The vewy vewy secwet thin blue line protecting Australian citizens from the depredations of US peaceniks and Iraqi refugees has been dealt a bitter blow by some Men in Wigs. In a decision which has former HoWARd crony and current ASIO boss Paul O’Sullivan hopping mad, the full bench of the Federal Court has ruled that spooks must reveal the basis of their decision to chuck Scott Parkin — and Iraqi refugees Mohammed Yussef Sagar and Muhammad Faisal — outta Australia. Now, the ball is in Attorney General Robert McClelland‘s court: thanks to HoWARd, boofhead has the power to say ‘no’ to Parkin & Co..
Legal victory for expelled peace activist
Peter Gregory
The Age
July 19, 2008
United States peace activist Scott Parkin has won a legal victory against Australia’s security agency, prompting his lawyers to call for the release of documents that ultimately caused his ejection from the country. Mr Parkin, now working in the US on climate change projects, was forced to leave Australia in 2005 after receiving an adverse security assessment by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. Together with Iraqi refugees Mohammed Yussef Sagar and Muhammad Faisal – both held at Nauru and subsequently released – Mr Parkin has taken Federal Court action challenging the legality of the assessments. Last November [2006], the trio won an order requiring ASIO to produce documents showing why the assessments were made. ASIO appealed, but a full bench of the Federal Court today dismissed its challenge to the initial order made by Justice Ross Sundberg…
Outside court, their solicitor Anne Gooley, a principal at Maurice Blackburn Cashman lawyers, said… legal counsel for ASIO acknowledged that may be the case but the adverse security assessment may have been made because of people who they associated with, even if they (were) not aware of the implications of the associations at the time. We saw in the Haneef case the dangers of using an `association’ as the basis for decision making.”
See also : ASIO told to show why men were a danger, Peter Gregory, The Age, July 19, 2008
