The Marmalade Files (18 page)

Randal Wade rose from his seat with his hands parted in a priestly gesture, a political holy roller fuelled by the heady octane of the crowd. These are my people, he thought. Never before had
Q&A
's live audience delivered a standing ovation and the young Greens leader felt an electric exhilaration as the love of the mob washed over him.

Wade was used to the adoration of the inner-city whingerati but tonight's response was extraordinary. But then so was his performance.

He was a regular on the
Q&A
panel and when the discussion turned to live animal exports, Wade knew he was on a winner. Even the beef farmers admitted the treatment of cattle in some Indonesian slaughterhouses was beyond the pale. But the shocking images of animal cruelty shown by
Four Corners
had traumatised city-dwellers already completely disconnected from their food sources.

A massive, well-coordinated cyber-cry had demanded an end to the trade and the weak Toohey Government had immediately capitulated, without thinking through what that meant for the diplomatic relationship with Indonesia and an industry that employed thousands in northern Australia.

The Greens had failed in a bid to have Parliament ban the trade for good and Wade had been discussing that when he received a question from an audience member.

‘I applaud your plan to end live cattle exports, because it is as evil as the slave trade,' she said. ‘But if exporting cattle to be butchered is wrong, why is it right here? Murder is murder. Isn't it time that we arrogant humans stopped treating other life forms as ours to exploit? Shouldn't we end animal cannibalism everywhere? And wouldn't that also cut greenhouse gas emissions?'

‘You make two very good points,' Wade began. ‘But we have to move a step at a time. Much of the rest of the community is not as enlightened as you and it will take years of careful and patient education before they see the truth in your words.

‘But you pose a great moral question for all of us. And I intend to show leadership by rising to the challenge. From tonight I will never again eat the flesh of animals. I intend to become a vegan because it's the right thing to do: right for us; right for our planet; and right for our brother and sister tellurians.'

The crowd began applauding wildly and cheering. The passion even took Wade by surprise. As the audience rose to its feet he rose with it.

‘We humans are guilty of terrible arrogance. We must change. We must de-industrialise and de-capitalise. We must start to right-
think and right-act. All animals are equal and none more equal than others. We have fought to end racism and sexism. The next great challenge is anthropocentrism. Ending the enslavement of non-human animals is the next great liberation. We humans are only a small part of Gaia.'

The crowd was delirious and Wade ended with a Biblical flourish, a subliminal tilt at the obvious religious ardour on display.

‘We must remember that we are no better than the dust that we walk on … Join me. Join me now as we fight to get all animals to the front of the bus.'

It was an astonishing performance and a brilliant piece of political theatre. But political theatre was Wade's stock in trade. He never bored himself worrying about how his sweeping statements would work, and what the unintended consequences might be. That was the beauty of being a minor party: power without responsibility. What mattered was saying things that sounded good, because many of the people who voted for Wade just wanted to feel good about themselves.

And Wade knew how to make people feel good. He had been a brilliant young advertising executive who rose to public prominence through regular appearances on the ABC's
The Gruen Transfer
. There he quickly cast himself as the moral voice of advertising, even though he had made millions by conjuring catchy campaigns for junk-food giants. He always appeared wearing a T-shirt with a three- or four-word nod to the latest moral fad obsessing the moneyed, aware elite.

He joined the Greens and managed to win the Sydney seat of Wentworth on the retirement of a popular small-l liberal.
Wade's genius was an instinctive understanding of the market. He knew commitment to the environment rose in direct proportion to wealth. He understood that the rich loved to parade their concern for the environment because their other worldly worries were so well catered for. And, being wealthy, they wanted solutions they could buy, preferably cheaply and with a government subsidy.

The people of Wentworth wore their environmentalism like a high-visibility vest by covering the roofs of their vast estates with solar panels and plastering their massive four-wheel drives with bumper stickers supporting whales, forests and koalas.

Even with double-glazing and a liberal smattering of eco-cars, the denizens of Wentworth still had the largest carbon footprints in the country because, mostly, they projected their environmental concern outwards. Ending global warming meant ending the jobs of poor forest workers in Tasmania, or coal miners in Mackay, or power-station workers in Yallourn, or steel workers at Port Kembla.

If anyone raised doubts about the justice of that, the good citizens of Wentworth would repeat the mantra that thousands of new ‘Green jobs' would arise miraculously as old industries were levelled. Trifles like how long the gap might be between the demise of a real dirty job and the emergence of a new clean one, or if the same people would get a job in the same place, did not concern them … because it wasn't their job.

Wade played Wentworth like a violin, championing the concerns of his constituents without demanding any real sacrifice from them. Better than that, he worked to ensure that the State and Federal governments supported feed-in tariffs for solar
power – a policy that rewarded the rich and forced up the price of electricity so it was effectively subsidised by the poor.

His rise did not end there. On his arrival in Canberra he swiftly positioned himself for leadership as the ageing hero of the Green cause stepped aside for a new generation.

But, as the applause of the crowd died in the ABC's Ultimo studio, he did wonder if he might have bitten off more than he could chew. Because in the passion of the moment he had made one small but significant slip … he had meant to say ‘vegetarian'.

And he was desperately trying to remember if vegans ate cheese.

Small waves danced on black volcanic sands as villagers fossicked for valuable stones rubbed smooth by time and tide. On a steaming Thursday, Harry Dunkley lugged a heavy overnight bag filled with clothes and his journalistic gear along a beach track, cursing his driver for the inconvenient drop-off.

Dunkley had done only preliminary research on Cucukan, a tiny village hidden away on Bali's east coast. He knew the local villagers numbered just 150, and eked out a modest living from fishing and small-scale farming. They also served the half-dozen expats who'd made this Balinese hideaway their home: two Americans, a retired Dutch lawyer, the odd blow-in from Britain – and Doug Turner, running from his past.

The Vietnam veteran had stumbled on Cucukan just over a year ago and had been captivated by its quaint nod to the past. He'd told Dunkley about the goose farmer who daily led his flock along dirt roads, the fishermen dragging in their nets of meagre
catch, the traditional dances performed by young girls in ornate costume. He had also given Dunkley instructions on how to find the village.

It was close to 10 a.m. and already the wretched tropical heat was festering like a wet blanket of sweat. Just as Turner had said, there were a half-dozen villas, too luxurious for their own good, nestled close to the beach, with sweeping views across to distant shores.

Third from the left, as you look from the ocean, Turner had said. Dunkley set out along the top fringe of the glistening sands, politely declining the attention of several hawkers. It was only a five-minute stroll to Turner's white-walled two-storey villa with a roof of heavy clay tile, but in this climate it felt longer.

Okay, Dunkley thought. Time for rock'n'roll. He was closing in on this yarn, he knew, but it was still proving elusive. Doug Turner was the key; whether he was still willing to play ball would be settled soon enough. Dunkley felt the tingle down his spine he always experienced when a story – a big story – was within reach.

A paved walkway veered through heady jasmine vines, past a small over-chlorinated swimming pool with recliners scattered around its edge. An outdoor table suggested a late breakfast – several dishes with the oily remains of food, a plunger of coffee and a bowl of tropical fruit cluttered its surface.

And standing in the doorway, dressed in a silk robe, with thinning hair and a whitish goatee, was Doug Turner. He gave Dunkley an impish grin.

‘Welcome to paradise, Harry Dunkley. Nice of you to drop in.'

It was dubbed ‘Gareth's Gazebo', a sneering doff of the hat to Gareth Evans, the former Foreign Minister who reputedly packed two suitcases for his first trip to Canberra: one for his clothes, another for his ego.

Just a stone's throw from Parliament House, the headquarters of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is officially known as the R.G. Casey Building. Its vast confines are home to more than a thousand of Canberra's most cunning bureaucrats – and some of Australia's best-kept secrets.

On the fourth-floor executive wing, where the Department's Secretary and his deputies have vast, palatial suites, is the Minister's office. Except very few Ministers have ever stepped inside it. Evans spent the occasional hour there between his tantrums on the hill, and Alexander Downer once poked his Tory nose inside. But otherwise it sits empty.

Nearby, in a small airtight room, lie hundreds of carefully bound and numbered files. The existence of this vast treasure of secret intelligence is known to only a handful of senior DFAT officers, along with the Foreign Minister of the day and his chief of staff.

These are the Marmalade Files.

Charles Dancer was one of the select few who knew about, and had access to, the files. After all, some of his best work had made its way into the archives. Now, with the bulk of DFAT's employees winding down after another crazy day of diplomacy and paper-shuffling, Dancer fondled the keypad that would allow him to enter the file room's secret confines. It was just after 6.30 p.m. and he had promised to update Ben Gordon later that night, over a quiet drink at the Realm. He did not want to disappoint.

He'd been in the room just a few weeks earlier, performing a specific research task delegated from the Secretary himself. That had been official business; this time he was working without the protection of the Secretary's authority. It was a calculated risk, one he considered worth taking.

A row of gleaming cabinets greeted him once he'd been approved by the special security screen, and within a minute he'd removed the file he wanted and placed it on a table to skim its contents. He planned to copy what was needed and then get the hell out.

‘Lord, Mr Paxton, you have been a busy boy …' He flicked through the rich history of a man who'd been tailed, spied on, tapped and surveilled – the very thought always sent a small chill down Dancer's spine.

His eyes fixed on a particularly juicy few pages, including several photographs that gave graphic meaning to the phrase ‘compromised'. Nine pages in total, to be copied and then placed back into the file. Everything neat and in perfect order. After all, that was the goal of foreign diplomacy, wasn't it? To maintain the mirage of stability, to avoid the appearance of confrontation, even when things were turning to shit.

Charles Dancer, with his decades of hands-on experience, wasn't about to meddle with the DFAT golden rule. Not now, especially.