The Dreyfus Affair was a tragic miscarriage of justice during the early years of the French Third Republic. Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a French army officer of Jewish background, was unjustly accused of espionage charges. Motivated by anti-semitism, his principal accusers in the military and the government were blind to evidence pointing conclusively to another officer, who had deep motives to accept bribes from Germany, being financially comprised.

Captain Dreyfus was eventually fully exonerated, after a decade, but not before he had spent several years as a prisoner on Devil’s Island, which ruined his health.

Many of those who sought justice for him were themselves falsely accused, such was the political climate of the time.

This week, we have our own Dreyfus Affair playing out in the courts here in Australia. Army lawyer David McBride is facing serious charges relating to leaking sensitive information to the ABC. Whilst this is not espionage, it is a serious breach of his duties as a member of the defence forces.

The tragic irony of this particular case is that the information McBride leaked to journalists relates to the evidence that there were war crimes allegedly committed by Australian Defence personnel in Afghanistan. Motivated by his conscience, and probably by a reasonably formed opinion that if he were to remain silent, rather than to become a public whistle blower, these alleged war crimes would never see the light of day and the alleged perpetrators would never face justice.

Instead, this week, it is Mr McBride who is facing justice in court.

Legally, I expect that the prosecution case is a strong one – open and shut. Mr McBride has leaked that information in violation of his responsibilities – this is factual and uncontested.

Morally, the matter is obviously more problematic. His defence have argued the laudable, but possibly quixotic, defence argument that he had a duty above that of his oath and the relevant secrecy legislation, to follow his conscience in this matter. This is similar to the arguments of the prosecutors at Nuremberg, that following immoral orders to commit immoral acts was not a defence against the charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity levelled at the Nazis.

The court of appeal has thrown out this defence argument today, and I expect that legally, this is the soundest decision. Courts and judges do need to follow the law in the administration of justice, rather than to make up rules on whim.

As a consequence, it appears according to the news today, that McBride may change his plea to guilty, given that his defence was based on a moral dilemma which has been disallowed.

But the issue which concerns me, and which should concern all Australian citizens, is not what the courts should determine in this matter. I have full confidence that the courts will deliver justice according to what the law stipulates, much as this will have tragic implications for Mr McBride.

The issue that concerns me is why the decision has been made to prosecute Mr McBride with the full force of the law in this matter, one where he despairingly sought to act in what he felt was in the public interest, where significance malfeasance (to put it mildly) was apparent but not being appropriately addressed by the authorities.

Yes, he had access to very sensitive and restricted information, which he had no legal right to reveal. Having the noblest of motives to reveal this in violation of his normal obligations does not diminish the legal liability, but it should mitigate it, and should have guided the hands of those who made the decision to prosecute him.

Instead, we have had a rare show of bipartisanship on the part of our Federal Attorney Generals. It was under the watchful gaze of Christian Porter, one of the least admirable of recent federal ministers, that these charges were laid in September 2018. It is now under current Attorney General, Mark Dreyfus KC, that the charges are proceeding to trial.

I am not alone in my concerns about this matter. Better informed people than myself have articulated their thoughts on this and another ongoing prosecution of a whistleblower:

https://www.hrlc.org.au/whistleblowers-on-trial-richard-boyle-and-david-mcbride?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Media%20Release%20Prosecution%20of%20war%20crimes%20whistleblower%20David%20McBride%20must%20be%20dropped&utm_content=Media%20Release%20Prosecution%20of%20war%20crimes%20whistleblower%20David%20McBride%20must%20be%20dropped+Preview+CID_fb6c1218011867e2e7d1ec109900f63a&utm_source=Email%20campaign&utm_term=detailing%20the%20prosecutions%20of%20David%20McBride%20and%20Richard%20Boyle

I feel that the motives for the continuation of this trial is more a matter of protecting the legal sources of government power, which is supported by both sides of politics, given that they wield that power, rather than questioning the morality as to how, why and when that power is wielded by its agents.

The legal matter will result in the punishment of McBride by the law courts. The moral matter is one that we all need to consider ourselves, as the court of public opinion.

The irony and injustice inherent in Mr McBride being the sole person to face a criminal trial so far in relation to the war crimes allegations he revealed does give great reason to question the morality of our elected officials, who are prepared to hide behind the black letter of the law rather than to explore their consciences for a more holistic form of justice.

I hope that fairness prevails, and that Attorney General Dreyfus relents in this matter, and extends mercy to one who sought to expose the mercilessness of others.

Whistleblower Justice Fund
— Read on www.droptheprosecutions.org.au/

Whilst I was travelling through Italy recently and scrolling through Facebook for the first time ever (the novelty has worn off), I found many ads promoting such investments as buying wine futures or whiskey kegs.

As I do like wine and whiskey, although not necessarily for investment, I did have a close look at those. As a result, I am pondering whether, for the sheer fun of it, to buy a whiskey keg or a carefully curated collection of fine wines as an investment.

My motives for owning 1000 shares in Treasury Wine Estates are rather similar. I like wine sufficiently that I have always been fond of the idea of owning shares in a wine company. In the distant past, I owned shares in the now long gone Fosters Group, Southcorp, and BRL Hardy at various times. More recently, I owned shares in Australian Vintage Group until they announced that they were not going to be paying a dividend this year, so I sold them and put the cash towards my holiday in Italy.

The announcement on Halloween that TWE is going to buy the American Daou Vineyards for $US 1 billion, mostly though a capital raising, piqued my interest as a shareholder.

I think I vaguely recall the Board hinting at the AGM at the imminent purchase when they said something about being interested in buying significant businesses which would complement the existing wine portfolio.

For me, the immediate impact is that I have the renounceable rights to buy 106 additional shares in TWE at a price (if I recall from the announcement) of $10.83 each. This represents a discount of about a dollar on where the share price is right now.

So… do I want to dig up the $1150 to buy those extra TWE shares?

I have decided NO, for several reasons.

First is that my motive for owning TWE shares is because I simply like owning a small part of a large winemaking business, particularly as it enables me to attend and enjoy the Annual General Meeting (all Bin 28 for me thanks, none of that midstrength Pepperjack!). I do not really see TWE as a core part of my share portfolio – the yield is relatively low and there is not that much diversity or growth compared to one of the LICs or ETFs I own, or to Washington Soul H Pattison (ie my main shareholding).

Second is that adding 106 shares spoils the symmetry of my share portfolio and makes my record keeping for possible sale at some point in the future a little messier. I outgrew dividend reinvestment schemes well over a decade ago (I have invested in the share market for about 27 years), and similarly am not so keen on share entitlement offers.

Third is that I can keep my $1150 for when I need it for some other investment. My Italy trip, my retirement party, and my replacement of my hot water service 6 months ago, all have put a bit of a hole in my bank balance, causing any further investments to be delayed for a while. I am much keener on either topping up one or other of my other share holdings, or to buy something entirely new.

And the fourth reason is that the renounceable rights issue could, depending on the share price during this period, result in a small premium being returned to me – money which I can then put aside for either more investment, or for my next big holiday (and no, I am not returning to Italy for at least another 3 years).

The Commonwealth Police, predecessor to the current Australian Federal Police, had an almost ridiculous raison d’être for coming into existence. It was during the First World War, and the then Prime Minister, William Morris Hughes, was speaking to a crowd in Queensland, in the presence of the premier, who was not an ally. Someone threw eggs at Hughes, who indignantly demanded that the accompanying members of the Queensland constabulary arrest the miscreant. His words carried no authority with these servants of the Queensland government and he was ignored.

Hence a police force was created under federal jurisdiction to prevent future such assaults on the dignity of the Prime Minister.

WM Hughes is probably the most polarising figure in Australian history. Originally a product of the Labor Party, he split with them during the war over the issue of conscription, one where he was vehemently in favour, but the Irish Catholics who made up much of the rank and file vehemently opposed, becoming the earliest significant ‘rat’ in Labor Party demonology (although not quite the first). Still now the fifth longest serving prime minister, Hughes, over the next three and a half decades, continued to straddle Australian politics like a bucking bronco, serving in various governments and parties, and getting thrown out of more than one cabinet.

We have had other polarising figures, although I think that the closest we have come to Hughes in his prime was the toxic mid 1970s rivalry between Whitlam and Fraser, which pushed the conventions of our parliamentary system close to breaking point.

Despite that, we are lucky in that we have not had any real political violence. The murder of NSW MP John Newman in 1992 was more a matter of personal rivalries than political malice, and not, as some journalists claimed at the time, the first political assassination. Unsuccessful Liberal candidate Donald McKay was murdered in 1977 not because of his contribution to unseating extremely corrupt Labor MP (and closet mafia stooge) Al Grassby, but because he had been vocal in calling out Grassby’s mafia paymasters and corrupt local police for the blatant cultivation of marijuana crops around Griffith.

The closest to an actual assassination was the attempt on the life of then opposition leader Arthur Caldwell in the 1960s by Peter Kocan. But Kocan was not politically motivated – he was merely a mentally disturbed person who wished to make a name for himself. Apparently he now writes poetry, after been a guest of our mental health system for many years.

Whilst I was in Italy, there was an article in The Age which claimed that civil political dialogue had degenerated in recent years. It cited the incident where the NT Chief Minister was subjected to an assault where she was pied, and the suggestion by occasional boxer Anthony Mundine that a Yes campaigner step into the boxing ring with him to sort out their disagreements:

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/fyles-attack-and-mundine-threat-suggest-australians-have-lost-the-ability-to-disagree-20230926-p5e7td.html?btis=

I very much disagree with the premise in that article. The instances I have mentioned above from Australian history, going back over a century, are probably the most vicious which have occurred during the 122 years since Federation. We have for the most part gotten along fine for a very long time.

If professional boxer Mr Mundine suggests someone get into the ring with him, in a distorted form of trial by combat (a medieval, arguably Arthurian, manner of settling political or legal questions), this is still more civil than the way that the NSW Labor- Right faction machine would sort out its differences in the 1970s and 80s, where it would surreptitiously break the bones of its internal rivals from the Left faction.

Then we have the quaint and Homer Simpsonesque practice of putting a pie in the face of a political figure. It is now over 20 years since the rather eccentric Marcus Brumer (with whom I was vaguely acquainted in his pre-pieman days and whom I consider to be a good bloke) got into trouble for putting pies into the faces of various politicians. Better pies than bullets, given what we see in much of the rest of the world.

The Age article does talk a bit about how social media is partly to blame for a reduction in civility. They do have a point there. In the two months since I joined Facebook, I have noticed that there are some semi-literate trolls who choose to throw abuse instead of reasoned debate and make ad hominem (they won’t understand that term) from the comfort of their keyboards. But then, the average IQ is 100, which means that perhaps half the population have less than the average IQ, but are still close enough to be able to use a phone, read the sports pages of the Herald Sun and count up to 21 in the shower. There is nothing new there.

I believe that we are very lucky in Australia, and that political dialogue remains as civil as it ever has, regardless of the timeless tendency of those who claim moral authority to try and shut up those with whom they disagree.

‘Do you think that the faith has conquered the world, and that lions no longer need keepers?’ – TS Eliot

It’s Halloween again, and we go further and further down the rabbit hole of trick-or-treating, costumes, decorating the front garden, and boozy halloween parties attended by women in sexy witch costumes (or at least I hope so – I have never been to a halloween party yet).

Normally, I would be writing about how I have been worn out by the steady hype into accepting that Halloween is now an established part of Australian culture, a graft of Americanism that we have now adopted for our own. I will of course be leaving a bowl of lollies at the front gate.

But the world seems a little more serious this year than it has for a while, particularly during the cocoon of the pandemic where we could all just slumber in complacence.

Many will be dressing up as make believe monsters – ghosts, ghouls, vampires, public transport ticket inspectors…. It probably is time for us to reflect on who the real monsters are.

As I once read in a meme published on the long since defunct Google+, the Scooby Doo Show has taught us that the only real monsters are human, and so it is this year.

The Ukraine war is mostly off the front pages as it is last year’s news and no longer interesting, even though it is still ongoing. The only reason not to celebrate if Putin were to die is that he is, compared to many of his entourage and potential successors, quite moderate in his language and his measures. He is highly unlikely to go nuclear.

The latest Israel related conflict is the most serious since 1973, when I was far too young to notice what was going on beyond the songs we sang in my kindergarten class (I still do not quite get the significance of ‘Pop Goes The Weasel’ – does it explode?).

Whilst I am cautiously pro-Israel in my position, I cannot but feel that bombing targets rich in civilians is only going to play into the hands of the monsters in Hamas. After all, people who have lost their entire families will have lost everything to live for except revenge, and will prove a fertile recruitment ground for Hamas.

Hence we will now have at least one more generation before there can be any hope for peace in what our ancestors once called Outremer.

As Nietzsche warned us:

‘Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.’

And all the while, Xi continues to discreetly take Communist China forward with its aggressive expansionist agenda, currently aimed at the Phillipines.

To say nothing of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Yemen, the untold (by the mainstream media) conflicts in sub-Sahara Africa, and the perpetual tragedies that are places like Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Halloween is cute, sure, and dressing up like pretend monsters is fun (more sexy witches please), but we have some real monsters who look much like ourselves to worry about.

I am not really into superhero movies. The only superhero I like is the Phantom, and his only superpower are his moral certainty and his mystique (ie Ghost Who Walks, Man Who Can Never Die).

[I will of course make an exception for Wonder Woman. And Black Widow. And Alison Brie as Captain Marvel.]

Hence I did not see that Superfriends movie which came out a few years ago, where, when Aquaman or some such asks Ben Affleck’s Batman what his superpower is, he replies “I’m rich”.

In the context of witty repartee in a film which is not expected to take itself seriously, this line works quite well.

But when the media has been reporting on the interactions between billionaire Anthony Pratt and various world figures, including Donald Trump, and Mr Pratt is quoted as saying “Being rich is my superpower”, it does not really work. He comes across as both somewhat insecure and crass.

And where someone like Donald Trump then, totally without irony, describes him as a ‘red haired weirdo’, it does descend almost into the surreal.

Longer term readers of my blog (ie those netizens paid by the Peoples Republic of China to keep an eye on online critics) will know my definition of crassness.

From my first trip to Italy, I determined that Crassness is when rich people behave badly (eg Rome is crass), Crudity is poor people behaving badly (eg Naples is crude), Magnificence is when rich people behave well (eg Venice is magnificent), and Elegance is when poor people behave well (eg Livorno is elegant, albeit extremely boring).

Being boastful about one’s inherited wealth and the doors that it will open and the influence that it will buy is not a very becoming look. It appears quite crass.

And to return to the general theme of superheroes, we have learned from Spiderman’s late uncle that ‘With great power comes great responsibility’.

Perhaps Mr Pratt should keep that in mind.

My father was my more adventurous parent. At 17, he rode his bicycle from Treviso to Turin to go and live with his eldest brother and look for work. In the eleven intervening years before he boarded a Fokker Friendship for a long haul flight to Australia, he worked as a coal miner in Switzerland and Belgium.

After getting to Australia, he never again either got on a plane or went further from home than Bacchus Marsh.

My mother, whilst not adventurous, did, on the northern edge of 19 years of age, get on a migrant ship at Messina and spend a month sailing to Australia. There were several burials at sea, and there were a few hours on terra firma at Fremantle, before she was reunited with her brother at Station Pier.

The only time she ever left Melbourne was many years later when I paid for her to have an Ansett Mystery Flight to Sydney – the only time she ever got on a plane.

This all goes much of the way to explain my own hard wired views on travel, which have taken me many years to overwrite. Namely, that travel is not a luxury but only undertaken as a necessity. If you need to travel to put bread on the table, or to get the opportunities to put a roof over your head, then you do it. But travel as a matter of recreation is something which was alien to my parents and their generation, even to the extent of making the difficult decision to never see the close kin they left behind again.

In my own case, I never left Melbourne or got on a plane before the age of 20, and never got a passport before the age of 32. Acquaintances at university who made sweeping comments like ‘you need travel for a full education’ had me looking askance at them in bemusement. And I was 47 before I rather apprehensively boarded a flight to Italy for the very first time.

I am now finally over my jet lag from my third and most recent trip to Italy, and mostly caught up with friends and reacquainted myself with Melbourne, the city I love most.

Which means it is time to deal with all sorts of minor issues, like mail which accumulated whilst I was gone, and to finalise my tax return.

And to decide what to do with the 14700 frequent flyer points I accumulated with Singapore Airlines from my trip.

Let me start by saying that I have little truck with frequent flyer programs. I used to be a rather keen collector of such points when Ansett existed. They paid for a trip to Perth for a holiday, and for two return flights to Melbourne when I spent most of 1999 working in Canberra.

But between May 1999 when I redeemed my last flight and September 2001 when Ansett collapsed in a heap, I accumulated 58,000 frequent flyer points in my personal account, almost entirely from the overzealous use of a Diners Club card (1.25 points per dollar spent). I had a very busy two years at work, where I was travelling extremely regularly as part of my job (hence a work account with 46,000 points which I could not touch), and had no time or inclination to take a holiday and redeem those points for free flights.

So when Ansett went under, those 58,000 points went down the gurgler! OUCH!

Since that time, I have lost the desire to accumulate any sort of loyalty points. I redeem my bank credit card points whenever I get $10 worth of value (as cash back on my account balance), and I regularly order Coles gift cards from Flybuys (I have noticed that Flybuys no longer offer wine deliveries as an option for points redemption).

I once, after I returned from my first trip to Italy, swapped some Flybuys points into Virgin Velocity points (along with whatever handful of points I had been able to get from Virgin’s partner, Etihad) in the vain hope of getting an interstate flight. Big mistake. My browser did not support redeeming points for flights from Virgin (although it did support redeeming as gift cards strangely enough), and the booking fees for the supposedly free flights were a huge turn off.

I took that as a timely reminder that frequent flyer programs are not worth the trouble, so I have successfully resisted the urge to chase points accumulation since then.

Indeed, when travelling to Italy in 2019, I did not even try to claim any Qantas points from my Emirates flight – assuming that this even is possible (Virgin were inconsistent about my Etihad flight and gave me partial points for reasons too obtuse for me to bother trying to understand).

This time, given that I am now more or less retired, I decided to register with Singapore Airlines’ frequent flyer program. After all, I might travel internationally more often than once every 3 or 4 years in future.

Which led me to accumulate 14700 points for my recent adventure.

This left me with a first world problem which needed solving – what to do with these points?

Those points are too few for an international flight, and I cannot redeem them, as far as I know, for a domestic flight.

Nor am I inclined to bank them in the event that I travel again in the near future, or to try and chase building a large points balance. The experience with Ansett and those 58,000 points has soured me on that idea.

So spending the points on something other than travel sounded like a jolly good idea. The problem is that merchandise ordered from the frequent flyer program shop cannot get delivered except to a Singapore address.

But I am not about to let that stop me. I want to use those points up now, rather than let them expire sometime in the next few years.

As it turns out, I do have a very old school friend who has lived in Singapore for the past decade. A bottle of 12 year old Jura Scotch is now making its way to his home and I wish him all the joy it will bring!

Still very jet lagged last Monday, my first public appearance after visiting my elderly mother was to attend the Treasury Wine Estate AGM with one of my close friends and fellow shareholder.

I don’t usually make a point of attending AGMs but now that I am retired this will change.

Back in the good old days when Fosters Group was still ASX listed, I used to take a day off work to attend that AGM because it had the best refreshments post meeting – a lot of wine and beer and canapés.

Luckily I never had to call in sick with hangover the following day, although I got the full value of my attendance in red wine.

Treasury seem to be continuing the fine tradition of rewarding those shareholders who show up by offering a generous soirée after the AGM concludes.

Whilst the chairman was talking up the merits of the mid strength Pepperjack red on offer, I made an immediate and informed beeline for the Penfolds Bin 28, which retails at twice the price. After all, when do you get to drink your fill of a $50 bottle for free?

Next year, I won’t be jet lagged and I will make sure with my hollow legs that I benefit even more from attending the AGM.

During my recent trip to Italy I met one of my first cousins for the first time and he illuminated me on some aspects of our family history.

I always vaguely knew that we were remotely related to nobility on my maternal grandmother’s side. But I always thought it was quite far back.

As it transpires, it’s not that far back – my great great grandfather was elevated to the rank of Count, with that branch of my ancestry having held a baronial title since the 12th century.

No, there will not be any lands or title coming to me, and No, I am not going to stop describing myself as a Narrow Minded Italian Catholic Conservative Peasant From Footscray.

www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-15/israel-gaza-war-hunt-for-hamas-commanders/102961912

I was not aware that the Qatari government harbours senior leaders of Hamas.

That it does so is cause for sanctions.

And yet another reason to banish their airline from Australian skies.