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Canberra's doomsday plan
16/02/2005
By Paul Daley
The government is preparing top-secret plans to evacuate key politicians and advisers in the event of an attack on Canberra, Paul Daley reports.
The prime minister, his senior ministers, the governor-general and top public servants will be whisked off to a top-secret location, possibly a purpose-built underground bunker, so government can continue to function after a terror strike or nuclear attack on federal parliament.
Government and intelligence sources have told The Bulletin that Cabinet’s National Security Subcommittee, headed by Prime Minister John Howard, approved broad elements of the government post-doomsday blueprint in mid-2004 after a formative American model was put into action following al Qaeda’s September 11 strikes on Washington and New York.
Australia’s final "continuity of government" plan, which deals with the practicalities of moving the executive, is now being prepared by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in limited consultation with the states and territories and their emergency service providers.
Sources said Australia’s plan would be triggered in the event of a nuclear strike or terrorist attack on Parliament House or any other area – for example, federal offices in Sydney or Melbourne – from which the government’s executive was operating. It would also be enacted in the event of a strike which affected the availability of power, security and communications to the Cabinet.
One figure closely involved with the plan said that in the event of a major terrorist attack on Parliament House, uninjured senior ministers and advisers would be evacuated to their new, secret location from the parliamentary precinct, if possible by road, with the help of the Australian Capital Territory’s emergency services providers.
While the dead and injured would be taken to hospital, the formative plan did not provide for an evacuation of the backbench or opposition to an alternative, secure parliament, sources said. This implies the executive would effectively work, unimpeded, without opposition.
"It is, effectively, a plan that takes into account the worst-case scenario of a terrorist or, less likely, a nuclear attack on parliament when the House and Senate are sitting," a source involved in the plan said.
"What happens, for example, if there is a terrorist attack at the joint sitting at the opening of parliament and the governor-general and the prime minister and a host of senior ministers are incapacitated? Where does the country run from if the seat of the executive is badly damaged?"
The plan’s existence was confirmed by the prime minister on Wednesday when he tabled answers to a series of questions on notice asked last year by a Labor backbencher, Daryl Melham.
He asked Howard:
• To confirm the government’s "continuity of government plans to minimise the impact of a terrorist attack or other emergency on the executive government".
• What resources have been allocated to "the development or enhancement of facilities outside Canberra which would allow the governor-general or an administrator of the Commonwealth, the prime minister and other ministers and key public servants to carry out government decision-making".
• Whether the government had considered the potential for "mass vacancies in the parliament of large numbers of incapacitated members or senators leaving the parliament unable to function for many months thus leaving a vacuum in constitutional legislative authority".
• To give an assurance that any plans also included the protection and relocation of MPs as well as senior ministers and important public servants.
Howard responded: "I can confirm that the government has continuity of government plans. These plans aim to minimise the impact of national security emergency on critical government operations and provide for the rapid resumption of 'near normal' government business under alternate arrangements until normal operations can be resumed."
Sources told The Bulletin that a range of possible sites close to – but outside – the ACT had been considered, including a purpose-built deep underground bunker, such as that below the White House to which US Vice-President Dick Cheney and senior members of the Bush administration fled after the September 11 attacks.
The Bulletin understands that one possible location for the post-doomsday executive is a secure, possibly underground, facility at the Australian military’s Headquarters Joint Operations facility which is due to open at Bungendore, about 35km outside Canberra, in 2008.
Other interim sites in country NSW are also being considered to cater for the possibility of an attack before 2008.
Howard’s answers do not rule out the possibility of a purpose-built facility. But, he says, "wherever practicable, the plan relies on the use of existing facilities, resources and protocols … but in some instances, modest additional resources may be required to develop or enhance facilities outside Canberra which would allow the governor-general or an administrator of the Commonwealth, the prime minister and other ministers and key public servants to carry out government decision-making and communicate with the Australian public in the aftermath of a large-scale attack on the Commonwealth parliament."
Howard said that arrangements for parliament’s continued operation "should there be a catastrophic event resulting in mass vacancies or incapacity of members, are an important part of recovery plans".
He said the parliamentary departments would be responsible for maintaining the continuity of parliamentary business "including planning for significant vacancies".
He also pointed out new measures were underway to significantly increase security at Parliament House.
Melham also asked Howard if, in accordance with the Constitution and the governor-general’s letters patent, anyone had been appointed to serve as the governor-general’s deputy.
In a worst-case scenario where the governor-general and the prime minister were incapacitated, the letters patent makes it clear that dormant commissions given to several state governors would be activated by the most senior remaining cabinet minister.
Howard confirmed that on August 21, 2003, the government had appointed the respective governors of NSW and Victoria, Marie Bashir and John Landy, to be the governor-general’s deputies.
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