Will Your Government Stand Up For You?

Last night I tuned into the ABC to see John Howard be grilled by the Q&A audience. He looked relaxed and confident during Tony Jones' introduction, although I did notice his slight squirm when Tony mentioned the dreaded words Work Choices.  Not surprsing as I would assume this ludicris policy is one of his biggest regrets, and judging by his answers to the questions thrown at him, probably his only regret as he firmly stood by everything he did as PM.

During the program Mr Howard bullshitted the way he did back when he was leader of our country, but I couldn't help but notice that at least he appeared much more confident and less rehearsed in his convictions than Julia Gillard or even Kevin Rudd do today.

The highlight of the show for me came via a video question from fomer Guantanamo Bay resident David Hicks.

Mr Hicks put to Mr Howard

"Hi, I'm David Hicks. When you were Prime Minister you left me in Guantanamo Bay for five and half years. During that time I was detained without charge for a long time, I was denied a fair trial, I was tortured. Do you believe that I was treated humanely and that the Military Commission was a fair system ? Thank you."

The former PM then went into spin mode

"Isn't it a great country that allows this sort of exchange to occur,"  he responded.

He then went on to defend what his government did in relation to David Hicks' situation and went on to remind the viewers that Hicks pleaded guilty to serious charges and the Howard government played a role in brokering a deal to bring him back to Australia to serve the remainder of his sentence. He also reminded us that David Hicks trained with the Taliban and shouldn't be held as a national hero.

This spin that came out of Mr Howard's mouth allowed him to avoid the question 'Do you believe I was treated humanely...?'

The answer to the question I believe should have been 'No'.

Now I don't know anybody who would hold David Hicks up to be a hero. Far from it. The guy was an idiot who trained with the Taliban. I don't know anybody who likes him very much at all.

However, this doesn't excuse the fact that an Australian citizen was detained for 5 years without a trial with no intervention from our government. This doesn't hide the fact that part of the deal to bring him home meant that he had to plead guilty. This doesn't hide the fact that this deal was only brokered when the public pressure was on in an election year! The entire situation was handled in an awful way.

Mr Howard avoided the question at hand, a very important question I believe. All Australian citizens should have the comfort of knowing that their government will help them out in all situations.

While our former PM defends and stands by his actions I hope that future governments, whatever party may be in power, learns from the mistakes of the Howard government in this situation.

Mr Howard was right in saying that it's a great country that allows these exchanges, but shouldn't a great country that allows these freedoms stand up for it's people?