More On The Terror Bill

"Goldstein!!" ...And Bert

John Faulkner Stands Up

I caught this in the ABC news.

ELEANOR HALL: At this morning's Federal Labor caucus meeting there was heated debate on the issue of counter terrorism, in response to leader Kim Beazley's decision yesterday to move to vote for the bill.

The caucus spent more than two hours discussing the controversial legislation and in a spirited speech, Senator John Faulkner said that if others are not prepared to stand up to expose John Howard on the issue of terrorism, he will.

We are joined now by Chief Political Correspondent, Catherine McGrath.

Catherine, that's a strong statement from Senator Faulkner; what more can you tell us about his comments?

CATHERINE MCGRATH: Well, Eleanor, John Faulkner was making those comments in the context of the war in Iraq, and what he told the caucus was that he will make the argument that Australia's become a bigger target over Iraq. That point hasn't be made, he said, and Labor has to go out on that.

In general, caucus was discussing this, as you said, for two hours. There was vigorous discussion on it. There's a lot of anger in the Labor Party about Kim Beazley's decision yesterday to back the bill. It's going to be a work in progress, seeing how the Labor Party deals with this.

Of course there are a lot of the party who are backing Kim Beazley, but the left and others… aspects of the left, I should say, and others are very concerned about what was done yesterday.

ELEANOR HALL: Now, I understand there were strong comments last night, too, at the left caucus meeting. Can you tell us any more about that?

CATHERINE MCGRATH: That's right. Julia Gillard, the Opposition's Health Spokeswoman and the Leader of Opposition Business in the House of Representatives, said that she was very concerned about what sort of strategy had been conducted by the leadership group to get Labor into this position.

Once the Premiers let their position come out publicly, Julia Gillard wanted to know what the leadership group did to determine what would happen next, and that she also made the point that the result of all of this was a lot of internal Labor Party bickering, and that in general at that meeting last night there was discussion that the wedge had been played successfully by the Government.

Also concerned about this was Jennie George and Duncan Kerr. Of course elements of the left support Kim Beazley. You'll remember we heard Anthony Albanese on AM this morning, backing Kim Beazley's position.

ELEANOR HALL: It was a somewhat unusual statement from Kim Beazley yesterday about this counter-terrorism legislation. What does all this mean for his decision to back the bill?

CATHERINE MCGRATH: Well, it means there's a lot of division in Labor. What it means is there are elements of the party who are angered and concerned by the lack of consultation. Yes, wedge politics has been played successfully by the Government, but Labor has to deal with this now.

There are many people in the party who feel strongly about it. We've already heard from Carmen Lawrence, who's reserved her position on whether or not she'll cross the floor, and it does bring out again some of the divisions over the leadership issue.

Now, that's not to say that Kim Beazley's leadership is on the line, it's not about that, but many of those who are critical of the decision taken yesterday are those in elements of the left who were opposed to Kim Beazley coming back to the leadership. It reignites issues and questions about the way Kim Beazley consults with his colleagues and where Labor goes from here.

So, Eleanor, really what it's done is break open divisions within the Labor Party, and we will have to see over the next hours and days how Kim Beazley deals with this.

Well, Mr. Beazley, you are a big fat Con- Weasely and you deserve all the strife you're going to get on this one.
What is it with these Angry Fat Men and their fascist tendencies?
This is The Australian's take on it

Here's what emerged from yesterday's stroppy get-together: "Caucus endorses the support of the federal parliamentary Labor Party for tough national security laws with strong safeguards for individual liberties in the national interest."

Do you feel safer now? Excellent.

It required a long and tense meeting to reach this dazzling position, mainly because of those in caucus who were unimpressed with Kim Beazley's decision to support the Government's anti-terrorism laws, sight unseen.

"I've never seen a shadow cabinet more out of touch with the rest of caucus," said one particularly annoyed veteran after the fiery meeting.

With John Howard and the premiers still furiously negotiating the wording of the anti-terror legislation, the smart money had Beazley and federal Labor keeping options open and powder dry until they'd actually eyeballed the elusive bills.

Certainly that's what a lot of people in the caucus meeting thought the more prudent course. Plainly, Beazley has judged a few dozen grizzling colleagues infinitely preferable to providing the Coalition with a mere sniff of pegging Labor as soft on terror.

Ultimately, it seems, even the sceptics in caucus are unlikely to embarrass Beazley and vote against the terror laws, which might have been extremely useful at Flemington yesterday afternoon. The Cup, suspiciously sponsored by a Middle Eastern airline, contained a number of dodgily named nags; Bazelle, Rizon, Umbala, Vouvray, Dizelle and Kindjhal should immediately be agisted at Guantanamo Bay.

Beazley informed his unconvinced colleagues that fighting the Government's industrial relations reforms was a far more important task than bucking Howard's anti-terror regime. Conveniently, it's a lot easier as well.

Heck, fight them both, 'Potamus!
By the way, if you look closely at the poster they're waving around, you can see that Bert makes an appearance on this one too. Click on the image:

Meanwhile, four Labor Premiers are saying they're going to back this bill too.

Victorian Premier Steve Bracks promised to write to Prime Minister John Howard agreeing to the legislation and said his Labor counterparts in NSW, Queensland and other states would join him.

The states had been worried about a possible High Court challenge, freedom of speech and proper oversight of new control and detention powers.

But Mr Bracks said Mr Howard had agreed to more concessions during a phone hook-up on Tuesday.

"I'll be writing to the prime minister indicating that the matters that were raised at COAG (Council Of Australian Government) have now been satisfied in the proposed draft legislation," he told ABC radio.

"We had a phone hook up with the prime minister yesterday, most of the premiers, and there was some further concessions that were made, particularly on another matter, judicial review and appeal rights."

He said that with the removal of lethal force and shoot to kill provisions, use of the existing criminal code and agreement to stick to other matters approved at the COAG meeting, he was now prepared to write to Mr Howard.

"I'll be doing that today and signing up to these new laws," he said.

"I think they are sensible, they're balanced and they do have the right checks and balances which the community would expect."

Mr Bracks said he fully expected at least four premiers would sign up to the laws by the end of Wednesday, allowing the bill to be introduced on Thursday.

"I know that the premier of NSW Morris Iemma has a similar position to me," he said.

"I would expect the premier of Queensland (Peter Beattie) and other states would follow.

"My expectation following the phone hook up is that there will be at least four premiers who will be signing up today."

Vomit.
The Libs figure it's a done deal

A Coalition backbench committee is understood to have secured three key changes.

They include a new type of control order for terrorism suspects and a greater role for judges in overseeing and reviewing them, a change to the definition of terrorism to ensure freedom of speech is better protected, and the use of state – rather than federal – laws dealing with police shoot-to-kill powers.

Opposition Leader Kim Beazley says until the Government releases the final draft no decision can be made on whether the party will support it.

However, Mr Beazley has said Labor would support tough anti-terrorism measures in the interests of national security and would seek amendments to the bill to ensure their protected civil rights.

Several ALP backbenchers, including former Labor national president Carmen Lawrence, have called on the party to oppose the bill because it has the potential to turn Australia into a police state.

Meanwhile, Queensland Premier Peter Beattie said there would be no deal between the states and Commonwealth today.
"What we have to ensure, of course, is that what we put up is fair, it provides for the protection of Australians, it attacks terrorism, but will also not get knocked off in the High Court," Mr Beattie said.

We used to fight smarter wars against terrorism. We didn't let our civil liberties slip, we didn't buckle to the threat. We used to be quite Churchillian; now we're going 'Orwellian' (poor George). Instead of trying to control threats, we're going to come up with blanket laws to slam people away on the suspicion they might be terrorists. Heavens, what are we paying the folks in our Intelligence and Security offices to do?