CHARLES WOOLEY
Conspiracy theories are everywhere – or are we being manipulated into believing they are?
Ours might be called the Age of Conspiracy and Paranoia. Is there anyone we can trust? Certainly not our bankers, politicians, cricketers or churchmen. In uncertain times it is sensible to maintain a healthy degree of distrust, and not just at home. Government officials visiting China on business are supplied with temporary phones. The expectation is the Chinese will hack and eavesdrop. No surprise really. Remember the scandal when those ham-fisted Australian spooks were caught bugging the phone of Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. There are no goodies and baddies any more.
After decades in the conspiracy business you’d think I could discriminate between the likely and the unlikely. But no, I have followed leads that led nowhere and I’ve discounted stories that made headlines and won prizes. My colleague of many years, former 60 Minutes reporter Ross Coulthart made a career out of exposing conspiracy and skulduggery and picked up a truckload of awards for his efforts. Unfortunately you don’t always save the world without causing grief for your informants. These days Coulthart says he is abrupt when a tipoff calls and might even seem a touch paranoid himself. “Go away. I actually say that to people as soon as someone contacts me directly on my mobile phone.”
He explained, “They’ve left a fingerprint. When my story is run they will be crucified and they will be excoriated. They will be criminally charged for leaking information, and I’ve seen it happen.”
After the Facebook scandal we know nothing is secure. You might delete them but every electronic message remains forever in your metadata. It may be retrieved without warrant under Australia’s draconian Federal Crimes Act.
“I don’t think people realise how dangerous it is to communicate directly on electronic media with journalists,” says Coulthart. “Don’t do it. Write me a letter!”
Conspiracy theories are the grist of every journalist’s life but just for today I’ve decided to change the habit of a lifetime and debunk some of them.
Is our State Government secretly planning to close the road access to Mt Wellington, forcing us to use their mates’ cable car? It hardly seems credible (the scheme’s proponents seem so nice) although that’s what I’m hearing in the chilly shadow of the mountain. But here’s the rub. How come way down below, at sea level the Government can’t even organise people to catch a bus or a ferry. If government is capable of such cunning manipulation then how come it can’t manage a small city’s traffic, housing and hospital mess? I know the million bucks to Carlton & United Breweries appears a little sus but the Government spills that much at lunch every day. Good or evil, on evidence it’s hard to believe we are dealing with a mastermind.
Is convicted murderer Susan Neill-Fraser really still in jail because the cops and the legal system got it so wrong they dare not admit it? Surely the judicial system wouldn’t go into such aggressive lockdown just because leading legal experts across Bass Strait think the Neill-Fraser conviction was the worst case of miscarriage of justice since Lindy Chamberlain. No body, no weapon, no witness and dodgy forensics aside, who cares what mainlanders think? Surely our police and judicial system would always put truth and justice first. The guilty person was, after all, the female partner of the missing man. Cherchez la femme [look for the woman]. It’s policing 101.
Even while the Chinese Navy is challenging our ships on the open sea, there is another evolving conspiracy theory about the controversial Chinese Villa Howden hotel project. Is it a honeymoon hotel or really stage one of a secret plan by the Chinese Communist Party to take over Northwest Bay and build a deepwater port for their ambitious plans to mine Antarctica? Certainly it’s true that in 2048 the Antarctic Treaty prohibiting commercial exploitation of the frozen continent will expire. To mine the vast Antarctic oil and coal reserves China requires a convenient southern port in a compliant state. Ideally they would require a local airport with an extended runway (coincidently like the one we are building) for direct flights to and from China. Reportedly the Chinese have recently ramped up military and mineral prospecting activities in Antarctica and three out of four of their bases are in Australian-claimed territory. See how easily a conspiracy theory grows. The Spratly Islands, Vanuatu, Tasmania, Antarctica: doesn’t that seem just too plausible? No wonder businessman Twiggy Forrest, who has done better out of China than most Australians, has warned politicians against appealing to “the paranoid voter”. If it were a conspiracy, the plot should already be as transparent as a Sandy Beijing dumpling wrapper.
Chinese Ambassador to Australia Cheng Jingye recently warned against “farce and fabrication” being used by some people to “drive a wedge between China and Pacific Island countries”. Does he include us among the latter?
You may rest assured that in the fullness of time and journalistic pursuit all plots such as really exist are always revealed. By then it’s often too late but what the hell!
The year 2048 is the kids’ problem, not ours. I don’t want to encourage further paranoia here but given the state of the planet there’s more than a good chance we will all be dead by then.