"Hostage negotiators are on standby, but said that did not mean the government would negotiate with terrorists. We would obviously in the circumstances where Australians were taken hostage try to get those Australians released, we’re not going to go into the details of what methodology we would use to do that. We will not be making concessions to terrorists."

Prime Minister John Howard refused to comment on the hostage negotiators.

"I’m not going to get into the operational side of the situation that may in fact not exist, but our position remains that we will not alter our foreign policy, our defence policy, our security policy in response to any threat of terrorist organisations." He said.

Gee whiz Alexander, what do we pay our negotiators to do then?
Be on standby for standing by?
Surely, at some point they have to make contact, create a discourse and negotiate for change eg. Release the hostages.

Unless Negotiator is the less oft used word for ‘Sharpshooter’ .

Downer goes on to say,

"They’re [The Australian Foreign Affairs Department] not entirely certain of all the number of Australians in Iraq. You’re talking of a large number of Australians presumably who aren’t registered with the embassy. Their (the department’s) advice, I’d have to say is a bit thin."

Yes, and this is technically a fishnet!
Please Alexander, just take long-service leave and never come back!