COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA Official Committee Hansard SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON A CERTAIN MARITIME INCIDENT Reference: Certain maritime incident THURSDAY, 18 APRIL 2002 CANBERRA BY AUTHORITY OF THE SENATE INTERNET The Proof and Official Hansard transcripts of Senate committee hearings, some House of Representatives committee hearings and some joint com- mittee hearings are available on the Internet. Some House of Representa- tives committees and some joint committees make available only Official Hansard transcripts. The Internet address is: http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard To search the parliamentary database, go to: http://search.aph.gov.au SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON A CERTAIN MARITIME INCIDENT Thursday, 18 April 2002 Members: Senator Cook (Chair), Senator Brandis (Deputy Chair), Senators Bartlett, Jacinta Collins, Faulkner, Ferguson, Mason and Murphy Senators in attendance: Senators Bartlett, Brandis, Jacinta Collins, Cook, Faulkner, Ferguson and Mason Terms of reference for the inquiry: For inquiry into and report on: (a) the so-called ‘children overboard’ incident, where an Indonesian vessel was intercepted by HMAS Adelaide within Australian waters reportedly 120 nautical miles off Christmas Island, on or about 6 October 2001; (b) issues directly associated with that incident, including: (i) the role of Commonwealth agencies and personnel in the incident, including the Australian Defence Force, Customs, Coastwatch and the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, (ii) the flow of information about the incident to the Federal Government, both at the time of the incident and subsequently, (iii) Federal Government control of, and use of, information about the incident, including written and oral reports, photographs, videotapes and other images, and (iv) the role of Federal Government departments and agencies in reporting on the incident, including the Navy, the Defence Organisation, the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and the Office of National Assessments; and (c) operational procedures observed by the Royal Australian Navy and by relevant Commonwealth agencies to ensure the safety of asylum seekers on vessels entering or attempting to enter Australian waters. (d) in respect of the agreements between the Australian Government and the Governments of Nauru and Papua New Guinea regarding the detention within those countries of persons intercepted while travelling to Australia, publicly known as the ‘Pacific Solution’: (i) the nature of negotiations leading to those agreements, (ii) the nature of the agreements reached, (iii) the operation of those arrangements, and (iv) the current and projected cost of those arrangements. WITNESSES BRYANT, Ms Jennifer, Assistant Secretary, Education and Immigration Branch, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet................................................................................................................ 1256 PEEK, Sir Richard, Vice Admiral (Rtd) .................................................................................................. 1191 PODGER, Mr Andrew, Public Service Commissioner, Public Service and Merit Protection Commission ................................................................................................................................................ 1191 SMITH, Associate Professor Hugh, School of Politics, Australian Defence Force Academy .............. 1191 TIERNAN, Ms Anne-Maree, Senior Research Assistant, School of Politics, Griffith University....... 1191 UHR, Dr John, Senior Fellow, Political Science Program, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University ................................................................................................................. 1191 WELLER, Professor Patrick, Deputy Director, Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance, Griffith University................................................................................................................ 1191 Thursday, 18 April 2002 SENATE—Select CMI 1191 Committee met at 9.06 a.m. Participants PEEK, Sir Richard, Vice Admiral (Rtd) PODGER, Mr Andrew, Public Service Commissioner, Public Service and Merit Protection Commission SMITH, Associate Professor Hugh, School of Politics, Australian Defence Force Academy TIERNAN, Ms Anne-Maree, Senior Research Assistant, School of Politics, Griffith University UHR, Dr John, Senior Fellow, Political Science Program, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University WELLER, Professor Patrick, Deputy Director, Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance, Griffith University CHAIR—I declare open this meeting of the Senate Select Committee on a Certain Maritime Incident. Today the committee continues its public hearings in relation to its inquiry. The terms of reference set by the Senate are available from the secretariat staff. Today’s hearing is open to the public. This could change if the committee decides to take any evidence in private. The committee has authorised the broadcasting of the public aspects of proceedings. The hearing will last until around 4 p.m. today. Today’s hearing will commence with a roundtable discussion. The purpose of the roundtable is to allow the committee to explore matters such as sound practice in public administration, various models of the possible relationships between ministers, advisers, the bureaucracy and the defence forces and so on. We shall attempt to deal as expeditiously as possible with witnesses. I urge witnesses to be concise in their answers and I urge senators to keep their questions highly targeted. Witnesses are reminded that the evidence given to the committee is protected by parliamentary privilege. It is important for witnesses to be aware that the giving of false or misleading evidence to the committee may constitute a contempt of the Senate. If at any stage a witness wishes to give part of their evidence in camera, they should make that request to me as chair and the committee will consider that request. Should a witness expect to present evidence to the committee that reflects adversely on a person, the witness should give consideration to that evidence being given in camera. The committee is obliged to draw to the attention of a person any evidence which, in the committee’s view, reflects adversely on that person, and to offer that person an opportunity to respond. An officer of a department of the Commonwealth shall not be asked to give opinions on matters of policy. However, officers may be asked to explain government policy, describe how it differs from alternative policies and provide information on the process by which a particular policy was arrived at. CERTAIN MARITIME INCIDENT CMI 1192 SENATE—Select Thursday, 18 April 2002 When witnesses are first called upon to answer a question they should state their names and positions; in fact, we will invite you all to state your names at the beginning. Because we have been taking evidence, essentially, about what happened from witnesses, we have followed the practice of swearing in witnesses up until this point. That is not a practice we propose to adopt for this procedure this morning. Senator BRANDIS—Mr Chairman, may I suggest—I would find this helpful, and perhaps other senators would as well—that when witnesses introduce themselves, they might utter a couple of sentences about their particular fields of expertise. CHAIR—I think that is a very good idea, Senator Brandis. In fact, if I read the next paragraph of my notes, it actually says that. Senator BRANDIS—I am sorry to have anticipated you. CHAIR—This is an appropriate point for me to invite the witnesses to introduce themselves, perhaps starting with Ms Tiernan. Ms TIERNAN—I am in the School of Politics and Public Policy at Griffith University in Brisbane. I am a doctoral research student and a senior research assistant there. I have done quite a bit of work on the topic of ministerial staff and exploring the factors that are driving the continuing growth and evolution of the ministerial staffing system. I am interested in developing a much stronger empirical base to support the causes and consequences of greater reliance by ministers on ministerial staff. The work that I have done that is probably of most interest to the committee or most relevant to the issues here is a chapter that I have written in a book called Motivating ministers to morality, which looked at the role of ministerial staff as problem or solution in assisting ministers to behave ethically in their jobs. That is my expertise. Prof. WELLER—I am a professor of politics at Griffith University. I am also Director of the Centre for Australian Public Sector Management and Deputy Director of the Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance, all of which neatly fit into one another. I spent the last 20 years writing about ministers, senior officials, prime ministers and cabinet and the interchange that goes on between them. Twenty years ago I wrote a book with Michelle Gratton called Can ministers cope? I wrote a study of Malcolm Fraser, and I wrote a biography of John Button. My most recent book is called Australia’s mandarins: the frank and the fearless?, which came out last year. It is about that interplay between senior officials, ministers and cabinet both in Australia and comparatively, which has been the subject of my study for the last 20 years. Mr PODGER—I am the Public Service Commissioner. I had also been a secretary of department for about eight years