No Witness, No Case

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No Witness, No Case Page 18

by Bill Robertson


  The news item had alluded to criminal connections: Pescaro, Falcone and Altierre. Here was a new dimension to the puzzle. Given the lustre and solemnity of the occasion, Santini was highly regarded … and he worked at AWD. While Drummond warmed to his line of thought, he realised it was only conjecture. But, a discussion with Tony along these lines might enable his illicit records to be placed squarely on the table.

  Ben Aldrittson’s day had been equally busy. The pace of the House was frenetic under Meadows’ desire to clear the legislative log jam before the election. With huge majorities in both houses, the Premier could afford to gag debate, exercise the guillotine and push matters along. He believed there was little risk to his government because the Opposition was so ineffectual and, by and large, the populace too apathetic to organise resistance. A few meaningless platitudes promising to respect voters and not abuse government power always seemed to cool dissent. Arrogant? Yes! Concerned? No! The Meadows strategy was about putting Liberal ideology in place, an ideology that, under his hand, was intolerant of dissent.

  At the end of the session Meadows called a short, sharp, strategy meeting. Cabinet would follow the same procedure tomorrow: new legislation; introductory debate, perfunctory discussion, approval on party lines and move on. It worked well.

  Aldrittson lingered after the meeting. The session had been hard slog and everyone was tired. Nerves were still raw over Baker’s death and no one was joyful about the gruelling election campaign lurking round the corner. Yet, he had to broach the waste topic.

  ‘Graeme, I have a proposal for you that I think it will be an election winner.’

  ‘Ben, it’s a bit late mate and I’m not in the mood right now.’ His tone was sharp. ‘I told Jeanne if there was any possibility of making it, we would have a late supper with friends tonight for their wedding anniversary. Well, there is time and I’d like to go to that supper.’

  ‘I understand, I’m bushed myself. I’ll give you a written outline and five words to think about: waste, litigation, private enterprise and spin. When you have the time, call me. I believe you’ll be impressed. Enjoy your supper.’

  Aldrittson dropped his proposal on Meadows’ desk and walked from the office. He had been brief, to the point and left the ball on Meadows’ boot. As far as Pescaro was concerned, he could truthfully say he had hand delivered the proposal to the Premier. And that’s what he would tell Teresa. That he didn’t have a response was not his fault.

  Chapter

  THIRTY-ONE

  At 7:45 Friday morning Ben Aldrittson’s phone rang – the direct line from the Premier’s office.

  ‘Morning Ben,’ said the Premier crisply. ‘Can you meet me? My office, ten minutes. I’d like a briefing on that waste scheme.’

  ‘Be right there.’ Aldrittson was surprised and wondered if Meadows had cancelled his supper the previous evening. He pulled a copy of the proposal from his briefcase and quickly scanned it. Not that he needed to. He had written the damn thing and knew it by rote.

  He walked down to the Premier’s corner and entering the outer office, knocked at Celia’s door and waited. Celia Barraclough, the Premier’s private secretary, was obnoxiously proper about protocol and pedantically fussy about manners. Minister or not, it was better to avoid endless hassle than cross swords with her. She made life misery for anyone who, in any way, real or imagined, slighted her sensibilities. Nobody entered the Premier’s domain without her approval and no one crossed her threshold unbidden. Comics in the Halls of Power whispered that when the word “bitch” was coined, Celia Barraclough had been its inspiration.

  ‘Yes, enter.’ The imperious contralto voice resonated through the woodwork. Celia peered at Aldrittson over half moon glasses as though he were some form of insect. ‘Yes Mr Aldrittson, why are you here?’

  ‘To see your boss Celia, could you tell him I’m here please.’ Aldrittson was disarmingly urbane.

  ‘Is Mr Meadows expecting you?’ She sniffed with disapproval.

  ‘Yes Celia, he just phoned me.’

  She rose to her full two and a bit metres, adjusted the voluminous floral dress around her impressive girth and moved, bull-dozer like to the Premier’s door. She knocked lightly, opened the door and boomed, ‘Mr Aldrittson is here to see you Mr Premier.’ She nodded Aldrittson inside and closed the door swiftly and silently behind him as though it were a guillotine.

  ‘Jesus Graeme, you’ve got to get rid of that bloody woman, she’s a friggin’ dinosaur.’

  Meadows chuckled. ‘May be so, but Celia is the best damn watch dog one could have. She’s efficiency plus and knows stuff about this place that most historians have never even discovered. As long as I’m here, she stays. Now, the waste scheme. Tell me you weren’t serious when you said it was an election winner? For Christ’s sake Ben! Look at the bloody hoo-hah South Australia kicked up when the feds suggested a nuclear dump in their outback. Think about how hard those bastards in Mildura fought the dump at Nowingi. And what about the noble residents of Geelong? Pissed right off about chemicals on their patch aren’t they! And Coode Island. Remember the shit fight after the big fire there? And what about that bloody dump up near Heathcote years back that got vetoed? Waste disposal is a raging bloody headache man! And if that’s not enough, the friggin’ firm putting this forward belongs to your Old Man. Talk about conflict of interest! You must be on something! Meadows’ voice rose with cutting disdain.

  ‘Let’s deal with the last first shall we,’ said Aldrittson, unfazed by the Premier’s bluntness. ‘I know it appears like a conflict of interest but don’t forget, my Old Man is a voter just like everybody else. And, like anybody else, he’s entitled to present ideas for consideration. All I’m doing is providing a sneak preview. If you absolutely damn it to hell then it goes no further. But if you think it could be electorally attractive, then he’ll put the concept forward through normal processes and not through me. I don’t want you to tick this off. All I want is your reaction – whether you think it could work or not. Are you comfortable with that?’

  Grudgingly Meadows said, ‘Okay, I’ll listen. But I warn you – this is sailing bloody close to the wind.’

  Aldrittson was past the first hurdle. ‘Before we begin, there are some things you’ll be familiar with. If you think they’re trivial, stop me, but I want to approach this as though you know nothing about the subject. If that’s insulting, tell me.’ He paused before continuing. Meadows said nothing.

  ‘I believe this scheme could be a huge money spinner for the government. It’ll remove toxic waste efficiently, effectively and safely; it’ll cost tax payers nothing to establish and it’s a user pays system. It’s environmentally sound with a system of quality-control exercised independently by the State Government. I think it’ll be one of the smartest things we’ve ever done. The first question is: what are the alternatives? You can have the most effective recycling programs ever invented, you can pile packaging restrictions on industry, you can invent technology for controlling and cleaning all kinds of emissions, you can have multiple boom-barriers on every major waterway in the State, but … are you going to stop the production of waste? Of course not. The next question is: what do we do with dirty waste, the toxic stuff, the kind most people don’t want to talk about? The answer is: basically pretend it’s not there. Non-toxic rubbish is a push-over because, comparatively speaking, it’s relatively clean and often can be turned into other products. The third question is: how well do we deal with dirty stuff now? The answer is: bloody poorly! And why? Because of all those protests you just reeled off. So what have we done? Taken a disjointed, piecemeal, populist approach that’s inefficient and pleases no one. In reality, most hazardous stuff sits around in barrels in company yards. We’ve never built a high-speed, clean-air incinerator to reduce toxic waste to dust or gas because we’d rather pretend the shit’s not there. Think about the hundreds of poisonous chemicals and contaminants left after making petroleum, paint, agricultural fertilisers, plastics and other product
s. Think about hospital waste and residues from a host of industrial plants. We don’t have a good system for dealing with this stuff. Nor do most other states. And you know it. This scheme puts all development, research, safety and recurrent costs directly onto the people who want this plant. If you’ve read the proposal, you’ll know the consortium already has its land and wants the Government to own and exercise the strictest quality controls. The investment group will fund all start-up costs and pay a substantial annual operating fee to the Government. In return, they want an exclusive licence to operate initially for fifteen years. As the project evolves, the company will solicit toxic waste from other states on the basis of it being another source of revenue for our government and themselves. One of the fascinating aspects about this scheme is reclamation. While the initial goal is modest, the aim is to perfect refinement processes enabling many of the original chemicals and minerals to be extracted from waste. These will be refined to the highest levels of purity and sold on. The benefits include: profits for the waste company, cheaper ingredients for manufacturers, continuing employment and hopefully, some completely new products for the building industry as well as effort to prolong the life of some of our non-renewable materials. During super temperature incineration, the air is washed and cleaned three times to reduce noxious emissions close to zero and the excess heat distils clean from dirty water. There has never been such an integrated waste-disposal system as this.’

  ‘Okay, okay – enough,’ said Meadows. ‘Your enthusiasm smacks of verbal diahorrea! I grant you the broad concept sounds functional and I understand the points you make. Give me specifics. Last night you mentioned litigation: what did you mean?’ Meadows was attentive.

  ‘It is my belief that the US Government is exempt from civil litigation. Their system does not allow prosecution of the lawmakers. We don’t have quite that protection here and we can be sued any time. You can’t have missed the epidemic of rampant, ambulance-chasing lawyers wanting to sue the arse off anybody and everybody for every transgression imaginable.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know all that.’ Meadows was impatient.

  ‘Nearly all cases are fought on strictly legal grounds with courts deciding the interpretation and application of points of law. Sources of litigation are constantly refined and extended in ways never before considered or intended. As a result, actions are brought for situations never previously thought possible. For instance, fast food companies in the US have been sued by fat people alleging they manufacture addictive food. In other words, the company is to blame for them being fat.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ scoffed Meadows. ‘People choose whether to buy and eat the food they see. Food makers don’t coerce them to eat. Eating’s an issue of personal responsibility.’

  ‘I’m not kidding, Graeme. Laws have been passed to stop people suing restaurants – they’re colloquially known as “cheeseburger” laws.’

  ‘Alright,’ said Meadows doubtfully. ‘I’ll take your word for it, but what’s this got to do with us? I understand the problem of escalating litigation but we can legislate to prevent such lunacy. We can cap damages or wind back application and appeal times.’

  ‘I’m not so sure we can,’ Aldrittson retorted. ‘Not only would there be voter backlash, but, as I said before, lawyers are finding new ways to enhance damages claims. They are crossing time, distance, countries, companies and class barriers. They’ve constructed a new dimension for liability which they call moral or social responsibility. You do not have to actually break any rule or law to be sued. For instance, if a company unknowingly does something that puts others at risk, legal action can be taken against that company. This philosophy takes litigation out of the strictly legal environment into a moralistic one.’

  Meadows frowned. ‘I’m not sure what you’re driving at. What’s the connection between “moral responsibility” and say, rules for waste disposal? For instance, if a petrol company illegally discharges toxic waste, we wouldn’t be sued, the petrol company would be.’

  Aldrittson nodded thoughtfully. ‘Normally I would agree. But you have to go the extra step. Our Department of Environment could be sued for not acting appropriately. Either for failing to enforce the laws or, for failing to prevent the discharge in the first place. Just suppose some canoeists fell into the Yarra River and suffered mysterious and harmful skin lesions as a consequence of that petrol company’s discharge. In the context of moral responsibility, they could sue DOE for failing to exercise due diligence in their sampling procedures. They might argue that inadequate sampling meant DOE was uninformed and therefore, unable to properly fulfil its responsibilities. In fact, we know that DOE has been sampling strictly to schedule. But the moral responsibility approach would argue the whole idea of sampling to a schedule is flawed. Lawyers would claim the petrol company was using those schedules to minimise detection. So, although DOE has not broken any laws, according to the moral responsibility argument its practices have caused others to suffer. DOE therefore becomes liable for failing to exercise its social responsibility to the public. If you want an even better example, let me tell you what’s presently happening with Dow Chemicals in India and the Bhopal incident from 1984.’

  ‘Don’t bother. I’ve got the drift,’ Meadows muttered.

  Aldrittson nodded. ‘Good, well that’s how it works. Today, any business – especially government – that fails to factor social or moral responsibility into its risk management strategy is asking for trouble, particularly as litigation is becoming more expensive. Punters are predicting that over the next ten years, annual US litigation costs will exceed $360 million. And, I tell you now, if lawyers start litigating on global warming issues, costs will be off the radar. My point is this. We need a safer, more reliable and more efficient toxic waste disposal system. Irrespective of anything else, we need that. For me, the threat of legal activism and unrestrained exploitation of areas hitherto protected from litigation is a powerful incentive. I have no doubt smart-arse lawyers will exploit this moral responsibility concept and, toxic waste is a plum ripe for picking.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Meadows, ‘you’ve raised an issue that needs closer scrutiny. But what about the public? You know how unforgiving they are towards politicians. What’s going to make them drop their consistent opposition to toxic dumps? Why would they suddenly want to start trusting us? Everyone says, yeah, we need one, but not in my backyard.’

  ‘In my portfolio Graeme, I spend huge amounts of time with business and international trade as you know. That experience has opened my eyes to a few dirty tricks that surprise even my cynical view of the world.’

  Meadows laughed heartily. ‘I never thought I’d hear you confess to cynicism Ben, nor to the fact you can still be surprised.’

  ‘I know. What surprised me is the implacable dedication to underhandedness. In some places, dirty tricks are a multi-national enterprise.’ Aldrittson marvelled at his own guile. Meadows was beginning to relax.

  ‘Okay, you mentioned spin,’ said Meadows flexing his shoulders. ‘How does that fit into this scheme?’

  ‘Did you see the comments recently from Exxon and BHP Billiton about emission reduction policies?’

  ‘Yes I did. I think Billiton was claiming that to implement Federal Government emission reduction policies would place overseas investment in Australia at risk. Exxon claimed that investment in renewable energy technology was not economical.’

  ‘Why do you think they made those comments?’ Aldrittson asked.

  ‘Quite simple I should think.’ Meadows stood, stretched and rolled his shoulders again. ‘They’re sending the feds a message: don’t change the status quo, they like things the way they are. To be effective, however, they need leverage, which in this case, is loss of investment capital. Of course, we don’t know the seriousness of the threat so, in a sense, it is merely spin, spin to achieve a result that says – leave me alone. Another implication is their threat to withhold or re-direct political donations.’ Meadows sat down again.

&nbs
p; Aldrittson grinned raffishly. ‘Precisely. Spin can sell our concept to the public. Even Aristotle recognised the benefit of winning his opponent’s endorsement suggesting it outweighed almost anything else you could do to consolidate your own position. So, we recruit activists who would normally work against us and show them that the vision and integrity of our concept is beneficial. Respected environmental activists speaking for our scheme then become a powerful endorsement for change. We embark on a strategy to divide and conquer. We isolate the radicals, cultivate the idealists and convert them to realists. With care and sensitivity we then enlist the realists to agree with our industrial waste disposal policies and programs.’

  Meadows threw Aldrittson a deeply sceptical look. ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘No Graeme, it’s true. Plenty of multi-nationals in the US use this tactic to advantage. In our case, the backers of the scheme would hire several prominent greens to work for them. The rationale is that the best possible environmental advice is wanted – and that’s true. In due course, our greenies see the company doing things properly and begin publicly endorsing our concept. They seduce the community by shifting from opponent to full time supporter. That brings credibility. But, if green activists can’t be recruited the firm moves to enlist help from its biggest clients. A Trust or Foundation is formed and capital is raised to attract greenies with big, fat, juicy fees. Let me give you a classic example. In 1993, Monsanto hired the former Executive Director of the Consumer Foundation of America to support their use of a bovine growth hormone. Through her, Monsanto deflected Congress from imposing a control that would have made them label milk containers with advice that the milk came from cows injected with growth hormones. That extra clout removed the push for labelling.’

 

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