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The Forum > Article Comments > An Elephant on Your Nose: review > Comments

An Elephant on Your Nose: review : Comments

By Murray Hunter, published 20/8/2019

An Elephant on Your Nose is both an encaptivating 'spy' story set in Japan, and an enlightening commentary about new regional security realities.

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TRANSCRIPT - PART 2

of "Secrets, Spies and Trials" at http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/secrets,-spies-and-trials/11451004

STEVE CANNANE: 15 years later this secret operation is about to have its sequel in one of the most secretive trials in Australian history...

It's the trial not of those who hatched the plan to bug this building, but of the two men accused of revealing what happened.

Tonight on Four Corners the extraordinary steps the Australian government has taken to prosecute those men and to keep them silent.

BERNARD COLLAERY: This is a very very determined push to hide dirty political linen.

That's what this is all about. Dirty political linen under the guise now of national security imperatives.

STEVE CANNANE: In 2004, in Canberra, as winter crept up on the capital, one of the top surveillance experts with Australia's foreign intelligence service ASIS was called into a secret meeting.

The agent was ordered to undertake a mission that would change his life for ever... and become one of the most infamous spying operations in Australian history.

He was told to bug the office of the prime minister of one of our closest neighbours - the new nation of Timor-Leste, formerly known as East Timor.

ANDREW WILKIE, INDEPENDENT MP: Well, it's now been widely reported that sometime in 2004, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service bugged the East Timorese... in order to give Australia an unfair advantage during the treaty negotiations that were going on at that time.

STEVE CANNANE: It was done under the cover of an aid project

SUSAN CONNELLY, Sisters of St Joseph: The Australian government, was offering assistance to East Timor and one of the ways it offered assistance was to refurbish the Prime Minister's residence in Timor and his offices, and that was under an AusAID Programme.

STEVE BRACKS, SPECIAL ADVISER TO TIMOR-LESTE, 2007-19: The bugging of the Prime Minister's office in Timor-Leste occurred at a very difficult time for the government of Timor-Leste.

They were a fledgling government, they'd just come out of the US mandate, just got independence."
Posted by plantagenet, Monday, 26 August 2019 11:05:21 PM
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TRANSCRIPT - PART 3

of "Secrets, Spies and Trials" at http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/secrets,-spies-and-trials/11451004

STEVE CANNANE: After decades of struggle, Timor-Leste had gained its hard-fought independence from Indonesia in 2002.

Its new leaders faced the massive task of rebuilding the country.

PROFESSOR CLINTON FERNANDES, INTERNATIONAL AND POLITICAL STUDIES, UNSW CANBERRA: Timor had just come out of a genocide, okay.

They'd lost 31% of their population during the Indonesian occupation of Timor.

That's the largest loss of life relative to population since the Holocaust

SR SUSAN CONNELLY: Timor was a destroyed country, at this stage.

I saw with my own eyes, the destruction of Timor and I have seen the Australian government's assessment of the infrastructure destruction.

And it varies from 20% in some areas to the Capital, Dili, being 100% destruction.

The whole thing was destroyed. All the public buildings, and the services for the people.

STEVE CANNANE: Sr Susan Connelly had been working on aid projects in Timor-Leste since the 1990s.

SR SUSAN CONNELLY: The poverty and malnutrition, really, was huge. I met people who really were lucky if they had a meal a day.

STEVE CANNANE: The best hope for this poor country were tens of billions of dollars' worth of oil and gas that lay beneath the floor of the Timor sea.

SISTER SUSAN CONNELLY: Timor was really desperate for a good deal with Australia.

STEVE CANNANE: In April 2004, negotiations between the two countries began in Dili, to resolve who owned the vast oil and gas fields.

Already there was bad blood after Australia had withdrawn from the International Court of Justice's jurisdiction resolving maritime boundaries.

PETER GALBRAITH, FORMER LEAD NEGOTIATOR FOR TIMOR-LESTE: By withdrawing from the, mandatory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, uh, Australia, in effect, forced East Timor to negotiate.

JOSE RAMOS HORTA: Withdrawing from the jurisdiction, compulsory jurisdiction of ICJ.

Here you have a ... you know, only Donald Trump does these things.

You wouldn't expect previously, any other country doing that.

STEVE CANNANE: At the first round of talks Timor-Leste's prime minister Mari Alkatiri came out swinging."
Posted by plantagenet, Monday, 26 August 2019 11:09:06 PM
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TRANSCRIPT - PART 4

of "Secrets, Spies and Trials" at http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/secrets,-spies-and-trials/11451004

"MARI ALKATIRI, PRIME MINISTER, TIMOR-LESTE, 2002-2006 [In 2004]: For us, a twenty-year negotiation is not an option.

Timor-Leste loses one million dollars a day due to Australia's unlawful exploitation of resources in the disputed area.

Timor-Leste can not be deprived of its rights or territory because of a crime.

JOSE RAMOS HORTA: They were so annoyed with Alkatiri, because Alkatiri was a tough negotiator, a man of principles.

And so he really annoyed John Howard, annoyed Alexander Downer

ALEXANDER DOWNER, FOREIGN MINISTER 1996-2007 [In 2004]: I think they've made a very big mistake thinking that the best way to handle this negotiation is trying to shame Australia, is mounting abuse on our country accusing us of being bullying and rich and so on when you consider all we've done for East Timor.

PETER GALBRAITH: We wanted to say that this is really important to East Timor.

We wanted to put it in their face. We didn't want to have negotiations that lasted 30 years.

STEVE CANNANE: Peter Galbraith, a former US Ambassador was Timor-Leste's lead negotiator in the talks.

PETER GALBRAITH: I was very concerned about Australian intercepts of cell phones, including cell phones when they weren't being used, but were still on, and I was very concerned about intercepts of emails.

But I did not imagine, one, that they would break into a building and bug it, or that they would have access to the building to bug it.

STEVE CANNANE: It was during a six month halt in negotiations that a team of ASIS agents arrived in Dili to install covert listening devices inside Timor-Leste's palace of government.

PROF CLINTON FERNANDES: I understand that the bugs were placed in.

The conversations were then beamed via a line of sight microwave transmission to a listening post which is about 500 metres away.

STEVE CANNANE: Their listening post was in a floating hotel in the Dili harbour called the Central Maritime Hotel."
Posted by plantagenet, Tuesday, 27 August 2019 11:09:18 PM
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TRANSCRIPT - PART 5

of "Secrets, Spies and Trials" at http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/secrets,-spies-and-trials/11451004

“PROF CLINTON FERNANDES: That listening post collected the transmissions, and then, then they were then couriered across a town, uh, to the Australian embassy.

So that our negotiating team would have had real time access to the internal deliberations of the Timorese side.

STEVE CANNANE: Successive Australian governments have refused to confirm or deny that this spying operation took place.

PROF CLINTON FERNANDES: An operation like this would need to have been authorised by the National Security Committee of Cabinet, ordered in turn by the responsible minister, the foreign minister, Alexander Downer.

And then the direct order to Witness K would come from the director-general of ASIS, David Irvine.

PETER GALBRAITH: The greatest benefit that Australia would have achieved from the bugging is to know what East Timor's bottom line is.

What we were prepared to settle for, uh, because once you know that, then you never have to offer anything more.

You're entire negotiating strategy is to go below the bottom line.

JOSE RAMOS HORTA, PRESIDENT, TIMOR-LESTE, 2007-2012: The war is over, Australia help restoring Timor freedom, peace.

We are negotiating in good faith as mature adults.

And then they bug our offices to try to obtain advantages in the negotiations.

SISTER SUSAN CONNELLY: When I think back now, that here we were talking to schools, running concerts, sending out messages in newsletters saying give us money, give us money, give us money all the time, at the same time, our government is plotting and implementing a fraud against these very same people.

Because Timor is really important to a lot of Australians, because we know we sold them out in 1975, we haven't paid the Second World War debt, and here we are in our name, in my name, Governments, Foreign Ministers, various ones would stoop so low as to spy on their negotiators, under the guise of a tax payer funded refurbishment. It is despicable. That's all I can say.

STEVE CANNANE: After two years of intense negotiations a deal was signed in 2006.”
Posted by plantagenet, Tuesday, 27 August 2019 11:11:27 PM
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TRANSCRIPT - PART 6

of "Secrets, Spies and Trials" at http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/secrets,-spies-and-trials/11451004

“JOHN HOWARD, PRIME MINISTER, 1996-2007 [in January 2006]: Well done, Alexander. This is a very significant moment. We might have something to say to the media about it."

STEVE CANNANE: Advocates for Timor-Leste say the bugging swung the final deal in Australia's favour.

STEVE BRACKS: This is an oil and gas field, in between Australia and Timor, which is located 150 kilometres from Timor-Leste's shore, and 400 kilometres from Australia's shore, and yet, because of this industrial espionage, the deal came out as 50:50.

Now no drawing of any maritime boundary anywhere in the world between two countries would result in that sort of outcome.

JOSE RAMOS HORTA: As if Australia didn't have enough oil, enough gas, and enough money.

Trillions of dollars economy, and they still wanted you know, us to accept their continental shelf claims and give to them all our Greater Sunrise, all of the Timor Sea.

STEVE CANNANE: The bugging operation is likely to have remained a secret except for one man.

He was the head of technical operations for ASIS. And the team leader of the Dili bugging operation

His identity is top secret. He's now known as Witness K.

BRET WALKER SC, FORMER LAWYER FOR 'WITNESS K': This is not a person who, goes, as it were, to the tabloids or the scandal sheets and then tries, to cover up with a fig leaf of public interest.

This is the very opposite of all of that.

STAVE CANNANE: Bret Walker is the former independent monitor of Australia's national security legislation and has previously acted for Witness K.

BRET WALKER: Confining myself to the public record, it's clear that Witness K is the kind of person in whose favour, there will be lots able to be said about a long, honourable career, making him, a person who's rendered great service to this country, who is now being prosecuted as if he has committed a great disservice to the country.

STEVE CANNANE: Witness K retired from ASIS after a long career in late 2006.”
Posted by plantagenet, Tuesday, 27 August 2019 11:14:33 PM
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TRANSCRIPT - PART 7

of "Secrets, Spies and Trials" at http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/secrets,-spies-and-trials/11451004

“Two years later he took a grievance about being sidelined and passed over for promotion to the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security.

He was given clearance to consult a lawyer. The lawyer he chose was Bernard Collaery.

PROF CLINTON FERNANDES: Canberra's a very small place. Bernard Collaery is the former Attorney General of the ACT.

But ASIS has always known about Collaery's commitment to the right of self-determination of the people of East Timor.

STEVE CANNANE: BERNARD COLLAERY has worked with the Timorese in legal cases since the 1980s and has also been given clearance to represent members of the Australian intelligence community.

SISTER SUSAN CONNELLY: Bernard Collaery is not just some two bit lawyer from up the street, just on the make.

He has been the Attorney General of the Australian Capital Territory. He has held high position.

He is highly respected, not only in Canberra but across Australia and Internationally.

The Timorese certainly hold him in high regard.

STEVE CANNANE: Bernard Collaery met with Witness K in 2008 to discuss his grievance.

Collaery later made a written statement to the Senate about what Witness K told him.

ACTOR'S VOICE: Witness K alleged he had been constructively dismissed from ASIS, as a result of a new culture within ASIS.

The evidence indicates that the change sought included an operation he had been ordered to execute in Dili, Timor-Leste.

STEVE CANNANE: Bernard Collaery is now restricted in what he can say because of his upcoming trial, but in 2015 he said Witness K was appalled by the bugging operation.

BERNARD COLLAERY, IN 2015: I recall in my instructions mention being made of the infant mortality rate.

So this was morally-based grievance, not on lost promotion or the end of a career, which in my view was a very legitimate grievance, but it was a grievance based on the immorality of that conduct.”
Posted by plantagenet, Tuesday, 27 August 2019 11:16:30 PM
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