Richard Farmer's Daily Email Briefing

Timely insights into politics every weekday.

FREE trial

ACCESS BACK ISSUES
HERE

NEWS AND VIEWS
Australia

Other Countries

More in Sorrow than in Anger

Friday, 29th April 2006
The Labor Party can not believe its luck. At last an issue turning really sour for the Government and there's no need to say a word.

Opposition Leader Kim Beazley and Defence spokesman Robert McClelland just put on their sad faces, express sympathy for the family of Jake Kovco and shake their heads sadly as they call for an end to mortuary outsourcing.

All the attacking is being done for them. The dead Private's mother Judy is asking the hard questions of Defence Minister Dr Brendan Nelson. Questions like: "My son is dead and there's a big cover-up. What the hell is happening here?"

Well Mrs Kovco might ask because if Dr Nelson now knows what is happening he is certainly not saying. Not that there's anything he can do, or could have done, about the botch-up of bringing the body home. Except kick some military and departmental backsides, express sincere regret to the family and promise that things like this will never happen again. And initially Dr Nelson was performing that role quite well.

It was venturing in to the actual cause of death that is doing him real damage. Labor's Beazley and McClelland are sounding just like a Minister as they responsibly urge people to await the result of the proper inquiries in to how Private Kovco actually came to be shot.

Not that Mr Beazley has missed the opportunity to concentrate attention on Dr Nelson's changes in story since last week when he said he died while cleaning his pistol. "There is a huge risk here of hurtful things being put about the place and false speculation just making the life of the family more of an agony", was how the Opposition Leader so nicely put it.

Dr Nelson's reputation started to suffer yesterday morning when he fuelled the speculation by telling a morning radio host that Private Kovco was not holding the weapon when he died but "fiddling" with other equipment and the gun - sitting on a table or bed - went off as a result. There was no explanation as to why the minister's story had changed but presumably it followed inquiries by the military police flown to Bagdad to investigate.

The huge risk now is that the public will end up disbelieving what the army finally decides to make known about the circumstances and that would certainly put Dr Nelson's leadership ambitions very much on hold. Pistols going off while not in anybody's hand provide wonderful material for conspiracy theorists.

Brigadier Elizabeth Cosson , CSC, currently serving with the Australian Defence Force as the Director General Regions and Bases within the area of corporate services has the unenviable task of preparing a report that satisfies the public without making her Minister look like a naïve dill for believing and repeating what he was originally told. Brigadier Cosson previously served as Chief of Staff of the Peace Monitoring Group in Bougainville in 1999 and was awarded the Conspicuous Service Cross in the Australia Day Honours in 2001.