Pezzullo urges world not to yield to ‘war fever’

“While we might think that we can master it through reason, in war we are the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. We should always approach questions of war, and peace, with sober, measured and restrained minds, not least because as we might be tempted to calculate our odds of victory, there is someone else who is calculating theirs.”

His message also encouraged recipients to watch 1995 Hollywood blockbuster Crimson Tide, starring Denzel Washington, which takes place on a nuclear submarine during a period of political turmoil in Russia.

“We should always approach questions of war, and peace, with sober, measured and restrained minds.”

Michael Pezzullo

Pezzullo quoted a line from Washington’s character, Lieutenant Commander Ron Hunter, who told a naval colleague, played by Gene Hackman, in a heated debate about the morality of war: “In my humble opinion, in the nuclear world, the true enemy is war itself.”

A one-time adviser to former foreign minister Gareth Evans and Labor leader Kim Beazley, Pezzullo leads the department responsible for the co-ordination of strategy, planning and policy related to issues affecting domestic security, immigration and borders.

Loading

A keen student of military and political history, he regularly composes lengthy opinion pieces on significant times of reflection including Australia Day, Anzac Day, Easter and Christmas. Under criticism in the past, he has said his messages were not part of a government strategy and he had not sought permission from the government of the day to communicate them.

He said the end of war was “a noble human aspiration” and paraphrased Jesus from the Book of Matthew that “blessed indeed are the peacemakers”. “If only we could throw away the rifles and the uniforms, we would be able to live peaceably in the fellowship of humanity,” he wrote.

Pezzullo’s administration of the Abbott government’s Operation Sovereign Borders targeting illegal boat arrivals made him a controversial public figure; however, he survived last year’s shake-up of top public servants following Labor’s election.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.