The Howard Years are over both the reality and the TV program which has rushed to give us some context through which we can view more than a decade of Australian life. Unfortunately, the complexity of that period means it is still difficult to understand the motivations that lay behind many of the actions of the government.
There is little doubt about what actually occurred during the years between 1996 and 2007; the pervasiveness of the electronic media and detailed paper trails have ensured that most things won't be hidden for long. Nevertheless, interpreting the motivations of the actors on the stage of our public life remains far more tendentious.
In a TV story, the power of interviews with the participants allows us to think that we've got a better idea of what actually happened, but sometimes that's not the case at all. An example of this occurred in July 2003, just after the fall of Baghdad but during a critical period in Iraq, at a time when the incipient insurgency was growing significantly. Quite suddenly, the prime minister announced we would be sending more than 2000 diggers and federal police to the Solomon Islands. Soon the mission would become known as RAMSI, the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands. ''This is a very important exercise in Australia being a good neighbour,'' the PM said. He didn't want things in ''our part of the world'' to deteriorate. ''This is our responsibility,'' Howard insisted, pointing out that it was in our interests to avoid failed states in this region. ''It would be a failure of our duty,'' he said, ''as a relatively large and prosperous, stable country in the region not to extend a helping hand to a neighbour who's asked for our help.''
The PM was quite right. Within days, the tottering Solomon's government was being propped up as our soldiers patrolled the violence-racked streets of the capital, Honiara. By August, troops had deployed onto the Weather Coast on the west of the main island of Guadalcanal; Harold Keke, the leader of the main group of militants, quickly surrendered and his men handed over their firearms. Although there was much work still to be done, a beginning had been made on rebuilding the administration on the islands and, even more significantly, the Royal Solomon Islands Police had been cleaned up. By that time 400 had been sacked, with another 64 placed under arrest.
No one could dispute that the actions of RAMSI initially directed by the current secretary of the Defence Department, Nick Warner had an immediately positive influence on the Solomons, as well as achieving a ripple effect throughout the Pacific. There's always been general agreement, from both sides of politics, that the intervention has proved to be a ''Good Thing''. But this is where a little bit of context can also prove useful in attempting to decode the original motivations of the participants in the drama.
On January 8 that year, Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer wrote a piece for the Australian newspaper. He insisted that ''sending in Australian troops to occupy [the] Solomon Islands would be folly in the extreme. It would be widely resented.'' Although admitting that the situation was ''troublesome'', he insisted the answer ''once one undertakes a sober examination of our national interests and our capacity'' was far from clear-cut. Downer opined that intervention ''would not work''. Instead, he asserted, ''we are doing as much as we reasonably can''.
Six months later, it seemed everything had changed. Launching a paper by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's Dr Ellie Wainwright, Downer said he would not rule out engagement on the islands. He referred to an earlier visit by the Solomon's PM, Kemakeza, who had been desperately appealing to Canberra for help. However, appeals like this had fallen on deaf ears for the past three years, so when Downer said he was ''examining options'' and ''we are not going to rush into this'', the prospects for immediately deploying forces did not appear great. Yet, just 12 days later, the Foreign Minister announced that the HMAS Manoora was already steaming off to the islands. The government was keen to ensure that Australians recognised it was taking action to stabilise our region.
That desire is easier to understand when you go back and consider what else was occurring at exactly the same time, particularly in regard to the recent war in Iraq. This was the point at which the invasion was beginning to cause political problems for the government. It had just been revealed in Washington that the claims that Iraq had been attempting to obtain uranium out of Africa were completely bogus. Significant questions were being raised about all the intelligence that had been used to justify the decision to invade Iraq, and a poll revealed that 36 per cent of Australians thought Howard had deliberately misled them. Another 31 per cent felt they had been unknowingly misled. The PM was being forced to duck questions about the treatment of David Hicks. Another question was beginning to be asked as well this was about the danger of Iraq descending into a prolonged guerrilla-style conflict.
This was also the time when the US wanted to ramp up the Australian troop commitment in the country, which was quickly turning into an inferno. The timing may be a simple coincidence, nevertheless it's important to note that our engagement in the Solomons which Downer insisted was not necessary that January had suddenly become a pressing need by July.
Simon Crean was the opposition leader at this time, and he'd been advocating the urgent deployment of a peacekeeping mission for months. He welcomed the multilateral mission, noting that, ''all 16 countries in the Pacific Forum have supported this''.
But, as Crean was well aware, the deployment had been rapidly slapped together. As soon as he found out about the mission, Crean contacted the other Pacific leaders to check their reactions. Most had no idea about the initiative. Some analysts believed it had the smell of a political fix, serving to distract attention from Iraq, rather than simply originating in a desire to do the right thing by our Pacific neighbours.
Nicholas Stuart is a Canberra writer.
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