08.07.2022 LISTEN
The Anglo-Australian legal system has much to answer for. While robed lawyers and solemn justices proclaim an adherence to the rule of law, the rule remains a creature in state, more fetish than reality. Had the farcical prosecution of former ACT Attorney General Bernard Collaery gone on, all suspicions about a legal system slanted in favour of the national security state would have been answered.
Collaery, a sagacious and well-practiced legal figure, has been the subject of interest under section 39 of the Australian Intelligence Services Act 2001 (Cth), which covers conspiracies to reveal classified information. It all began when he was, in the natural order of things, consulted by former intelligence officer Witness K. Witness K has been convicted for revealing the existence of a 2004 spying operation conducted by the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) that led to the bugging of cabinet offices used by the Timor-Leste government.
The operation was instigated at the behest of Australia’s corporate interests. At the time, Canberra was involved in treaty negotiations with Timor-Leste on the subject of accessing oil and gas reserves. East Timor’s crushing poverty and salivating need for hard cash did not interest Australia’s own resource companies and the desk bureaucrats in Australia’s capital.
In 2013, both men lent their services to the East Timorese cause before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague. Australia’s illegal operation...
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