Rooted in Secrecy: the clandestine element in Australian politics

3 And in asking ourselves why secret structures flourish equally in overtly ‘totalitarian’ as well as ‘democratic’ countries, we come to grips with the basic similarities of all industrial societies. We are then better able to understand the real meaning behind the euphemisms used to conceal repressive aspects of a ‘democracy’.
P 4 a system that ‘camouflages its true nature behind a screen of parliamentary mumbo-jumbo.”
Hughes established the AFP after he was hit by an egg flung at an anti-conscriptionist at Warwick, Queensland.
March 1973 – Lionel Murphy rolls up to ASIO
P 26 Boyce
27, Project Argus at Pine Gap was able to keep tabs on telephone and telex messages to and from Australia and that Boyce continued to maintain that his original reason for releasing information was his anger at the way the IA was double-crossing the Australian government. He said that here were our own allies and we are double crossing them.”
Victor Marchetti, 14 years in the CIA as a specialist on Soviet Military affairs and senior operative interviewed Boyce. HE spoke to Ray Martin and explained the Whitlam Coup
Lease was up on Pine Gap on 9 December 1975
Whitlam had dismissed Peter Barbour, head of ASIO after the Hope Commission report
Whitlam had also sacked ASIS head Bill Robertson after learning of activities in East Timor
Toohey had revealed in the Financial Review that the CIA had been funding political parties, that Pine Gap was established by CIA agent Richard Stallings, and that Stallings was a friend of Doug Anthony. Whitlam repeated these allegations, and also called for a list of all CIA agents in Australia.
CAPP one great source of resistance
61 Under the facade of a democratic system, the work of secret police snoopers is to intimidate dissent elements. Under overt repression, such as fascism, they terrorise. There is no difference in basic purpose, only in degree.
- The UKUSA pact is very hierarchical
- At the apex is NSA
- GCHQ has the status of a senior partner
- Canada, Australia and New Zealand are ‘second parties’
- Technical liaison between the parties is close and well integrated
- They share procedures for identifying and labeling signals and have unified communications network
- Voluminous “international Regulations on SIGINT” – IRSIG for short – prescribe security procedures, including indoctrination, to which participating governments must agree
- They also share outlandish code words such as VIPAR, TRINE or UMBRA which must always designate Top Secret SIGINT materials.
ASIS 1970 involved in overthrow of Sihanouk under orders of CIA and in direct opposition to Australian government policy
ASIS 1973 – 2 agents involved in Chile coup
ASIS operator Kathy Duffy working for the Melbourne Age revealed
Secret treaties and bases p. 101
- Quadripartite Pact of 1947 – USA, Britain Canada, Oz – interchange of military hardware information
- Secret treaty with same partites is the UK USA Treaty or SIGINT Pact – reception and analysis of foreign communications and electronic transmissions around the entire globe, originally signed in 1947 by UK and USA, joined later by Canada, Oz and NZ, dividing up intelligence gathering between them monitoring every diplomatic, military and commercial communication regardless of source, in different parts of the world. Largest, most pervasive and technologically soph intel gathering system in history. No documentary in Australia committing this country to the UKUSA treaty
- Duncan Campbell cited, carrot and stick philosophy, where members are permitte to know about top secret matters, which because of their exclusivity, appear to be highly significant. The stick is the carefuly cultivated fear that the national interest would be threatened if the strictest secrecy were not maintained.
Whitlam statement on 26 March 1973, addressed ALP Victoria General Assembly on Pine Gap and bases – footage in Home on the Range
Hope Commission submission of CAPP, pointed out the contradictions between the assumptions underlying parliamentary democracy and the realities of clandestine operations
P 151-154 about the media in Australia – Colby admitted that about 40 American journalists worked abroad on the CIA’s payroll and that CIAA composed items were often inserted into foreign publication and wire services.
Hope Commission report, “Material before me established that from time to time there has been improper communication of intelligence held by ASIO…Evidence is available to me that satisfied me that ASIO has in the past provided selected people with security intelligence material for publication.”
155 1971 SMH journo Robert Mayne taken to lunch with a senior ASIO man, an MP Peter Coleman and asked to edit a magazine called Analysis, to attack the left wing. Given ASIO files of 5 leading activists to be rubbished. Project abandoned. Two years later Mayne gave this story to the National Times, 19 March 1973, Coleman admitted to being involved, and that he had continued to receive info from ASIO.
The Age 3 November 1979 confirmed the story about Darrell Dorrington, ASIS agent since 1972, who sent information to Kathy Duffy at the Age.
D notices, since 1952 in Australia, established the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Committee – page 160
- Technical data about weapons systems and their performance
- Air operation capability and air defences
- The whereabouts of the Petrovs
- The entire area of deciphering and monitoring of codes to do with DSD and NSA, and places where DSD operate
- Names of ASIS personnel
Example provided on 161 of a D-notice letter from ASIO on the 4 July celebration asking for the words American Revolution to not be used, and that paras 1 and 3 of the declaration of Independence to not be quoted in or out of context or published
Hope Commission =
- 3 year investigation, 5 volumes of reports, 723 pages, many unpublished reports too.
- Aust intel community is fragmented, poorly coordinated and organisations. The agencies lack proper guidance, direction and control. They do not have good or close relationships with the system of government they should serve.” THIRD REPORT
- I find ASIO’s files in such disorder that, in the time that has been available to me, I have been quite unable to establish the truth or otherwise of many of the particulars of matters alleged in evidence, or raised with ASIO as the result of other inquiries. “
- “ There is often far too little communication between ASIO and government ministers and organisations.”
- “ Material before me establishes that there have at times been departures by ASIO…from principles of propriety and legality.
167, a little history of spying
- The Luddites and early socialists were infiltrated as well as persecuted by armed force
- Lord Lieutenants in the counties and magistrates in the towns were the confidential agents of governments in combatting the Chartists in their struggle for democratic rights between 1838 and 1848
- General Napier asked each officer billeted with locals in Ulster to learn “the feelings of the laboring classes in your neighbourhood. I make spies of them despite themselves”
- Special branch of the British Police force officially started in 1883,

In Australia, within state police forces at various times sine WW1 under different names, At a special conference in 1948 Police Commissioners from all states agreed to establish Special branches to liaise with Military Intelligence units and D branch, special branches were set up by administrative Act, which Hope Noticed, “links between special branghes and SIO are ‘based on arrangements of a rather informal kind’, with special branches not subject to any controls whatsoever.
The White royal commission (into Dunstan’s dismissal of SA Commissioner Salisbury fond that no special branch police had reached matric, nor any training apart from contacts with ASIO
Age Editorial 26 May 1979, “Mr. Justice Hope found that ASIO had repeatedly operated outside the law and principles of propriety. But rather than insist that the organisation respect established legal and ethical rules, he recommended that legislation confer legality on some of these illegal activities and methods. The government has adopted this extraordinary approach at a time when other democracies, notably the United States, have moved to bring their security services under stricter constraints.
Hope noticed that Sweden and the Netherlands have parliamentary committees with certain powers of investigation, but he concluded that the disadvantages outweighed the advantages.
RESISTANCE p 220 CAPP laid siege to ASIO on many occasions – to note car numbers, CAPP Xmas party held outside ASIO HQ complete with Xmas carols , p 223 stood outside taking photos, publicized their names and street addresses, after pursuing ASIO officers from the office in their cars to their homes. Court case resulted, fines were paid from raffling off a pen and wash drawing of the phone tapping HQ for ASIO, Bona Vista in South Yarra, distributing open letters to people living in streets where ASIO folks lived, 1 April road closed sign put up to stop cars entering the street, barricade meant ASIO folks had to find alternative parking spots. The ABC rang and told them it was an April fools but they didn’t believe it. They did a mock auction outside the home of Peter Barbour p 228
They got obscene and threatening phone calls, harassment like posting the name and phone number of CAPP folks , people picked up for questioning, loss of jobs, p 225, accused of being in the pay of the KGB, called armchair Marxists, juvenile, paranoid. A parallel organisation was established, the Society for the Protection of the Privacy of the Individual (SPPI) 1977 with reform and parliamentary control of ASIO as the theme rather than abolition. Ended up being an offshoot of the Church of Scientology!!!!
Although the snoopers have great powers, they are not invulnerable, they can be exposed and are extremely sensitive to exposure, they are often ludicrous bumblers, engaged in constant infighting to build their own power bases.
“We often hear it said that time is running out for democracy. But in this book we have shown that, in many of the thing that matter most, Australian democracy is merely a façade. We believe that, today, time is rapidly running out for all humanity. The man at the helm of the super-powers are steering a course which, unless stopped, will destroy life on this earth. Our main task, therefore, must be to counter their plans which are devised in madness and rooted in secrecy. Win or lose, we must fight for a society without classes, without power mad rulers, armies, secret police and torturers. Win or lose, we must fight for a society that serves the interests of the people.” P 235