Serious flaws in Silverstone's (on left) secret submission to "Children Overboard" Inquiry.
The Desert Rat knows from the Senate inquiry into the infamous "Children Overboard" fiasco that Brigadier Mike Silverstone made a written submision to the inquiry or tabled written notes of his activities.
We can presume that Silverstone made a request to the Senate Committee to keep the submission or notes secret, because the submission or tabled papers does not appear on the list of public submissions to the Inquiry or tabled papers. Under Senate practice, all submissions and tabled documents are public and listed, except where the person making the submission has asked, and the Committee agreed, to keep it secret.
What we know from material tabled to the inquiry revealed, is that Brigadier Silverstone claimed he had scribbled the word "child" into the notes after the call from Commander Banks. The word "child" replaced "men thrown over side". Silverstone never rang back to Commodore Banks to check that crucial change in the notes of his conversation with Commodore Banks. "Child" we known later blossomed into "children".
We also know that some three or four days later, Silverstone added to his record of the phone conversation to Commodore Banks, a notation of the supposed time of the call (7.20am Darwin time).
The time of this call is in dispute, and importantly, Silverstone's evidence was not challenged on this issue.
This alleged time added days later is important, because the time zone of the HMAS Adeliade was 2 hour and 30 minutes behind Darwin time, that is at 4.50 am.
The HMAS Adelaide logs record the first man overboard after first light at 5.06am followed by further man overboards between 5.43am and 5.56 am - an hour later. This latter time interval was when the fictitious "child overboard" incident supposedly occurred - a whole hour after the time of 7.20am that Silverstone added to his notes.
According to the Senate report transcript page 41:
3.54 According to Brigadier Silverstone, he spoke with Commander Banks at 7.20am Darwin ('India-Kilo') time on 7 October 2001. The time difference between Darwin and the Adelaide was then two and half hours, meaning that, on Brigadier Silverstone's account, the time on the Adelaide ('Golf" time) would have been 4.50am.
It doesn't add-up in the Desert Rat's calculations and it's strange it wasn't challenged by the Labor Senators on the Committee.
In fact, it was dark at 4.50am where the Adelaide was positioned 100 nautical miles north of Christmas Island; due south of Djakarta - some 2800km west of Darwin.
No-one jumps overboard in the dark!
The ALP Senators on the Committee seemed to be preoccupied with nailing the Howard Government and its Ministers - nailing military or naval small fry was a distraction and not politically in their interests - blame needed to be pinned on the Howard Government.
The time of the call was not confirmed by Brigadier Silverstone with Commodore Banks and it was some four week after the incident before Banks was even contacted!
The Desert Rat can not find any record of Silverstone contacting Banks within the following month to clear up the confusion. The rabbit was off and running.
How much did this one phone call fiasco cost Australia and its taxpayers? It all revolved around a disputed conversation between Silverstone and Banks - a conversation that Silverstone version has been proved didn't happen. Did Commander Banks tell a lie or did he get it bizarrely wrong or did Silverstone tell a lie or get it bizarrely wrong?
The political benefit and destruction was all at Silverstone's end of the conversation and should have been confirmed by him in writing immediately - which it wasn't.
Brigadier Mike Silverstone has now retired to the invisible job as the Executive Director of the Corruption and Crime Commission in Western Australia.
