The recent post about Pine Gap was read with interest by Melbourne activist , journalist, publisher and former ALP politician , Pete Steedman . He recalled that when he was the editor of the Victorian ALP newspaper, Labor Star , he ran a piece in the l970s that stated there were 400 CIA agents at Pine Gap. A contact in America had sent him the Pine Gap information which had appeared in the Washington Post.
Even though the story had been run in the Washington Post, it had been banned by our "paranoid government", made the ,subject of a D Notice banning it from publication .
Steedman knew all about D notices . When he went to run a series on the living conditions of Aborigines in the Northern Territory, written by former Aboriginal welfare officer, Bill Jeffery, there was a threat of a D Notice being used to prevent the nation and the rest of world knowing what was going on .
On being elected to the House of Representatives as the ALP Member for Casey, Steedman asked a question about Pine Gap when the former US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, was a guest in the house in November l983 .
Kissinger had been warmly welcomed by some members, especially the Opposition Leader, Andrew Peacock , who beamed and slapped him on the back . A newspaper report said some ALP members were less receptive to Kissinger's visit because of the part he played in the Vietnam War , the conflict having caused “angst " within the party, and left the chamber .
(Kissinger, with the US President, Jerry Ford, of whom President Lyndon Baines Johnson had said could not think and fart at the same time, had slipped out from Djakarta a few days before the invasion of East Timor in l975, well knowing what was about to be unleashed on the tiny country seeking democracy . As a result, they were disliked by many in Australia and elsewhere. President Ford also granted a pardon to Richard Nixon for his part in the Watergate scandal .)
Not wearing a suit, his hairstyle once described as that of a werewolf, Steedman rose and said it had been reported in Britain the government had warned that protestors outside a nuclear missile base , where 500 women demonstrated, under the banner WOMEN FOR SURVIVAL , could be shot .
He asked Defence Minister , Gordon Scholes, if the Australian Government would contemplate such action against women protesting at the “American spy base” at Pine Gap, outside Alice Springs, where a party of protesters was now heading .
Minister Scholes denied such a place existed, saying it was a joint facility run under Australian laws .The Sydney Daily Telegraph provided a colourful account of the episode. It said Steedman, dressed in ” his usual elegance” of black leather jacket, jeans and high heel boots, had caused Kissinger’s jaw to sag . This “peacemonger” and a man with the ear of presidents and potentates, had also giggled gently .
Readers were informed Kissinger was reputed to earn $25,000 an hour on speaking engagement, so as he had been in the chamber for 23 minutes it was $9568 worth of very valuable time .
"We are still a nuclear target because of that facility (Pine Gap) of which we , the Australian people, have no control over," Steedman added .
