Health News at Your Fingertips

Continued from last post:

At the Senate inquiry, Hugh Poate was also scathing about the comments by the chief of the Australian defence force, General Angus Campbell, expressing surprise about the speed of the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban.

Poate told the Senate hearing into Australia’s engagement in Afghanistan today:

Well, somebody who holds the highest office in defence ought to have been prepared because the rest of the country including to the best of my knowledge every service person who served in Afghanistan knew exactly what was happening, knew that the Taliban would again take over the country and could see that Afghanistan was falling.

I mean, all you had to do was read Al Jazeera or TOLOnews and it was so obvious to everybody. So why was the chief of the defence force not aware of this?

Poate added:

I’m really concerned about the future of the Australian defence force if this is indicative of the leadership throughout the chain of command.

Poate said the “cascade” was “facilitated” by the US move at the beginning of July to vacate the Bagram air base, leaving behind weaponry and vehicles.

Campbell told a forum in early September: “I don’t know of anyone who predicted, other than in the glory of 20/20 hindsight, how quickly it would occur, accelerated by, I think, some interesting force deployment choices, and also by the departure of their president.”

You can see Campbell’s full comments from our story in September:

Hugh Poate, the father of an Australian soldier who was killed in Afghanistan, has told a Senate inquiry the killer of his son “was released as a result of the Americans making a treaty with the enemy”.

Poate’s son Private Robert Poate was one of three Australian soldiers – the others being Corporal Stjepan Milosevic and Sapper James Martin – who were murdered as they played cards at a patrol base north of Tarin Kowt in August 2012.

A former Afghan soldier known as Hekmatullah was convicted of murdering the soldiers. The Australian government last year said it would continue to push “as hard as we can” for Hekmatullah’s continued detention, after reports he could be released as a result of US-backed peace negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban. He was transferred to Qatari custody last year.

However, Hekmatullah was released in recent months – shortly after the fall of the Taliban – and the Australian government is unclear of his current whereabouts.

Hugh Poate was asked during the Senate hearing this morning what he thought this war should teach us about Australia’s alliance with the US, particularly in the context of the release of Hekmatullah and other prisoners. He replied:

I’ve got a lot to say about that, but I will try and restrict what would take days and anger to be a little bit more mellow … Hekmatullah was released as a result of the Americans making a treaty with the enemy to release him and 5,000 other Taliban inmates. It was bad enough anyway with the revolving door – every time we would arrest somebody, invariably they would be caught again because they were let out. So those prisoners who were still incarcerated were the more dangerous ones …

He had been sentenced to death – that sentence was never carried out. He’s never had to face the international criminal court for his war crime.

Adem Somyurek, the alleged architect of a vast branch-stacking operation in Victoria, will give evidence before the state’s anti-corruption commission on Monday.

The upper house MP is scheduled to give evidence each day this week other than Wednesday, with public hearings starting at 10.30am.

Somyurek was dumped from the Andrews government and resigned from the Labor party in the wake of a 60 minutes/Age investigation into factional activities. He has denied being involved in branch stacking, which is not illegal but is a breach of party rules.

The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission started its investigation into the alleged misuse of public funds by the Victorian branch of the ALP the month before the 60 minutes/Age investigation was broadcast.

It started public hearings as part of its investigation last month, with Somyurek featuring heavily in the evidence provided by witnesses so far.

A factional ally of Somyurek, fellow MP Marlene Kairouz, gave evidence in a private hearing last week. Kairouz stood down as an Andrews government minister because of her alleged involvement in branch stacking but has denied all wrongdoing.

She was permitted to give evidence in private once Ibac received “credible” evidence that appearing before a public hearing would cause unreasonable damage to her wellbeing.

An Ibac spokesperson has confirmed Kairouz’s evidence will not be released in transcript form, but that parts of the evidence may be disclosed during the course of examining a witness in public examination, or in a special report on the investigation.

“Two hundred pelicans breeding, 20 whiskered terns, 100 grey teal, 30 black swans, one little pied cormorant … ”

Richard Kingsford, a veteran ecologist, is rattling off the waterbirds he’s spotting below. He clutches his voice recorder closely to overcome the engine noise as our Cessna banks steeply, tracking the shoreline of Lake Brewster, a large lake in central-west New South Wales.

John Porter, a NSW government scientist and fellow veteran bird counter, does the same, dictating the numbers and bird species he glimpses on the starboard side – while giving directions to pilot James Barkell – as we fly at 185kmh and barely 30m above the water.

We’re on a three-day trip that is part of the annual waterbird survey, now in its 39th year. One of the world’s longest continuous bird counts, it’s also among the largest, spanning 2.7m sq km – 11 times the size of UK or six times California.

You can read the full report below: