Television New Zealand’s chief executive has been challenged by the public broadcaster’s Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver at a fiery staff meeting over job cuts and axing of high profile programmes, reports The New Zealand Herald.
Writing in his Media Insider column today, editor-at-large Shayne Currie reported that Dreaver, one of TVNZ’s most respected and senior journalists, had made the challenge over the planned layoffs and axing of shows such as the current affairs Sunday and consumer affairs Fair Go.
Dreaver reportedly asked chief executive Jodi O’Donnell if she would apologise to staff — “apparently for referring to her watch during an earlier staff meeting on Friday”.
“TVNZ would not confirm specific details last night, but it is understood O’Donnell pushed back during yesterday’s meeting, along the lines that perhaps she might also be owed an apology,” wrote Currie, a former Herald managing editor.
“One source said she talked at one stage about the response she had been receiving.”
Media Insider quoted a TVNZ spokeswoman as saying: “We expect sessions like this to be robust, but to give all TVNZers the opportunity to be free and frank in their participation, we don’t comment on the details of these internal meetings to the media.”
Dreaver told 1News last night: “We need really strong leadership and we expect to get it. And I’m quite happy to call out and challenge it [and] my own bosses when we don’t get that, just as I would a politician or any other person who deserves it.”
A ‘legend, icon, queen’
Media Insider reported that in a social media post today, Sunday journalist Kristin Hall had described Kiribati-born Dreaver as a “legend, icon, queen” for her Pacific reporting.
In November 2022, Dreaver was named Reporter of the Year at the New Zealand Television Awards and in 2019 she won two awards at the Voyager Media Awards for her coverage of the Samoa measles outbreak.
Yesterday’s TVNZ meeting came amid a strained relationship between the TVNZ newsroom and management over the way the company has handled the announcement of up to 68 job cuts, as least two-thirds of them journalists.
The shock news followed a week after the US-based Warner Brothers Discovery announced that it would be closing its entire Newshub newsroom at the end of June.
Two West Papuan students who were arrested on the banks of Braza River in Yahukimo . . . under the watch of two Indonesian military with heavy SS2 guns standing behind them. Image: Kompas.com
ANALYSIS: By Ali Mirin
Papua New Guinea and Indonesia have formally ratified a defence agreement a decade after its initial signing.
PNG’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko and the Indonesian ambassador to the Pacific nation, Andriana Supandy, convened a press briefing in Port Moresby on February 29 to declare the ratification.
The agreement enables an enhancement of military operations between the two countries, with a specific focus on strengthening patrols along the border between Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.
According to Tkatchenko as reported by RNZ Pacific citing Benar News, “The Joint border patrols and different types of defence cooperation between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea of course will be part of the ever-growing security mechanism.”
“It would be wonderful to witness the collaboration between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, both now and in the future, as they work together side by side. Indonesia is a rising Southeast Asian power that reaches into the South Pacific region and dwarfs Papua New Guinea in population, economic size and military might,” added the minister.
In recent years, Indonesia has been asserting its own regional hegemony in the Pacific amid the rivalries of two superpowers — the United States and China.
The ratified defence agreement between Papua New Guinea and Indonesia . . . but PNG Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko (centre left) faces West Papuans who see the pact as spelling danger for them. Image: Justin Tkatchenko/FB
Indonesia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi reiterated Indonesia’s commitment to bolster collaboration with Pacific nations amid heightened geopolitical tensions in the Indo-Pacific region during the recent 2024 annual press statement held by the minister for foreign affairs at the Asian-African Conference in Bandung.
Diverse Indigenous states
The Pacific Islands are home to diverse sovereign Indigenous states and islands, and also home to two influential regional powers, Australia and New Zealand. This vast diverse region is increasingly becoming a pivotal strategic and political battleground for foreign powers — aiming to win the hearts and minds of the populations and governments in the region.
Numerous visible and hidden agreements, treaties, talks, and partnerships are being established among local, regional, and global stakeholders in the affairs of this vast region.
The Pacific region carries great importance for powerful military and economic entities such as China, the United States and its coalition, and Indonesia. For them, it serves as a crucial area for strategic bases, resource acquisition, food, and commercial routes.
For Indigenous islanders, states, and tribal communities, the primary concern is around the loss of their territories, islands, and other vital cultural aspects, such as languages and traditional wisdom.
The crumbling of Oceania, reminiscent of its past colonisation by various European powers, is now occurring. However, this time it is being orchestrated by foreign entities appointing their own influential local pawns.
With these local pawns in place, foreign monarchs, nobility, warlords, and miscreants are advancing to reshape the region’s fate.
The rejection by the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) to acknowledge the representation of West Papua by the United Liberation for West Papua (ULMWP) as a full member of the regional body in August 2023 highlights the diminishing influence of MSG leaders in decision-making processes concerning issues that are deemed crucial by the Papuan community as part of the “Melanesian family affairs”.
Suspicion over ‘external forces’
This raises suspicion of external forces at play within the Melanesian nations, manipulating their destinies. The question arises, who is orchestrating the fate of the Melanesian nations?
Is it Jakarta, Beijing, Washington, or Canberra?
In a world characterised by instability, safety and security emerges as a crucial prerequisite for fostering a peaceful coexistence, nurturing friendships, and enabling development.
The critical question at hand pertains to the nature of the threats that warrant such protective measures, the identities of both the endangered and the aggressors, and the underlying rationale and mechanisms involved. Whose safety hangs in the balance in this discourse?
And between whom does the spectre of threat loom?
If you are a realist in a world of policymaking, it is perhaps wise not to antagonise the big guy with the big weapon in the room. The Minister of Papua New Guinea may be attempting to underscore the importance of Indonesia in the Pacific region, as indicated by his statements.
If you are West Papuan, it makes little difference whether one leans towards realism or idealism. What truly matters is the survival of West Papuans, in the midst of the significant settler colonial presence of Asian Indonesians in their ancestral homeland.
West Papuan refugee camp
Two years ago, PNG’s minister stated the profound existential sentiments experienced by the West Papuans in 2022 while visiting a West Papuan refugee community in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.
During the visit, the minister addressed the West Papuan refugees with the following words:
“The line on the map in middle of the island (New Guinea) is the product of colonial impact. These West Papuans are part of our family, part of our members and part of Papua New Guinea. They are not strangers.
“We are separated only by imaginary lines, which is why I am here. I did not come here to fight, to yell, to scream, to dictate, but to reach a common understanding — to respect the law of Papua New Guinea and the sovereignty of Indonesia.”
These types of ambiguous and opaque messages and rhetoric not only instil fake hope among the West Papuans, but also produce despair among displaced Papuans on their own soil.
The seemingly paradoxical language coupled with the significant recent security agreement with the entity — Indonesia — that has been oppressing the West Papuans under the pretext of sovereignty, signifies one ominous prospect:
Is PNG endorsing a “death decree” for the Indonesian security apparatus to hunt Papuans along the border and mountainous region of West Papua and Papua New Guinea?
Security for West Papua Currently, the situation in West Papua is deteriorating steadily. Thousands of Indonesian military personnel have been deployed to various regions in West Papua, especially in the areas afflicted by conflict, such as Nduga, Yahukimo, Maybrat, Intan Jaya, Puncak, Puncak Jaya, Star Mountain, and along the border separating Papua New Guinea from West Papua.
On the 27 February 2024, Indonesian military personnel captured two teenage students and fatally shot a Papuan civilian in the Yahukimo district. They alleged that the deceased individual was affiliated with the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNB), although this assertion has yet to be verified by the TPNPB.
Such incidents are tragically a common occurrence throughout West Papua, as the Indonesian military continue to target and wrongfully accuse innocent West Papuans in conflict-ridden regions of being associated with the TPNPB.
These deplorable acts transpired just prior to the ratification of a border operation agreement between the governments of the Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.
As the security agreement was being finalised, the Indonesian government announced a new military campaign in the highlands of West Papua. This operation, is named as “Habema” — meaning “must succeed to the maximum” — and was initiated in Jakarta on the 29 February 2024.
Agus Subiyanto, the Indonesian military command and police command stated during the announcement:
“My approach for Papua involves smart power, a blend of soft power, hard power, and military diplomacy. Establishing the Habema operational command is a key step in ensuring maximum success.”
Indonesian military commander General Agus Subiyanto (left) with National Police chief Listyo Sigit Prabowo (centre) and Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto while checking defence equipment at the TNI headquarters in Jakarta last Wednesday. Prabowo (right) is expected to become President after his decisive victory in the elections last week. Image: Antara News.
The looming military operation in West Papua and its border regions, employing advanced smart weapon technology poised a profound danger for Papuans.
A looming humanitarian crisis in West Papua, PNG, broader Melanesia and the Pacific region is inevitable, as unmanned aerial drones discern targets indiscriminately, wreak havoc in homes, and villages of the Papuan communities.
The Indonesian security forces have increasingly employed such sophisticated technology in conflict zones since 2019, including regions like Intan Jaya, Yahukimo, Maybrat, Pegunungan Bintang, and other volatile regions in West Papua.
Consequently, villages have been razed to the ground, compelling inhabitants to flee to the jungle in search of sanctuary — an exodus that continues unabated as they remain displaced from their homes indefinitely.
On 5 April 2018, the Indonesian government announced a military operation known as Damai Cartenz, which remains active in conflict-ridden regions, such as Yahukimo, Pegunungan Bintang, Nduga, and Intan Jaya.
The Habema security initiative will further threaten Papuans residing in the conflict zones, particularly in the vicinity of the border shared by Papua New Guinea and West Papua.
There are already hundreds of people from the Star Mountains who have fled across to Tumolbil, in the Yapsie sub-district of the PNG province of West Sepik, situated on the border. They fled to PNG because of Indonesia’s military operation (RNZ 2021).
According to RNZ News, individuals fleeing military actions conducted by the Indonesian government, including helicopter raids that caused significant harm to approximately 14 villages, have left behind foot tracks.
The speaker explained that Papua New Guineans occasionally cross over to the Indonesian side, typically seeking improved access to basic services.
The PNG government has been placing refugees from West Papua in border camps, the biggest one being at East Awin in the Western Province for many decades, with assistance from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
How should PNG, UN respond? The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2007, article 36, states that “Indigenous peoples, in particular those divided by international borders, have the right to maintain and develop contacts, relations and cooperation with their own members as well as other peoples across borders”.
Over the past six years, regional and international organisations, such as the Melanesian Spearheads groups (MSG), Pacific islands Forum (PIF), Africa, Caribbean and Pacific states (ACP), the UN’s human rights commissioner as well as dozens of countries and individual parliaments, lawyers, academics, and politicians have been asking the Indonesian government to allow the UN’s human rights commissioner to visit West Papua.
However, to date, no response has been received from the Indonesian government.
What does this security deal mean for West Papuans? This is not just a simple security arrangement between Jakarta and Port Moresby to address border conflicts, but rather an issue of utmost importance for the people of Papua.
It concerns the sovereignty of a nation — West Papua — that has been unjustly seized by Indonesia, while the international community watched in silence, witnessing the unfurling and unparalleled destruction of human lives and the ecological system.
There is one noble thing the foreign minister of PNG and his government can do: ask why Jakarta is not responding to the request for a UN visit made by the international community, rather than endorsing an ‘illegal security pact’ with the illegal Indonesia colonial occupier over his supposed “family members separated only by imaginary lines”.
Ali Mirin is a West Papuan from the Kimyal tribe of the highlands that share a border with the Star Mountain region of Papua New Guinea. He graduated last year with a Master of Arts in International Relations from Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia.
Israel has an extensive history of using torture in its interrogations, and there is no reason to believe such methods haven’t been used on captured Hamas fighters in recent months - but reports that it was actual UN staff being tortured are something new. Image: Screenshot APR
COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone
A recent UNRWA document says its staff report having been tortured while detained by Israeli forces, who pressed them to provide false statements about ties between the agency and Hamas.
“The document said several UNRWA Palestinian staffers had been detained by the Israeli army, and added that the ill-treatment and abuse they said they had experienced included severe physical beatings, waterboarding, and threats of harm to family members,” Reuters reports, saying UNRWA workers “reported having been pressured by Israeli authorities into falsely stating that the agency has Hamas links and that staff took part in the October 7 attacks.”
This is another one of those stories about Israeli offences that are so stunning that at first you can mistakenly believe you must not be reading it correctly — especially since the Western political-media class haven’t been treating it like the jarring news that it is.
If we had anything remotely like an objective news media in the Western world, reports that Israel tortured United Nations staff to get them to make false statements against a UN aid agency would be the top story everywhere for days.
Let this sink in: Israel is accused of torturing UN staff.
Many, including myself, speculated that torture was involved in obtaining the Israeli “intelligence” behind initial claims of UNRWA staff involvement in the October 7 attack when this narrative first surfaced back in January.
A senior Israeli official told Axios at the time that Israeli intelligence agencies came upon the information about the UNRWA staffers largely through “interrogations of militants who were arrested during the October 7 attack.”
Israel has an extensive history of using torture in its interrogations, and there is no reason to believe such methods haven’t been used on captured Hamas fighters in recent months — but reports that it was actual UN staff being tortured are something new.
Flimsiest allegations
We may be certain that if it was Hamas being accused of torturing workers for international aid agencies in order to extract false confessions, we’d never hear the end of it.
But that’s what the information ecosystem looks like in the shadow of the empire.
The flimsiest allegations against enemies of the US-centralised power alliance are spun as gospel truth and kept in the headlines for months, while even the most damning evidence against the empire never gets anything better than a cursory nod from the mass media and is then promptly memory-holed as the daily news churn moves on.
Television New Zealand . . . killing off some major news and current affairs programmes. Image: RNZ/Marika Khabazi
RNZ MEDIAWATCH: By Colin Peacock
Television New Zealand’s proposals to balance its worsening books by killing news and current affairs programmes mean New Zealanders could end up with almost no national current affairs on TV within weeks.
It is a response to digital era changes in technology, viewing and advertising — but also the consequence of political choices.
“I can see that I’ve chosen a good night to come on,” TVNZ presenter Jack Tame said mournfully on his stint as a Newstalk ZB panelist last Wednesday.
The news that TVNZ news staff had been told to “watch their inboxes” the next morning had just broken.
It was less than a week since Newshub’s owners had announced a plan to close it completely in mid-year and TVNZ had reported bad financial figures for the last half of 2023.
The following day — last Thursday — TVNZ’s Midday News told viewers 9 percent of TVNZ staff — 68 people in total — would go in a plan to balance the books.
“The broadcaster has told staff that its headcount is high and so are costs,” said reporter Kim Baker-Wilson starkly on TVNZ’s Midday.
On chopping block
Twenty-four hours later, it was one of the shows on the chopping block — along with late news show Tonight and TVNZ’s flagship weekly current affairs show Sunday.
“As the last of its kind — is that what we want in our media landscape . . . to have no in-depth current affairs show?” said Sunday presenter Miriama Kamo (also the host of the weekend show Marae).
Consumers investigator Fair Go — with a 47-year track record as one of TVNZ’s most popular local shows — will also be gone by the end of May under this plan.
People at TVNZ’s building in central Auckland. Photo: RNZ/Marika Khabazi
If Newshub vanishes from rival channel Three by mid year, there will be just one national daily TV news bulletin left — TVNZ’s 1News — and no long form current affairs at all, except TVNZ’s Q+A and others funded from the public purse by NZ on Air and Te Mangai Paho.
Tellingly, weekday TVNZ shows which will carry on — Breakfast and Seven Sharp — are ones which generate income from “partner content” deals and “integrated advertising” — effectively paid-for slots within the programmes.
TVNZ had made it known cuts were coming months ago because costs were outstripping fast-falling revenue as advertisers tightened their belts or spent elsewhere.
TVNZ executives had also made it clear that reinforcing TVNZ’s digital-first strategy would be a key goal as well as just cutting costs.
Other notable cut
So the other notable service to be cut was a surprise — the youth-focused digital-native outlet Re: News.
After its launch in 2017, its young staff revived a mothballed studio and gained a reputation for hard work — and then for the quality of its work.
It won national journalism awards in the past two years and reached younger people who rarely if ever turn on a television set.
Reportedly, the staff of Re: News staff is to be halved and lose some of its leaders.
The main media workers’ union E tū said it will fight to save jobs and extend the short consultation period.
Some staff made it plain that they weren’t giving up just yet either and would present counter-proposals to save shows and jobs.
In a statement, TVNZ said the proposals “in no way relate to the immense contribution of the teams that work on those shows and the significant journalistic value they’ve provided over the years”.
Money-spinners
But some were money-spinners too.
Fair Go and Sunday still pull in big six-figure live primetime TV audiences and more views now on TVNZ+. Its marketers frequently tell the advertisers that.
TVNZ chief executive Jodi O’Donnell knows all about that. She was previously TVNZ’s commercial director.
So why kill off these programmes now?
TVNZ chief executive Jodi O’Donnell . . . “I’ve been quite open with the fact that there are no sacred cows.” Image: TVNZ
Mediawatch’s requests to talk to O’Donnell and TVNZ’s executive editor of news Phil O’Sullivan were unsuccessful.
But O’Donnell did talk to Newstalk ZB on Friday night.
“I’ve been quite open with the fact that there are no sacred cows. And we need to find some ways to stop doing some things for us to reduce our costs,” O’Donnell told Newstalk ZB.
“TVNZ’s still investing over $40 million in news and current affairs — so we absolutely believe in the future of news and current affairs. But we have a situation right now that our operating model is more expensive than the revenue that we’re making. And we have to make some really tough, tough decisions,” she said.
“We’ll constantly be looking at things to keep the operating model in line with what our revenue is. Within the TVNZ Act it’s clear that we need to be a commercial broadcaster, We are a commercial business, so that’s the remit that we need to work on.
“Our competitors these days are not (Newstalk ZB) or Sky or Warner Brothers (Discovery) but Google and Meta. These are multi-trillion dollar organisations. Ninety cents of every dollar spent in digital news advertising is going offshore. That’s 10 cents left for the likes of NZME, TVNZ, Stuff and any of the other local broadcasters.”
Jack Tame also pointed the finger at the titans of tech on his Newstalk ZB Saturday show.
Force of digital giants ‘irrepressible’ “Ultimately the force of those digital giants is irrepressible. Trying to save free-to-air commercial TV, with quality news, current affairs and local programming in a country with five million people . . . is like trying to bail out the Titanic with an empty ice cream container. I’m not aware of any comparable broadcast markets where they’ve managed to pull it off,” he told listeners.
But few countries have a state-owned yet fully-commercial broadcaster trying to do news on TV and online, disconnected from publicly-funded ones also doing news on TV and radio and online.
That makes TVNZ a state-owned broadcaster that serves advertisers as much as New Zealanders.
But if things had panned out differently a year ago, that wouldn’t be the case now either.
What if the public media merger had gone ahead? A new not-for-profit public media entity incorporating RNZ and TVNZ — Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media (ANZPM) — was supposed to start one year ago this week.
It would have been the biggest media reform since the early 1990s.
The previous government was prepared to spend more than $400 million over four years to get it going.
Almost $20 million was spent on a programme called Strong Public Media, put in place because New Zealand’s media sector was weak.
“Ailing” was the word that the business case used, noting “increased competition from overseas players slashed the share of revenue from advertising.”
But the Labour government killed the plan before the last election, citing the cost of living crisis.
The new entity would still have needed TVNZ’s commercial revenue, but if it had gone ahead, would that mean TVNZ wouldn’t now be sacrificing news shows and journalists?
Tracey Martin who had been named as chair of the board charged with getting ANZPM up and running . . . “Nobody’s surprised. Surely nobody is surprised that this ecosystem is not sustainable any longer.” Image: RNZ/Nate McKinnon
“Nobody’s surprised. Surely nobody is surprised that this ecosystem is not sustainable any longer. Something radical had to change,” Tracey Martin — the chair of the board charged with getting ANZPM up and running — told Mediawatch.
“I don’t have any problem believing that (TVNZ) would have had to change what they were delivering. But would it have been cuts to news and current affairs that we would have been seeing? There would have been other decisions made because commerciality . . . was not the major driver (of ANZPM),” Martin said.
“That was where we started from. If Armageddon happens — and all other New Zealand media can no longer exist — you have to be there as the Fourth Estate — to make sure that New Zealanders have a place to go to for truth and trust.”
What were the assumptions about the advertising revenue TVNZ would have been able to pull in?
“[TVNZ] was telling us that it wouldn’t be as bad as we believed it would be. TVNZ modeling was not as dramatic as our modeling. We were happy to accept that [because] our modeling gave us a particular window by which to change the ecosystem in which New Zealand media could survive to try and stabilise,” Martin told Mediawatch.
The business case document tracked TVNZ revenue and expenses from 2012 until 2020 — the start of the planning process for the new entity.
By 2020, a sharp rise in costs already exceeded revenue which was above $300 million.
And as we now know, TVNZ revenue has fallen further and more quickly since then.
“We were predicting linear TV revenue was going to continue to drop substantially and relatively quickly — and they were not going to be able to switch their advertising revenue at the same capacity to digital,” Martin said.
“They had more confidence than we did,” she said.
The ANZPM legislation estimated it as a $400 million a year operation, with roughly half the funding from public sources and half from commercial revenue.
TVNZ’s submission said that was “unambitious”.
Then TVNZ CEO Simon Power addressing Parliament’s EDSI committee last year on the ANZPM legislation. Image: Screenshot/EDSI Committee Facebook
“If the commercial arm of the new entity can aid in gaining more revenue to reinvest into local content and to reinvest into public media outcomes, all the better,” the chief executive at the time Simon Power told Mediawatch in 2023.
“It was a very rosy picture they painted. They had a mandate to be a commercial business that had to give confidence to the advertisers and the rest of New Zealand but they were very confident two years ago that this wouldn’t happen,” she said.
In opposition, National Party leader Christopher Luxon described the merger as “ideological and insane” and “a solution looking for a problem”.
Media and Communications Minister Melissa Lee . . . Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
But if that was based on TVNZ’s bullish assessments of its own revenue-raising capacity — or a disregard of a probable downturn ahead, was that a big mistake?
“I won’t comment for today’s government, but statements being made in the last couple of days about people getting their news from somewhere else; truth and trust has dropped off; linear has got to be transferred into the digital environment . . . none of those things are new comments,” Martin told Mediawatch.
“They’re all in the documentation that we placed into the public domain — and I asked the special permission, as the chair of the ANZPM group, to brief spokespersons for broadcasting of the Greens, Act and National to try and make sure that everybody has as much and as much information as we could give them,” she said.
Media and Communications Minister Melissa Lee said this week she was working on proposals to help the media to take to cabinet.
“I don’t give advice to the minister, but I would advise officials to go back and pull out the business case and paperwork for ANZPM — and to look at the submissions and the number of people who supported the concept, but had concerns about particular areas,” Tracey Martin told Mediawatch.
“Don’t let perfection get in the way of action.”
Colin Peacock is RNZ’s Mediawatch presenter. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
About 5000 protesters calling for an immediate ceasefire and an end to Israeli’s genocidal war on Gaza today took part in a rally in Auckland’s Te Komititanga Square and a march up Queen Street in the business heart of New Zealand’s largest city.
This was one of a series of protests across more than 25 cities and towns across Aotearoa New Zealand in one of the biggest demonstrations since the war began last October 7.
Many passionate Palestinian and indigenous Māori speakers and a Filipino activist condemned the Israeli settler colonial project over the destruction caused in the occupation of Palestinian lands and the massive loss of civilian lives in the war.
The most rousing cheers greeted Green Party MP Chlöe Swarbrick who condemned the killing of “more than 30,000 innocent civilian lives” — most of them women and children with International Women’s Day being celebrated yesterday.
Stop the genocide in Gaza. Video: Café Pacific
“The powers that be want you to think it is complicated . . .,” she said. “it’s not. Here’s why.
“We should all be able to agree that killing children is wrong.
“We should all be able to agree that indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians who have been made refugees in their own land is wrong,” she said and was greeted with strong applause.
“Everybody in power who disagrees with that is wrong.”
‘Stop the genocide’
Chants of shame followed that echoing the scores of placards and banners in the crowd declaring such slogans as “Stop the genocide”, “From Gaza to Paekākāriki, this govt doesn’t care about tamariki. Free Palestine”, “Women for a free Palestine”, “Unlearn lies about Palestine”, “Food not bombs for the tamariki of Gaza”, “From the river to the sea . . . aways was, always will be. Ceasefire now.”
Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick (third from left) addressing the crowd . . . “killing children is wrong.” Image: David Robie/APR
Three young girls being wheeled in a pram held a placard saying “Yemen, Yemen, make us proud, turn another ship around”, in reference to a protest against the New Zealand government joining a small US-led group of nations taking reprisals against Yemen.
The Yemeni Houthis are blockading the Red Sea in solidarity with Palestine to prevent ships linked to Israel, UK or the US from getting through the narrow waterway. They say they are taking this action under the Genocide Convention.
Swarbrick vowed that the Green Party — along with Te Pati Māori — the only political party represented at the rally, would pressure the conservative coalition government to press globally for an immediate ceasefire, condemnation of Israeli atrocities, restoration of funding to the Palestine refugee relief agency UNRWA, and expulsion of the Israeli ambassador.
Meanwhile, as protests took place around the country, national chair John Minto of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) declared on social media from Christchurch that “[Prime Minister] Christopher Luxon and [Foreign Minister] Winston Peters can’t find the energy to tweet for an end to Israel’s genocidal starvation of Palestinians in Gaza”.
He added that Israel continued to turn away humanitarian convoys of desperately needed aid from northern Gaza.
“But PM Christopher Luxon has been silent while FM Winston Peters has been indolent.”
Palestine will be free” . . . three friends show their solidarity for occupied Palestine. Image: David Robie/APR
Three more children have died of malnutrition and dehydration at Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, according to health officials, taking the total confirmed toll from starvation to 23.
The US military has denied responsibility for an airdrop of humanitarian aid that Gaza officials say killed five people and injured several others when parachutes failed to open while Israeli forces again opened fire on aid seekers in northern Gaza.
President Joe Biden’s plan of a temporary port for maritime delivery of aid has been widely condemned by UN officials and other critics as an “election year ploy”.
Dr Rami Khouri, of the American University of Beirut, said the plan was “a ruse most of the world can see through”. It could give Israel even tighter control over what gets into the Gaza Strip in the future while completing “the ethnic cleansing of Palestine”.
“All children are precious” . . . a child and her mother declare their priorities at the protest. Image: David Robie/APR
Protesters stop US lecturer Wellington Scoop reports that students and activist groups at Victoria University of Wellington yesterday protested against a lecture by the US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, Dr Bonnie Jenkins.
Dr Jenkins is a senior official in charge of AUKUS implementation, a military alliance currently between Australia, UK and USA.
About 150 people, mostly students from groups including Justice for Palestine, Student Justice for Palestine-Pōneke (SJP), Stop AUKUS and Peace Action Wellington rallied outside the university venue in Pipitea to protest against further collaborations with the US.
Thousands in the Auckland Gaza ceasefire protest. Video: Café Pacific
A peaceful protest was undertaken inside the lecture hall at the same time.
An activist began by calling for “a moment of silence for all the Palestinians killed by the US-funded genocide in Gaza”.
He then condemned the weapons that the US was sending to Gaza, before eventually being ejected from the lecture theatre.
Shortly after, another activist stood up and said “Karetao o te Kāwana kakīwhero!” (“Puppets of this redneck government”) and quoted from the women’s Super Rugby Aupiki team Hurricanes Poua’s revamped haka: “Mai te awa ki te moana (From the river to the sea), free free Palestine!”
“You don’t have to be a Muslim to support Palestine – just be human” . . . says this protester on the eve of Ramadan. Image: David Robie/APR
Video on ‘imperialism’
Dr Jenkins was ushered away for the second time. Subsequently a couple of activists took to speaking and playing a video about how AUKUS represented US imperialism.
When organisers later came in to announce that Dr Jenkins would not be continuing with her lecture, chants of “Free, free Palestine!” filled the room.
“For five months, Aotearoa has been calling for our government to do more to stop the genocide in Gaza. And for years, we have been calling our governments to stand against Israel’s occupation of Palestine,” said Samira Zaiton, a Justice for Palestine organiser.
“We are now at the juncture of tightening relations with settler colonies who will only destroy more lives, more homes and more lands and waters. We want no part in this. We want no part in AUKUS.”
Dr Jenkins’ lecture was organised by Victoria University’s Centre for Strategic Studies, to address “security challenges in the 21st century”.
Valerie Morse, an organiser with Peace Action Wellington, said: “Experts on foreign policy and regional diplomacy have done careful research on the disastrous consequences of involving ourselves with AUKUS.
“Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa is not a nuclear testing ground and sacrifice zone for US wars.”
“When silence is betrayal” . . . motorcycle look at today’s rally. Image: David Robie/APRThe Israeli military’s “murder machine” . . . “there’s no good reason for bombing children”. Image: David Robie/APR
Temporary pier in Gaza? What about simply making the fully dependent US client state Israel let the aid in, or force them to stop the genocidal onslaught that makes it necessary? Image: Caitlin Johnstone Web
COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone
The Biden administration is supposedly planning to set up a temporary pier in Gaza to allow for the large-scale shipment of sorely needed goods into the enclave, which reportedly will take weeks to build and will still be subjected to an Israeli checkpoint.
This is on top of the widely ridiculed airdrops of pitifully small amounts of aid the US has already been making in this continuing charade where Washington pretends Gaza is surrounded by some kind of unassailable invisible barrier between itself and Israel.
And hell, why not? Why not build a pier. Have they considered digging a giant tunnel to get aid into Gaza as well? Or launching aid into Gaza by building a giant slingshot? Or perhaps they could invent some type of portal gun à la Rick and Morty?
Ooh! Hey! Or what about simply making their fully dependent client state let the aid in, or force them to stop the genocidal onslaught that makes it necessary? As Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp rightly notes of the planned pier construction, “The drastic measure is being ordered instead of Biden using the enormous leverage he has over Israel to pressure them to allow in more aid or halt the genocidal campaign.”
The Grayzone has a new report out featuring leaked slides from a private Israel lobby presentation teaching politicians and prominent figures how to talk about Gaza in ways the public will be receptive to, based on focus group-tested information gathered by Republican political operative Frank Luntz.
Journalist Mark Ames tweeted of the report, “This is an incredible scoop, a direct window into how the genocide-propaganda sausage is made.”
My favorite part of the article is where the author Max Blumenthal writes that Republicans and Democrats were found to be receptive to different words used to describe Israel’s genocidal violence in Gaza, saying “Republican voters prefer phrases which imply maximalist violence, like ‘eradicate’ and ‘obliterate,’ while sanitised terms like ‘neutralise’ appeal more to Democrats.”
That’s pretty much the only difference between Republicans and Democrats right there. That’s it in a nutshell.
The Grayzone has obtained slides from a confidential Israel lobby presentation crafted by Republican pollster Frank Luntz
They contain talking points for politicians and influencers seeking to justify Israel’s rampage in Gaza@MaxBlumenthal reportshttps://t.co/HU8zgCNK58
You see Western pundits and politicians criticising settlements in the West Bank more forcefully than the genocide in Gaza, despite genocide plainly being worse. This is because Israel’s approval of West Bank settlements exposes the “two state solution” for the lie that it is and makes it clear that the Western power alliance has no meaningful position on Israel’s abusive treatment of Palestinians.
When Western officials bitch at Israel over settlements, they’re essentially saying “Stop it you guys, you’re giving the game away! Now how are we supposed to pretend we care?” They need to be able to credibly bleat the phrase “two-state solution” once in a while in order to create the impression that they’re not just permanently taking the side of genocide, ethnic cleansing, colonialism, theft and apartheid — even though that is exactly what they are doing.
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I’ve noticed that on social media I’m getting more and more comments from dopey right wingers yelling at me for what I have to say about Gaza, and what’s weird is that most of them don’t even post about Israel-Palestine normally. They appear to be doing it solely because they see opposition to the Gaza genocide as a left-wing issue, and so they’ve reflexively taken the opposite position because that’s just what political engagement looks like in this insipid, brainwashed dystopia of ours.
Until recently most of the hostile responses I’ve been getting have been coming from virulent Israel supporters with Israeli flags and “proud Zionist” in their bios who shriek about Hamas 24/7. Now a lot of the pushback I’m getting is just from standard MAGA chuds and other rightists who tweet mostly about partisan politics in their own country. They’re not pushing back against me because they love Israel, they’re pushing back because I’m a leftist and they automatically push back against lefty-looking things because that’s what they’ve been programmed to do.
It just says so much about the state of western civilization that even genocide has been turned into another vapid culture war wedge issue for people to masturbate their tribal identity constructs on. As though “don’t starve children to death or rip them to shreds with military explosives” is some kind of ideological position that only makes sense through a specific political lens, instead of just the normal human default perspective for anyone who isn’t a psychopath.
But that’s the genius of the empire. Propaganda has been used to split the general population into two warring factions of equal strength, and the propagandists get each faction arguing about which imperial military project should be supported and which should be criticized. A lot of the people you see supporting the US-backed butchery in Gaza today have spent two years criticising the US proxy war in Ukraine (and vice versa), because they took those positions based on what the pundits and politicians in their political faction told them to think. It’s got nothing to do with values or morals, it’s just blind tribalistic herd mentality.
And that’s exactly where the empire wants us. Evenly divided against each other too thoroughly to get anything done, arguing back and forth about WHICH imperial agendas should be advanced instead of IF any of them should be advanced. A bunch of bleating human livestock unknowingly bickering about how best to advance the interests of their owners.
Pro-Palestinian protesters in Aotearoa New Zealand condemn "media bias" at a rally in Auckland's Te Komititanga Square last weekend. Image: David Robie/Café Pacific
The New Arab
A group of more than 50 global broadcast journalists has demanded Israel and Egypt allow the media access to the besieged Gaza Strip, as the war there enters its fifth month with more than 30,800 Palestinians killed, mostly women and children.
An open letter, signed by journalists from international news organisations — including Sky News, BBC, ITV, Channel 4, CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS — emphasised the need for protection for Gaza-based journalists and the ability for foreign media to report from the enclave.
Among the 55 journalists who signed the letter were Sky News’ Alex Crawford, the BBC’s Clive Myrie, NBC’s Hala Gorani, Channel 4’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy, and CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.
The letter, sent to Israeli and Egyptian embassies at the end of last month, said: “Almost five months into the war in Gaza, foreign reporters are still being denied access to the territory, outside of the rare and escorted trips with the Israeli military.
“We urge the governments of Israel and Egypt to allow free and unfettered access to Gaza for all foreign media. We call on the government of Israel to openly state its permission for international journalists to operate in Gaza and for the Egyptian authorities to allow international journalists access to the Rafah Crossing.
“There is intense global interest in the events in Gaza and for now the only reporting has come from journalists who were already based there.
“It’s vital that local journalists’ safety is respected and that their efforts are bolstered by the journalism of members of the international media.
‘Imperative need’
“The need for comprehensive on-the-ground reporting of the conflict is imperative.
“The risks of conflict reporting are well understood by our organisations who have decades of experience of reporting in war-zones around the world and in previous wars in Gaza.”
The letter pointed out that journalists had been granted rare access to the Palestinian enclave when given permission and supervision by the Israeli armed forces but were required to have all footage recorded from the enclave approved by Israeli army officials before it was broadcast.
CNN and NBC were among the broadcasters that allowed their journalists to embed with the Israeli military, and for their reports to submit to Israeli censorship and supervision.
In November, CNN journalist Fareed Zakaria reported that journalists embedded with the Israeli military had been subjected to specific “terms”.
“As a condition to enter Gaza under IDF [Israeli military] escort, outlets have to submit all materials and footage to the Israeli military for review prior to publication,” the CNN host said.
“CNN has agreed to these terms in order to provide a limited window into Israel’s operations in Gaza.”
Journalists need access to Gaza to report what’s happening – and I’m happy to be among the signatories of this letter. https://t.co/7zf6XJxBJN
No military censor
NBC claimed on the other hand that it does not send the final story to the military censor for review.
However, CNN chief correspondent Clarissa Ward was the first foreign journalist to independently report on Israel’s war on Gaza, during her visit to a UAE-operated field hospital in southern Gaza.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) also noted various incidents of restrictions on foreign or Palestinian reporting by the Israeli government.
This comes as 88 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israeli assault in Gaza, including 83 Palestinians two Israelis and three Lebanese, although Palestinian figures are much higher.
The organisation has since warned that the conflict has severely affected media workers and journalists in Gaza since 7 October stating that the casualty toll has shown the “deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992”.
Abortion by bicycle pump - one of the pictures in Marie Claire that shocked a nation. Image: DR/Nation Review
Today is International Women’s Day. On Monday, 4 March 2024, four days ago, French lawmakers approved a bill that will enshrine the right to an abortion in the Constitution of France in a joint session of Parliament at the Palace of Versailles. The move makes France the first country in the world to offer explicit protection for terminating a pregnancy in its basic law. How times have changed in a half century. David Robie recalls an article he filed for Australia’s Nation Review from Paris in 1974 while he was living there.
THE BICYCLE PUMP THAT ATE PARIS By David Robie
There was none of the sterile atmosphere that normally characterises usual surgeries. On the bed, covered with a crochet blanket, lay the patient, naked except for a bra. The doctor was in a checked shirt with rolled sleeves. A pretty nurse sat on the bed holding the girl’s hand.
And nearby were the surgical instruments — a bicycle pump, a plastic tube and a jar.
The scene was a modern apartment in the middle class 12th arrondissement quarter of Paris, one of the many “clinics” throughout France of the Liberation of Abortion and Contraception Movement (MLAC).
Staffed by doctors, medical students and other volunteers, clinics such as this counsel people every day in a country where abortion is still illegal and contraception has been discouraged. Since they first began to open 18 months ago, the clinics have also conducted thousands of do-it-yourself abortions using the Karman suction method involving a bicycle pump and an inverted valve.
This month the staid women’s magazine Marie Claire, a sister publication of Paris Match, revealed the activities of MLAC in an investigative report on abortion which has shocked much of France and led to the magazine being seized in Belgium and banned in Spain.
Maire Claire published a graphic series of photographs of a young woman being helped to give herself an abortion with a bicycle pump at one of the MLAC clinics. French medical authorities angrily protested.
The magazine’s editors argued that at a time when the government was preparing to liberalise abortion laws, the country should know the “full facts”.
Debating is due to start soon in the National Assembly on draft reforms — prepared by the Undersecretary for Women’s Affairs, Françoise Giroud — of the antiquated abortion and contraception laws which have not been altered since 1920.
MLAC staff encourage women to carry out their own abortion, under supervision, because they consider it less traumatic. But the staff generally show the patient a bottle containing the placenta sucked out of the womb to shock her into using contraception.
The method is claimed to be the most modern and safest, and is only painful for two or three seconds. Named after Karman, a Californian psychiatrist who picked up the idea during a visit to China, the method requires a widening of the uterus 10 times less than the conventional curettage. It has been in use in France only since 1972.
“The bicycle pump is not an improvisation, but a rational method,” says one MLAC clinic supervisor. “In England, at King’s College, which possesses one of the best gynecological-obstetrics services in the world, they prefer the bicycle pump to more costly electric ones.
Maire Claire also reported the activities of a typical GP practice carrying out abortions in the northern Paris suburb of Gennevilliers. Consisting of a team of three doctors, aged from 28 to 33, they charge 87 francs (about A$13); the patients are able to claim the money back from Social Security because they are listed on the records of having a smear test.
The magazine said hospitals were in chaos over policy towards abortions. Some hospitals would not carry out abortions at all, others only handled essential cases when the mother’s life was at stake, and in others blood was injected into the vagina to simulate an emergency case.
Only one hospital in France was carrying out abortions openly, the magazine said. This was Emile-Roux at Eaubinne, near Paris; 78 out of the staff of 90 in the general surgery ward decided in favour of abortions last May [1973], and the hospital then began giving them openly.
Abortion reform in France, although a belated result of the May 1968 riots, really gained momentum only in February 1973 when 331 doctors signed a public declaration that they would carry out abortions. None of the doctors were prosecuted. The MLAC was founded soon after.
This article, “The bicycle pump that ate Paris”, was first published by the Nation Review — “The Ferret”, in Melbourne, 25-31 October 1974, page 41.
Over the past few months, appalling videos have emerged from the conflict zone in Gaza of Israeli troops looting the properties of Palestinians who have fled their brutal aggression.
Soldiers can be seen smiling to the camera and showing off watches, jewellery, cash, and even carpets and sports jerseys that they had stolen from Palestinian homes.
Historical artefacts stolen from Gaza have even been put on display at the Knesset.
While similar acts of looting by Russian soldiers in Ukraine were well-documented and mocked, international media has hardly paid attention to the Israeli pillaging of Gaza.
Some may find it hard to believe that the well-paid soldiers of a rich country would engage in such crimes, but to the people of Palestine, this is hardly surprising. The scenes in these videos are highly reminiscent of what Palestinians saw happen to their properties as they fled ethnic cleansing by Zionist forces in the 1948 Nakba.
War on Gaza: Israeli soldiers looting. Video: Al Jazeera
As Israeli historian Adam Raz describes in his recent book, Looting of Arab Property in the War of Independence, Jewish fighters and civilians looted everything from jewellery, books, and embroidered gowns to food and livestock to furniture, kitchenware and even floor tiles.
Once established, the state of Israel continued to steal on a greater scale from the Palestinians, taking their land and property. Palestinian natural resources, particularly water, have also been looted.
— Friends of Al Aqsa (@FriendsofAlAqsa) June 15, 2016
Convenient cover
Today, the war in Gaza is serving as a convenient cover for another theft on a grand scale; this time Israel is seeking to plunder the maritime offshore gas reserves that are the property of the state of Palestine.
In late October, the Israeli Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure announced that it had awarded concessions for natural gas exploration to Israeli and foreign companies in zones that significantly overlap with the maritime borders of Gaza.
Needless to say, Israel as an occupier has no right to award licences in areas that it does not hold sovereignty over under any circumstances.
Palestine is a party to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and has declared its maritime boundaries in accordance with these principles.
Israel has not signed UNCLOS. It also does not recognise the state of Palestine and has recently doubled down on this position with a vote in the Knesset to “oppose a unilateral recognition of the Palestinian state” despite growing calls globally, including from the US, its main sponsor, for a two-state solution.
The combination of these positions has given Israel the excuse for not recognising the maritime borders of Palestine and for expropriating the resources in these areas. These Israeli claims, of course, do not make its actions legal.
One has to wonder why foreign companies, including Italian Eni, British BP and Dana Petroleum, a subsidiary of Korea National Oil Corporation, have decided to continue their participation in this deal, particularly amid the continuing Israeli campaign of what the International Court of Justice has identified as a plausible case of genocide.
Demand for cancellation
On February 8, four human rights organisations in Israel and Palestine — Adalah, Al Mezan, Al-Haq, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights issued a joint news release regarding the awarded gas exploration licences in the occupied waters of Palestine.
They announced that they have sent a letter to the Israeli Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, demanding that the award and the related tender be cancelled.
They also said they have sent legal notices to Eni, Dana Petroleum and Israeli Ratio Petroleum, asking them not to undertake any activities related to the licences. The notices warned:
“You should be aware that the International Criminal Court currently has an active investigation open into international crimes committed in territory of the State of Palestine, and has jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute any individual(s) it finds responsible for committing war crimes, including pillage.
“Complicity in war crimes like pillage is also a serious criminal offence and corporate actors can be subject to individual criminal liability . . . Complicity in violations of [international humanitarian law] can also expose companies like yours — and your managers and staff — to the risk of civil actions for damages.”
Apart from the illegality of the gas tender under international law, it is important to point out here the involvement of Eni, a European company. Its engagement with the Israeli gas exploration project contradicts the longstanding EU position that “all agreements between the State of Israel and the European Union must unequivocally and explicitly indicate their inapplicability to the territories occupied by Israel in 1967”.
The Israeli announcement of the awarded licences was made a bit more than a year after the EU signed on June 15, 2022, a memorandum of understanding with the Egyptian and Israeli energy ministers on regional cooperation on gas extraction. This came just a few months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and amid the EU’s scramble to divest from Russian gas.
Interestingly, the MoU omitted the territoriality clause that the EU is committed to include in order to protect Palestinian territories and waters from being exploited through illegal activity. Members of the European Parliament raised this question to the EU Commission a week after the signing of the MoU.
Non-binding claim
The answer from the EU Commission dismissed the importance of the omission with a rather technical point — claiming that the MoU was of a non-binding nature and therefore “no territorial clause on the applicability is deemed necessary. Nevertheless . . . the implementation of such Memorandum of Understanding will not apply in any form to the occupied Palestinian territory, which entails that Israeli supplies of natural gas as per the implementation of the memorandum of understanding may not originate from resources appropriated from Palestinian territories occupied by Israel.”
In this context, there are two questions worth posing to the EU Commission: Did this omission encourage the violation of Palestinian rights by Israel and what will be the fate of Eni’s involvement in the project?
This development also comes at a critical time when EU countries have taken highly problematic stances on the war in Gaza, supporting the “right to self-defence” of an occupier against the occupied and sending weapons to the occupying forces.
Furthermore, EU states have suspended financial support for UNRWA, practically the only lifeline for people in Gaza who are experiencing famine.
While the recent stance taken by the West against the violent, illegal settlers in the West Bank is a step in the right direction, failure to stem the blatant attempts by Israel to pillage Palestinian resources with the help of European companies will further entrench the growing cynicism in the Global South about the duplicity of the West when it comes to the application of the international law.
The EU could right some of the wrongs it has committed by helping the Palestinians exploit their natural resources. Amid the rumblings on the post-conflict reconstruction of Gaza and who should foot the bill, it is important to consider the ample gas resources in Gazan waters as a significant financial resource that can be used to secure a prosperous future for the Palestinian people.
The EU can play a key role in assisting the Palestinians in developing and benefitting from these resources, as is their sovereign right.
Sultan Barakat is professor in conflict and humanitarian studies at Qatar Foundation’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University and an honorary professor of the University of York. This article was first published by Al Jazeera. Republished under a Creative Commons licence.
How the referral has been seen in Turkey . . . These developments in recent months amount to what experts call “lawfare” - the use of international or domestic courts to seek accountability for alleged state-sanctioned acts of genocide and support or complicity in such acts. Image: Anadolu news agency screenshot APR
ANALYSIS:ByDonald Rothwell
In an unprecedented legal development, senior Australian politicians, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, have been referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for investigation into whether they have aided or supported Israel’s actions in Gaza.
The referral, made by the Sydney law firm Birchgrove Legal on behalf of their clients, is the first time any serving Australian political leaders have been formally referred to the ICC for investigation.
The referral asserts that Albanese, Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and other members of the government have violated the Rome Statute, the 1998 treaty that established the ICC to investigate and prosecute allegations of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
Australia’s freezing of aid to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the aid agency that operates in Gaza
the provision of military aid to Israel that could have been used in the alleged commission of genocide and crimes against humanity
permitting Australians to travel to Israel to take part in attacks in Gaza
providing “unequivocal political support” for Israel’s actions in Gaza.
A key aspect of the referral is the assertion, under Article 25 of the Rome Statute, that Albanese and the others bear individual criminal responsibility for aiding, abetting or otherwise assisting in the commission (or attempted commission) of alleged crimes by Israel in Gaza.
At a news conference today, Albanese said the letter had “no credibility” and was an example of “misinformation”. He said:
Australia joined a majority in the UN to call for an immediate ceasefire and to advocate for the release of hostages, the delivery of humanitarian assistance, the upholding of international law and the protection of civilians.
How the referral process works
There are a couple of key questions here: can anyone be referred to the ICC, and how often do these referrals lead to an investigation?
Referrals to the ICC prosecutor are most commonly made by individual countries — as has occurred following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — or by the UN Security Council. However, it is also possible for referrals to be made by “intergovernmental or non-governmental organisations, or other reliable sources”, according to Article 15 of the Rome Statute.
The ICC prosecutor’s office has received 12,000 such referrals to date. These must go through a preliminary examination before the office decides whether there are “reasonable grounds” to start an investigation.
The court has issued arrest warrants for numerous leaders over the past two decades, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova; former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir; and now-deceased Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
ABC interview with barrister Sheryn Omeri KC on the referral of Australian political leaders to the International Criminal Court.
Acting for over 100 Australian lawyers, Omeri, through the law firm Birchgrove Legal, has referred Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese & key… pic.twitter.com/aHAdVct6eV
Why this referral is unlikely to go anywhere Putting aside the merit of the allegations themselves, it is unlikely the Australian referrals will go any further for legal and practical reasons.
First, the ICC was established as an international court of last resort. This means it would only be used to prosecute international crimes when courts at a national level are unwilling or unable to do so.
As such, the threat of possible ICC prosecution was intended to act as a deterrent for those considering committing international crimes, as well as an incentive for national authorities and courts to prosecute them.
Australia has such a process in place to investigate potential war crimes and other international crimes through the Office of the Special Investigator (OSI).
The OSI was created in the wake of the 2020 Brereton Report into allegations of Australian war crimes in Afghanistan. In March 2023, the office announced its first prosecution.
Because Australia has this legal framework in place, the ICC prosecutor would likely deem it unnecessary to refer Australian politicians to the ICC for prosecution, unless Australia was unwilling to start such a prosecution itself. At present, there is no evidence that is the case.
Another reason this referral is likely to go nowhere: the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, is currently focusing on a range of investigations related to alleged war crimes committed by Russia, Hamas and Israel, in addition to other historical investigations.
Given the significance of these investigations – and the political pressure the ICC faces to act with speed – it is unlikely the court would divert limited resources to investigate Australian politicians.
Increasing prominence of international courts This referral to the ICC, however, needs to be seen in a wider context. The Israel-Hamas conflict has resulted in an unprecedented flurry of legal proceedings before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN’s top court.
Unlike the ICC, the ICJ does not deal with individual criminal responsibility. The ICJ does, however, have jurisdiction over whether countries violate international law, such as the Genocide Convention.
This was the basis for South Africa to launch its case against Israel in the ICJ, claiming its actions against the Palestinian people amounted to genocide. The ICJ issued a provisional ruling against Israel in January which said it’s “plausible” Israel had committed genocide in Gaza and ordered Israel to take immediate steps to prevent acts of genocide.
In addition, earlier this week, a new case was launched in the ICJ by Nicaragua, alleging Germany has supported acts of genocide by providing military support for Israel and freezing aid for UNRWA.
All of these developments in recent months amount to what experts call “lawfare”. This refers to the use of international or domestic courts to seek accountability for alleged state-sanctioned acts of genocide and support or complicity in such acts. Some of these cases have merit, others are very weak.
It’s […] a way of raising awareness, getting media attention and showing your own political base you’re doing something.
These cases do succeed in increasing public awareness of these conflicts. And they make clear the desire of many around the world to hold to account those seen as being responsible for gross violations of international law.
