Some more points I want to make about Dr Haneef's case:
1. Talk about not being able to win with journalists no matter what you do. This morning on Radio National Breakfast, The Age's Michelle Gratton said that Immigration Minister Andrew's suggestion that he may now be able to release the extra information on which he decided to revoke Haneef's visa raises the question of why he could not release it previously.
Bloody hell. At the press conference when he announced the revocation decision, the journalists were immediately asking him questions along the lines of "well, now that you've found him to be of bad character, how do you expect him to get a fair trial." You can imagine the journalistic outrage if he had actually gone into the extra information in detail at that press conference.
The difference, Michelle, is that the criminal case is now gone. Bleeding obvious that this may make a difference, isn't it?
I also heard mention on some other news report this morning that Peter Russo had indicated there may be a "legal problem" with the release of the additional information. Is this because the Federal Court case will still be heard?
2. As the doctor's 60 Minutes interview: I note that a Sky News poll on whether he should get his visa re-instated is close to a 50/50 split. I think that a Sunrise one this morning had a majority against.
Subject to my normal major reservations about such polls, it still seems that the interview did not overwhelmingly convince the Australian population that he should get his visa back.
I wonder whether this is to do with a cultural difficulty in judging the sincerity of Indians. Their politeness, body language and facial expressions are different from ours, and I think the end result can be uncertainty as to how to "read" them. I have found this in my professional dealings with people from the subcontinent. I don't raise it as any excuse for clear mistakes made by the Federal Police/DPP; it is simply an observation.
3. I was initially puzzled at the Minister's decision on Friday to let Haneef stay at "residential detention", which was clearly inconsistent with the earlier decision that he should go into Villawood (at least if he ever availed himself of the bail that had been granted.) However, the reasons now seem clear: Dr Haneef met with immigration and indicated he would be leaving the next day, after giving an interview with media. There simply was not much point in sending him to Sydney prior to his departure, given the timing.
4. Any lengthy inquiry into this case would seem rather a waste of time to me. Investigations into who leaked what when there are many possible sources (and there were hundreds of police involved in this) are not likely to come to any firm conclusion. Evidence of mistakes being caused by wrong information given to the Federal Police from the British would be interesting, and might go some way to partially restoring the Fed's image. However, I think it is already clear that the stuff up was shared by the Federal Police, the DPP and its barristers.
But all this talk of it creating a crisis of confidence in the ability to handle terror cases is just journalistic overkill.
At worst, some guy who deserved to have his connections to terrorism investigated was detained for a month, and released after a poorly considered charge had been laid but then quickly dropped.
You can go on about the political "interference" in the visa revocation decision, but again at the end of the day some non citizen has had a working visa lost in circumstances which many people think unfair. I would expect that a significant number of other people have been rejected for visas in circumstances that may also be considered unfair by half the population if you let them see the information on which the decision is based. It happens. It is not the worst form of injustice in the world, or indeed the country.
People should just keep what has happened in some perspective here.
I would even include terrorism law supporter Peter Faris in this: on Friday I heard him suggest on radio that Dr Haneef should be paid a million dollars in compensation! Just overkill.
5. As I have mentioned me before, what annoys me about journalists' role in this is that they do not acknowledge that they themselves are part of the problem when they choose to publish unsourced leaks from the Federal Police or elsewhere. The media is a willing party to the attempted public manipulation of events; they have the ability, yet not the ethics apparently, to chose not to publish information which they must know is being leaked to prejudice opinion in favour of the police.
Yet it seems to me that the media will not criticise its own for doing this. Instead, it will only seek to take credit for leaking the defence material in rebuttal of rumours the media should never have published in the first place.
Journalists deserve the low reputation they have.
4 comments:
This noncitizen was engaged in propping up the health system destroyed by both sides of federal politics over the last 20 years or so. This noncitizen was doing us a favour by working at the Gold Coast hospital.
Yes the journalists are playing both sides the the argument and I should be happy that this is as bad as we get in Australia as far as injustice and infringement of liberty is concerned. I suppose Dr Haneef is at least lucky he didn't get in the clutches of the Americans and suffer rendition and torture.
Geoff
Jeez Louise Steve - you expect journalists to NOT run with "un-sourced" "leaks"? Next you'll be telling us about the pixies at the bottom of your garden.
Get a grip man!
Journalists can be slime, but this story was "leaking" all over the place from the second it started, with 98% of the leaking coming from the government.
If you insist on allocating blame and responsibility at least get the perspective right.
God help us (and I say that as an atheist) if there are any real terrorist cells plotting away in out little country, if this is the level of competence we use to apply legislation and to act on threats.
Keystone cops, indeed.
You shrug this off as if it's nothing Steve, but it's not YOU is it - your job hasn't been taken away, and your reputation hasn't been sullied across the globe.
I agree that Haneef's loss of job, reputation, and poor treatment by the Aussie authorities is a bad thing, but I also agree with Steve that the journalistic representation of the issue has been appalling.
What we get from the journalists is basically scepticism without intelligence.
They grasp that the pollies and the AFP have bungled, but even now, they STILL haven't connected the dots and asked what it means for Australian security. It's all a weapon for getting at politicians and making stupid ideological swipes, that's all.
Because they seem more interested in passing judgement than in reporting the news and securing the facts, an opportunity to examine what the pollies have done wrong, and what it means, has effectively been passed.
Caz,
To answer some points quickly for now: you and many, many others are saying that this case does not augur well for a future investigation of a "real" terrorist threat, yet you wouldn't dispute that the problem here was that there was no evidence on which to base a charge that would stick.
If by incompetence, you mean there is risk that innocent people will be again detained for no good reason - well, yes, that's logical.
But the fact that hundreds of police can't find evidence in a case where the evidence isn't there doesn't logically mean that they won't find it in the event of a real threat. At least we know a lot of resources will be devoted to it!
As to the actions of Minister Andrews; it remains impossible to make a sound judgement on that at the moment, yet it isn't stopping the media and bloggers from criticising him severely. It may be that he is shown to be a goose soon, and as the PM has made it clear today that he is not cutting him loose, it would reflect on Howard too.
But really, people should be more patient. And understand something about different levels of proof in law before acting as if withdrawal of the charge means there is clearly no reason to revoke the visa.
As to my downplaying the seriousness of this: my earlier posts indicated that I thought the Federal Police/DPP deserve strong criticism for this, and I take a particularly dim view of the leaking of police information. I tend to agree with Peter Faris on this, that the government ought to be seen to be reprimanding Kelty and the DPP, and not be seen as so close to Kelty all the time.
As to the great injustice of it all: yes the laying of the ill considered charge was unjust. I have seen many cases, however, where people go to trial to defend weak prosecution cases, and are acquitted at great personal expense and likely loss of reputation to their neighbours and employer despite the acquittal. Some people may argue that an acquittal at trial is better for the accused reputation than withdrawal of charges, but I wouldn't agree. His reputation within India seems unharmed.
As to the effect on his reputation of the revocation of his work visa: yes that may stuff up his career in other countries somewhat, but again, it's simply too early to tell how well justified the decision was.
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