Graham Edwards (Cowan, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary (Defence and Veterans' Affairs)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to congratulate the Melbourne Age newspaper for its very courageous article on David Hicks and for the launching of their campaign ‘Bring David Home’. The excellent article, which appeared on the weekend and which was co-authored by Ian Munro and Penny Debelle, goes to the heart of the Australian government’s incredible flick pass of their responsibilities for this man over to the United States. This is, in my view, a cowardly political response to an issue which Australia should have demanded a resolution to some time ago.

David Hicks is an Australian citizen. As far as I can understand, he has not broken any law against this country, nor has he been convicted of breaking any law against the United States of America; yet, as the Age points out in its feature, he has spent some five years incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay, charged but not tried, abandoned by the government. I have a strong view that if Hicks has committed a crime he must stand trial for that crime, preferably in his own country. If he is guilty of a crime, then without doubt he must pay the penalty for that crime. The Age article goes on to say:

HE LIVES in a cell of featureless walls, 24-hour lighting and a single window of frosted glass that in daylight glows like a fluorescent globe.

For five years, David Hicks has occupied spaces like this, caught between a US Government that has been unable to prosecute him and an Australian Government that refuses to try to free him.

This sentence without trial, in conditions so secret that he cannot be photographed, could drag on for another two years unless the Federal Government asks the United States to send him home.

Hicks’ military lawyer, Major Michael Mori, says Australia is tolerating a terrible situation. While Hicks has been in legal limbo, John Walker Lindh—the so-called American Taliban who trained at the same camp as Hicks—has been charged, pleaded guilty and sentenced. But Lindh broke American law; Hicks has not broken Australian law.

“America would not tolerate this for one of its citizens,” says Mori. “Nor would it tolerate any politicians sacrificing some American citizen to the whim of a foreign country, regardless of whether they are our ally or no. It just doesn’t happen.”

The Age has launched a campaign: ‘Bring Hicks Home’. I wish to quote from the highlighted part of the feature:

How you can help

To be jailed for five years in Victoria you will need to kill someone while drunk driving, or be convicted of rape or manslaughter.

Once in prison, to be placed in solitary confinement you will need to be among the most violent, or the highly vulnerable.

David Hicks has not been convicted, but he has been jailed—for five years, much of it in solitary confinement, out of reach of his family and supporters.

He is an Australian citizen who has trained with terrorists, but he has broken no Australian law. By any measure, he has done his time.

Since 2002, hundreds of men like him have departed Guantanamo for countries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. These countries have included Albania, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Yemen.

The Sunday Age invites readers to register their support to bring David Hicks home, and we will pass it on to the Federal Government.

It goes on to say:

Send your messages to bringdavidhome @theage.com.au

Along with most other Australians, I have been aware of Hicks for some time, but it was not until I attended some lectures given by Michael Mori, who is Hicks’s lawyer, that I became aware of exactly what the situation is with Hicks.

I want to say something about Major Mori. I quote:

Major Mori ... is a Major in the United States Marine Corps. He is best known as the military lawyer of Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks, an Australian citizen. He spent four years in the enlisted ranks, reporting for training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island. After attending Norwich University and graduating in 1991, he became an officer in the Marines. In 1994 he graduated from the Western New England College School of Law, before being admitted to the Bar in Massachusetts. He was appointed by the United States Department of Defense to represent Hicks in November 2003, and continues to handle Hicks’ case as of August 2006. Mori has been featured on numerous occasions in the Australian media in relation to developments in Hicks’ case, and he has expressed concern over Hicks extended interrogations. He was one of the 2005 recipients of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Roger N. Baldwin Medal of Liberty Award, which was presented ‘to the five military defense lawyers who represented the first round of defendants at the Guantanamo Bay tribunals and challenged the entire military commission system.’

Major Mori has a number of military awards, including the Navy Commendation Medal. This is a bravery award. If Guantanamo Bay represents the worst of America, this young Major Mori represents all of the good things about America. Major Mori is a refreshingly courageous and inspirational young man who has taken up the cause of Hicks because he believes that Hicks has some human rights and because he believes that Hicks is being treated in an appalling way. Major Mori has the courage of his convictions. Hicks is well served. In an interview that Major Mori did on the ABC, in answer to a question he said:

Well, I can’t disclose the nature of the evidence. All I can really say, I’ve been approved to say is obviously David Hicks has not injured or killed any US citizen or US service member. Obviously, as the Australian Government has said, his conduct did not violate Australian law. So it begs the question of what law did his conduct violate if not the country to which he owes allegiance.

The article in the Age goes on to say that associate professor at Monash University David Wright-Neville:

... regards Hicks’ treatment as outrageous in a human rights sense, and counterproductive from the perspective of counter-terrorism. He says the denial of justice and due process smacks of victimisation and threatens an entire community within Australia.

And he is quoted as saying:

David Hicks has been offered up as a sacrifice to the Bush administration ... They had to let go of the Poms and the Swedes, so they want some token white guy so they can say we are prosecuting Europeans, not just Pakistanis ...

I also came across an article headed ‘Time to bring Hicks Home, Joyce says’ from 3 November 2006. The article reads:

Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce says it’s time to bring suspected terrorist David Hicks home to Australia.

…     …         …

Senator Joyce said he had been impressed by Major Mori’s presentation and had grave concerns about the prospect of Hicks getting a fair trial. “I think it is now time that people do stand up and start saying ‘Enough is enough—the process hasn’t been followed’,” Senator Joyce said. ‘Our respect for the process of law should be what engenders our support to bring David Hicks ... back to Australia for trial. ‘You can’t have people removed from the process of law for an indefinite period of time—that is not fair.’ Senator Joyce said Australian authorities could impose a control order on Hicks if they thought he needed monitoring or that his movements should be limited.

I agree with Joyce.

I must say that I think that this is courageous move by the Age newspaper. It will not be popular in some areas of Australia and it will not be popular in some areas of government. But this is an issue of human rights. It is an issue that goes to the heart of what Australia is about, and that is a fair go. It is time David Hicks got one, and it is time that this government ensured that he did.