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'Whose side are you on?" asked the prime minister, rhetorically of the ABC this week. The direct suggestion was that the ABC was on the side of Australia's enemies in the war against terror. But the innuendo, lubricated by the word "stitch-up", was that it was on Labor's side, which probably troubles Tony Abbott more. The ABC is, like Labor, soft on terrorism, and is un-Australian in failing to become a loyal and uncritical member of Team Australia. Mark Scott, responding, if belatedly, pointed out that the ABC was not a public relations agency of the government. "Whose side are you on?" is a question which may soon be being asked of the Commonwealth's security and police agencies. The government increasingly seeks to put a Coalition political gloss on national security, and to say directly that Labor will extend the red carpet to terrorists. It may not be the fault of ASIO, the AFP, the Border Protection Service and the host of agencies in the action if they are being verballed and co-opted by Coalition tactics, not least public relations stunts involving ministers and officials standing behind a multitude of national flags. But the message is clear. ASIO and the others, if not the ABC, are on Team Australia. Technically both ASIO and the AFP at least are at a remove from government, with some statutory independence, like the ABC. Neither is a department of state. But both seem to have become used to the idea that government agencies are at the service of the government of the day. These days, their operations (and funding) are so intertwined with the work of agencies without independence, and their functioning so closely tied to never-stopping advocacy, in parliament and elsewhere, of greater powers, that they tend to do what they are told, or to anticipate what might be useful. ASIO once gloried in being a purely advisory body without any executive functions. It was restricted by law on what it could confide to politicians or anyone else. Now ASIO seems to see itself as a player not only in detecting threats to security, but in active measures to bring them down. It wants to play advocate as much as analyst and to play the policeman. It is not trained or suited for such functions and, sooner or later, its executive functions will completely compromise its capacity to find out what is happening. This week, the prime minister and other ministers made a media event of their going over to the "Lubianka", the new ASIO headquarters, to be briefed by its Director General, Duncan Lewis, alongside an Australian flag. Photos were taken. Lewis gave a little speech while Abbott pretended keen interest and looked worried. Lewis is a former soldier, used to obeying orders. A former political adviser to prime ministers on national security matters, though his background is at the throat-cutting end of secret military operations, not security and counter-intelligence, as was demonstrated by his failure to protect his prime minister over the Haneef affair. A former Secretary of Defence, a loyal and responsive foot-soldier, if not a particularly successful administrator or strategist, until he was dispatched, first to Brussels and then to head ASIO. Forget about his ineptness this week with a street map in a ho-hum pretend presentation for the cameras. That matters not at all, even if it was enough to divert Labor and the media for a day. The story was how Lewis, wittingly or otherwise, was lending himself to a political stunt. He was not giving a genuine briefing, and would not have done so before the media. He did not, of course, do or say a thing that was specifically political or partisan but, as with AFP Commissioner Andy Colvin on a similar occasion, it served for him simply to be there. He was used. ASIO was used. A more adept leader would have protected himself and his organisation. As it happens, the message – that ASIO is on side – was reinforced for the coalition's benefit for a further whole day because of his mess up with the props. One would not have seen Dennis Richardson, or David Irvine, or any of the past dozen ASIO chiefs let themselves be used in this manner. Lewis could hardly have been unaware that terrorism, and the pretence of being against it more toughly than Labor, has become hard political currency. He could have protested, but he didn't. Had he done so, the stunt would not have occurred. The Abbott office is endlessly willing to trash all of the political conventions including punishing dissenters for "disloyalty". But it would not have wanted to have it said that it made Lewis an extra in a party partisan commercial over his protests. No doubt we can also expect conscription of service and paramilitary people in media opportunities designed to remind everyone that boat people will flood back under a Labor government. Bill Shorten told his caucus this week there was a serious risk that Abbott would call an election soon. If Abbott does (and he would need to persuade Governor-General Peter Cosgrove, whose automatic assent should not be assumed) it will, most likely, be on a confected national security crisis. The "crisis" will be the claim that less than enthusiastic Labor support suggests a need to consult the people. An election would be a gamble, but Abbott might well think that with the economy in the doldrums, it is his best chance of being at Kirribilli in 2017. There is no doubt that he is ramping up and politicising popular fear and insecurity about terrorism. The election option, rather than anything actually happening on the terror (or Middle East) front, could explain why. Decent politicians show restraint about use of public servants for overtly political purposes. Especially on national security matters. The armed services, security officials and the forces of law and order simply cannot perform their functions without popular assent. That will not last if there are perceptions of their being politically partisan, mere tools of the government of the day. But the rhetoric of recent weeks, whether against Labor or the ABC, suggests that Abbott and his ministers have no sense of the need for such restraint. Or appreciation they have already gone too far, in both word and deed. Nor does it seem that a fear of a repeat of the security disasters of the 1950s and 1960s would stop them anyway. It's even more worrying that weakened, cowed, and in some cases politicised officials might not themselves kick back about being used. And some of the guardians might not, in any event, protect those who did kick back. Most of the watchdogs seem to have been muzzled or have gone to sleep. Two – the Ombudsman and the Inspector General of Security – are on missing persons lists. Officials see what happens, under Abbott, when officials do not toe the line. The Coalition wants to say, in the presence of officials not allowed to contradict them, that Labor is weak, hopeless, compromised and inept on national security policy. There's little evidence that this is true – indeed the real problem may be that Labor me-tooism on national security compounds the risks to national security caused by habitual Coalition exaggeration and overstatement, and willingness to let trash our interests for short-term partisan gain. There have been occasions in the past where Labor itself has misused officials for partisan purpose – over, for example, climate change, Aboriginal affairs or education. But it has not happened with defence, foreign policy, national security or law and order. ASIO ought to have particular reasons for being gun-shy about being used for partisan purposes. That's what, in effect, happened after the Petrov defection in the mid-1950s. Labor, at first, was in the wrong. ASIO had cleverly wooed and seduced a senior (if rather inept) Soviet intelligence officer across to our side. He came with documents showing wholesale espionage against Australia. The defection occurred on the eve of a federal election. Robert Menzies took the high moral ground and did not use the defection, during the election, to make propaganda suggesting Labor would not have the will to stop spying by the Russians. But other coalition campaigners, from Artie Fadden down, were not so shy. Labor was narrowly defeated and its leader, Bert Evatt, came to believe that the defection had been an entirely put-up job, with ASIO having become, in effect, a team of anti-communist zealots who had become anti-Labor and pro-coalition and staged the whole affair to help Menzies steal the election. It was fantastic nonsense. Evatt's paranoia, and his foolish way of arguing his suspicions, did Labor much damage. But some of the mud thrown at ASIO stuck, and was believed by a considerable minority for decades afterwards. That made it far more difficult for ASIO to do its legitimate job. But then, as the official ASIO history published last year says, the false allegations had their own counter-effect inside ASIO. Anger at Labor turned it into just the sort of organisation it had been accused of being. Once scrupulous about avoiding involvement in mainstream politics, it became partisan and anti-Labor. ASIO remained seriously handicapped by its past until the late 1970s. As a result, it let Australia down over a number of security incidents and, probably, became infiltrated or compromised by Soviet spies. Regarded as partisan by a significant section of society, including among people it was monitoring, it found it difficult to rebuild a reputation. Although the organisation was probably back to general effectiveness by the 1980s, its current good standing probably owes most to the personal reputation for integrity of Dennis Richardson, the calm and forthright Director General at the time that terror became the big thing in 2001. A good many people disposed to be congenitally suspicious of anything coming from a secret agency trusted Richardson and believed he would prevent any abuse of new powers given to it. Public trust of that sort does not flow automatically to successors, although David Irvine had high profile and respect. The current ASIO is a very different organisation from the Cold War agency of the 1950s. The average employee these days has no personal memory of the Cold War, which ended 26 years ago. She (half the non-technical staff is female) may have greatly improved access to technology and the personal communications of potential suspects, but is probably far better steeped in the arts (not science) of judgment, deduction and assessment of personality than her predecessors. Both ASIO and the AFP encounter considerable difficulty, suspicion and misunderstanding when they move among an Islamic community which has often felt besieged, marginalised and defamed by politicians and the media. They want all the help they can get but will not be assisted by perceptions that they have become pawns in a game of politics. If they fail, and if the risks are even a fraction of those claimed, there will be terror incidents that should not have happened.

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