Anzac Reflections: Wheat, War, and the Weight of Conscience
On 25 April 2025, as Australia solemnly commemorated Anzac Day—a sacred occasion honouring the soldiers who gave everything for our freedom—I invite you to explore the link → Flash Backs – China-Vietnam. On this day of national remembrance, I ask you to pause and reflect on the heavy emotions many of us carry. For some, like myself, the weight is not just grief—it is guilt. A lingering sense that we may have betrayed the brave countrymen sent to endure the unforgiving jungles of North Vietnam.
As I approach my 82nd birthday in May 2026, the days surrounding Anzac Day stir deep introspection. I think of the forlorn seafarers—men like me—who played unseen yet vital roles in a narrative few dare to confront. In 1967, aboard the Hopepeak, we unloaded 13,600 tons of Australian wheat in Communist China. Only later did we learn that some of that grain was being redirected to North Vietnam, where it nourished soldiers engaged in brutal combat against Australian, New Zealand, and U.S. troops.
Sold as humanitarian aid, this wheat became a weapon of unintended consequence. Several of us refused to load another shipment. We were not diplomats or generals—we were seamen with a conscience. Yet our government remained silent. The Minister for Trade and Industry offered no sympathy. The Liberal-Country Party turned a blind eye. And the farmers, whose wheat fed our enemies, were never asked to reckon with the truth.
On 24 April 2025, I watched politicians lay wreaths at the base of statues of fallen warriors. Their gestures felt hollow. The disconnect between ceremonial reverence and the gritty realities of war left me silent and sorrowful. Each year, I step away from the pageantry, haunted by the decisions we made and the truths we uncovered.
Among those truths is a disturbing revelation: Telstra, in its surveillance of my communications, recorded nearly a full A4 page of my conversations with former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser—conversations that were later redacted. In those calls, I recounted my interrogation in Communist China on espionage charges and asked if he remembered my letter dated 18 September 1967, detailing our discovery of Australian wheat being rerouted to North Vietnam.
This chapter of history—painful, complex, and unresolved—demands reflection. It is not just about trade or war. It is about conscience. About the quiet courage of those who refused complicity. And about the enduring responsibility to honour the fallen not just with flowers, but with truth.
For more information, see Chapter 7 – The Vietnam War.
British Seaman’s Record R744269 - Open Letter to PM File No 1 Alan Smith's Seaman.
The Canadian government and its moral code of ethics.
By hovering your mouse over the Canadian flag image below, you can also learn about the strong ethical principles upheld by Canadian seamen. Despite facing significant challenges, they believed that sending wheat to Communist China—especially when that wheat was being redeployed to North Vietnam, a country at war with Australia, New Zealand, and the USA, where hundreds of troops were being killed or mained—was immoral and unethical, and therefore should not have continued.
Yet the Australian Government made a conscious decision to maintain its trade relations with Communist China, despite knowing that a significant portion of Australia’s wheat was being diverted to North Vietnam. This wheat was not merely a trade commodity; it had the potential to sustain North Vietnamese soldiers who were directly engaged in combat against Australia and its allies during the conflict. The ramifications of this trade raised serious ethical questions about the implications of supporting a nation that was opposing Australian, New Zealand and USA forces.
There is a striking and thought-provoking similarity between my narrative of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the Canadian perspective on democracy, along with the fundamental concepts of right and wrong that underpin them. This connection is compellingly illustrated in Tianxiao Zhu's meticulously crafted 2021 paper, developed as part of his Ph.D. requirements at the University of Minnesota. During my extensive research for my first manuscript, which ultimately inspired the launch of the website absentjustice.com, I fortuitously discovered Zhu's insightful work. His paper sheds light on a significant trade that took place during the chaotic and turbulent period I was examining.
Footnote 169 → FOOD AND TRADE IN LATE MAOIST CHINA, 1960-1978,
Tianxiao Zhu's Footnote 83, 84, 169: In September 1967, a group of British merchant seamen quit their ship, the Hope Peak, in Sydney and flew back to London. They told the press in London that they quit the job because of the humiliating experiences to which they were subjected while in Chinese ports. They also claimed that grain shipped from Australia to China was being sent straight on to North Vietnam. One of them said,“I have watched grain going off our ship on conveyor belts and straight into bags stamped North Vietnam. Our ship was being used to take grain from Australia to feed the North Vietnamese. It’s disgusting.” (my emphasis)84. The Minister of Trade and Industry received an inquiry about the truth of the story in Parliament, to which the Minister pointed out that when they left Australia, the seamen only told the Australian press that they suffered such intolerable maltreatment in various Chinese ports that they were fearful about going back. But after they arrived in London, Vietnam was added to their story. Thus the Minister claimed that he did not know the facts and did not want to challenge this story, but it seemed to him that their claims about Vietnam seemed to be an “afterthought.” 169 "...In Vancouver, nine sailors refused to work on a grain ship headed to China: two of them eventually returned to work, and the other were arrested. Just when the ship was about to sail, seven more left the ship but three of them later returned to work. In Sydney, six Canadian sailors left their ship; they resigned and asked to be paid, but the Australian immigration office repatriated them. At that time a grain ship usually had crew members about 40 people. A British ship lost the Chief Officer and sixteen seamen, who told journalists that if the ship were going to the communist countries, they would rather go to jail than work on the ship..
Examining this wheat agreement made with the People's Republic of China during the Menzies government in the mid-1960s is essential. This controversial deal had significant implications, which were obscured by a government campaign to discredit British and Canadian merchant seamen, including myself. These brave individuals tried every conceivable legal way to expose this illicit diversion of wheat to North Vietnam.
Instead of receiving praise and support for their stance, they were slandered by the Liberal Coalition government of the time. Twenty-seven years later, the same government allowed five Australian citizens, out of twenty-one who had faced similar challenges with Telstra, to have their arbitration claims assessed by the Senate under a litmus test scenario. If the Senate ruled in favour of the litmus test case, the remaining sixteen claimants would be treated equally in that agreement. However, the Coalition government did not honour this understanding. (Refer to An Injustice to the remaining 16 Australian citizens).
The Coalition government followed with a similar campaign, reminiscent of the slanderous tactics they employed during the Communist China episode in 1967. They labelled the claims of the sixteen COT cases as frivolous and referred to the individuals involved as vexatious litigants.
But let's take a moment to consider the gravity of the situation: how does the author of this narrative, Alan Smith (me) delve into a far more complex and alarming story that involves government officials who, much like those in the COT (Communications and Technology) story, were willing to jeopardize the lives of their fellow Australians? They concealed even more pressing public interest issues that unfolded over thirty years before the events surrounding Telstra and COT. Indeed, some aspects of my story trace back to significant dates between June 28, 1967, and September 18, 1967, when the People's Republic of China arrested me on dubious charges of espionage. My alleged crime stemmed from being seen with a notebook and a pen, where I took meticulous notes about times and dates.
My presence in China was more accidental than intentional; I served as a crew member on the British tramp ship Hopepeak. 
Our vessel was engaged in the humanitarian task of unloading Australian wheat, which we had loaded at the port of Albany in Western Australia. This shipment was not just ordinary trade; it was sent with the noble intention of alleviating hunger in the suffering nation of China. However, a significant and troubling twist emerged: some of this wheat was redirected to North Vietnam, providing sustenance to the very Viet Cong forces who were at war with Australia, New Zealand, and the United States (refer to Chapter 7-Vietnam Viet Cong).
As a result, we may be left in the dark about the sheer volume of Australian wheat that found its way into the hands of the Vietcong guerrilla forces, who marched through the jungles of North Vietnam, intending to slaughter and maim as many Australian, New Zealand, and USA troops as possible.
The following three statements taken from a report prepared by Australia's Kim Beasly MP on 4 September 1965 (father of Australia's former Minister of Defence Kim Beasly) only tell part of this tragic episode concerning what I wanted to convey to Malcolm Fraser, former Prime Minister of Australia when I telephoned him in April 1993 and again in April 1994 concerning Australia's wheat deals which I originally wrote to him about on 18 September 1967 as Minister for the Army.
Vol. 87 No. 4462 (4 Sep 1965) - National Library of Australia https://nla.gov.au › nla.obj-702601569
"The Department of External Affairs has recently published an "Information Handbook entitled "Studies on Vietnam". It established the fact that the Vietcong are equipped with Chinese arms and ammunition"
If it is right to ask Australian youth to risk everything in Vietnam it is wrong to supply their enemies. The Communists in Asia will kill anyone who stands in their path, but at least they have a path."
Australian trade commssioners do not so readily see that our Chinese trade in war materials finances our own distruction. NDr do they see so clearly that the wheat trade does the same thing." .
Arbitration Flashbacks
My arbitration with Telstra was particularly challenging, as it reignited painful memories I had long buried. The Freedom of Information documents I received from Telstra at the start of this process served as a trigger, bringing back flashbacks of my experiences, including being held under armed guard. This traumatic experience profoundly impacted my well-being and state of mind during the arbitration proceedings → British Seaman’s Record R744269 - Open Letter to PM File No 1 Alan Smith's Seaman.
Among the documents I retrieved from Telstra, I found one particularly alarming file that I later shared with the Australian Federal Police. This document contained a record of my phone conversation with Malcolm Fraser, the former Prime Minister of Australia. To my dismay, this Telstra file had undergone redaction. Despite the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s insistence that I should have received this critical information under the Freedom of Information Act, the document and hundreds of other requested FOI documents remain withheld from me as of 2025.
What information was removed from the Malcolm Fraser FOI-released document
The AFP believed Telstra was deleting evidence at my expense
During my first meetings with the AFP, I provided Superintendent Detective Sergeant Jeff Penrose with two Australian newspaper articles concerning two separate telephone conversations with The Hon. Malcolm Fraser, a former Prime Minister of Australia. Mr Fraser reported to the media only what he thought was necessary concerning our telephone conversation, as recorded below:
“FORMER prime minister Malcolm Fraser yesterday demanded Telecom explain why his name appears in a restricted internal memo.
“Mr Fraser’s request follows the release of a damning government report this week which criticised Telecom for recording conversations without customer permission.
“Mr Fraser said Mr Alan Smith, of the Cape Bridgewater Holiday Camp near Portland, phoned him early last year seeking advice on a long-running dispute with Telecom which Mr Fraser could not help.”
During the second interview conducted by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) at my business on 26 September 1994, I provided comprehensive responses to 93 questions concerning unauthorised surveillance and the threats I endured from Telstra. The Australian Federal Police Investigation File No/1 contains detailed transcripts of this interview, which document the intimidation tactics employed by Telstra’s arbitration liaison officer, Paul Rumble, and the unlawful interception of my telecommunications and arbitration-related faxes.
It is particularly alarming that Paul Rumble and the arbitrator, Dr Gordon Hughes, appeared to operate in collaboration. Dr Hughes supplied Mr Rumble with my arbitration submission materials months before Telstra was entitled to receive them under the terms of the arbitration agreement. This breach of protocol underscores the systemic corruption that infected the COT arbitration process—conducted not as a fair legal proceeding, but as a Kangaroo Court.
This betrayal echoes a broader historical concern: the unknown volume of Australian wheat that may have reached Vietcong guerrilla forces, who used it to sustain their campaign through the jungles of North Vietnam—inflicting unimaginable suffering on Australian, New Zealand, and U.S. troops.
To explore the remaining details of my Telstra story and its haunting intersections with geopolitical betrayal, please continue reading here → Click Chapter 7-Vietnam Vietcong to explore the full archive.
