Another monument to the extraordinary legal mind of Christian Porter, Anglican Hale School's carefully nurtured gift to modern Australian leadership.

Australia has done some pretty dumb things over the years, but peeing off our Indonesian neighbours by encouraging the Catholic enclave of East Timor to secede from Indonesia, was one of the dumbest. Last I heard, Australia was has been subsidising this Catholic failed state to the tune of $300 million dollars every year.

And all we ever got out of it was "refugees" who came "temporarily" to Australia and never returned. London to a brick they all went on the dole and are still on it. Which I suppose suits the aims of the Pope and this author. The Muslims like having the infidels keep them and I presume the papacy likes the idea of the Prots subsidising Catholics too.

As well as that, the only thanks we got from East Timor nothing but criticism, which makes me wonder why we didn't just let the whole lot of them stay with Indonesia? If the Pope wanted to liberate the Catholics in "East Timor" he could have sent his Swiss guards. The Indos would never have been able to stand against the Swiss with their halberds.

To compound the stupidity, a few years ago, the "East Timorese" stated fighting among themselves. The North East Timorese were fighting the South East Timorese. What a mob. I am all for them killing each other off and saving the Good Old Aussie taxpayer a lot of money.

It was not wise for Australia to interfere in East Timor; and, as LEGO said, we have had precious little thanks for it. Now we have this woman criticising her own country on behalf of a bunch of foreigners. Isn't there a name for people like that?

Will our political class never learn! Now they are sending 116 soldiers to Samoa to protect the Samoan government from citizens who object to that government's sucking up to Communist China for money

This is why I'm not entirely sympathetic to Christian Porter facing unproveable rape allegations. Porter signed off on the pursuit of the Timor whistleblowers. Another politician who may have been complicit in the Timor bugging was Alexander Downer. If the knives should be out for anybody it is not Witness K and Collaery but the grubs who wanted these people hounded to make themselves look better. Perhaps some federal pollies should end up in jail.

LEGO,
Nice anti-Catholic rant but you are a bit out with the Swiss Guard, halberds and swords are for ceremonial use, their other issue weapons are Sig Sauer 9mm semi-auto pistols and SIg SG 550 (or 552) selective fire rifles.
Moreover they are a highly trained and dedicated body of troops.

The spy game is a dirty business and Bernard Collaery committed treason.

Susan Connelly writes; What might that threat be?

Well, to me it looks like that threat is people like herself & Bernard Collaery !

Good on you Susan, more power to your writing.
Australia sold out the Timorese people to a brutal regime just as it sold out the people of West New Guinea.
The lesson is, if you back up Australia in a war then expect to get stabbed in the back when you need assistance from a supposed friend.

Let's hope that Australia "sells out" PNG and tells the Indos they can have it. That will save The Good Old Aussie Taxpayer $500 million a year.

Like the aborigines and the Africans, the Pacific Islanders, need whites or Asians to tell them what to do because they can not run a chook raffle. Colonialism was the best thing that happened to all of them, and "Independence" (meaning "dependence") just created failed states.

I had to laugh when I read a book about the history of PNG and learned that one good reason why the PNG natives held the white District Officers in such high respect was because the DO's clamped down on headhunting, cannibalism, and tribal warfare. The author of the book noted that "there was much relief among the natives for that."

To Ise Mise.

I have always been astounded by the blatant double standards and contradictions of the loony left.

There are 10,000 islands in the Indonesian archipelago and East Timor represented one half of one of them. There was no way that East Timor could ever be a viable country by itself, and the fact that they have been supported by The Good Old Aussie Taxpayer since "Independence" validates that premise. East Timor is now Australia's Haiti. It was madness to even think that they could be viable.

But you know lefties. They were conditioned to hate colonialism since the crib, so they supported the East Timor rebels against Portugal. It never occurred to the lefty halfwits that East Timor being a colony of Portugal was good for both Portugal and East Timor. Nor did it ever occur to the left that the East Timor rebels were just like the "big men" in aboriginal settlements, just a bunch of sticky fingered crooks who could not wait to become the bosses, so that they could get their hands either in the till, or up the dresses of the local girls.

After "Independence" from Portugal, the Indonesians, who also hate every form of colonialism except their own, colonised East Timor before the Chinese could exploit the anarchy and the power vacuum. They shot a few ABC journos who were in Dili at the time sneering at their soldiers, earning Indonesia the never ending hatred of Indonesia by the left luvvies in the ABC.

So naturally, the left, usually the ones who oppose war, actually supported the Australian military invasion of East Timor. Even sillier than that, by doing so they were acting against Indonesian multiculturalism, a social ideal they normally support. But the stupidity did not end there. They were doing the bidding of the Pope (sorry "the Bishop of Rome" as us Prots have said since Henry VIII.) Normally, the left hates the Catholics because they are competitors for the same religious demographic. The Catholic religion promises heaven after death, while the left socialist religion promises heaven on earth

The Australian government's acceding to Samoa's request for help shows that the dumbos have learnt nothing. Off they trot again to do the job of people incapable of fending for themselves.

LEGO,
So despite the Timorese having helped our soldiers against the Japs we should leave them to the mercy of Indonesia.
Fair enough if you think that that’s what friends are for.
I have a different outlook.

If you had ever picked up a history book on the war in the pacific, Ise Mise, you would have learned that when the Japanese invaded Timor, the Timorese helped the Japanese army hunt down the fleeing Australians.

The Timorese really did believe the Japanese propaganda of 'Asians for the Asians" and that the Japanese Army was their liberators from the yoke of white oppression. The Timorese changed sides only after they realised that the japs were a damned site more oppressive than the Portuguese ever were.

So no. We owe them nothing. They supported our enemies and only switched sides and supported us when they realised their mistake, and realised that the allies were winning.

LEGO,

Well said!

Every time we stick our noses into other countries, we end up with more useless, welfare-seeking "refugees".

LEGO,
I did even better than reading about it,
I had the words of an uncle who served in the 2/2 Commandos in Timor and he told us of the help that was received from the local people particularly in food and in intelligence about Japanese movements.
Estimates vary between 40,000 and 60,000 Timorese who were killed by the Japanese.
According to the uncle the Australians could not have survived without the help of the locals.
It was Dutch Timorese who helped the Japs; so do please read a bit of the history.

Which confirms my premise that the Japs were a damned site more "oppresive" than the Portuguese ever were.

I have always been interested in military history, even as a kid. My father's battalion (2/14) was nearly shot out of existence on the Kokoda Track. I read everything I could on the Pacific War because of my deceased father's participation in that fight. I had heard of the stories of how the Timorese had helped the Aussies fight the nasty Japs, and how we were now all friends forever. Imagine my surprise when I actually read a book about that campaign and read that after the Australian garrison was defeated, the Timorese helped the Japs track our fleeing men down, and betrayed those hiding in the jungle who had approached Timorese asking for food.

These Australian soldiers were executed.

Subsequent books I read (no, don't ask the names of the books, I read them long ago and I can't remember their names) pointed out that the Timorese changed sides only when the allies were winning and they realised that the Japs were infinitely worse than the fairly humane Portuguese.

As usual, we are told what our masters want us to hear. From Biden's son's laptop, to Russia's so caled collusion with Trump, to the so called "stolen generations, to Human Induced Climate Change, to what really happened during the war. The onus is upon you to check the facts. Unfortunately, too many people are not interested in history. I think that soon history will be considered "racist" like mathematics is supposed to be today.

LEGO,
I am appalled by each of your comments on this topic. Please refrain from similar comments in the future: if necessary, I will recommend any comment which shows such as biased retreat from the truth for deletion.

LEGO,
By the time the Allies were winning the Australians had left Timor.
Having read up on the subject you somehow didn’t mention that East Timorese took up arms and fought alongside their Aussie mates.
How remiss.

Oh rubbish. The tide turned in the Pacific with the Battle of Midway in June 1942. By December 1942 the Japs had been decisively beaten at Guadalcanal, Kokoda Track, Buna, Milne Bay, and Tarawa.

The Timorese only switched sides when they realised the Japs were losing, and that the Portuguese were enlightened angels compared to the Japs.

Lego,
And the Timorese were all well aware of the fact, maybe they.found out from the Australians?
Have a look at all the photos shewing the Australians and locals together; perhaps they thought that. Australia would protect them.
The war didn’t end till1945, Japan was far from beaten while Australian troops were in Timor.
Anyway the uncle couldn’t praise theTimorese enough and he was there and fought alongside them; he said that they’d have been on short rations many a time but for the locals bringing food.

Para 4, beginning "Our spying against Timor-Leste..." appears to be publishing hitherto classified info...if true.

Yawn. If you say so, Ise Mise.

I say so and so…go to sleep.