Senator Overboard

Thursday, 24 October 2002

Senator George Brandis, a barrister, and deputy chairman of the Senate Inquiry into a Certain Maritime Incident (otherwise known as the "Children Overboard" affair) has produced this splendid bunch of sour grapes in the opinion pages of the Oz.

I was particularly taken by this paragraph:

Sometimes, private citizens (or, indeed, public servants and military officers) are used by senators as objects to score points off political opponents.

Obviously, this is not what Senator Brandis had in mind when he put the following question to Vice-Admiral Shackleton on the first day of the enquiry (25 March 2002):

In fact, it is the case, isn't it, Vice Admiral Shackleton, that when the Navy took over the primary responsibility for policing the Australian maritime borders from illegal entry vessels the Navy discovered quite soon that the use of children for the purpose of moral blackmail by asylum seekers--either by threatening to throw them into the water or by, as in the case of the event on 24 October, throwing them into the water or by, as in the case of SIEV10, deliberately sinking the vessel and carrying children into the water from the sunk vessel or by, as in the case of SIEV9, otherwise causing physical harm to children--was a practice that was routinely engaged in as a tactic? The Navy discovered that, didn't it?

And, without doubt, we can be equally certain that his extended questioning of Commander Norman Banks of HMAS Adelaide over the next few days of the enquiry had nothing to with trying to shore up this increasingly untenable position.

Senator Brandis is completely correct, when he says:

... witnesses are not fair game, in the same way as other politicians are, and they should not be used as objects for political point-scoring or as vehicles for the conduct of partisan debate.

Of course it would be scurrilous and churlish to suggest that he could have shown more respect for this principle during the enquiry itself.