Secret government and their agents

Sir John Jeffries


Currently: Commissioner of Security Warrants and highly regarded by the PM.

Former: High Court Judge, Police Compliants Authority Chairman and Press Council Chairman whose rulings (in Cases 783-787) on the Craccum suicide article issue of 2000 were the height of reactionary, immature, ill-considered and hypocritical self-serving phlegm ever dribbled from that pompous chapter of the old boys' club.

Sir John is one of the flimsy cardboard pillars of the judicial superstructure. A movable set to be wheeled in and out of performances in front of a mute and dense audience.

A glorified rubber stamp for the establishment. Trumpeting the word "independent" without the wit or inclination to fulfill that role; indeed to have been selected for those offices because of it. Independence? - what truly independently minded judge would be promoted to jobs where the description is to do exactly the opposite? What credibility has such a character?

The silence, the muted mumblings and receptions of sighs that greet each appointment raise no ire and stir no resistance. The legal profession, a closed shop of reputations too fragile and interconnected to ever survive an act of public honesty lays still. A trade in silence. No debate, no hearing, just a press release preceeded by an express courier direct to the Governor-General. A series of rubber stamps to facilitate the top three cabinet ministers' governance of the colony. Is it any wonder that those beneficiaries of no transperancy and accountability then endorse the same pocedures in their work?

A secretive appointment to rule on government secrets - internally coherent and an external abomination. Officers of State are the covert matter of government machinations - a game of musical chairs with monkeys. The imprimatur of probity in the guise of a gowned macaque.

Is he a disgrace - an embarrassment? Does the fact we have such low expectations and are the pliant recipients of the debased currency make him any less guilty of being party to the ritual farce of cover-ups that routinely constitute quasi-judicial deliberations? Does he have a measure of integrity any less than his colleagues who have willingly concealed the faults to please their masters?

Reliable. Dependable. Solid. Trustworthy. - for whom and why? The public or the government?

Let us be rid of this rotten wood and the manky forest in which it dwells. Let the axe of public derision swing.