Russian Embassy Farce (II). Updated

The New Russian Embassy is still making headlines. The Australian – the broadsheet among the many other Murdoch tabloids – broke the news in exclusivity on Friday 23rd:

Presumably the day before – according to The Oz, remember that – its reporting team found a Russian diplomat on the Yarralumla block of land in dispute. (Was that man quietly enjoying the land – in the terms of the Federal Court’s decision – or squatting, as The Oz prefers? That’s for you to decide.)

The Australian Federal Police, the report added, is present at the site, but cannot arrest the man because everybody says he has diplomatic immunity.

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Aussie readers may not need it (I’d still advise them to read on), but those overseas will likely find a little background useful (more details). The federal Government unilaterally terminated a lease it had granted the Russian Federation over land for their new Embassy; their rationale was that the construction site was an eye sore. Unhappy with the termination, the Russians took their case to the Federal Court; they won. Instead of appealing the Court’s decision, the federal Government prepared a bill making of that plot of land an exception to all relevant Australian law. The Australian Parliament passed the bill into law in a matter of hours, likely establishing a record: apparently, no MP raised an eyebrow when facing the strange bill and even stranger circumstances of its parliamentary passage.

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With that in place, what else did The Oz said?

This is the only interaction it reports between its team and the man:

“Can I help you?” he asked in thickly accented English.

When asked to identify himself, the man shook his head and entered the shed, which was mounted with multiple CCTV cameras.

Call me fussy, but on that basis alone it seems a little risky to conclude that bloke was a Russian diplomat with diplomatic immunity. A Russian? Well, maybe. Maybe his accent was Russian beyond any doubt and The Oz reporters, expert linguists as they surely are, can tell.

Fine. But a diplomat?

Still, I can see how one can jump to the conclusion that he is a Russian and a diplomat.

Even less defensible, however, is the conclusion that he has diplomatic immunity: even if he is a Russian diplomat, not all diplomatic staff are entitled to it. For example, administrative and technical embassy staff generally are not protected by diplomatic immunity, according to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (article 37). Clearly, The Oz doesn’t require its reporters to know what they write about, before writing it.

Let me put my objection this way: the guy may indeed be a Russian diplomat entitled to diplomatic immunity, but based on what we know I wouldn’t bet my life. Of course, I wouldn’t dream of imposing my opinions on Aussie journos: ultimately to put a loaded gun to their heads is their prerogative.

But it gets worse. By late Friday afternoon, the often level-headed John Barron, one of the ABC’s The Drum’s hosts, was worrying about the possibility that the AFP will have to confront a spy: “He’s a GRU operative”.

Go figure.

I have to admit, though, that there is a reason to worry about a physical confrontation between James Bondsky and the AFP. You see, Simon Birmingham – a leading COALition voice and one of the few Liberal Party “moderates” surviving the 2022 mass extinction of his faction – is eagerly calling for that confrontation:

(source)

In exchange for indulging his party’s taste for brutality, Birmingham offers PM Anthony Albanese and Minister for Home Affairs Clare O’Neil their support and the credibility it affords (?!).

You may not believe it, but Labor pollies crave that, particularly in economic and foreign policies.

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So far, to their credit, Albanese and O’Neil have shown uncharacteristic good sense on this specific issue. Asked by the media Albanese played down the importance of this development:

A bloke standing in the cold on a blade of grass in Canberra is not a threat to our national security

Note, by the way, that Albanese did not use the “Russian diplomat” and “diplomatic immunity”. One may suppose that his media handlers might have advised him before fronting the media.

It remains to be seen, however, how long Albanese’s common sense will last.

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So, why did the building process take so long?

The Oz suggests one reason I hadn’t thought:

It’s understood Russia had sought to bring in its own contractors in over the years to work on the Yarralumla site but the Department of Home Affairs had denied them visas, believing they would include members of Russia’s Federal Security Service.

Now, one may ask oneself why wouldn’t Aussie contractors be good enough to build the new Russian Embassy?

Paranoia, I suppose, is inevitable in matters of national security and for all I know it may affect both Russian diplomats and Australian Home Affairs officers. Maybe both sides are paranoid.

Of course, just because you are is paranoid, it doesn’t mean that nobody wants to screw you:

It all began in 2004, when under the guise of an aid project to help renovate the Palace of Government in Dili [East Timor], spies from Australia’s foreign intelligence service ASIS snuck in and installed listening devices.

They were targeting East Timor’s prime minister at the time, Mari Alkatiri, and his negotiating team, who were in talks with the Australian government over a treaty dealing with oil and gas deposits in the Timor Sea.

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According to Matthew Doran, last Friday the Russian Government is seeking an injunction against the Australian Government, to stop it from taking back control of the Yarralumla site.

According to the media, Albanese seems confident his Government’s position is safe.

We’ll see. The High Court should pronounce itself on that matter today, Monday June 26th.


Update (27/06/23).

On Monday morning the High Court denied the Russian Federation’s application for an injunction against the federal Government.

The injunction was part of a substantive case against the unconstitutionality of the new law the federal Government rammed through Parliament earlier in the month. The dismissal of this request does not preclude the substantive case from being further considered. I suspect it’s likely, however, the Russians will drop the case, given comments by Justice Jayne Jagot.

Upon the announcement of the Court’s decision, the “Russian squatter” (not caretaker, or security guard, all terms that to me look appropriate, but squatter as Aussie Russophobes like) who had been staying on the plot of land quickly left – I believe even before PM Albanese urged him to leave – without any trouble. Much to the disappointment, I suppose, of Birmingham and many journos, there was no need for the AFP, worldwide famous for their peaceful ways, to “intervene”.

I think we may still regret the precedent this absurd law creates. People who should know better are being blinded by their Schadenfreude and irrational ill will towards anything Russian.