially the ban all media contact.
Stop trying to lead the discussion into dark alleys, Paul, and stick to the point. Do you think Howard lied on this one? JQ’s footnote rules apply.
“I’m usually too busy generating wealth and paying tax to surf for stick movies”
Not too busy, however, to engage in political debate in several blogs during working hours.
I’m online all day and it only takes a few seconds to resond to argument or criticism- anyway I’m a senior partner in the firm and it costs me money to fiddle around, not the company (which I part own). How many surfers/commenters on this site are public employees, farting around on my dollar?
Yes, would all public servants please go back to work immediately! Oops…er…except for JQ and all the other bright sparks that make this blog interesting…
Not me! Now answer the question! (‘Waro’ above is me, btw)
In the new flexible economy, all real work is done between 1 and 3am!
I’ve already stated my view- Howard said what he needed to for the effect he desired- he didn’t lie as far as I can see, just repeated the advice he had on hand which suited him. All the rest is semantics. Now show me a politician that hasn’t omitted inconvenient items to suit an agenda, and you’d better call the biology dept at ANU at the same time, because you’ve discovered a new species.
What happened to the reffos on the boat anyhow? Did they go to Nauru? PNG? And if so are any of them here now, for if they are Howard has lied again cause he said he wouldn’t let in people like that!
No, Paul, he didn’t just repeat the advice he had on hand and omit the inconvenient items. He made a statement – “I have no information or suggestion that they [Navy] have reviewed their advice, no, I haven’t.” – that is either true or false. There’s no wriggle room for omission, obfuscation or any other shilly-shallying.
The question still stands. Do you think Howard lied about this?
“How many surfers/commenters on this site are public employees, farting around on my dollar?”
Paul, why your dollar? Public employees also pay taxes, so it’s their dollar as much as yours.
“I’m a senior partner in the firm and it costs me money to fiddle around, not the company (which I part own).”
Do your partners know you are fiddling around during business hours? Tsk, tsk tsk. And what “company” do you part own, anyway? Last time I looked, law firms were partnerships, not companies. I’m betting the corporations law isn’t your specialty. And judging by your unwise suggestion – made on your own blog, no less – that Liberal apparatchiks search through hospital records, apropos Mark Latham – a serious criminal offence, I believe – you also need to brush up on the criminal law.