Bush in Australia : A Scrapbook

[john williams]

Well George has come to Australia. Our dear little bush capital Canberra has been tranformed into a Hollywood blockbuster. My partner was in a taxi Canberra last night and said she had never seen anything like it. The taxi driver had driven by the American Embassy earlier and watched as a guy carrying a bag in the vicinty was jumped on by about 8 guys with hearing aids.

Bush visit closes city
By Ian McPhedran
17oct03

THE bush capital will be transformed into a fortress tonight when the biggest security operation in Canberra's history begins to protect US President George W. Bush.
Air Force One will be escorted into Canberra by up to six RAAF Hornets with orders to shoot down unauthorised aircraft.

During Mr Bush's 21-hour stay in Canberra, fighters will roam the skies ready to fire their active radar guided missiles, AIM-7 Sparrow missiles or AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles at any aircraft straying inside strict no-fly zones.

Mr Bush is scheduled to touch down in Canberra at 9.45pm. After a night's sleep at the US embassy, Mr Bush and wife Laura will visit Governor-General Michael Jeffery at Government House....

...After Mr Bush flies out for Hawaii tomorrow night, new Chinese President Hu Jintao arrives in Canberra in preparation for a parliamentary address on Friday.

Mr Bush will be protected by his own armed Secret Service guards, including a heavily armed ready reaction force.

Australian Federal Police special response officers will be supported by a tactical assault group from the Army's Special Forces Commando Regiment based at Holsworthy.

The heavily armed counter-terrorist soldiers will have a Black Hawk helicopter at their disposal during the visit.

Primary responsibility for protecting the President rests with the US Secret Service.

Its agents are expected to take a bullet for their boss and they carry hi-tech communications gear and are trained in close order combat.

Canberra will be locked down for the duration of Mr Bush's visit, with roads and buildings closed until he leaves.

Security will be relaxed slightly for Chinese leader Hu Jintao.

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/com...55E662,00.html

The Arrival of Bush At Parliament house could very well be the most exciting event in Australian history.

Security tight for Bush visit

23Oct03

SECRET service agents whispered into their sleeves, spectators waited in position, military personnel were ready to jump to attention - the scene was set for the US president's arrival.

It was like a movie set, hundreds of actors ready and waiting for the director to call "action".
The call came when the regimental sergeant major hollered to warn of George W Bush's arrival at Parliament House.

Everyone jumped into position, and then there was silence.

But the silence erupted with cheers - and the action began - the second someone spotted Mr Bush and US First Lady Laura enter Parliament House, along with Prime Minister John Howard and his wife Janette.

They waved and smiled to the hundreds of parliamentary staffers and others who had gathered in the Marble Hall to catch a glimpse of the most powerful man in the world.

The Bushs and Howards moved to the stairs in the foyer of Parliament House to pose for photographs in front of their national flags as the army band played Star Spangled Banner and Advance Australia Fair.

Mr and Mrs Bush stood with their hands on their hearts during the American anthem while Mr and Mrs Howard sang their national song.

Silence descended again as the presidential party walked down the few stairs and towards the Great Hall. But Mr Bush displayed his power when he raised his hand to wave at those gathered and the hall erupted with cheers.

The smile that stretched across his face showed his pleasure.

They then walked through the Great Hall into the secret confines of Parliament House, away from the public and media.

While Mr Bush's appearance lasted less than 10 minutes, endless hours of planning had gone into the production.

When the media arrived in the Marble Hall about an hour before the president, they were ordered to split into Australian and US factions, jammed in between two marble pillars.

An American embassy official who spotted an Australian journalist making chit-chat with an American colleague asked if an interview had been carried out, because that was banned.

For the record, they were talking about the likeness between Canberra and Montana.

Secret service agents hovered about the media, whispering into the microphone hidden in their suit sleeve and covering their mouths with paper in their hands every time they uttered a word, presumably to stop any lip readers figuring out their plan.

One agent asked the American media: "What's your next target of acquisition?"

We think he was asking where they were next headed.

Once Mr Bush slipped into the Members Hall and away from the spotlight, the spell was broken and everyone went their own way.

But at least a few Australians caught a rare glimpse of the American president.

http://www.news.com.au/common/printp...644191,00.html

What a great story. However, not everyone was happy!

23 Oct 2003 04:11:16 GMT
Protests in Australia as Bush defends Iraq war

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Recasts, updates throughout)

By Belinda Goldsmith

CANBERRA, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Heckled inside the Australian parliament and jeered by protesters outside, President George W. Bush on Thursday defended the Iraq invasion and war on terror, saying Australia and the United States had to lead by example.

Bush, wrapping up a six-nation Asian tour, told a joint session of parliament that Australia and the United States had a "special responsibility throughout the Pacific" to help keep peace.

The American president is on a whirlwind visit to Australia to thank conservative Prime Minister John Howard for helping in the U.S.-led war on terror and in Iraq.

His 20-hour visit has triggered a massive security operation in the usually sleepy capital with armed air force jets escorting him into Canberra on Wednesday night with orders to shoot any unauthorised aircraft and patrolling over the city on Thursday.

Authorities took the unprecedented step of barring the public from the national parliament where Bush spoke on Thursday, backing a special security role for Australia in the Asia-Pacific region that has raised concerns among Asian neighbours.

"Security in the Asia-Pacific region will always depend on the willingness of nations to take responsibility for their neighborhood, as Australia is doing," Bush told parliament.

But his tagging of Australia as a regional "sheriff" and staunch defence of the Iraq war angered left-leaning Green politicians whose yells twice stopped the president's speech.

"We are not a sheriff," shouted Greens leader Bob Brown who ignored an order to leave the house.

The heckling did not rattle Bush who is on his first trip to Australia and will head home later on Thursday.

"I love free speech," he quipped, to cheers from the house.

But following Bush's speech, the parliament voted to suspend Brown and his Greens colleague Kerry Nettle from parliament for 24 hours, which will bar them on Friday when Chinese President Hu Jintao is due to address the parliament during a three-day trip.

TEMPERS FLARED

Security guards removed one person from the chamber packed with well-known Australians, including TV-celebrity Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin in his trademark khaki shorts and tennis star Lleyton Hewitt.

The 18-year-old son of Mamdouh Habib, one of two Australians held at a U.S. military prison in Cuba for two years without charge after the Afghan invasion, was dragged out, arms pinned behind his back, after yelling: "Hey Bush, what about my Dad?"

While tempers flared inside the hill-top parliament, a crowd of up to 2,000 protesters outside chanted anti-U.S. slogans and waved banners reading: "Yankee Go Home" and "U.S. Sucks".

Through the crowd weaved an Osama bin Laden lookalike, carrying a placard reading "Come and Get Me" and two activists dressed as Saddam Hussein and Bush holding hands.

"It's clear out here represents the Australian people much more than Bush, Howard and their mates inside," said protester Will Saunders, who travelled from Sydney overnight for the rally.

But the crowd failed to reach the expected 5,000 and was a far cry from the 200,000 that turned up for an anti-war protest in Australia's most populous city of Sydney in February.

Australia was one of the first nations to commit troops to Iraq, sending 2,000 military personnel to the Gulf, and has been an active partner in the U.S.-led war on terror, sending troops to Afghanistan after the U.S.'s September 11, 2001, attacks.

It has cranked up security nationwide since last October's Bali bombings that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.

About 1,000 police and security specialists were deployed in Canberra on Thursday to guard against any incident while Bush and his 650-person entourage were in town. It's the first U.S. presidential visit to Australia since Bill Clinton came in 1996.

Howard's drive to tighten ties with the United States during his seven years in power has sparked some criticism within Asia.

But Howard, who visited Bush at his Texas ranch in May, said the relationship would only become tighter, with the two nations hoping to complete a free trade agreement by the end of the year.

"The significance of America to Australia will grow as the years go by, it will not diminish," he told the parliament.

Bush lauded Howard as "a leader of exceptional courage".

"We value, more than ever, the unbroken friendship between the Australian and American peoples," Bush said. (Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SYD151872.htm

Full transcript of Bush speech in Australian Parliament.
http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/reps/dailys/dr231003.pdf

The Australian Parliament


Oops, sorry this is the old parliament building. The photo is considered by some to be the smoking gun in the "Australian Politicians Are Sheep Fuckers Enquiry" of 1956.



That's more like it.

More protests, whatever next?

Protesters outside Parliament march to the Lodge PRINT FRIENDLY EMAIL STORY
The World Today - Thursday, 23 October , 2003 12:14:03
Reporter: Louise Yaxley
HAMISH ROBERTSON: As President Bush was addressing the joint Houses of Parliament, in addition to the protests by those Greens Senators inside the Parliament, a group of protesters was demonstrating outside, kept several hundreds of metres away from the Parliament building by strict security.

Out amongst the crowd is our reporter, Louise Yaxley, who joins me now on the phone from the Prime Minister's residence.

Louise, can you sum up the sentiments being expressed by the crowd of protesters?

LOUISE YAXLEY: Yes, Hamish, the crowd has started out being very peaceful and complaining mostly about the war in Iraq, but also touching on issues like the detention of David Hicks and Mr Habib in Guantanamo Bay. Also assorted other sentiments, including about the US free trade agreement.

The crowd had since marched from outside Parliament House, past the US Embassy, to the Prime Minister's residence, the Lodge where the President is having lunch at the moment with Mr Howard.

On the way, the protests turned quite nasty outside the US Embassy. Protesters tore down barricades. I believe that a person was hit by a police motorbike and there was quite a bit of action. The police ran in, went in on their motorbikes and four-wheel drive motorbikes, to take the crowd on. You can hear the police dogs barking at the moment, as I can see someone being taken away from outside the Prime Minister's Lodge.

HAMISH ROBERTSON: And I believe you were able to speak to some of the protesters outside the Lodge?

LOUISE YAXLEY: Yes, I was and they explained the various views that have brought them here to this protest of about 3,000 people, and as you'll hear, they represented a fairly wide range of views.

(to protester) What brings you here today?

PROTESTER 1: The fact that we're locked out of Parliament House, which is meant to a representation of democracy in Australia, and the people's house.

And the fact that somebody from another country who has gone in and invaded countries that we've disagreed with, and has incorporated all sorts of policies that a lot of Australians are opposed to and who is trying chase free trade arguments, that the majority of us would be opposed to if we could find out more information about them.

And we can't even go in there and see him in a public gallery in our own House. It's just laughing in the face of democracy and it's a scary precedent for what's happening in Australia.

PROTESTER 2: We believe that George Bush has come here for one reason, and we don't think it's necessarily to talk to John Howard about war on terror. We think he's got a lot of agreement about that.

What we think he's doing this today is nutting out a free trade agreement. And what we believe, we think John Howard is possibly going to sell out the PBS – pharmaceutical benefits scheme.

So if we could get John Howard to say to the Australian public today that PBS is not on the table, we think it would be well worthwhile our demonstration out here in Parliament House today.

PROTESTER 3: I'm very much against the whole thing, Mr Howard bringing him here, and Mr Howard and by them blatantly telling lies and sending our men to war to be killed.

LOUISE YAXLEY: Is this the first time you've been to a protest?

PROTESTER 3: Yes.

LOUISE YAXLEY: And you've come down from Sydney to do it?

PROTESTER 3: Yes. I'm very, very upset. I'm very old, but I just had to come.

HAMISH ROBERTSON: Some of the protesters at the demonstration in Canberra today speaking to Louise Yaxley.

Louise, there were also Opposition politicians, dissident Labor MPs and Greens outside. What did they have to say?

LOUISE YAXLEY: They talked about, they called for poverty to be addressed rather than terrorism. They expressed the sorts of views that those outspoken politicians have been talking about since before the war against Iraq. They included Harry Quick and other Labor MPs who've been outspoken, as well as Greens Senator, Bob Brown.

The crowd here, incidentally, has been told a short time ago about the ejection of Bob Brown and Kerry Nettle from Parliament House, and unsurprisingly, they cheered.

We can hear a little here from two of those who spoke, Bob Brown from the Greens and Carmen Lawrence from Labor.

BOB BROWN: It's great to see such a big crowd and many more streaming in, but what is appalling today is that we, the people of Australia, are being locked out of our Parliament, our representative democracy.

(cheering and clapping)

I note that there are a lot of military personnel and people with hearing aids - young, maybe with hearing difficulty - but in the Parliament this morning. But no people of Australia.

This is a Parliament disconnected from the people in the service of a visiting foreign head of state who does not respect this country.

(cheering and clapping)

I have on my lapel the pictures of Mr Hicks and Mr Habib. They are two Australians. And the message to George Bush, because our Prime Minister is too obsequious to raise it, is to repatriate our Australians to our soil for justice, as you've repatriated your Americans from the torture centre in Guantanamo Bay.

(cheering and clapping)

And the message that goes with that is Mr Bush: if you want to be respected around the world, then you respect the laws of the world. You are a law-breaker and that is not acceptable to us in this lawful and democratic country.

(cheering and clapping)

CARMEN LAWRENCE: Scepticism – the great Australian tradition. Opposition is not unseemly and unpatriotic. On the contrary, it is patriotic. It's the honourable course.

(cheering and clapping)

The honourable course of questioning the easy and dangerous dualities, the Bush dualities, us and them, good and evil, friend and enemy, Christian and Islam.

And we are not anti-American. Our argument is not with the United States, nor its people. This is personal. Our argument is with President George Bush and his administration.

(cheering and clapping)

HAMISH ROBERTSON: That was Labor backbencher Carmen Lawrence, and before her, Greens leader, Bob Brown speaking in Canberra a short while ago.

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/con...03/s973590.htm


All in all a fun affair and an exciting story to tell our grandkids.

[HenryMc]

in 1942, John Curtin said,
I make it plain and clear
the English can't defend us anymore
so lets get the yanks down here
and soon we had a million yanks
based from Darwin to Port Arthur
and the Supreme Command of the Pacific
was given to McArthur
In 1950, the Crimson Red
ran through Korea like a domino
and to show our friendship with old USA
we sent troops to that show
Then In 1964 and 65
we were asked to help again
when Uncle Sam got in strife
in a little place called Vietnam
In 1966 we shouted
all the way with LBJ
and Henry Bolte told his driver
to run over students if they got in the way
Then Gough got in in 72
and how did the States repay us
read 'The falcon and the Snowman'
to see how they betrayed us
throughout the seventies and eighties
the yanks turned away our grains
and rejected our beef and lamb
the product of our sunburned plains
then there came the gulf war one
remember it, it was the one about Kuwait
and the Yanks again said to us
How about a helping hand old mate
and now we are all in Baghdad
in a coalition of the willing
with mighty nations like spain and poland
to share the second billing
and Georgie Porgy, apple of his daddys eye
áddressed our parliament
while the sheep out in the suburbs
wonder where our freedom went
Look I love America
and some of my best friends are American
but I dont wanna be a citizen of the USA
I just want to be Australian!!

[Monte Smith]

Australia's quite the spot to be, all of a sudden. George is outbound, but Hu Jintao, the Chinese leader, will address parliament on Friday, no? That's rather extraordinary for sleepy Australia: two major world leaders in a week.

[mke]

Apparently, people care less about the Chinese guy getting killed.

[HenryMc]

"That's rather extraordinary for sleepy Australia: two major world leaders in a week"

and the Rugby World Cup!!

which we care more about.

[Monte Smith]

Originally posted by HenryMc


and the Rugby World Cup!!

which we care more about.

Properly so.

[HenryMc]

Monte

Of Course

One must get one's priorities right

BTW Scotland gave the USA a belting the other night - the Eagles tried to soar but Scotland had the better skills. It was a really scappy game which Scotland won 39 to 15.

Next for the US is Japan on the 27th October, a game in which both sides look evenly matched on paper so I am looking forward to it...Unfortunately it is about 500 miles away from me in a place called Gosford so I'll have to watch it on TV.