Toowoomba 2001
“If we don’t get it right
this time, then next time there is a massacre, and there will be, then they’ll
take all our guns off us.” Tim Fischer
at Alice Springs in May 1996.
Wendy Scurr and I have come here tonight to pass on what information we have in relation to the Port Arthur Massacre. I have used ‘their’ documents, articles and interviews to gather this information.
The Gun Control Movement in Australia was mobilised in 1984 in New South Wales and was contained within the ‘Far Left’ of the Australian Labour Party within that State and led by their Premier, “Nifty” Neville Wran. Never forget that. In 1988 they suffered their first major defeat when Wran’s successor, Barry Unsworth went to the polls on the 19th March in what he termed a “Gun Referendum Election”. Unsworth suffered the biggest swing against encumbered government in the history of New South Wales, since settlement in 1788. Barry Unsworth believed he was on a winner with total firearm control, but he had got it so wrong it wasn’t funny. The two ‘lone nut gunman’ massacres in Melbourne were too far removed geographically to be effective in New South Wales.
This defeat caused the Gun Control Movement to disassociate themselves from the Australian Labour Party using John Crook’s fledgling Gun Control Australia and the United Nation’s umbrella. In August 1991 there was the Strathfield Massacre and Liberal New South Wales Premier Nick Greiner introduced the initial elements for gun control.
In Victoria, the Labour Party government’s Premier John Cain Jnr had been closely following his New South Wales counterpart, Barry Unsworth’s lead, but backed off when Unsworth lost office in 1988. He couldn’t implement the changes to gun laws if he was stuck in the wilderness of opposition.
In a trade agreement with China, the Australian Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, permitted hundreds of thousands of budget-priced SKS and SKK semi-automatic firearms to be imported into Australia. WHY? These weapons were the primary target of the Gun Control Movement. Without these firearms, what other firearms would they have been able to target?
By 1995 the Gun Control Movement had consolidated on a new front within the Federal Attorney General’s Department. From within this department were the forces that could be utilised for their campaign, including the Australian Attorney Generals’ Council, The Australasian Police Ministers’ Council, The Australian Institute of Criminology, and the Standing Advisory Council States/Commonwealth for the Protection against Violence (SAC-PAV), but to name a few, and all these forces were involved in the Port Arthur Massacre.
November 1995 is a pivotal month in the gun-law story. By November 1995, the Tasmanian Legislation had been amended, including a new Coroners Act and changes to the Workers Compensation Act to remove PTSD. The National Anti-terrorist Plan had been implemented by the PSCC via SAC-PAV, requiring the co-ordination of various State police forces and Federal Agencies, of which the only occasion that this plan has been implemented outside of an exercise was for the Port Arthur massacre.
With the Federal elections looming with an expected demise of the Federal Labor Government, the Australasian Police Ministers’ Council’s agenda on the 10th November included the new national uniform gun laws. In regard to the new national uniformity in firearms legislation, the matter was adjourned until a special meeting to be held early in 1996 to consider the results of ‘Public Consultation’. That adjournment could have only been for the 10th May 1996 meeting.
The only public consultation given to the Australian people was that by the Coalition for Gun Control spokesperson in Tasmania, Roland Browne, whose statements were printed in the Hobart Mercury newspaper in November 1995, and of course his appearance on the ‘A Current Affair’ in March 1996, where after firing either an SKK or SKS semi-automatic rifle Roland Browne stated, “these types of weapons will never be banned until there is a shooting massacre in Tasmania.” Could this have been the public consultation referred to in the Australasian Police Ministers’ Council meeting on the 10th November 1995?
Those ‘laws’ presented to the APMC in the form of a ‘working paper’ by their author, Mr Daryl Smeaton, the Secretary of the APMC were the very same ‘laws’ that little Johnnie Howard said were ‘his’ gun laws, the very same laws the Attorney General, Daryl Williams said he circulated amongst his colleagues at the APMC on the 7th May 1996. Little ‘Honest’ John stole his ‘gun laws’ from his predecessors in the Federal Labour Government. Those laws are now coming back to bite him.
We are not permitted to talk about Port Arthur. We must leave that in the past so that the hurt can fade and the healing continue. The Gun Control Movement is not so hobbled. On the fifth Anniversary of the Port Arthur Massacre, the Coalition for Gun Control, with the now Nation spokesperson Roland Browne, has ignored the victims of Port Arthur by utilising that massacre in a campaign for the removal of handguns. Please remember their spokesperson Rebecca Peters stated in an article penned by her and Professor Charles Watson in 1996, that handguns were very well controlled and regulated by government, and contributed little to homicides in Australia. Why is it I feel like Chief Sitting Bull listening to lies from big brother on treaties implemented, only to be broken time and time again? Lies upon lies.
For the ‘New National Uniform Gun Laws’ to be introduced, every State and Territory had to accept these laws in their entirety, an impossible task, without the assistance of a catalyst. On the 28th April 1996 that catalyst erupted, the Port Arthur Massacre. Without this event the new gun laws would never have gotten up. They would have died a natural death. Port Arthur was the midwife for the birth of these draconian laws and was orchestrated from within the bowels of the Labour Party’s Federal Attorney General’s Department.
What will be the catalyst for our next new set of firearm laws and the confiscation of handguns in Australia? Will it be as supposed by the New South Wales Education Minister, a schoolyard massacre by a student with a handgun?
Actually on thinking about it, maybe not, as such an act would be too inflammatory, and as the Labour Party will hold the Federal and most State governments after the November 2001 election, and should be able to accomplish their ends without a massacre, but such a massacre could be used to punish us non-believers, which is part of Tavistock’s Reesian Theory of Warfare, based on Hegel’s Dialectics.
So, onto the Port Arthur Massacre. Neither Wendy nor I will accept any bunkum as the gunman being equal to the world’s top anti-terrorist combat shooters for two reasons:
(i)
The shooting
inside the Broad Arrow Café lasted approximately 5 minutes.
(ii)
There was in
excess of 41 shots fired inside the Broad Arrow Café.
This comes from some of the survivors such as Wendy Scurr, who is with us tonight. Major Sandra Vanderpeer, who was inside the gift shop area and states that the shooting lasted approximately five minutes, and she believed that the shooting continued after the gunman reloaded inside the gift shop area. Graeme Collyer an ex-RAF fitter watched the gunman walk round the café area shooting people for approximately 4 ½ minutes, as he lay on the floor nearly drowning in his own blood. Outside near the Information Centre two Vietnam Veterans, John Godfrey and Peter Stainthorpe also have contested the 90 seconds to two minutes time for the shooting inside the Broad Arrow Café. Jacqui Lane wrote an article in a police magazine again stating that the shooting went on for about five minutes.
All the witnesses tell us that the gunman went up to
the victims and shot them from fairly close quarters. What the Americans tell me is that anyone with a little bit of
proper training in firearms would be able to accomplish this deed, and I accept
their advice. What this means is that
Martin Bryant would have been able to perform the shooting skills required at
the Broad Arrow Café, with minimal training, if he had wished to commit such an
atrocity. However, there are many clues
that state it was not Martin Bryant inside the café on that fatal afternoon.
If we are to consider the killed to injured ratio
regarding the Port Arthur Massacre, then also consider the same, in regard to
David Gray of Aramoana in New Zealand on the 13th November 1990 when
he killed thirteen people including a policeman, Sergeant Stewart Guthrie, but
only wounded three. It is noted that
the New Zealand media reported that an ‘Anti-terrorist’ unit was in the area at
the time, and that a siege ensued that lasted 33 hours at which time the house
was set alight and David Gray exited the house and was shot dead. What connections could this incident where
Sergeant Guthrie was shot have to Port Arthur?
Please remember that New Zealand has always been connected with both
SAC-PAV and the APMC, the AUSTRALASIAN Police Ministers’ Council.
More bunkum is the statement that the gunman killed twelve victims and wounded another four in the first fifteen seconds. This statement is supposedly supported by the Wilkinson Videotape and this tape-recorded the sound of the shots by themselves. Another video camera recorded the shots fired for 25 seconds as being 21 shots, which according to the government prosecutor, Mr Damian Bugg QC, leaves only eight shots to be fired in the next sixty-nine seconds, that is one shot every 8 ½ seconds. This is not what the witnesses tell us. They all state that the shots continued at about one shot every second or two. (1) Wilkinson Tape.
So how accurate is the evidence from the
videotapes. They accurately report the
sound of the shots alone, but do not report on the status of these shots, being
whether or not these shots killed, injured or missed a target. Furthermore these videotapes do not record
the entire shooting scene, and thus arguably the shooting inside the café could
have continued for another five seconds, five minutes or five hours.
In the Wilkinson tape there are 5 shots fired, being
shots 7 to 11, within a period of 1.80 seconds, and we are supposed to believe
that any person could shoot five persons accurately in the head in that time
frame. Thank you. Mind you, the last shot heard on the
Wilkinson videotape is a ricochet.
The next piece of bunkum is that only 29 shots were
fired inside the café. Mr. Bugg QC
continually reinforces this statement stating it is supported by the ballistics
and forensic evidence, but the Tasmania Police Ballistics expert, Sergeant
Gerard Dutton states otherwise. In the
American Wound Ballistics Review, Dutton states that 30 fired cartridge cases
were located inside the Broad Arrow Café, not 29. Then again in another article written by Sergeant Gerard Dutton
in the Australian Police Journal, Dutton argues that it is not accurate to
count the number of shots fired simply by the means of the fired cartridge
cases alone, especially as the crime scenes were not protected until after
sunset, and many of the fired cartridge cases had been souvenired, especially
at the car park where only four cases were located by the police, two .223 and
two .308 cartridges, with another case being returned by a bus driver. The cartridge from the bus could have been
from the shot that wounded Neville Quin.
How many shots were fired inside the Broad Arrow
Café during the massacre? I have
calculated a minimum of 41 shots, using the Court Document and witness
statements.
So why were these deceptions put into place, and why
have they been so strongly enforced within Australia. These lies have nothing to do with any Federal Government
implementation plans, but rather a cover-up by the Tasmanian Government, the
owners of the Port Arthur Historic Site, and it has everything to do with a
supposedly ‘locked’ fire exit door. (2) Groom, ‘cause’
You see, there was a fire exit door within the Gift
Shop area of the Broad Arrow Café that was supposedly locked, but just how do
you lock a fire exit door? This was the
door that prevented many people who were inside the gift shop area from
escaping the gunman, and some were murdered, and others lost their partners and
loved ones.
It was later conceded that this door was not locked
as stated to the Hobart Supreme Court, but rather it was broken, and the
condition of the door was known to police by the 1st May 1996 when
one of the maintenance crew who was painting out the windows and nailing the
doors and windows shut, discovered that fault with the assistance of one of the
forensic Police within the building.
Now why on earth was there a need to nail all the doors and windows
shut? I mean, the building was already
quite secure in its normal condition, so why nail the doors and windows shut?
The next little gem is the ‘Prince’ sports bag, or
should I say the two ‘Prince’ sports bags.
You see, the gunman had a very heavy ‘Prince’ sports bag and a large
video camera, which were found left on a table inside the Broad Arrow Café
after the massacre. Why would a person
bent on committing a massacre bring with him his very heavy video camera? Apart from the camera, the problem is that
several witnesses also saw the gunman carry the ‘Prince’ sports bag out of the
café and put it in the boot of the Volvo.
This was even captured on James Balasko’s video. (3) Balasko & (4) bag in café.
Why did he need two ‘Prince’ sports bags? Why were there live .308 rounds found on the
floor inside the café? The only weapon
used inside the café was the AR 15 which uses .223 ammunition, but in the boot
of the Volvo were several hundred .308 rounds, so how did these .308 rounds end
up inside the café?
At this stage I should also point out two
discrepancies that have occurred within this story, the first is that the ‘A
Current Affair’ program showed a person running down the road towards the
buses, and inferred that this person was the gunman. Nothing could be further from the truth. This person is running, and the gunman never
ran. This person is dressed completely
differently to the gunman, and is carrying blankets from the Information Centre
to the wounded at the buses, and is in all probability Mark Kirby, one of the
many at the site who assisted so admirably after the massacre. This video is genuine. It is the portrayal of this video that is
not. (5) Blankets.
The other discrepancy is the ‘missing boat’. The aerial shot of Port Arthur, that has
been bandied about supposedly stating that there was no boat at the area
immediately inside the jetty area of Port Arthur is again misleading. All a person has to do is look at the right
side of the picture and he or she will see two boats, the larger boat being the
supposedly missing boat. The video
taken by James Balasko was taken at extreme zoom, which is why the boat appears
closer than it actually was, and any person who watches cricket, football or
any of the sports on television would be aware of this distortion of distances
effect. (6) Boat & big boat.
I shall now move on to the next part of the
massacre. The gunman left the carpark,
in the Volvo, driving towards the tollbooth, where he saw Nanette Mikac with
her two young daughters. The gunman
stopped the car and opened the front passenger side door, and when Nanette
Mikac approached the car with her two daughters, he shot them with the
AR15.
Mrs Mikac, who was carrying her three year old
daughter, with the six year old beside her, and had already fled 600 metres,
would have believed that they were being offered assistance, instead they were
being lured to their death. What this
means is that they had been deliberately selected as murder victims. Why deliberately select a mother and two
young daughters out of all the fleeing survivors, why? There can be no doubt that the Mikacs were
deliberately targeted.
Consider this Statement made by CNN’s John Raedler
based in Sydney. He attended at Port
Arthur along with another CNN employee, Hugh Williams of Sydney, but based in
Berlin and at home at the time on leave.
(1)
Johnston’s
(Superintendent Jack Johnston) explanation of the fate of the Mikacs was the
classic ‘win-win’ sound bite.
This demonstrates that the murder of Nanette Mikac
and her two daughters was evaluated as the most powerful tool to be used in the
anti-gun propaganda by the media.
After the murder of Nanette Mikac and her two
daughters, the gunman drove to the tollbooth and shot the four occupants in the
BMW with the FN FAL. The gunman
exchanged vehicles, and drove up to the Port Arthur store and killed Zoe Hall
and kidnapped Glen Pears. Within three
minutes of this murder of Zoe Hall, at 1.45pm, Constable Chris Iles arrived at
the scene, which is stated by three witnesses.
Constable Iles then drove off in pursuit of the stolen BMW and was never
seen or heard of in relation to the Port Arthur Massacre. What information does Constable Iles have in
relation to the Port Arthur Massacre that we are not permitted to know?
Constable Chris Iles had been the Nubeena policeman for
about 12 years, but had transferred to Sorell about six months prior to the
massacre, and his replacement at Nubeena was Constable Paul Hyland. Many people are aware that Constables Paul
Hyland and Gary Whittle of Dunalley were at the coalmines at Saltwater River
when they received a radio message at 1338 hours (1.38 p.m.) that there had
been a shooting at Port Arthur.
So Constable Iles vanishes, and then Constables
Hyland and Whittle attend at Port Arthur, and then on to Seascape. However there is another policeman to enter
the scene. Sergeant Andrew Mark
Fogarty, from Bellerive Police Station has arrived at the scene. Sergeant Fogarty is also a Team Leader with
the SOG.
Both Hyland and Whittle state that when they arrived
at Seascape, the BMW was already burning at the front, and when the fire
reached the back section of the vehicle it exploded. Martin Bryant in his police interview states that he was knocking
at the back door of Seascape when the BMW exploded, but also confuses himself
by saying that he must have been burnt by the fire that destroyed the BMW. Martin Bryant also believes that the hostage
died in the BMW fire.
Now consider
this, one of the Task Force members investigating the Port Arthur Massacre has
stated to witnesses that it was the SOG who set fire to the BMW so as to negate
its use to the persons inside Seascape as a means of escape. This means that if the BMW was already
burning on the arrival of Hyland and Whittle at Seascape, then the only reported
SOG member at the scene at that time was Sgt. Fogarty, and therefore Fogarty
would have been the SOG member who set the BMW alight.
The Police Task Force member also stated that it was
the same SOG member who set fire to Seascape Cottage using the same means as
with the BMW, that is by firing a phosphorus grenade into the building. This grenade apparently went through the
attic window facing onto the Arthur Highway.
In his statement, Andrew Fogarty states that he fired off two
illuminating parachute flares over Seascape, but under the orders of Sergeant
Morrison.
Constable Hyland states he saw a person run into the
Seascape Cottage, stating it was a black-haired person, and Constable Whittle
states he saw a female running round the back of Seascape, yelling and
screaming, and that a dog was barking.
It appears that these two events were viewed at different times, but
what we do know though is that neither the black-haired person, nor the female
was Martin Bryant, nor would it have been the gunman, so who were they?
Then we have Constable Allen stating that at one
stage just before dark, the gunman was spotted on the roof of an adjoining
building, and he needed to be identified before the SOG marksman could shoot
the offender. Constable Allen stated that
when he put his head up out of the culvert, to take a view of the gunman on the
roof, he was shot at, the bullet striking the front bumper bar of the police
car he was behind.
This gives us two items of information. One that the person shooting at Allen was
listening to police communications, a point corroborated by Superintendent
Barry Bennett, and two that the gunman on the roof was not the person shooting
at Constable Allen. Sgt. Fogarty would
never have permitted that gunman in his sights to actually shoot at another
policeman. It has been noted that Sgt
Fogarty’s brother, Michael Fogarty, who was also a member of the Tasmania
Police SOG shot and killed Joe Gilewicz in 1991, when their father
Superintendent Fogarty was In Charge of the Tasmania Police SOG.
Now this incident with the shot at Constable Allen
sparked off two other incidents. The
first was with the SES and fire brigade members who had been monitoring the
Police Communications. A fire truck did
the rounds at Port Arthur warning the personnel there that the gunman was on
the loose, and heading this way. This
created absolute panic at the Port Arthur Site because there was still no
protection for them from any police.
The second incident was that the Police Commander, Assistant
Commissioner Luppo Prins, called in assistance from the Victoria Police SOG,
and then notified the National Crisis Centre in Canberra of their TERRORIST
SITUATION. (7) He’s out
All this action by the Tasmania Police was not
police action, but rather military action, prepared by SAC-PAV, the Federal
based body that controls the Police SOGs, in the SAC-PAV ‘Anti-Terrorist Plan’
that had been implemented in November 1995.
What this demonstrates is that the State and Territory Police Services
are controlled by Canberra via SAC-PAV and the PSCC, which is an Intelligence
Agency operating out of both the Federal Attorney General’s Department and the
Justice Department.
The three top Tasmania Policemen, McCreadie, Prins
and Bennett are all SAC-PAV trained. So
was their Media Liaison Officer, Geoff Easton who prior to his appointment with
the Tasmania Police was a Communications Officer at Canberra. The Tasmanian Premier’s Media Officer was
Peter Hazelwood, who attended at the Police forward Command Post at Taranna,
and Hazelwood was reportedly the Media Liaison Officer at the Hilton Hotel
Bombing back in 1978. This ASIO
orchestrated event initiated the formation of SAC-PAV and the PSCC.
But back to Tasmania and the Siege at Seascape. One of the quotes of Constable Pat Allen
that was printed in the Hobart Mercury on the 26th November 1996,
was “There were helicopters going around; you couldn’t see the choppers, but
they were going back and forth all night and it must have been like what it was
in Vietnam.” This creates some problems
as the Police Negotiator, Sergeant Terry McCarthy makes the statement that the
helicopters in Tasmania are not licenced to fly at night. Also it must be noted that the area around
the Seascape Cottage, in the shore of Long Bay, and then with the hills rising
steeply on the other side would have made the area very difficult for
helicopter pilots to fly in that vicinity at night. Then of course there were all the diversionary tactics used by
‘Jamie’ at Seascape and his discourse regarding his helicopter rides, etc.
So it is rather interesting to note that the ARMY
AIR FLEET helicopter crews that crashed in Townsville a couple of years ago by
sheer coincidence also happened to have been in Tasmania on the 28th
April 1996, and they would have been the only licenced night-flying helicopters
in Tasmania, and thus would have been the helicopters that Constable Pat Allen
refers to.
By the Monday morning, with media from all over the
world now focusing on Port Arthur, Seascape Cottage is set alight, by Martin
Bryant we are told, except for a Task Force member who states that it was by
Sgt Fogarty. This of course destroyed
all the evidence that was to be found inside Seascape Cottage, except for the
two murder weapons, which were found outside Seascape in a deliberately damaged
state, as the Police had been informed by “Jamie” inside Seascape during the
siege. But the only person to emerge from the fire was Martin Bryant who was
arrested, handcuffed and placed in the back of an ambulance and conveyed to the
Royal Hobart Hospital. (8) Seascape burning
The Tasmania Police set up a Task Force under
Superintendent Johnston to investigate the Port Arthur Massacre. A member of that Task Force, Inspector
Maxwell travelled to Victoria and spoke to a Bill Drysdale of Yass in relation
to one of the murder weapons, the AR15.
Bill Drysdale identified that firearm by a gunsmith’s mark on the
barrel. This firearm had been handed to
the Victoria Police at Lilydale in 1993 when that particular firearm had been
made illegal. This AR15 went through
the Victoria Police books as being destroyed at Sims Metal furnace, but ended
up in Tasmania, at the Seascape Cottage after the siege.
The other weapon used during the massacre was a FN
SLR of which Martin Bryant denied ever owning.
Mind you the firearm that was suddenly found in the piano at Bryant’s
Clare Street residence, an Australian Arms semi-automatic .223, was never
mentioned in the only police interview that took place on the 4th of
July 1996.
It has been stated that the only media in Hobart that
actually have journalists and reporters on duty on a Sunday was the ABC, and
that the other media outlets simply have staff on call. So when journalists from the ABC attended at
Police Headquarters in Hobart to obtain information about the shootings at Port
Arthur they were surprised to find that they were not the first to arrive at
the Media Liaison Office. Mr Roland
Browne, the spokesperson for Gun Control in Tasmania had arrived before them. The only person in a position to inform
Roland Browne of the need to be at the Police Headquarters Media Office, prior
to the media, would have been the Media Liaison Officer Geoff Easton, but how
was he able to contact Mr Browne? I
mean was Roland Browne on duty at his office, or was he relaxing at home as most
solicitors would have been doing on a Sunday?
The only reason Roland Browne would have been at the
Hobart Police Headquarters Media Room, would have been to influence the media
into accepting the anti-gun message, something the police would not have been
able to comment on. In other words the
Police Media Office became a tool for propaganda services. This demonstrates a connection between the
Gun Control movement and the Port Arthur Massacre.
Furthermore it totally negates comments made by
Professor Simon Chapman, the following morning that anybody would have been
able to predict the massacre because Roland Browne had twice predicted the
massacre in Tasmania. The first was
reported in the Hobart Mercury in November 1995, and the second was on Ray Martin’s
‘A Current Affair’ television show shortly after the Dunblane massacre. Not
only had Roland Browne been able to twice predict the massacre, but he
apparently was able to predict the day and the time of the Port Arthur
Massacre. How else other than being
informed prior to the media, would he have been able to attend at the Hobart
Police Headquarter’s Media Room?
There were other coincidences that stand out. Helicopter pilots were normally a scarcity
on a Sunday afternoon. Normally it was
difficult enough to locate even one, but on this particular Sunday they were
able to obtain the services of three helicopter pilots.
For the ambulance staff, the possible staff shortage
was overcome by utilising staff and volunteers that were attending courses for
that Sunday afternoon. Ray Charleton’s Southern District Mortuary Service even
had a 22-body hearse, the only one of its type in Australia waiting to be used
for such an emergency. However it was
the Royal Hobart Hospital that demonstrated the height of preparedness. They were able to call on the services of
twenty five trauma specialist doctors from all over Australia, who had just
completed a seminar at midday on that Sunday, and whose last lecture had been
in relation to a ‘terrorist attack’.
Oh, dear.
It was the EMA (Emergency Management Australia) Port
Arthur Seminar Papers that demonstrated the preparedness of all these bodies,
especially with the Royal Hobart Hospital and it’s newly completed ‘Code Brown’
Emergency Plan. But we are then given another
clue. The Coroner, Ian Matterson, the
Staff at the Royal Hobart Hospital, including some doctors, and many Ambulance
Service personnel initially believed that it was simply another “exercise” and
some ignored the calls until they heard the news on the radio and
television. In other words these people
had been conditioned to attending exercises until they were sick of them.
In his book, ‘Suddenly One Sunday’, journalist Mike
Bingham wrote, “Involvement in these national and local exercises was to prove
invaluable as Tasmania Police set about managing the Port Arthur Massacre. The responses were to work so well that
there were times when it all seemed like an exercise, despite the enormity of
all that had happened.”
So who was responsible for these people to be so
prepared for such a tragedy?
In Tasmania, the emergency exercises were the
responsibility of the SES (State Emergency Service). This body is attached to the Tasmania Police and the Police
Commissioner is the Deputy Chairman of the State Emergency Service. However these bodies are controlled by the
Canberra based SAC-PAV (Standing Advisory Committee, States/Commonwealth for
Protection Against Violence). The
SAC-PAV subcommittee the Project Group Training (PGT) is responsible for
the training and exercise programs run by SAC-PAV, but then again SAC-PAV is
controlled by the PSCC, the Intelligence Agency.
There is however one last seminar to consider, and
that is unique in that it was the first, and the only ever seminar to be held
for the ten top personnel at the Port Arthur Historic Site, and it was to be
held on the 28th and 29th April 1996. What was this seminar about? Nothing.
There was NO meeting agenda. By
the time these particular staff members arrived at Swansea, the massacre had
occurred and everybody went straight back to the site to assist.
But, back to Martin Bryant, who has been arrested by
the SOG and conveyed to the Royal Hobart Hospital. On Tuesday the 30th April 1996 police endeavour to
interview Bryant in the presence of a hospital doctor, but Bryant wishes to
have nothing to do with them, and so he is simply charged with one count of
murder, that of Kate Scott.
On the following day Bryant was again interviewed,
not by police but Doctor Ian Sale. In
notes taken by Blair Saville, the prison officer guarding Martin Bryant, Sale
states to Bryant, “Whatever you say to us may be used against you in
court. Do you understand what I said?”
Consider the implications if this evidence is
correct. Doctor Sale has just stated
that he is collecting evidence to use against Martin Bryant in a Court of Law,
yet his reports formed part of the basis of Mullen’s report, which was the only
evidence used by the defence in the Sentencing of Martin Bryant.
Bryant was interviewed By Dr Sale on the 1st
and 3rd of May, and then by Mullen on the 5th May. During each of these interviews, apparently
Blair Saville the prison officer was present, and apparently took notes. This raises questions due to who had custody
of Bryant at the time. Bryant should
have been under police guard until he was lodged at Risdon Prison, and we have
a policewoman stating that she was at one stage required to perform guard duty
on Bryant. Again this same prison
officer took note of the conversation between Martin Bryant and Petra Wilmott
on the 15th May at Risdon Prison.
In fact up until the police interview, the only contributor to the
‘confessional evidence’ and that is by the one officer. In late August, another prison officer gives
evidence, but on the whole there are many errors within these ‘confessional
evidence’ statements. (9) Cuffed to bed.
In his report on Martin Bryant that was read to the
Supreme Court on the 20th November 1996, Mullen refers to the fact
that Martin Bryant was put on a guardianship order by the Hobart Court in
October 1993. That the case was
actually heard by the Hobart Supreme Court, in Camera (private) on the 22nd
of April 1994, was not mentioned by Mullen, nor the fact that the application
was brought under the Mental Health Act, or the fact that Bryant was
represented by solicitors from the firm Griffits and Jackson of Hobart due to
the simple fact that Martin Bryant was not present at that court on that day
because he was in London.
What the guardianship order states emphatically and
this is something that the learned professor should have been well aware of,
was that the court considered Martin Bryant, due to his mental inability, was
not competent to make any plea in relation to the charges he was facing in
November 1996.
Not only that, but the Chief Justice Mr, William Cox
would also have been well aware of that little problem. Oh dear me.
However, back to Professor Mullen. In 2000, Mullen along with another
psychiatrist, C. H. Cantor and Philip Alpers wrote an article titled ‘Mass
Homicide: The Civil Massacre’, in which they use 7 ‘Lone Nut Gunman’ type
massacres to prove their findings.
These cases are (1) Julian Knight, Melbourne 1987, (2) Michael Ryan,
Hungerford England 1987, (3) Frank Vitkovic, Melbourne 1987, (4) David Gray,
Aramoana NZ, 1990, (5) Wade Frankum, Strathfield, 1991, (6) Thomas Hamilton,
Dunblane Scotland, 1996 and (7) Martin Bryant, Port Arthur, 1996. These 7 massacres are all seemingly related
by circumstances besides the fact that they were used specifically to introduce
firearm control by the governments of the day.
Christopher H Cantor is a psychiatrist affiliated
with the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention Program at
Griffith University. Philip Alpers is a
New Zealand radio announcer. Professor
Mullen is stated in this article as having interviewed Knight and Bryant after
the events, and resided in the area affected by Gray. In fact we are aware that Mullen’s report on Bryant was the only
psychiatric report presented to the Supreme Court, which makes Mullen more than
just an interviewer of Bryant.
There are some aspects worth considering in this
article. Both Frankum and Bryant lost a parent prior to their massacres by
suicide. In every case except Frankum
and Bryant the only weapons used were firearms. However, both Frankum and Bryant not only used ‘semi-automatic
assault rifles’ but a large knife and handcuffs as well. What weapons are banned in Australia
today?
The use of handcuffs in any ‘Lone Nut Gunman’ style
massacre is uniquely Australian. The
perpetrators of such crimes do not intend to constrain victims but rather
murder anybody within their sights. Yet
we are informed that whilst at Seascape, Martin Bryant, aka ‘Jamie’ had
information regarding his hostage Glen Pears that could only have come from an
interrogation. For Martin Bryant
though, this would have been a virtual impossibility considering his stated
mental ability. Is this simply a coincidence?
I would doubt it. There are
other coincidences.
The last sentence in the report on Julian Knight
states, “J.K.’s subsequent course in prison has made any psychotic condition
highly unlikely, but obsessional personality traits and narcissism have become
more obvious.” The obvious question
here is that if Julian Knight is no longer a threat to our society, then why
was he a threat on the 9th August 1987 when he murdered 7 persons
and attempted to murder another 17?
In the report on Frank Vitkovic, it states that this
person, who supposedly had a long-standing fascination with firearms, obtained
a M1 carbine .30 calibre semi-automatic military styled firearm with a sawn off
barrel and shortened stock. Mind you
these alterations were made so that the weapon could fit into the bag which was
used to carry the weapon to the scene of the massacre, and completely destroys
the statement that Vitkovic had a fascination with firearms, as any student of
weaponry would know that by cutting off the end of the barrel removed the gas pressure
that caused the weapon to automatically reload. This meant that to create the massacre, Vitkovic had to manually
cycle the bolt after each shot so as to reload. Moreover this created the
possibility for the weapon to jam, should the reloading action become jerky,
which is exactly what happened with this particular incident, and enabled two
men to actually take hold of Vitkovic before he apparently broke loose and
jumped through a plate glass window and fell to his death eleven floors below.
But what is extremely interesting is that two
persons who, by sheer coincidence happened to view the massacre from the
building directly opposite. The then
State Attorney General, Jim Kennan and the Police Minister Race Matthews. These two Labour Party Politicians were part
of the push in Victoria to introduce their tough new firearm laws, and it is by
sheer coincidence that they just happened to be in the building where Jim
Kennan’s extremely secure offices were located on the 20/23rd
floors. However at the time of viewing
this incident, I am reliably informed that they were at a typing pool located
on the 12th floor, with the massacre taking place in the building
directly opposite on the eleventh floor.
Another interesting bit of trivia given to us by
this report is that during his killing spree, Frank Vitkovic was heard making
some rather startling comments including, “How do they expect me to kill people
with this gun?” Just exactly what did
Vitkovic mean by that statement and who are ‘they’?
It was very shortly after this massacre that a
Special Premier’s meeting was called in Hobart, where National Firearms Laws
were the agenda, but the plan was defeated due to Tasmania and South Australia
not accepting the federal incursion into the States constitutional powers. This was when Premier Barry Unsworth made
his now famous quote of “there will never be uniform gun laws in Australia
until we see a massacre in Tasmania.”
Please remember that in cases where the Federal
Constitution is involved each and every State must accept the amendments by
referendum. If any State declines, then
the Federal Constitutional amendment fails.
In the case report on Martin Bryant, this document
makes some astounding statements. It
states that, “The killings began with the murder of an elderly couple against
whom Bryant’s family held a long-standing grudge”. This is not correct.
There was never any grudge between the Bryant and Martin family. Mrs Bryant totally denies any such
allegations, as does Glen Martin.
The report continues with, “he believed had
contributed to the suicide of his father.”
No, no, never. There is no
evidence whatsoever to suggest that Martin Bryant believed that actions by the
Martins had led to his father committing suicide thirteen years later.
The report states that, “This incident occurred only
six weeks after Dunblane.” That is
correct, but there is not one mention of Dunblane is Mullen’s report on Bryant
presented to the Hobart Supreme Court.
The report states that, “A number of psychological
assessments over the years failed to reach agreements as to diagnosis.” The highly eminent Doctor Cunningham Dax
stated that Bryant might be developing an illness of a schizophrenic type in an
assessment in 1984. In 1991 doctors
Mather and MP McCartney diagnose a schizophrenic illness. In 1994, Bryant has action bought against
him by two doctors, concerned about his apparent frittering away his
inheritance, under the Mental Health Act, and succeeds in having the Hobart
Supreme Court place Bryant under a guardianship. Mrs Bryant states that her son is suffering from schizophrenia,
as does his girlfriend, Petra Wilmott.
Mrs Bryant refers to her son’s psychiatrist Dr. Rushton, who for some
unknown reason is never mentioned in Mullen’s report to the Supreme Court. However it is only doctor Sale and Professor
Mullen who argue that Bryant is not schizophrenic.
The report goes on with numerous inconsistencies,
especially in regards to Martin Bryant, but let me make one last
comparison. In the closing paragraph of
Mullen’s Report that was presented to Judge William Cox in the Sentencing of
Martin Bryant, Mullen writes,
“Mr Bryant currently does not have the signs and the
symptoms of a mental illness. He is
however, by virtue of his personality and intellectual limitations both of
reduced coping ability and of increased psychological vulnerability. It is possible that under the combined
stress of lengthy incarceration and of having to live with the memories and consequences
of his awful acts that he may, in the future, break down into frank mental
illness. It will be necessary to
continually monitor his state of mind during his future containment and
initiate appropriate treatment if, and when, it is required.”
Now compare that little gem with the one previously
mentioned regarding Julian Knight that stated,
“J.K. was examined by a number of psychiatrists and
psychologists. Although a prepsychotic
condition was suggested, the predominant opinion was of a narcissistic young
man involved in his world of fantasy.
J.K.’s subsequent course in prison has made any psychotic condition
highly unlikely, but obsessional personality traits and narcissism have become
more obvious.”
What this article by Cantor, Mullen and Alpers does
is emphasis that the requirement for Australia’s New Firearm Laws was
demonstrated by four unique ‘Lone Nut Gunman’ type massacres in Australia. The uniqueness of these criminal acts does
not simply stop at the cause and effect within Australia, but also the time
slot that these crimes fall into. It
was only after the ideology created the need for firearms to be removed from
our society that these unique crimes erupted.
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.
Furthermore when two of the main persons involved with the
implementation of the new ideology actually are able to witness one of only
four such events in Australia, then we must consider that as extremely
coincidental.
So now, let us consider the words of the Australian
Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Tim Fischer, when he spoke to a group of profession
shooters at Alice Springs in May 1996.
“If we don’t get it right this time, then next time there is a
massacre, and there will be, then they’ll take all our guns off us.”
What Mr Fischer is stating is that unless Australia
brings in the required legislation, then Australia was going to suffer another
massacre. The legislation was initiated
and Australia has had no more massacres.
The fact that many have ignored the new ideology bound firearm laws, and
that firearms are still easily obtainable on a black market is irrelevant to
these laws. However, what must also be
considered is the comparison between the statement made by Tim Fischer and the
then Premier of New South Wales, Barry Unsworth back in December 1987 when he
prophesised “There will never be
uniform gun laws in Australia until we see a massacre in Tasmania.” He was quite right. After the massacre at Port Arthur Australia
did get a form of “uniform gun laws”, but not quite what Barry wanted.
We should also consider the actions of the
Australian Prime Minister up to and on the 10th May 1996 when the
new laws were implemented. The fact
that the 10th May meeting had to make its decision in time for the
evening news is straight out of a ‘James Bond’ types fictional scenario.
“Here is the 6 o’clock news. Big Ben chimed three times today at 2
o’clock, and the Australian Prime Minister, Mr John Howard was successful in
forcing the various State and Territory Police Ministers into accepting his unconstitutional
new guidelines for a total firearm control in Australia.”
But there are other political ramifications
regarding the Uniform Firearm Laws in Australia, and Graeme Richardson appeared
on the “Today Show’ shortly after the Port Arthur Massacre, and just prior to
Mr Howard announcing his 10th May meeting and laid out the whole
political scenario of why the Port Arthur Massacre had to happen.
Barry Unsworth had discovered in his effort to
retain the New South Wales Government in 1988 that any government that moved
into the area of gun control would lose power at the next election, be that
State or Federal. Again, because of the
moves against the gun owners of Australia, there was a new political party
born, and that party had to be destroyed before it gained too much strength
within the political sphere.
However, Graeme Richardson gave out one further clue
to demonstrate just what the push was, regarding firearm control and that was
the shift of power from the States to Canberra. Graeme Richardson stated that the easiest way for uniform firearm
laws would be for the States to cede their constitutional powers in relation to
firearm to the Federal Government.
However, we are then informed that Premier Bob Carr had already
initiated legislation in regard to ceding that power to the Federal
Government. Now this was before John
Howard had announced his ‘National Guidelines’ policy, and it must be viewed as
a ploy to have the Prime Minister adopt the full Labor Party Policy in relation
to gun control, a policy that emanates from the United Nations.
What this demonstrates is that the moves for total
firearm control in Australia, is based on that power being controlled by
Canberra, and that policy lines itself up with other initiatives that have
emanated from Canberra in the past decade such as the push for a Republic and a
New Constitution, which would give Canberra complete control over Australia,
which was the complete opposite of all those Australians who realised the
dangers of centralised power, and opted for the American system of Federation
of States back prior to 1900.
What happened in regard to the Port Arthur Massacre
was that the entire judicial system was stifled. We were never permitted to have any form of a proper trial for
the accused Martin Bryant. We were never
permitted to have a Coronial Inquiry, nor shall we ever get any such proper
inquiry into that tragic event that has affected so many Australians. Our constitutions have been overruled, our
judiciary has been compromised so much so that we appear to be that of
Keating’s ‘Banana Republic’, and our elected parliamentary representatives no
longer hear the voice of their constituents.
So what happens the next time Australians fail to
heed the new ideology? Who will ‘they’
murder to bring us into line? Will it
be your parents’ your brother or sister, or your children or
grandchildren? Will it be innocent
children in a schoolyard? Don’t say it
will never happen, because it already has.
Will such a massacre be utilised to bring in the next stage of Gun Control,
the removal of handguns?
Had Australia had one politician with the guts, the
integrity and the honesty to tell Australians just what had happened, then the
bluff would have been called, and little Johnny Howard would never have had to
wear his flack jacket at Sale or in Queensland. Australians though are not that lucky.
Not for release until after
the Kingaroy meeting on the 30th May 2001.
Andrew S. MacGregor.