Dr Martin Hess book launch; The Politics of Police Diplomacy
Dhawura nguna, dhawura Ngunnawal.
Yanggu ngalawiri, dhunimanyin
Ngunnawalwari dhawurawari.
Nginggada Dindi wangirali jinyiin
I acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which we meet, the Ngunnawal peoples, and acknowledge their elders, past and present.
And as we do every night, and have just observed at the Last Post Ceremony to honour Private Frederick Blake of the 15th Battalion, Killed in Action on Gallipoli, we also honour those who have served, including those of you who have served on operations in the thin blue line, those still serving, and the families who love and support you.
His Excellency Wahidullah Waissi, Ambassador for the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
Bill Maley AM, Emeritus Professor of Diplomacy, The Australian National University
Dr Marty Hess, Author and frequent flyer here at Memorial commemorations, so many friends and colleagues I’ve known along the way, and some I’d like to single out, including Leisa James, Mark Bainbrigge and in absentia Richard Terry, who were the best of the AFP and I was richer for having served with and learned from in Port Moresby.
They were police diplomacy in action.
Although Mark does allege he carried me, undiplomatically, over the Kokoda track. I have a different recollection!
Ladies and gentleman
Friends
Welcome to the Australian War Memorial and the launch of The Politics of Police Diplomacy – The Australian Experience.
I was surprised when reading this book, how many touch points I’ve had with the AFP during my 25 years as a diplomat.
But on reflection, it reinforces the central premise of the book.
I should also declare my brother Phil, is a sworn member of the AFP, ex Vic pol and lured to the dark side by the IDG to serve in Timor twice, PNG, Christmas Island and Solomon Islands twice, once with RAMSI and now with the Policing Partnership Program where he serves today.
While they were no longer on Bougainville when I was there with the Peace Monitoring Group in 2001 and again in 2002, the AFP would come back as part of the ambitious, but now infamous Enhanced Cooperation Program in 2004, and leave following a Constitutional ruling in 2005.
The AFP would establish the Pacific Transnational Crime Coordination Centre while I was in Samoa, and come to my aid following the devastating earthquake and tsunami in September 2009 which claimed the lives of more than 290 people, including five Australians.
The AFP’s DVI teams were the best of us.
I would work closely with the Participating Police Force during RAMSI, and in 2014 I was the Head of the MH17 Task Force in DFAT. While based in Canberra, I was nevertheless witness to the heroism and professionalism of the AFP who, alongside Defence and some unsung officials, went forward into harm’s way to bring dignity to 39 Australians and our permanent residents, who were simply undertaking innocent passage – in the truest sense of that phrase – on their way home to Australia via Malaysia. Some, to attend a World AIDS conference.
Dignity and justice.
As the Hon Julie Bishop, MP, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia said in the Explanation of Vote for UNSC Resolution 2166
“Mr President,
The message from this Council to those who were responsible for this atrocity is definitive – you will be held to account for your actions.
Australia will continue to do everything we can to ensure this barbaric act is thoroughly investigated and the perpetrators are brought to justice.
We have an overriding objective – to ensure dignity, respect and justice for those killed on MH17. We will not rest until this is done. We will not rest until we bring them home.”
We did indeed bring them all home, and subsequently supported both actively and with great purpose the process that would see three of the four charged with shooting down a civilian airliner convicted in absentia in the District Court in The Hague.
But sadly, no justice yet, as the Russian Government - as Marty notes pointedly, a P5 Member of the UNSC - continues to offer them sanctuary.
And while the AFP were no longer in Afghanistan when I was there in 2015-16, I was struck to read Marty’s description when he asked the rhetorical question, ‘when does the blue take over?’ The answer was given by the AFP that when the military win the war, the police can keep the peace.
Throughout the seven years of AFP engagement in Afghanistan, Marty notes there was no peace to keep.
He also reminds us that peace is not just the absence of conflict, but the presence of Justice.
I look at the Ambassador for Afghanistan and can only agree there can be no peace in Afghanistan with the Taliban back in the Arg Palace in Kabul. Certainly no justice for Afghanistan’s women.
And in London, where I served from 2016-2020, the UK endured multiple terror attacks, from the Salisbury chemical weapon attack, to Borough Markets and Westminster Bridge to the Manchester Arena suicide bombing. The AFP’s integration with Met Police and NCA was first rate.
Text book police diplomacy.
My final AFP anecdote relates to Cyprus, where I’m sure many of you have served.
In March last year I travelled to Cyprus to attend the UNFICYP 60th anniversary commemorations, and to request the donation by the UN of the remains of a Land Rover that hit a land mine while being driven by Sergeant Ian Ward of the NSW police on 12 November 1974. He was a member of the Australian civilian police contingent serving with the United Nations Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP).
Ward, who was killed in the incident, was escorting a family through the buffer zone between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish controlled areas of Cyprus.
With the assistance of the RAAF, his vehicle was brought home and the crate was opened on 12 November last year, in the company of his two sisters. It was 50 years to the day he was killed.
It is intended the Land Rover feature in the Peacekeeping Gallery to best highlight the perils of peacekeeping.
So Marty, well done.
I would encourage you to all to grab a copy of this important contribution to our understanding of what Members of the ‘thin blue line’ have done, and continue to do, to shape the world in which we live – and certainly the neighbourhood in which we seek to thrive cooperatively.
I thank and acknowledge those police diplomats present here tonight and ask Professor Maley to deliver his remarks.
But before I close, a couple of notable Australians, with rich Pacific experience arrived just after I commenced speaking; James Batley, truly one of our greatest and most experienced Australian Melanesian diplomats, and Bill Farmer, former Secretary of Immigration, Ambassador to Indonesia, High Commissioner to Malaysia and to Papua New Guinea. Thank you for being here today, and for your lives of rich and dedicated service.