Sarah Jane Halton was a participant in Event 201[1] who in March 2020 was appointed to the executive board of the Australian National COVID-19 Coordination Commission.[2] She also headed the Australian PM John Howard's People Smuggling Taskforce involved in the Children Overboard affair.[3]

Career

Halton was born in the UK. She joined the Australian Bureau of Statistics. [When?]

People Smuggling Taskforce

In late August 2001, the Tampa affair, where a Norwegian ship M/S Tampa having picked up refugees from a sinking boat was denied entry to Australian ports, led the government to adopt stricter border protection measures to prevent unauthorised arrivals from reaching Australia by boat. Polls indicated the measures had public support. The government was able to portray itself as "strong" on border protection measures and its opponents as "weak". In November 2001, the Liberal-National coalition was re-elected with an increased majority.

As then Deputy Secretary in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Jane Halton was head of the People Smuggling Taskforce, a handpicked committee of top public servants and defence personnel.[4]

The task force had as mission to intercept and deny entry to refugee boats off the Australian north-west coast. The campaign happened during an unprecedented heavy censorship of information regarding the navy’s activities.

SIEV 4 propaganda

In early October, government ministers, on the advice of the People Smuggling Taskforce circulated false claims that refugees on a boat (SIEV 4) bound for Australia had thrown young children overboard, endangering their lives, in order to force navy ships patrolling the area to rescue them and take them to Australian territory.

SIEV 4 had been intercepted by HMAS Adelaide on the evening of October 6 just inside Australia’s contiguous zone. When the vessel failed to respond to demands to turn back to Indonesia, the Adelaide fired several rounds of cannon and machine-gun fire at it, some at extremely close range. At least one parent held a child up high—apparently fearful (with good reason) that the boat was about to be attacked—to indicate that children were on board. This took place in the early hours of October 7. Not long after, heavily armed military personnel boarded SIEV 4.

Under control of the Adelaide’s crew, SIEV 4 was steered back into international waters and warned not to re-enter Australia’s contiguous zone. After the boarding party left, the boat’s engine was apparently disabled by passengers in a final, desperate attempt to pressure the Adelaide into picking them up. In line with its obligations under the International Law of the Sea, the Adelaide responded to SIEV 4’s distress signal and took the boat in tow. When SIEV 4 sank the next day, October 8, the Adelaide’s crew jumped into the water and rescued all the passengers.

Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock announced that passengers of SIEV 4 had threatened to throw children overboard. This claim was later repeated by other senior government ministers including Defence Minister Peter Reith and Prime Minister John Howard.

The SIEV X mass death

On 19 October 2001, another overcrowded, unseaworthy fishing boat, later known as SIEV X and carrying more than 400 asylum seekers, overturned and sank in the Indian Ocean between Indonesia and Australia’s Christmas Island. Intelligence about the boat’s movements had being forwarded to Australian authorities, but there seems to have been an Australian government attempt to enforce a harder line since the incident 10 days earlier.

The tragedy—the worst maritime disaster in Australian history—took the lives of 353 refugees, mainly women and children from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Palestine and Algeria.[5]

Powerful circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that the drownings were the direct result of deliberate political decisions taken by Prime Minister John Howard's government and the People Smuggling Taskforce, to knowingly allowing the asylum seekers to drown, and for refusing to mount a rescue.

No inquiry into the events surrounding the SIEV X sinking has been conducted, and no one has been held politically accountable, let alone charged with responsibility, for the multiple deaths.[6]

The most significant critique was lodged by a former senior diplomat, Tony Kevin, who suggested “a possible causative link” between the events involving SIEV 4 on October 6-8 and the subsequent sinking 11 days later of SIEV X and the loss of 353 lives.

The details of the what happened those days are still highly classified.

Career afterwards

As a reward for her role as head of the People Smuggling Taskforce, Prime Minister John Howard appointed Jane Halton as Secretary of the new Department of Health and Ageing in January 2002. The Department was reformed as the Department of Health in September 2013, when the former Health Minister Tony Abbott, known as friendly to the intelligence services, became Prime Minister.

The new Health Minister in 2013, Peter Dutton, later became Minister for Home Affairs, responsible for intelligence matters, and is known as friendly to them.

During this time, Halton was responsible for providing advice to government on issues including the administration of Medicare, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and private health insurance, and for implementing a $60 billion budget.

When Halton moved in 2014, she had been one of the longest serving secretaries (head of department) in the one department (salary $500.000).[7]

In June 2014, Halton was appointed Secretary of the Department of Finance.She emphasised the scope of work harnessing technology to deliver public services more efficiently across government agencies into different platforms.

Halton resigned on 15 October 2016. After stepping down as Secretary, Halton was appointed to the board of the ANZ Bank and Vault Systems, "Australia's Secure, Sovereign, Hyperscale Cloud". [8]

Halton is chair of the global Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and in March 2020 was appointed to the executive board of the Australian National COVID-19 Coordination Commission.





Event Participated in

Event Start End Location(s) Description Event 201 18 October 2019 18 October 2019 New York

US A Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security/World Economic Forum/Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation sponsored large scale simulation of a global coronavirus pandemic predicting an apocalyptic outcome. Held October 2019.

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