Pine Gap on Trial - Court Report - Thursday June 7th : Melbourne Indymedia

Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia
http://www.pinegap6.org

Today the Commonwealth pulled another rabbit out of its hat full of restrictions to truth, free speech and indeed a fair trial.

Today's rabbit was called Parliamentary Privilege. Yes, I know what you're thinking - Parlimentary Privilege exists to protect members of Parliament from litigation when they make statements and allegations in Parliament. What does that have to do with providing evidence in a courtroom?

Good question.

Mr Begby, one of the hefty team of Commonwealth Barristers submitted that we are not permitted to mention or refer in any way to anything that has ever been said in Parliament about Pine Gap. Ever.

This has very serious ramifications for our defence and our right to a fair trial. We had planned to quote and refer to several Parliamenatary events, most notable the Treaty Committee that was refused information on Pine Gap's functions when it requested details to renew the treaty in 1999.

I argued that this use of the act was against its purpose, and at the end of my submission on the law and technicalities, I finally got to use the phrase from that classic Australian movie, The Castle.

"Your honour, it's the vibe..."

She knew what I meant, nodded and laughed. She was clearly uncomfortable with the ruling she had to make, but when confronted with a bunch of barristers given the sole job of protecting the secrets of the government, she did not have much room to move.

After that argument, Bryan presented his opening address and began his evidence.

more info and reports on the blog http://www.pinegapontrial.blogspot.com

the first ABC story for the day (the others aren't on line yet):
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200706/s1945224.htm
there was also a great story on local TV here in Alice Springs....

tomorrow Bryan will finish his evidence and Jim will take the stand - we are all looking forward to that!

peace