More Mailbag Stuff

This picture came in from Walk-Off HBP, celebrating the joys of a broken bat at the ballpark. Or it could be the population recoiling at the realities of an Anti-Terror law.

More From Ben Saul

This link came in from 'Gra-Gra'. It's another article by Ben Saul, this time for The Age.

The new offences largely implement the Gibbs Review of federal criminal law in 1991, including increasing the penalty from three to seven years in prison. The bill is positive in that it narrows the existing and vague sedition offences, which allow a person to be prosecuted for bringing the sovereign into "contempt", exciting "disaffection" against the government or promoting "ill-will" between different "classes".

Anyone who supports a republic could be prosecuted under existing law.

Old-fashioned security offences are little used because they are widely regarded as discredited in a modern democracy that values free speech. Paradoxically, the danger in modernising these offences is that prosecutors may seek to use them more frequently, since they are considered more legitimate. A better approach is to abandon archaic security offences altogether in favour of using the ordinary criminal law of incitement to crime, particularly since security offences counterproductively legitimise ordinary criminals as "political" offenders. It is already possible to prosecute incitement to the many federal terrorism crimes.

The danger of criminalising political opponents is reduced by the bill's "good faith" defences. These protect speech that points out the mistakes of political leaders, errors in governments, laws or courts, or issues causing hostility between groups. The defences also protect encouraging lawful attempts to change the law or statements about industrial matters.

While these defences seem wide, they protect only political expression, at the expense of other speech. In contrast, wider defences in anti-vilification law protect statements made in good faith for academic, artistic, scientific, religious, journalistic or public interest purposes. Such statements may not aim to criticise political mistakes or errors, group hostility or industrial issues. The range of human expression worthy of legal protection is much wider than these narrow exceptions.

The third new sedition offence is welcome because it criminalises, for the first time in federal law, incitement to violence against racial, religious, national or political groups. Such protection is required by Australia's human rights treaty obligations.

Presenting this offence as a counter-terrorism law falsely stigmatises group violence as terroristic, reinforcing the stereotyping of certain ethnicities or religions as terrorist. It is also an error to classify this offence as sedition, which is more about rebellion against political authority than group violence.

The Attorney-General has claimed that the changes aim to criminalise indirect incitement of terrorism. Examples might include distasteful comments such as "Osama is a great man", "9/11 was a hoax" or "America had it coming", or even Cherie Blair's genuine view that some Palestinians believed they had "ho hope" but to blow themselves up.

Criminalising speech that encourages violence plainly restricts free expression. Free speech is not absolute and may be limited to prevent serious social harms, including statements with a direct, close and imminent connection to a specific crime. By contrast, criminalising indirect or vague expressions of support for terrorism, which do not encourage a particular crime, unjustifiably interferes in legitimate free speech.

In the absence of a human rights act, Australian constitutional law protects only political expression, and not other speech (although religious speech may enjoy protection). Our courts are thus less able to challenge sedition laws for excessively infringing free speech. There is also no sunset clause for sedition.

So under the anti-terror law regime, if I were politically motivated, I'd be allowed to call John Howard a bald rodent for the bald rodent that he is? Or do I have to run for Parliament first?

Margo Kingston's Web Diary
Previous to this Anti-terror bill, I've been reluctant to read 'MK's Web diary' not because of her position but the pain of having to read through the generally low level of discourse that takes place. As luck would have it, Pleiades sent in this link where Chris Rau has a go at what she sees as lack of democratic instincts in Australia:

I'm standing here today with deep disillusionment. I had the misapprehension that I was among idealists; among people who cared for the interests of people who don't have a voice, legally or otherwise. I thought you were all slaving away, with rings under your eyes, doing pro-bono work in your spare time and caring for the little guy (or girl).

This illusion was shattered last week when a column by Janet Albrechtson in The Australian (Beware the virtue of activist lawyers pretending to do good) set me straight. I'm onto you. Now we're told that public interest lawyers like you really use "civil liberties" as a "smokescreen", according to Albrechtson. She writes that while you dupe a gullible media, you hijack the term civil liberties: "as a feel-good phrase ... intended to hide political and personal agendas cunningly camouflaged as community welfare." I believe her. She's a lawyer. What's more, she's on the ABC board!

Apparently you all stand for same sex marriage, bills of rights, the UN.... all the while spitting on mainstream Australia. She says you reckon sniffer dogs are bad, mandatory detention's bad, the Howard Government's bad, and what's more, you show a "dangerous disregard" for the most basic rights to live in freedom and safe from personal harm.

I mean, what do you want? The rule of law? You'll all be saying the police can't have freedom and safety to lock someone up under the merest and unsubstantiated suspicion next!

She says you're all lefties, and what are worse, greenies, lurking with hidden intent under the 'civil libertarian' banner. Her terms are: "Whitlamites, Democrats and Greens", these of course being epithets. She and commentators like her don't specify quite what your motives are in this cunning manipulation of the term civil liberties, but by implication they must be malign.

Is this what passes for intelligent debate these days?

When rational disagreement with Government policy translates into "Howard-hating"?

When going against the mob is regarded as elitist posturing?

When a regard for human rights attracts the perjorative phrase "do-gooder"?

I've always found the last one interesting, coming as it often does from self-styled Christians, whose basic religious tenet is surely the need to "do good unto others". Who yet seem all too willing to advocate legal punishments against anyone they regard as "different".

The rest of it is just as blunt. We live in a country of self-styled Christians hitting back at the world for laughing at their medieval beliefs. Yes folks, and while we're at it, whatever happened to 'compassion'?

I spent some time yesterday calling up some friends who all agreed with me telling me saying it was terrible that the Coalition government had a majority in the Senate so could pass whatever law they could pull out of their rear ends.
"But nobody cares enough", they said. "And the media is stifling discussion on it."
Well, I guess it does take two to tango, but there needs to be tango music played by some tango-playing-orchestra as well.
The two glaring things missing are:
1) The fire and brimstone opposition by the ALP. Please, where are you hiding, folks?
2) A population that's taking to the streets to oppose the anti-terror bills even if they have to throw some rocks at the police. Because in all seriousness, in the future after they pass these laws, it won't be an option to do so. This is the last port of call, the last chance to be doing this.

John Howard intends to ram this bill through Parilament on Melbourne Cup Day. How disgusting is that? Perhaps we deserve the idiotic leadership we get, because that's certainly what we've voted for. *Ugh*

And One More Thing
Here's John North from The Law Council of Australia having his say:

THE LAW COUNCIL of Australia continued its slamming of “draconian” anti-terror laws last week, claiming that the international legal profession believes there should be more faith in our traditional protections.

Speaking last week at a national legal conference in Canberra, Law Council president John North asked whether the proposed legislation “actually makes us safe or just makes us feel safer”. He said any change that affects Australians’ right to live in peace and “to be free from arbitrary arrest and detention” must be subject to scrutiny.

“They are arming our police and intelligence services with powers that history shows will likely lead to abuse and misuse,” he said.

In a series of international conferences on governmental responses to terrorism, the erosion of human rights had become a primary concern. “At recent conferences of the American Bar Association, the International Bar Association, the Commonwealth Lawyers’ Association and at last weekend’s LawAsia conference, the prevailing theme has been the need for lawyers to act now to halt the march of executive power,” North said.

While terrorism is a significant issue, we should be careful not to rush into terror laws that infringe on our rights, he said. “We understand that the people are scared, we understand that terrorism is the major, major issue, but we must not take away fundamental rights without asking our government to assure us that we are going to be safer,” he told the Ten Network’s Meet the Press.

“We’re most concerned about the control orders and the preventative detention orders,” he told the ABC on the weekend. “They will allow the Government to seek and obtain these orders without the people even having any right to know about it, or to inform themselves or properly inform lawyers,”

A major concern, he said, was the arbitrary detainment of people in times of fear. “In this legislation, it looks as if the Government is going to be able to lock people up in times of fear … and if they think that there’s going to be trouble, they can pull people off the street and hold them under these orders,” he told ABC radio.

So much for fighting this in the streets once it's in. They can just lock you up for sedition, without charging you with anything. It sounds insane, but that's what we have.