The Australian Historical Association is holding its 2006 Conference at the Australian National University on July 3-7.
One item of note is the session 11 am to 12:30 pm, Thursday “Comparing Menzies and Howard”:
Frank Cain ADFA:
Ninety years ago Billy Hughes introduced sophisticated political surveillance system in Australia. This used state police forces and British MI5. It was used against the anti-subscription protesters during WW1.
In WW2 the US Army broke into USSR communications in Canberra, probably with the help of Australian Army intelligence. The Australian Labor PM knew nothing of this until later. Chifley set up ASIO in response, based on MI5, but with oversight by a Judge. These protection was watered down by Menzies.
ASIO came to prominence during the Petrov affair. The head of ASIO drafted legislation to make ASIO an official agency and part of the Commonwealth superannuation scheme. 😉
Cain argued that ASIO was an old boys school, closely aligned with the Liberal Party. Witlham tried to change this in 1972, but the Hawke government introduced reforms and accountability.
With the end of the cold war the Howard government was wondering what to do with ASIO. This was solved by 911, with a new mandate against terrorism. ASIO got new powers to hack into computers, put people tracers on cars. Howard increases the anti-terrorism legislation before the Iraq war. Andrew Wilkie, a former Australian intelligence officer, wrote Axis of Deceit, published by Black Ink in Melbourne. ASIO raided the publisher and smashed their computers, as documented in an SBS documentary.
July 06, 2006 | Tom
Differing uses of ASIO Comparing in the Menzies and Howard Years
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Tom
Some comments re your highly distilled and selective jottings of Frank’s presentation.
Re “In WW2 the US Army broke into USSR communications in Canberra, probably with the help of Australian Army intelligence. The Australian Labor PM knew nothing of this until later. Chifley set up ASIO in response, based on MI5, but with oversight by a Judge. These protection was watered down by Menzies.”
Closer to reality was that in the late 40’s the Americans were increasingly anxious about the security of intelligence info they were passing to Australia. The US was aware that outside of a UK centric military security arm Australia had nothing like the FBI or MI5 for civilian counterintelligence and security.
This US anxiety was heightened because it considered several of our Foreign Affairs Minister’s (“Doc” Evatt’s) advisers to be significantly “leftwing”. The US didn’t want its information being passed on by the advisers to the Soviets (in the Soviet Embassy in Canberra).
Hence ASIO was, in part, established as part of the security network to vet those handling intelligence info and provide them with security clearances.
Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com
Comment by Spooky Pete — July 10, 2006 @ 12:15 pm
Spooky Pete wrote July 10, 2006 12:15 PM:
>Some comments re your highly distilled and selective jottings of Frank’s presentation. …
Thanks for the comments. Just to explain, I was typing my report “live” during the conference session. I was sitting in the room listening to the presentation and typing notes from what I was hearing. At the end of each speaker’s presentaion I posted the comments to the blog. All I had to go on was what the speaker was saying, there were no abstracts or copies of the papers to work from. As a result my comments are short and selective.
Comment by Tom Worthington — July 10, 2006 @ 2:25 pm