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TRANSCRIPT:
In 2005, the year began on a sombre tone with tragedy ...
“Nations around Southeast Asia and Indian Ocean are still coming to grips with the enormous scale of yesterday's disastrous earthquake and tsunamis across the region."
... setting a sombre tone for the start of the year.
The pages of 200 previously sealed cabinet documents reveal the Prime Minister John Howard offered a show of support from Australia that included a one billion-dollar frontline boost, and doubling Australia's aid to Indonesia.
"We will stay as long as we are needed."
Back home, there were alerts of a bird flu pandemic and evidence of a World Health Organisation warning that it is more likely that: "a pandemic could occur".
The papers also reveal that warning prompted pressure for preparedness.
Then-Health Minister Tony Abbott's advice was ominous, highlighting the importance of contact tracing, quarantine facilities, and surveillance - 15 years before COVID-19.
Stocking up on antiviral medication was part of a "seek and contain" strategy eventually accepted by the cabinet.
But the cabinet submission noted a virus might not be contained before a vaccine is available.
Then-Attorney General Phillip Ruddock recalls his focus was on more immediate risks to the community.
"At that time, we'd seen the tsunami in Indonesia. We saw London bombings. We saw people killed in Bali. When you think about the nature of the environment in which we're operating, there were very significant issues that had to be managed."
As the Liberal government took control of both houses for the first time in two decades, it drafted what it called 'workchoices' legislation, aimed at simplifying agreements with employers.
There was a major union uproar over what it saw as weakening collective bargaining, a backlash that eventually contributed to John Howard's defeat in 2007.
Historian and Associate Professor at UNSW David Lee says the pushback was not anticipated in the cabinet submissions.
"The cabinet didn't realise or didn't appreciate the backlash that this was going to produce and it really led to a resurgence of the trade union movement."
By the middle of the year, Tom Cruise was jumping up on Oprah’s couch to declare his infatuation with Katie Holmes ...
“I'm in love!”
… while others were in mourning the death of Pope John Paul II.
In Bali, there was a media frenzy as Australian Schapelle Corby was convicted of smuggling cannabis in a boogie board bag.
The 20-year high-profile sentence further strained ties with Indonesia.
But Canberra's main international focus was on Afghanistan and sending a Special Forces task group there for 12 months that ended up lasting years.
The cabinet records reveal submissions from Defence Minister Robert Hill and Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer were cautioning against it.
"We recommend against committing special forces to Afghanistan in a dedicated combat role // Working in a combat role does not meet reconstruction as well as security objectives."
The papers also foreshadowed the evolution of ADF personnel duties on the ground.
Twenty years later, then-Attorney General Phillip Ruddock stands by the decision.
RUDDOCK: "It's important that we're seen to be responsibly paying our part, and we do so with allies."
INTERVIEWER: "But with Afghanistan, given the resurgence of the Taliban later, was it the wrong call?"
RUDDOCK: "Look, I have seen what the Taliban have done, and there is no way that I think we should be turning a blind eye to some of the very significant human rights abuses in a situation like that. // And part of our part was assisting, if I remember rightly, one of our allies, Japan, in keeping troops in place and protecting them."
The papers also show human rights were not the focus of a deal extension with Nauru, allowing the controversial Pacific Solution - first introduced by Howard in 2001 - to continue diverting and processing asylum seekers offshore.
"You need to be able to ensure that you manage the gate. And Nauru and Manus Island were part and parcel of the process of ensuring that those who had their eye on reaching Australia, didn't do so."
Associate Professor David Lee explains the deterrence measure…
"I suppose there is some sense of human rights considerations there, but I suppose the overriding consideration was that this policy was conceived as a deterrent to people coming by boat, and there was a degree of stringency about that policy which was deliberate."
The year ended with the Cronulla riots exposing the fragility of Australia's multiculturalism with John Howard declaring:
"Attacking people on the basis of their race, their appearance, their ethnicity is totally unacceptable."
