By Susan Merrell

While you were watching this ……

As I write, Australia is in the thrall of ‘Utegate’. It’s another ‘Ah ha! Gotcha!’ moment of which we are being served a regular diet.

Malcolm Turnbull alleges that the Australian parliament has been misled by the lies of government ministers. This, we are told, is a most heinous crime. Yet, politicians lie to the Australian public all the time.  In my book, this is a greater crime than misleading parliament. Yet they do so with impunity. So what’s this fuss really about?

This question can also be asked of the Tony Stewart affair. His Ah ha! Gotcha! moment occurred when he (allegedly) bawled out a staffer in public then held her leg so she couldn’t leave (allegedly). There was also that other grumpy politician, Belinda Neal, who (allegedly) yelled at a staff member at the Iguana nightclub then (allegedly) lied about it.

I don’t know about you, but, in the main, I can’t see what all the kerfuffle’s about. Politicians are certainly behaving badly. And when they compound the felony by lying their actions can only be judged as ignoble – yes, and sometimes even criminal. Nevertheless, our preoccupation with such trivial matters is elevating them to a position that isn’t rightly theirs.

In doing so, are important issues being overlooked? Indeed, are we being served up a mountain of trivialities in order to distract us?  Are the Australian public being razzle-dazzled?

Remember Marcus Einfeld? His Ah ha! Gotcha! moment came over a $77 speeding fine that he tried to get out of by lying to the courts. No doubt he behaved badly. He also paid a high price with a rather long custodial term. (Is he still in jail?).

When Einfeld’s case was all over the news there was another story of far more importance being played out in the background. It was largely ignored, not being nearly as ‘sexy’.

The same year (2006) that Einfeld had been prosecuted for speeding he had also been appointed by the government of the Solomon Islands to head up a judicial inquiry into the April 2006 riots in Honiara. The riots occurred because of popular dissatisfaction with the results of a general election – especially the appointment of Snyder Rini as Prime Minister.

The inquiry was very unpopular with the then Howard government as it intended to raise issues of culpability and incompetence of not only the Solomon Islands’ authorities but also of the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) -a body that had been formulated by countries in the region and headed up by Australia as a peace-keeping mission during the ethnic tensions at the request of the then Solomon Islands government. The request for assistance had come from the Prime Minister immediately previous to Rini, Sir Allan Kemakeza.

In the aftermath of the riots, Manasseh Sogavare, a more acceptable choice to the people of the Solomon Islands, subsequently replaced Rini. However, he was not so acceptable to the Australian government having always been a strong critic of RAMSI.

What followed was an international incident of significant proportions that contained allegations of corruption amongst Solomon Islands politicians, charges of bullying and overstepping their authority against the Australian government and RAMSI, High Commissioners being declared as persona non grata, illegal raids on the offices of Prime Ministers – and that’s not the half of it.

During most of this time we, the Australian people, were following, with bated breath, the Marcus Einfeld $77 speeding fine saga.

Perfect timing sustains the conspiracy theory.  On July, 13, 2006, Sogavare appoints Marcus Einfeld as chairman of the committee of inquiry – August 10, a criminal investigation into Einfeld commences while in parliament Alexander Downer announces that he has “concerns” about the Solomon Islands inquiry.

Disgracing the chairman of a commission so unpopular with Canberra would certainly put a spoke in the wheel. Wouldn’t it? And it did.

Yet only one commentator picked up on this. (Patrick O’Connor writing for the World Socialist Web Site.) Not even Einfeld himself gave voice to highly probable political motivations. I can only guess why not

In a serendipitous bonus for Canberra, as well as the speeding Einfeld, the inquiry would also deliver up another large target.

Lawyer, Julian Moti, later appointed Attorney General under the same Solomon Islands Prime Minister who commissioned the inquiry, Manasseh Sogavare, largely formulated the inquiry’s terms of reference.

After his appointment, it took the Australian government no time at all to resurrect a largely dormant inquiry into an old (1997) sex charge against Moti allegedly committed in Vanuatu while he was resident there. The judiciary of Vanuatu dropped the charge in 1999.

The Moti affair, had further international ramifications when the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Sir Michael Somare refused to hand over Moti to Australian authorities to answer the charges and helped him reach Honiara.  Once there Sogavare also refused to repatriate him to Australia.

During the stoush that followed, allegations flew about corruption, bribing of magistrates and the right of sovereign nations to conduct their own affairs without interference.

Pacific relations had hit an all time low.

Yet we cared little for this as we got caught up in the Einfeld perverting the course of justice charge and the Moti sex-tourism charges.  (Moti was subsequently extradited back to Australia to face the charges when the new Island government under the leadership of Dr. Derek Sikua felt it was prudent to do so. His case is pending in the Brisbane courts as I write)

So, in spite of any crimes Einfeld and Moti may have committed (and do remember – no charges against Moti have been proved), I can’t help feeling that both of them are the scapegoats served up to distract us from seriously important political matters.

So what’s the real story behind Utegate?  Are you starting to feel like a fool whose righteous indignation will be used as a weapon for an unknown agenda?  Me too.

Susan Merrell – first published on Open Forum  http://www.openforum.com.au/content/razzle-dazzleem on 26 June 2009

Thanks to News for the loan of the Pic.