In 2004 Australian gas and oil company Woodside Energy bribed then Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer and the then head of the Department of Foreign Affairs Ashton Calvert to bug East Timor’s (Timor-Leste) government offices. This was because Woodside had a huge financial interest in Australia’s maritime border with East Timor which the two countries were negotiating at the time and the bugging was to give Australia an advantage in the negotiations.
East Timor had only had independence since 1999 and the Australian Government were trying to rip off a third world country on behalf of Woodside Energy who were headed up by Chairman Charles Goode “who sat on the boards of top Liberal Party fundraising vehicles that generated millions of dollars in political donations.”
“The late Ashton Calvert, became a director of Woodside nine months after his retirement from Foreign Affairs, and very soon after the bugging.” (Click here to read more) Alexander Downer jumped on the Woodside gravy train as a “consultant” not long after he left politics in 2008.
Woodside Energy currently has former Federal Resources and Energy Minister Ian Macfarlane (Liberal Party) as a Director.
In 2013 Australia’s bugging of East Timor’s government offices was exposed by Witness K and lawyer Bernard Collaery. When the bugging was exposed East Timor took Australia to the International Arbitration Tribunal to try and have the original deal made null and void and then to negotiate a better deal.
Witness K and Bernard Collaery were charged for exposing the Australian Government’s criminal conduct and are currently before the court in the ACT. Witness K and Bernard Collaery were charged in June 2018 when Malcolm Turnbull was still PM but the court case now has Scott Morrison’s fingerprints on it and he should withdraw the charges.
The story has been broadcast on Four Corners in 2014 and written about many times by various journalists and they always layout the facts that leave no one in doubt that Australian politicians and government officials were bribed by Woodside Energy to help Woodside’s commercial interests. Yet the journalists never go that extra step and actually say it.
I’m happy to go the extra step and say that Woodside bribed Alexander Downer, Ashton Calvert and possibly others to bug East Timor’s government offices and that should be investigated. Woodside should be made to reveal how much they paid Calvert and Downer.
In the video below, from the ABC in 2015, former NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, Nick Cowdery says Witness K and Bernard Collaery have committed no crimes.
Mr Cowdery also says there is a prima facie case to charge numerous Australian government officials with criminal charges for the bugging of East Timor’s government offices. Mr Cowdery says if Alexander Downer directed the bugging, he could also face criminal charges.
In the above video, Bernard Collaery says there needs to be a Royal Commission and he is right. Anything less is a massive cover-up.
The above helps explain why the Scott Morrison government are throwing everything they can at trying to persecute Witness K and Bernard Collaery using the courts because they have exposed Liberal Party corruption at the highest level.
Some people might think that Alexander Downer is long gone from the Liberal Party government and they wouldn’t run the court case against Witness K and Bernard Collaery to protect him.
Well, Alexander Downer still thinks he has influence with the government and he Tweeted on the 29th of June while he was watching the ABC’s QandA program:
And Alexander Downer’s daughter Georgina Downer ran for the Liberal Party at the last federal election for Alexander’s old seat of Mayo in South Australia which shows that Alexander still has some influence in the Party.
Alexander Downer and Georgina Downer
I plan on digging a lot further in this matter and you can help by emailing or Tweeting the various government officials and asking them questions. Alexander Downer can be found here on Twitter: @AlexanderDowner and the federal Attorney-General Christian Porter is at @cporterwa. The benefit of sending them questions on Twitter is that it is public, and everyone can see.
If Witness K and Bernard Collaery are jailed it won’t help Scott Morrison and the government as it will escalate the problem tenfold by shining an even bigger torch on the issue.
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