...because it's certainly on for young and old. In case you're wondering, there's a poll on at the Sydney Morning Herald and the Herald-reading poulace is voting with their mouse buttons. The last I checked, 78% thought the proposed laws are too extreme.
Of course we find in the previous polls:
English actor Daniel Craig as the new James Bond. : Who would you like to see in the role?So it's no ringing endorsement, but you get the feeling that at least people really don't want it, and if they were to put it to a referendum, it would fly about as far as Malcom Turnbull's ARM Model for an Australian Republic.
Clive Owen - 26%
Craig McLachlan - 3%
Paris Hilton - 11%
Humphrey B. Bear - 18%
David Hasselhoff - 28%
Shane Warne - 14%
Total Votes: 1744 Poll date: 13/10/05
With Our Chlidren At our Feet
Here's Jon Stanhope's response in Margo Kingston's Web Diary :
It must also be kept in mind that this legislation is of a curious sort. It is not conventional Commonwealth legislation. Much of it depends on referred powers from the States and Territories. That is why the approval of the Premiers and Chief Ministers has been sought on the detail. Put simply, the Commonwealth cannot legislate on much of this detail without the stamp of approval of the States and Territories. In that sense, the draft law does not 'belong' to the Prime Minister at all, though its first draft may have been the work of his Parliamentary Counsel. Why then should it be up to the Prime Minister to decide who should see the laws, and who should be consulted on their final wording?The bit I quoted is interesting because if Johnny Howard gets his way with this legislation, we're talking about a massive federalisation of the police work in this country, and a massive concentration of police power in the hands of the Federal government.To be honest with you, I'd hate to roll over for Johnny on that if I were even a Liberal Party Premier/territory Chief. You sort of wonder why these Labor Premiers in Queensland and Victoria were eager to jump right in and censure Mr. Stanhope.
The rest of it actually does smack of a politician who put himself in a bind but decided he'd rather come clean to the public than get mauled in the rush to score an own-goal try with Johnny, but that's by the by.
The update on the Margo Kingston Diary is interesting too:
“The Federal Government is taking increasingly desperate steps to keep the detail of this legislation from the people of Australia, and this latest move will leave many Australians wondering just what the Commonwealth has to hide,” Mr Stanhope said today.
”I am astounded and dismayed that the Commonwealth takes it upon itself to lock out of the process one of the parties upon whose support it relies. Rarely has the obvious contempt of the current Federal Government for the people of the ACT been so blatant."
Signed by the Prime Minister and all the Premiers and Chief Ministers at the Council of Australian Governments meeting on 25 June 2004, the intergovernmental agreement on counter-terrorism laws provides that the Federal Government must consult with all the States and Territories prior to the introduction into the Federal Parliament of any amendments to the counter-terrorism provisions of the Commonwealth Criminal Code. Paragraph 3.3(4) of the intergovernmental agreement requires that the Commonwealth must provide all the States and Territories with the text of any proposed legislation prior to introduction. By denying the ACT Government access to the latest draft of the Commonwealth’s new counter-terrorism laws, the Federal Government has torn up the intergovernmental agreement.
The full text of the intergovernmental agreement signed by the heads of government can be found at http://www.coag.gov.au/meetings/250604/iga_counter_terrorism.pdf
“The email sent today reveals a government desperate to contain the debate on counter-terrorism laws and eager to ram through those laws with minimal consultation. Parliamentary Counsels around the country have been instructed not to provide the new draft to anyone outside their offices and to limit circulation within their offices to a bare minimum. They have been instructed, in no uncertain terms, not to provide the draft to ‘policy officers’ — in other words, to anyone who might offer an unwanted and inconvenient opinion about the content of the draft laws. It seems, from the email, that Commonwealth policy officers are exempt from this general exclusion. In addition, the new draft has only been provided to the States and the Northern Territory as a facsimile, rather than electronically, presumably to thwart anyone who might be inclined to disseminate the draft.”
So Johnny is now trying to freeze out the ACT government in a bid to keep the details of these laws sequestered from public scrutiny. Way to run a Democracy, Mr. Howard, setting such a fine example - I'm sure they're taking notes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
U-Turn?
A few days ago, I related how irrationally strident the editorial in The Australian was in favour of having the anti-terror laws, and how the editorial lambasted Mr. Stanhope for his 'leak'. Today, I'd like to relate this article in the same paper:
More harm than good may flow from updated anti-terror lawsSo obviously 'The Australian' woke up to itself and realised that the freedom of speech they enjoy as 'the press' were in fact under direct threat from this legislation - like, "d'uh". Is it time for them to perhaps join' the Hysterical', as they so disparagingly referred to those who objected?
Ben Saul
October 20, 2005
UNLESS there are significant changes, journalists could become one of the first groups in society to feel the brunt of the Government's planned terror laws.
Changes to the law of sedition mean the threat of seven years in jail may be used to force journalists to think twice before reporting the most contentious issue of our times: the world view of terrorists.
The draft bill leaked last week by ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope takes the same restrictive approach to free speech as the British terrorism bill.
It provides no automatic immunity for journalists who simply report the views expressed by others, compounding existing restrictions on the reporting of ASIO interrogations.
This is contrary to the 1995 Johannesburg Principles on National Security, Freedom of Expression and Access to Information, which argue: "Expression may not be prevented or punished merely because it transmits information issued by or about an organisation that a government has declared threatens national security."
Attorney-General Philip Ruddock has claimed that the changes are aimed at criminalising indirect incitement of terrorism.
Examples may include distasteful or reckless comments such as "Osama is a great man" "9/11 was a hoax" or "America had it coming". It may also include genuine beliefs such as "We must resist the occupiers" or Cherie Blair's view that some Palestinians believed their only way out of a hopeless existence lay in blowing themselves up.
Criminalising indirect or vague expressions of support or sympathy for terrorism, which do not encourage a particular crime, unjustifiably interferes with legitimate free speech, including attempts to understand the causes of terrorism.
Although the right of free speech is not absolute and may be limited to prevent serious social harms, it should not be restricted merely on account of speculation that it leads to terrorism.
Only incitements that have a direct and close connection to the commission of a specific crime could justifiably be restricted.
Unlike in Britain, Europe, the US and Canada, in the absence of a human rights act Australian constitutional law protects political expression but not other speech (though religious speech may enjoy special protection). This means our courts are less able to challenge sedition laws for excessively restricting free expression. There is also no sunset clause attached to the sedition offences, so we are stuck with them indefinitely.
The Australian approach seems closely related to that in Britain.
After the July 7 London bombings, Britain proposed to deport foreigners who encouraged, justified or glorified terrorism; to close mosques that encouraged extremism; and to make condoning or glorifying terrorism a crime.
The British anti-terror bill makes it a crime to publish a statement when a person believes that members of the public are likely to understand it as a direct or indirect encouragement to commit terrorist acts. This expressly covers every statement that glorifies or implicitly glorifies terrorism, or even its preparation.
It would also be a crime in Britain to disseminate terrorist publications. A defence would be available only if a person showed they had not examined the publication, did not suspect it was a terrorist publication and did not endorse its contents.
This would criminalise any newspaper, radio or television journalist who reported the opinions of terrorists or anyone who sympathised with their cause.
Statements that could invite prosecution include the "barbaric ideas" identified by the British Prime Minister, such as calling for Westerners to leave Muslim countries, the elimination of Israel or establishing Islamic law.
Australia's draft bill is heading in the same direction. Although the proposed laws narrow the existing but discredited definition of sedition, the new clauses are more likely to be invoked precisely because they have been modernised. The bill repeals existing sedition laws and replaces them with five new offences.
The first two involve a person encouraging another to violently overthrow the Constitution or any Australian government, or to violently interfere with federal elections. Neither offence is necessary because the existing law against incitement to crime in combination with those dealing with electoral offences and treachery already cover precisely such conduct.
The third new offence is for a person to urge a racial, religious, national or political group to use violence against another group, when such violence poses a threat to peace, order and good government. This is welcome because it would criminalise, for the first time in federal law, incitement to violence against racial, religious, national or political groups, as required by Australia's human rights treaty obligations.
The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has long argued that incitement to religious hatred should be made unlawful, particularly since prejudice against Muslim Australians increased after the September 11, 2001, terror attack.
The final two offences involve urging a person to assist those fighting militarily against Australia, even if Australia has invaded another country unlawfully. If opposing Australian aggression constitutes tacit support for its enemies, Australians may be prosecuted for condemning illegal violence by their government or seeking to uphold the UN Charter.
A related provision in the bill allows the attorney-general to ban organisations that advocate or praise terrorism. This applies even if the group in question has no other involvement in terrorism, the praise does not result in a terrorist act and the person praising terrorism did not intend to cause terrorism. People can then be prosecuted for being members or associates of an organisation banned merely because someone in it praised terrorism.
There is a danger that criminalising the expression of support for terrorism will drive such beliefs underground. Rather than exposing them to public debate, which allows erroneous or misconceived ideas to be corrected and ventilates their poison, criminalisation risks aggravating the grievances underlying terrorism.
Although some extreme speech may never be rationally countered by other speech, the cut and thrust of public debate remains the best option for combating odious or ignorant ideas. The criminal law is ill-suited to reforming expressions of poor judgment or bad taste.
Every society has the highest public interest in protecting itself and its institutions from violence, but no society should criminalise speech that it finds distasteful when such speech is remote from the practice of terrorist violence by others.
A robust and mature democracy should be expected to absorb unpalatable ideas without prosecuting them.
Speech is the foundation of all human communities and without it, politics becomes impossible. Unless we are able to hear and understand the views of our political adversaries, we cannot hope to turn their minds and convince them that they are wrong or even to change our own behaviour to accommodate opposing views that turn out to be right.
The danger of criminalising political opponents is reduced by the bill's five good-faith defences. These protect speech that points out the mistakes of political leaders; errors or defects in governments, laws or courts; or issues causing hostility between groups. The defences also protect statements encouraging others to lawfully attempt to change the law and those connected with industrial matters.
However, although these defences seem wide, in fact they largely protect only political expression at the expense of other types of democratic speech. In contrast, wider defences in anti-vilification law protect statements made in good faith for an academic, artistic, scientific, religious, journalistic or other public-interest purpose. Such statements may not aim to criticise the mistakes of political leaders, the errors of governments or laws, matters causing hostility between groups or industrial issues. The range of expression worthy of legal protection is much wider than these narrow exceptions.
The defences are also anachronistic, since they are based on the defences to English sedition crimes found in a famous English criminal law textbook of 1887. They are defences for a different era: less rights-conscious and eager to protect the reputation of Queen Victoria. Such narrow defences have no place in a self-respecting modern democracy such as Australia.
Ben Saul is director of the bill of rights project at the University of NSW's Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law.
I guess an editor from such a mighty press institution would never admit to its blatant stupidity like that. More's the pity as it keeps it all very '1984', where the state news is run with the assumption that people don't remember all the claims. Time to book seats for Room 101 where they show you 'Big Brother ad nauseum perhaps?
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