WATCH: Albanese’s Unlikely Challenger

AU ELECTION: Running against Anthony Albanese in the Australian prime minister’s Sydney district on Saturday is the unlikely figure of a two-time, Oscar-nominated film director who’s mad as hell and can’t take it anymore.

David Bradbury is hardly new to politics. As a political science graduate he began his career as an ABC radio journalist and went on to become one of Australia’s most successful documentarians, winning many international film festival prizes, five Australian Film Industry awards and two Academy Award nominations for films that often take on difficult political issues.

CNLive! spoke to David Bradbury about his latest political challenge: raising his voice against a Uni-party he believes is taking Australia in the wrong direction, towards war and the impoverishment of its people.

Bradbury’s Oscar-nominated films are Frontline (1979), about the Vietnam war cinematographer and correspondent Neil Davis; and Chile: Hasta Cuando? (1985) about the Pinochet regime. His latest film, The Road to War is about Australia’s AUKUS military alliance with the United States and the United Kingdom, both in his view dangerous allies. 

Interviewer and Producer: Cathy Vogan. Time: 19m 10s.

TRANSCRIPT

This is Cathy Vogan for Consortium News, and I’m just entering the headquarters of David Bradbury, renowned Australian film maker who is running in the upcoming election next week in the seat of Grayndler [in Sydney] against Mr. Albanese. David, what brought you to run in this election? 

BRADBURY: I’ve got rocks in my head. That’s what brought me here, because I thought that it was going to be a tough battle, and I’ve never had any really serious delusions that I can actually beat the Prime Minister. But I want to make a dent in the popularity of his image, both nationally and here within Grayndler, because I’m disgusted by the two party system, both Albanese and the Labor and, Dutton, even more so, under the Libs and Nationals. 

You always knew what we got with the Tories, but with Albanese, it’s been a total sellout for the people that the Labor Party, with its proud traditions for over 150 years or so, stood up for and, I just know now that the two party system is moribund. It’s got to be replaced by vibrant independents, other parties, minority parties like the Greens, the Teals, and we can get democracy in Australia back on track. 

VOGAN: Oh, may I take a seat, David, so that I can talk to you about specifics? You made a great film just recently about AUKUS and the submarines. It was about a year and a half ago.Tell us about that aspect of your policy.

Well, I guess that’s what motivated me, Cathy, to decide to run, because I have a great fear, a great concern both as an anti-nuclear activist for over 50 years and as a result of my international reporting in war zones over the planet for the last 45 years. And I say very much, there’s a very real likelihood that Australia will be dragged into a nuclear war by the United States with China.

And, there are no winners at war any way. But if it’s a nuclear war, which it will most likely, pretty quickly turn into, then Australia is going to be the prime casualty for that. It makes sense from a realpolitik point of view, for China, or Russia, to send an inter-continental ballistic missile into Australia’s backyard, like Pine Gap, which is the second most important military strategic spy base in the world for the United States.

It has the advantage of taking it out and rendering it useless, so it can’t spy on what the Russians are doing and what the Chinese are doing, but it also means that it doesn’t automatically end up in mutual reciprocity and mutual destruction between the United States and China or Russia. But for us, it’s a total disaster. It means that the town of Alice Springs, just 27km away from Pine Gap, will be totally annihilated.

If the government were to send in nurses and doctors, paramedics and emergency operators, they would have to ask for volunteers because basically it’s like Chernobyl. It’s a death mission there to go into that. And depending upon what happens when the winds are blowing at the time that nuclear blast happened over Pine Gap, the winds would either blow it over eastward towards our major cities of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, or westwards over towards Perth and lesser populations.

But either way, the world and Australia will never be the same again, and I see that as a real distinct possibility. Push comes to shove between the United States and China that we will be dragged into that we’ve already got B2 nuclear loaded bombers in Tyndall, up in Northern Territory near Katherine. We’ve got B-52 bombers similarly armed, potentially with nuclear weapons, which did all the destruction 50 years ago during the Vietnam War.

We’ve got HMAS naval base in Perth, which is allowing nuclear US warships and submarines which are loaded up with missiles that can blow, one submarine can blow 24 cities off the map in something like about 19 minutes.

And aside from the nuclear submarines that we’ve hoping to get, that $368 billion represents $35 million a day of our taxes. That’s going 365 days a year for the next 30 years, which means that we won’t have the money for public hospitals, public health, public education and public housing, or even affordable housing.

We could have a standard of living equating to Scandinavian countries if we played it smart and didn’t put our taxes into the war weapons manufacturers in the United States and Great Britain, France, Germany and here in our own country. But we don’t. We have lame-brained politicians who basically are going with the people that fuel their campaigns every three years.

It costs a lot of money, as I can tell you, at the grassroots level, to be able to run a political party at election time, to guarantee that your side is going to get in. It costs you millions of dollars. And that means people paid workers. That means hundreds of thousands of dollars in television ads. I mean, $100,000 in propaganda printing materials and so on.

And that basically makes it a contest between Tweedledum Dutton or Tweedledee Albanese. And that’s what’s taken genuine democracy and genuine choice out of the parliamentary system. So that’s why I’m standing basically to say at 73 years of age, I can’t take it anymore. Yeah. And I’m hoping a lot of Australians will see that as well.

VOGAN: I understand, David, because you’ve been deeply involved in politics, as well as being a superb independent film maker that has been nominated for two Academy Awards. You know what you’re doing, but you’ve been deeply involved in the history of Australian politics and international politics for a long time. Could I move on? I saw you at a meeting at Glebe Town Hall about two weeks ago, and that was in relation to the Israel-Palestine issue. And we’ve just seen Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh back in the ICJ [International Court of Justice]. This wonderful Irish barrister spoke 12 hours ago about what’s happening in Palestine.

What would you do to help those people? And do you think that that’s a very important issue for Australians? 

BRADBURY: I was in the United States two days before Trump got elected in November last year, and I stayed until the inauguration, filming for that three months, three times a week, about the good Americans that were going out to protest against the bombing of Gaza.

I watched in disbelief as my fellow protesters and anti-war activists did, as Blinken and Biden gave approval after approval for container ship load after container ship load of 2,000 pound bombs, cluster bombs, ammunition, to basically shore up the IDF, the Israeli Defense Force.

And I watched with disbelief in going into the Congress, into the Senate building week after week, as these brave protesters went to see senators and congressmen and women to appeal to them, to stop the bombs flowing by the Biden administration.

And, they got nowhere at all because America is basically taken over by the weapons and the corporations, manufacturers and so on like that. 

VOGAN: And lobby groups. 

BRADBURY: And lobby groups, yeah. And the Israeli Zionist lobby in the United States, I couldn’t believe it. I knew it was strong. I know it’s strong here, but going into that seat of power where every fourth office that I went down with my camera, there was a flag for Israel, and there was a flag for the United States, stars and stripes.

And there was a big sign next to the office of the congressmen, woman or senator saying: “We stand with Israel”. And, you know that’s why there’s no hope for the poor Palestinians to getting anything out of the two party system, the Democrats or the Republicans. And it’s the same here with Labor and with the Liberals and Nationals.

Before, it never would. Tom Uren, a prisoner of war of Nagasaki when the bomb was dropped over Nagasaki; supposedly Albanese’s mentor and political godfather that taught him everything he knows. And Jim Cairns, who led the moratorium marchers at the time of the Vietnam War. Gough Whitlam himself… Albanese has a photograph of [former Prime Minister Gough [Whitlam, deposed by the Royal Palace and the C.I.A. in 1975] in his office. What does that mean to Albanese, that is funding basically a defense industry? 

There are so many companies in Australia that produce vital component parts for the Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter. That’s the fighter bomber that drops those 2,000 pound bombs on all those innocent people in Palestine, in the West Bank and Gaza and South Lebanon. And Australian companies, to the tune of over 70 companies, are providing those little important component parts that make the difference between whether bomb doors open or not, where the computers that [provide] radar and all that.

Albanese and [Defence Minister] Richard Marles and Paddy Conroy, the minister for defense supplies and industries, they could overnight stop that by saying a) We’re not going to give you any subsidies to produce them in Australia; b) we’re not because you’re complicit in war crimes by sending those component parts over to Lockheed Martin in the United States, to be able to send the F-35 bombers to the IDF.

VOGAN: So, yes. The Teals [Independents], some of the Teals and the Greens are really very concerned. But one of the problems in Australia is, like America, it’s not so easy to speak out about what’s going on in Gaza, and the West Bank as well. People are frightened. 

BRADBURY: And why do you think they’re frightened Cathy? Is it because of this Zionist lobby we saw come down in the last 12 months with these, you know, rabid Zionists? I call them rabid. They just target people. They use hate emails. But then when you turn around and say there’s something basically inhumane, something genocidal about what Netanyahu and the IDF is doing in Israel, they then throw the Holocaust, antisemitic card. I’m over that bullshit. You know, they’ve been playing that for so long while they’re doing the same things to the Palestinian people as Hitler and the SS Nazis did to the Jewish people.

And I’m ashamed of Mark Dreyfus, the attorney general who is the grandson of Holocaust victims from Poland that were put into the gas chambers, that he knows better, or should know better, but he’s lining up with his Zionist buddies, going and doing the job that Penny Wong should have been sent over as a foreign minister to do, because he’s Jewish and because he’s a sycophant to the Netanyahu regime.

VOGAN: Well, anti-Semitism wasn’t a problem in Australia before people saw what was going on in Gaza, I mean, really. Don’t you think, well first of all, that that’s been blown up quite a bit, and also that people have something genuine to complain about. 

BRADBURY: Yeah, I think it’s tragic that it’s taken the murder of over 50,000 innocent people [in Gaza] in order to be able to put it in perspective, and that started to creep through mainstream media.

Of course, even the ABC, with its so-called objectivity, with some exceptional reporting by John Lyons, doesn’t really give the full picture. We’ve never heard on our mainstream media that Palestine existed before the Second World War for centuries, and Jewish people lived in harmony next to their Palestinian neighbors. 

VOGAN: And Christians.

BRADBURY: And Christians as well. But suddenly in 1947, when England discovered it had a Jewish problem and it had a problem of the Jews, what do we do with them? They were displaced in Germany and Poland and in Russia and the Soviet Union, and in England. Quite frankly, at the time, Britain was quite racist towards Jews, and they saw them as being a problem politically and so on. So what did they do? They developed a thesis of bringing them over by ships and landing them into the Holy Land.

And they took over the Palestinian lands, their vineyards, their villages, they armed the Israeli militia who put up all of the young boys from the age of 11 against a village wall – teenagers, men, old men – and shot them. And those guns were supplied by the Brits with the support of America as well, to solve the Jewish problem. That’s where it’s come about.

And bit by bit, through the ’67 Six-Day War, Israel expanded its territory more, now to the point where the poor Palestinians are basically going to be shipped out to anywhere Netanyahu and Trump can send them, so that Trump can make beautiful real estate, beachside properties, and make a lot of money for his family, and Netanyahu as well.

And it’s it’s beyond a shame that the party of the little people, that the little Aussie battler that the Labor Party used to represent is not speaking out about that issue. Gough Whitlam, when he got into power, straightaway stopped our involvement with Vietnam, brought the troops back home. A wonderful movement of human wisdom and intellect. Why doesn’t Albanese follow on the steps of his so-called hero?

He won’t even listen to [former Prime Minister] Paul Keating’s advice that the subs are none of our business. They are lemons, and get out of it there, Albo. 

VOGAN: Yeah, well, [Israeli national security minister Itamar] Ben-Gvir is in the United States at the moment, and there’s been quite a lot of protesting from Code Pink, even inside the Capitol. But it seems like one side of politics in Australia would welcome Ben-Gvir, a convicted criminal, to Australia. Albo hasn’t said much about that, has he? What do you think?

BRADBURY: He’s in the position now that we saw how the Arab vote, the Muslim vote went, how it’s going, on Saturday. His mate, Minister Tony Burke, for instance, is fighting for his seat. And, Albanese is going to see a swing against him as well. He’ll get in, I’m pretty sure. He’s a smart operator, and although from his student days, up until two years ago he was a strong, solid supporter of Palestine, politically because of the lobby of the Zionists, within the legal sections, within the media, Murdoch and and so, he just plays it very quietly and tries to be a Tweedledee or Tweedledum in the middle ground. 

And that is a shame, because to be a leader of a great country like Australia Cathy, you have to lead. You have to have a vision of what is right and you take the people with you. You don’t listen to the rabid extremists on either side, the left or the right. You go where you know your heart and your conscience tells you. And Albanese hasn’t yet found the, ability, the grace, the courage basically. It takes it takes a lot of guts to to do that with this sort of opposition.

And that is the shame of it, because he will go down in history as being just another prime minister like Johnny Howard goes down in history. But not the great leader that he could be in standing up to the great Australian tradition, which is why we sent men and women off to the Second World War to fight Nazism, to fight extreme fascism.

And that’s what we should be doing, not sending in troops into Palestine, but certainly sending in peacemakers and nurses and paramedics and builders and, the ADF to drop supplies. I mean, what Netanyahu and what the IDF is doing is like… I can’t get words to it. I feel so… I’m moved to tears, like we all are by what’s happening, in our time.

VOGAN: There is a word.

BRADBURY: What is it?

VOGAN: It starts with g

BRADBURY: Genocide. Yes, that’s what it is. That’s what it is folks. It’s genocide. Until we the people tell our leaders it’s not on, not in our name, we don’t want this happening to other fellow human beings on the planet. Get those fascists out of there. That’s what’s going to take. And only that.

Your vote counts on Saturday. But it also counts for every 365 days in the year, between where you put your money, and where you put your vote, your attitudes, your super funds, and so on. Until we get to a point where we really make them squeeze and hurt, the big banks and all the big war manufacturers and so on, we’re going to have more and more of the same, and things are only going to get worse as the planet gets smaller and smaller, with its resources and its ability to give.

Resources that would take seven planets for us all to live at the lifestyle that we in the first world enjoy and take so much for granted. We’ve got climate change kicking in, we’ve got bushfires and floods, tornadoes all over the world. And what is Albanese and what is Dutton doing about that? Oh they’re saying, We’ll give you a $14 break at the petrol pump.Or we’ll give you maybe some tax relief this year. 

They should be turning the ADF (Australian Defence Force) into being like the SES, well-trained and abl to do that. That’s for starters. They should be saying stuff off to the fossil fuel companies. We have a responsibility to the young kids of this generation, the teenagers, young people in their 20s and babies who are being born now. Not in 50 years time, when they will be dead and gone.

People would be looking back and saying, what did Albanese do about climate change? What did Dutton do about climate change in their day? Sweet FA. And that’s what’s going down now, at the moment, folks, and our kids are going to pay the price for it. Not in 50 years time, not in 20 years time, in the next five years time and less than that, because it’s going off all over the planet. 

And that’s another major reason, as a father of five kids, I’ve come down to Sydney to stand against Albanese as a token voice in the wilderness to say, enough is enough. Albanese, please, please turn it around and do something decent before you die.