SYDNEY -- Punch-drunk is how one Canberra insider describes the current state of Australia's security intelligence services. Never before in their roller-coaster history have the government's spying and spy-catching bodies been held in such public disrepute.
Behind the latest scandal is the Collins affair, an exposure of high-level coverups and back-stabbing that must lump Canberra in with the worst of revelations coming out of Washington and London over the pre-Iraq war intelligence foulups. Here, as there, the word "intelligence" has lost any real meaning.
As the government goes into damage control, public demands are mounting for a royal investigative commission. Judicial inquiries at this level are normally restricted to urgent complaints of grave public concern.