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  A Geoffrey Robertson Hypothetical: Australia under attack August 28, 2005 Reporter : Geoffrey Robertson Producer : Paul Steindl  Due to the extraordinary response and interest generated from our hypothetical programme, we will be re-screening the segment on the evening of Monday September 12th at 10:30pm Whenever Geoffrey Robertson does a hypothetical, he raises issues that many politicians and community leaders would rather avoid. He creates various scenarios and premises that most decision makers would prefer did not occur. Only brave debaters are game enough to face Robertson in full flight. The panel for this hypothetical, “Australia under Attack,” represents some of the most important decision makers in this country, and Robertson challenges them with a series of interwoven, imaginative but highly feasible situations. Opposition Leader Kim Beazley gets a chance to be Prime Minister as does Health Minister Tony Abbott. Others on the panel include former UN Chief Weapons Inspector, Richard Butler, head of the Anglican church in Australia, Archbishop Phillip Aspinall, Paul McKinnon, former NSW police Assistant Commissioner and security head for the 2000 Sydney Olympics, and Brian Houston, Pastor of the Hillsong church. A special guest is Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, who offers strong views on Australia’s place in Asia and explains how Asia views our current debate over prisoners jailed for drug offences in foreign countries.  The spectre of a terrorist attack on Australian soil is the one issue many of our community leaders have been vocal about for some time. In this hypothetical, authorities and politicians are challenged about how they’d react if that attack ever occurred. Among the questions they faced were: How far would security forces go in getting information from a possible source? Would they resort to torture if time was running out and all other avenues were exhausted? How would they react if they had to make a choice about shooting to kill if a suspect couldn’t be stopped any other way? All hypothetical situations which, one day, may turn out to be very real.The skill with which Geoffrey Robertson presents these scenarios has been honed over the years. He has spent most of his professional life at the bar in Britain becoming a star litigator at the Old Bailey as well as a prosecutor in numerous war crimes trials in Europe and Africa. His barrister skills transform his hypotheticals from dry argument to lively role-playing as he encourages the sometimes reticent panellists to immerse themselves in his rapidly developing plots.  The climax of this hypothetical comes with the visit of the Pope to Australia in 2007. Security agencies have uncovered a plot to assassinate the leader of the Catholic Church by a Muslim fanatic, the Jihad Jackal. In the build-up to a motorcade from Kirribilli house to the Olympic stadium, the Prime Minister Kim Beazley is invited to ride with the Pope, and security has only a small amount of information to track down the assassin and prevent the attack. How they resolve this dilemma, extract information from an unwilling source and attempt to apprehend the assassin, challenge many aspects of our law as well as our social and political culture. These challenging dilemmas are the sort of random situations that our leaders may well be forced to confront in the future.Geoffrey Robertson’s Hypothetical is truly thought-provoking television. Click here for the transcript of this story. |
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