It’s been 14 years since 9/11. From 2001-02 to 2013-14, the budget of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) increased more than fivefold, while that of the Office of National Assessments (ONA) almost quadrupled. The Australian Secret Intelligence Service (Asis) received more than three times its previous funding; the budget for the Australian Federal Police (AFP) more than doubled.
Over 60 new “national security” laws have been passed, providing agencies with powers that once would have been unthinkable. The security forces can detain you for without charge or trial if they believe a terrorist attack to be imminent. During that time, it’s illegal for you to tell friends or family where you are or what’s happening to you.
Asio officers now have immunity for anything other than the most serious crimes if they’re involved in “special intelligence operations”, a category that applies to anything the attorney general so declares. Journalists and whistleblowers who reveal details of such missions can face 10 years in jail.
Oh, and let’s not forget, since 9/11, Australia joined two fully-fledged wars in the name of preventing terrorism: Afghanistan in 2001 (costing some $7.5bn) and Iraq in 2003 (over $5bn).
The result? Let the prime minister, Tony Abbott, explain:
By any measure, the threat to Australia is worsening. The number of foreign fighters is up. The number of known sympathisers and supporters of extremism is up. The number of potential home grown terrorists is rising. The number of serious investigations continues to increase.
The wars, the unprecedented laws, the staggering cost: according to the prime minister, none of it has worked. In fact, he says, we’re worse off than ever.
With any other portfolio, such an admission would necessitate an immediate reappraisal. Not with national security. With national security, we never look back, never reassess. The hole’s getting deeper – keep digging! Quick, drop the shovel and get the Bobcat!
For instance, in his speech, Abbott explained that Iraq had entered a “new dark age”.
How, precisely, did that happen? After all, Iraq’s been a central foreign policy preoccupation of the US (and thus Australia) since at least 1991. To put it another way, if you’re under the age of 24, Washington’s been engaged in some sort of military operation in Iraq the entirety of your life.
The first Gulf War cost some US$60bn and killed 20,000 people. After that, the Americans enforced a blockade and a no fly zone, which involved almost continual skirmishing right up to the invasion of 2003. The ongoing costs of Operation Iraqi Freedom have been estimated at a staggering US$1.7tn. As for the human toll, no-one really knows – you can pick between estimates of several hundreds of thousands and more than a million dead.
Shouldn’t we be asking how a country in which the western powers have invested trillions upon trillions of dollars has mysteriously descended into chaos? Might there not be some connection between this “new dark age” and the fact that every US president since George Bush senior has authorised air strikes on Iraq?
Apparently not. As Abbott says:
There is no grievance here that can be addressed; there is no cause here that can be satisfied; it is the demand to submit - or die.
Even with the siege in Martin Place still underway – before it had become a tragedy – Sydney’s Daily Telegraph told us that Australia had changed forever. Yet after decades of war, after corpses piled upon corpses, we’re supposed to believe that the people of Iraq have no grievances, that they’ve all just moved on merrily from the consequences of our little mistake in 2003.
Abbott’s unwillingness to discuss the historical dimension of Iraq and Syria reinforces a widespread perception of his national security speech on Monday as primarily political, directed as much at Malcolm Turnbull as at the Islamic State (Isis). By spruiking on terror, Abbott rather obviously accentuates his differences with his would-be challenger.
Turnbull might be urbane and clever but would he have the chutzpah to pivot on a dime from last month’s Charlie Hedbo free speech absolutism, in which every conservative pledged to defend the right to offensive utterances, to this month’s crackdown on so-called “hate preachers”?
I doubt it, but Tony Abbott does:
“I believe in free speech, I absolutely believe in free speech,” he told us back in the long ago days of January, explaining that he rather liked Charlie Hedbo’s depiction of Mohammed.
Now that message has been, as they say, finessed: “Organisations and individuals blatantly spreading discord and division … should not do so with impunity.”
How would a silvertail like Turnbull go ramping up the death cult rhetoric in front of a phalanx of Aussie flags? Not convincing? Better stick with Abbott then. The other night he seemed fully prepared to don a Southern Cross cape.
Whatever it takes, whatever it takes.
Yet the political motivation of the speech doesn’t mean we should be blasé about its consequences. In announcing the creation of a counter-terrorism Tsar, the prime minister talked up his efforts repelling asylum seekers.
“We want to bring,” he said, “the same drive, focus and results to our counter-terrorism efforts that’s worked so well in Operation Sovereign Borders and Operation Bring Them Home.”
It’s a neat illustration of how the erosion of rights in one area always spreads elsewhere. Australian refugee policy has successfully broken down the once almost universally accepted idea that people had, simply by being people, certain entitlements. We’ve shifted from the old notion of inalienable and universal rights to a concept of favours, to be doled out by the powerful when it suits then.
“For too long,” Abbott said in his Youtube address, “we have given those who might be a threat to our country the benefit of the doubt.”
But look at the illustrations he used: border control, residency, citizenship and welfare. It’s a move from national security to refugees and back again – and then on to the much more humdrum area of Centrelink benefits.
Likewise with data retention. In his speech, Abbott claimed:
Access to metadata is the common element to most successful counter terrorism investigations. It’s essential in fighting most major crimes, including the most abhorrent of all - crimes against children.
Again, the argument begins with terrorists (we need your metadata to fight the Islamic State) but quickly shifts to (the nearly as feared) paedophiles (we need your metadata to catch kiddie fiddlers), with an implication about other crimes as well (murder is just as bad as paedophilia).
What begins as an exception becomes, once normalised and accepted, a part of everyday policing.
We certainly need a new conversation about terrorism. But it needs to be one that examines how our efforts so far have, on the prime minister’s own admission, culminated in the problem only getting worse.
In 2011, Tony Windsor recalled Abbott’s desperation to get the top job.
“I would do anything for this job,” the one Tony told the other. “The only thing I wouldn’t do is sell my arse, but I’d have to give serious thought to it.”
Maybe he wouldn’t sell his arse but, in order to keep his prime ministership, he has no hesitation in selling off some of our most basic rights. After all, he’s not the one who’ll have to pay.