Phoney war against organised crime

Australia’s spooks and cops can bug the Indonesian president, his wife and Cabinet ministers but not the phones of criminal gangs in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.
Why? Liberal and Labor Governments will bend over backwards to supply Washington with intelligence. But protecting metropolitan neighbourhoods from drug trafficking, street shoot-outs, money-laundering and major tax evasion – that’s not at the top of Canberra’s agenda.
It’s all a question of priorities: serving US imperialism comes first; protecting working communities from violent crime gangs is secondary.
The Commonwealth and NSW cops last week came up with the novel idea of using the Federal Police and the Tax Office to combat organised crime.
What about AUSTRAC, the organisation set up to maintain surveillance on the offshore movement of funds? Why hasn’t it been thrown into the war against bikie gangs and the global drug cartels that organise the billion-dollar heroin, cocaine and amphetamine trade?
The banks and their wealthy clients would object, that’s why.
What we’re seeing at the moment is PR by the Federal and State Governments. They are anxious to calm the electorate by appearing to “do something”.
When they start arresting the “Mr Bigs” of the drugs trade – the major financiers, importers and distributors – I’ll take it seriously. Meanwhile, it’s all political grandstanding and shallow media hype.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *