I know it’s not a perfect analogy – the motivations  are different - but picture a party boat on Sydney Harbour with 47 odd members of a 1st grade NRL team and staff on board.   The skipper says it’s time please; we’re going to call it a night and go back to the wharf.  A few of the boys think stuff you mate, we want to stay out - you’re not taking the boat anywhere.   The team effectively takes over the boat.   Water Police arrive and try to take back control, but the footy boys have better ideas.   Things start to escalate and a number of the players get together to set a little fire on board to disable the boat.   They pour petrol into the bilge.   The whole ship stinks of petrol and everyone knows it’s a pretty dicey situation.   Police get into a blue restraining one of the blokes who is flicking a cigarettelighter – they prise it out of his hands after he ignores their requests togive it up.

A few minutes later, voompah.   Kaboom.  Up she goes.   Someone has ignited the fuel vapours and caused a huge blast.  5 of the team are killed in the explosion, with dozens wounded.   Many police are thrown into the water and seriously wounded as the ship goes up.   And all the action was videotaped by the police launch which was adjacent to the partyboat.

At the coroner’s investigation, all of the footy club members lie through their teeth about what happened.   Blokes are clearly seen on video at the point where the explosion was set off.  They lie under oath about the killing of their mates and wounding of others and police, even in the face of clear video evidence and statements from police who were eye-witnesses.

The coroner finds that the footy player with the lighter (a non-smoker) was threatening to start a fire on the boat.   The coroner also says that the same bloke or someone near him did ignite the fire that finally blew the boat up.   The coroner names 3 blokes as having been part of the direct plan to set fire to the boat.   The coroner also finds that most of the footy players and officials knew of the plan to disable the boat after police got there.   He finds that they falsely denied knowing about the plan in sworn statements and in court.   He names many of them as having lied to him under oath.

NSW Police don’t charge any of the footy players or officials with the killings.   No one gets a brief for conspiracy and none of them get done for perjury.   There are no arson charges, no manslaughter charges, no malicious wounding or wilful damage charges.

The bloke with the lighter was charged with two counts o fresisting police over not handing over the lighter.   He did 21 days and was released on a $500 good behaviour bond.

The boss of the NRL is asked whether these blokes have passed the character test to be members of the NRL.   Absolutely yes, he says, no problems there.   It’s history and they’re footy players from a different culture to the rest of the community.   You can’t say they are of bad character just for these sorts of things, they were under great pressure, give them a chance to make a new life in the new competition next year.

The Police Commissioner too is a bit iffy.   It was a while ago, they’re all sticking together, and we can’t really get anyone to testify against each other, it’s just one of those things.   5 blokes killed on Sydney Harbour, dozens injured, heaps of police wounded on duty – a boat blown up, just one of those things that happens.

Reckon we’d cop it?

Like me, the Federal Immigration Minister Chris Bowen has had to wade through the Northern Territory Coroner’s report following the Inquest into the deaths of Mohammed Hassan Ayubi, Muzafar Ali Sefarali,Mohammed Amen Zamen, Awar Nadar and Baquer Husani on board SIEV 36, just one  of the hundreds of boats that have arrived after Mr Rudd eased the border-protection rules.   And ChrisBowen and his predecessor Chris Evans had to decide whether the survivors on that boat passed the “character test” to be let into Australia.

I’d regularly interview Bowen on my radio show, and he’d always give me the weak excuse that he had to let the judicial process run its course before he made his mind up about these people.   Well that was always rubbish; all of the survivors on that boat have received visas to stay in Australia, including the only person charged with any offence after the horrendous explosion and killings.

The bloke with the lighter, Arman Ali Brahimi has just finished a 21 day effective jail sentence and is now on a $500 bond to be of good behaviour for 2 years.   He pleaded guilty to two counts of resisting a Commonwealth Officer on board that boat.    And he got a visa, and Centrelink, and Medicare, and family reunion, and all of the other “entitlements” that this special class of person attracts.

That’s it for charges and penalties.   5 blokes dead but it’s just one of those things when it comes to people who arrive illegally on boats.

We can’t control who’s born here.   But we can do something about people of poor character who want to come here from overseas.  We should have an opinion about what constitutes good and bad character.   And we should knock back people of bad character.   The Immigration Minister has wide discretion not to grant the privilege (not right )of a visa, if he believes the applicant is not of acceptable character.   He can find that a visa applicant fails the character test on any of several grounds, one of them is if “having regard to the person's past and present general conduct, the person is found to be not o fgood character”.   What else do you hav eto do – a court in Australia (The NT Coroner’s Court) finds that you lied to the court, set a fire on a boat full of petrol, 5 people were killed as a result, Australian service personnel were wounded – and that’s not a display of bad character?

In his formal findings The Coroner Greg Cavanagh says ofArman Ali Brahimi, the bloke with the lighter – “Having regard to the video evidence, and what he had said previously in his written statements, I must conclude that his denials are not to bebelieved.   He has lied.”   He has a visa to stay here.

The Coroner made this finding about others on the boat.   “Other passengers were asked about this “lighter” incident. Most if not all of those who were on the front deck would have been in a position to see this incident.However, all the witnesses called denied knowledge of it. In so far as those depicted on the video were in a position to see and were in fact looking in the direction of the incident, I do not accept their denials of knowledge. They are lying.”   They all got visas.

“Mohammad Anwa rMohammadi denied any knowledge of the pouring or the smell of petrol even though he was nominated by passenger “R” (a child whose name has been suppressed) as the person who said on the morning of the explosion “They had spilled petrol to burn the ship”. In fact Anwar Mohammadi denied knowledge of any unrest at all and claimed “everyone was happy” though he can be clearly seen on the video, portside of the cabin and close to the group who were resisting the directions of the ADF to move forward. He has not told the truth.”  He got a visa.

“Ibrahim Rezvani who was wearing Afghani clothes on the morning of the explosion, denied being the person in Afghani dress who “R” said had screamed “I want to burn the ship...I will burn this ship”. He also denied hearing passengers screaming and any of the events that had thus far occurred. He said “where I was sitting it was really normal”. Again he has not told me the truth.” He got a visa.

About the whole group the Coroner said, “It is quite apparent when one compares the evidence of the Afghani witnesses to that which is depicted on the video, none of them are telling the truth. All of them are denying knowledge of events about which they must have some knowledge. Because they have all told similar lies I can only conclude that they have all to some extent colluded with each other and decided as agroup to lie to this Inquest.”  This government has given them all visas.

“Ghulam Mohammadi also lied to me. He denied any knowledge of the events depicted on the video. He denied shouting or kicking up deck plates or threatening to burn the boat. I accept the evidence of (RAN officer) Chief Faunt.”  Ghulam Mohammadi has a visa to stay.

So how were 5 people killed and several Australian servicemen and women wounded?   The Coroner said, “I find that the cause of the explosion was the ignition of petrol vapour, by a passenger or passengers, using a lighter or match.

I find notwithstanding the denials made by all surviving passengers on SIEV 36, that most of them knew of a plan to disable the boat and to start a fire.

I conclude that at least passengers Brahimi, Ghulam Mohammadi and Salman were involved in a planto set fire to the vessel.

Mohammed Hassan Ayubi, Muzafar Ali Sefarali, Mohammed Amen Zamen, Awar Nader, and Baquer Husani died on the 16th of April 2009 after an explosion on an Indonesian fishing vesse lknown as Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel (SIEV) 36.”

Go back to our footy club example and put a few NRL names inthose spaces above.   No charges?    Fit and proper persons who pass the character test?   There’d be a riot.

We have lost contact with what it means to be of good character.   The press is no help either.   Like me you probably remember headlines about this matter like these:

“Navy errors blamed for fire on SIEV 36”, “Navy warning led to deaths”, “Navy’s warning sparked fatal fire”, “Defence training slammed at inquiry” and others.  

Our defence people were heroes when the Afghanis blew their boat up.   But you wouldn’t know it from some of the reporting that demonised them and failed to point the finger at the real villains.   I am in awe of young Corporal  Sharon Jager, of whom the Coroner said, “I have already mentioned Jager in the previous paragraph; after being on the boat for some time during the night, she was blown off the back of the boat into the water by the explosion, she was in a state of shock and her life vest did not inflate, she was close to drowning with other survivors attempting to swim over her in order to be rescued, she was terrified. Yet, despite this trauma, after her rescue with her specialist medical training, she attended to the survivors for the next 10 hours.”

Good character?   Iknow who my money’s on.   I think we are entitled to ask questions about a system that can allow people capable of acts like this into the country.

Download Coroner's report seiv 36