IT’S TIME TO GRAB THIS EMU BY THE TAIL!
“Men and Women of Australia!”
“ …There are moments in history when the whole fate and future of nations can be decided by a single decision. For Australia, this is such a time. It’s time for a new team, a new program, a new drive for equality of opportunities: it’s time to create new opportunities for Australians, time for a new vision of what we can achieve in this generation for our nation and the region in which we live. It’s time for a new government — a Labor Government.”
Mr Gough Whitlam, Labor leader 1972–1975 https://electionspeeches.moadoph.gov.au/speeches/1972-gough-whitlam
An open letter to the leader of the Australian Opposition — The Australian Labor Party on the occasion of their historic online conference April 2021.
Mr Albanese
I heard with great hope your statement that in the case of Julian Assange, ‘enough is enough’ and that he should be released. As 75% of polled Australians say they want Assange free, could it be that Labor have listened to the people at last and are returning to the standard set by former PM Gough Whitlam that an Australian Labor party would always involve the people of Australia in the decision-making processes of our land? Has Labor noted this petition that has just under 600,000 signatures calling for his freedom? https://www.change.org/p/free-julian-assange-before-it-s-too-late-stop-usa-extradition
Will the Australian Labor party come out and make a definitive statement of support for Julian Assange, and ask the Australian Government to pick up the phone to the USA and UK Governments to ask that Julian Assange be released immediately? Can I suggest that this is put on the agenda at the historical online conference that Labor is holding on March 30 and 31st 2021? https://www.alp.org.au/media/2355/alp_national_platform_final_draft.pdf
Mr Albanese, Julian Assange should not just be released because he is almost at the end of his health and possibly his life, but because he committed no crime and has been illegally detained for a decade for political and not criminal reasons. Indeed, he is the symbol of free speech, a free press, and democracy itself. He is this generation’s Nelson Mandela. In the future our grandchildren will ask ‘Did you stand up for Assange back in the days when they were trying to kill him and our democracy was dying?’ I held my own parents to account as to how they voted for the rights of our First Peoples to be citizens — I demanded their answer. Our grandchildren and great grandchildren will demand our answer.
Mr Albanese, will a Labor government recognise the concept of a truly free press and free speech for all citizens? I read all of the recent court proceedings against Julian Assange, including the many summaries of the hearings by well qualified and experienced journalists from all over the world such as our own Mary Kostakidis, Consortium News, Australian journalist and film maker John Pilger, former UK Ambassador Craig Murray, and others, who viewed the proceedings remotely, live tweeted them (this is all that was allowed by the UK court) and reported on them. Without these non main stream journalists, the world would not know of the secretive and severely restricted access to the hearings by the UK court as it was not reported in the main stream media.
https://consortiumnews.com/page/3/
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/10/assange-in-court/
If the extradition is upheld, the safety and freedom of journalists and of citizens all over the world, western democracy, and adherence to The Rule of Law is threatened, and some say, effectively at an end. The USA have made it clear that journalists and whistle blowers who expose government crimes and corruption — even where these crimes and corruption is proven, can none-the-less be charged and imprisoned for publishing the facts, as is the case with our Australian whistle blowers McBride, Colleary, Witness K, Boyle, and others.
Our traditional press has largely lost its way in ‘holding truth to power’ and is more likely to repeat smear and propaganda originating from a single source who are beholden to a narrative created in the USA by government and intelligence agency sources. Mr Kevin Rudd is correct in his warnings of the control exerted over the majority of our press by the Murdoch Empire, and the traditional independence of our ABC is under threat and needs urgent protection, expansion, and funding.
Would a Labor Government enshrine the concept of the people’s right to know, journalism in the public interest, and recognise the tradition of the media as having the important role in our Australian democracy of holding truth to power? Would a Labor Government protect whistle blowers?
Are you aware Mr Albanese, that the USA position on Assange before and then during the 2020 hearings went from at first denying that he was a journalist, claiming that ‘real’ journalists had nothing to fear from Assange’s prosecution, to then admitting that he was a journalist but that he could not claim 1st Amendment Rights in the USA as he is not an American citizen? This twisted logic means the USA claims the right to grab Assange or ANY journalist anywhere in the world, regardless of what that citizen’s government thinks about it, and authorises itself to strip that journalist of any protection under any law, bill of rights, constitution or otherwise. The prosecution also stated that USA citizen journalists can also no longer rely on 1st Amendment rights.
The clear message by the USA is that journalists can expect the same treatment as Assange if they dare hold power to account. Will the Labor opposition or a Labor Government in power accept this bullying by the USA or will it stand up for an Australian citizen? Would an Australian Labor Government lead the world again as a leader of democratic principles and improve our ranking in the world, considering we have dropped over the last decade and especially in 2020 during Covid, in our ranking both in measures of corruption and in our standing as a democracy?
https://transparency.org.au/global-ranking/ https://extra.ie/2019/12/10/news/world-news/australias-democracy-rating-dropped
Must Australia follow the USA into its frightening slide into authoritarianism and unnecessary government secrecy? Because of this slide, there is a current climate of distrust of governments among many citizens. The readers of media and government in the world are becoming more sophisticated not less, and the people want open government, not the lies and propaganda we are currently being treated to. One of the first slogans of Wikileaks was; ‘We open governments’. Since Assange has been silenced, we have heard yet more lies, dissembling, smear, and outright propaganda with our own ears, and rather than our government sharing important information with us, our right to know is being scoffed at, as politicians feel the business of government is a trade secret to be held among corrupt corporate business mates, rather than the citizens they supposedly work for.
Lack of real information is what makes some people respond by believing more and more outlandish conspiracy theories, and governments are actively squashing any dissent, any difference of opinion no matter how well researched and respectable, anything in fact, that is outside of the accepted ‘main stream narrative’ of corporate control. Rampant censorship makes people more anxious and less able to judge clearly between opposing ideas.
Many well respected online news agencies have felt the sting of over-zealous algorithms applied by social media giants — which have almost entirely become an arm of governments and their intelligence agencies. People become less educated by this level of control — not more. Nations become less safe and not more by uneccessary government secrecy, especially when it exists merely to hide its own corruption. It is not the job of governments to squash vigorous debate and dissenting voices, that is the stuff of jack-booted fascists and/or dictators. Does the ALP recognise this danger and will it move to carefully debate this modern complication of our exploding technology or will it feel threatened and simply squash debate?
In Australia, justice and our right to know is under attack by the treatment of our whistle blowers and brave investigative journalists. We need proper protection for whistle blowers such as McBride, Colleary, and Boyle, and journalists like Annika Smethurst, and a recognition that their disclosures like those of Assange, were in no way intended to harm their own country and people, but to shine a light on corruption and war crimes, thereby making our country more open, honest, safer, and making those who break the law including politicians and big business accountable. Would a Labor Government protect whistle blowers and drop the pursuit and persecution of those mentioned above?
Mr Albanese, it is not what a prospective party leader says to get elected, but what he or she actually does once elected that is important to the Australian public. We have seen decade after decade, promises made and broken in the most brazen and dismissive of ways. I have read the final draft of the National Platform, and it reads very well, but, does Labor really intend to become again a party and then a government for the people where the people are consulted about important issues or, would an Australian Labor Government also be ‘best mates’ with corporate business and the fabulously wealthy? Will Labor end this symbiotic relationship between big business and government, pork barrelling, and ‘jobs for the boys’ — from government to corporate employment and back again and again? Would Labor have the conviction and courage to end this?
Would an Australian Labor Government follow the USA into yet another corrupt illegal war for profit no matter how many millions say no? Would a Labor Government listen to millions of Australians asking for the release of the innocent Biloela Tamil family? Or, would a Labor Government take an unpopular decision arrogantly claiming a mandate once elected?
The people of Australia are gasping for real change like a thirsty person in a desert gasps for water.
Give us that water Mr Albanese. You’ll go down in history if you can — if you do.
Lorese Vera MA
Educator, Writer, Editor
Convenor, Canberra for Assange
