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Terrorism and politics in Australia: an absurd farce
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So a considerable period of Question Time was wasted yesterday in the Opposition’s “pursuit” of Attorney-General Robert McClelland over his comments about the Benbrika terror trial. It’s pretty funny seeing the Federal Coalition commenting on good process in a terrorism trial. The mob behind the Haneef debacle and its crass — well actually not so much crass as outright evil — politicisation doesn’t have a skerrick of credibility on this. Kevin Andrews wasn’t in the chamber — he’s in Europe — but Phillip Ruddock was. His pallor was unblemished by even the faintest blush as the Opposition tried to ping McClelland. Shadow Attorney-General George Brandis wandered over from the Senate and sat in the bleachers behind the Opposition backbench. He didn’t actually do much, but it showed how, you know, serious it all was. I went to the press conference in question. McClelland might’ve been trying exploit the trial outcome, but he carefully prefaced his remarks to make clear he was not commenting on the defendants about whom the jury had yet to make a finding, only about the verdicts that had already been delivered. Hello? How clear is that? But the trial judge, Bernard Bongiorno, apparently took exception to the comments. Of course, he would, wouldn’t he. Like all other judges and indeed most of the legal system, Bongiorno continues this 19th century infantilisation of the community, on the basis that criminal justice is incompatible with jurors with minds of their own, who must be rigidly guided in their duties by the priest-like ritualists of the legal system, with no one daring to comment from outside. Great for protecting the rights of the accused, of course, and great for keeping lawyers and judges in work. This is, after all, the state where Underbelly was “banned” despite it being two clicks away on that interwebs thing that the youngsters are getting into, or available over the border on DVD. Those pesky zeroes and ones, undermining criminal justice, eh? Meantime, Greg Sheridan, who has only recently been surgically removed from Alexander Downer, weighed in today to laud our success in the War Against Stuff by talking about a recent speech by some nameless bureaucrat from ASIO. Sheridan — even more so than Gerard Henderson — has been the leading spruiker for the National Security State garbage peddled by the Right since 2001. Central to this has been an assertion that the systematic violation of basic rights — to which Mohammed Haneef can attest — is an essential part of our counter-terrorist response, and a refusal to accept the obvious truth that the issue was consistently (and in the end clumsily) exploited by the Howard Government for domestic political purposes. Sheridan kicks off his piece by telling — in all seriousness — the story of how an Iraqi national was in Australia in 2002 trying to assemble a remote-controlled plane to crash into something somewhere in the US. “This information has never been revealed before,” Sheridan pompously avers. He should’ve done some googling. Saddam Hussein’s threat to attack the US with unmanned planes has been exposed as rubbish years ago. Said Iraqi may well have thought he could assemble and build a plane that he could remotely fly across the Pacific. That sort of thing happens all the time in TV shows and movies, after all. But his delusions shouldn’t be the basis for a counter-terrorism policy. There seems to have been a similar phenomenon at work in the Benbrika trial. The addled followers of Benbrika, despite their bad haircuts and worse beards, seem to differ little from the sort of mindless thugs who in other circumstances would end in bikie gangs, or thieving cars, or working in the “security industry”. In short, they’re young men who like violence, or at least talking about it. This isn’t to cast doubt on the guilty verdicts, but to suggest that a man who is a wannabe terrorist in one context may well be your local small-time drug dealer and thug in another. That they were caught so easily suggests that their big mouths and poor grasp of reality were rather more important than their Muslim principles. Having seen the AFP’s bungling in the Haneef trial, and ASIO’s appalling efforts in regard to the abduction and assault of Izhar ul-Haque — for which, scandalously, no ASIO officers have yet to be prosecuted - you suspect in this case it was the defendants’ stupidity and self-delusion that got them caught, not the sterling work of our wonderful security services and the draconian laws with which they work. Meantime, the only person in Parliament really talking sense about terrorism is Petro Georgiou, whose private member’s bill for an independent reviewer of Commonwealth anti-terrorism laws is currently being considered by a Senate committee due to report next week. It’s an indictment of both his Opposition colleagues and the Labor Party that he’s been going one-out on this issue, while the rest of them carry on with the sort of drivel we saw yesterday. |
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21 Comments
I didn’t think the Left acknowledged there is such a thing as “terrorism”. Just “liberation” movements throwing of the shackles of that “Great Satan”.
“Keelty..would have handed his badge in months ago”. But fortunately he didn’t, so he and his ‘band of cut throats’ are out there trying to save your sorry Left-wing ar*e, letting you and your loved ones travel and sleep a little more easily.
JamesK, I thought you worked for Brendan Nelson but if that were the case, you would have lost your job. Are you moonlighting or are you perhaps a Baby Liberal?
The only “rediculous” thing about this debate is the constant tirade of articles critical of the security services from the Left, who, as Sarah Palin so astutely observed, are primarily concerned about “reading them (terrorists) their rights” before they detonate their car bombs.
Here here!
This is purely a matter of law and the regular abusers and politicisers of our law when they had the power to damage have no status in their comments and screeching noise. Since they don’t understand that they need to be told, thank you Bernard.
Reading your commentators one becomes aware that the security guard evicting a lib is a communist and maybe a nazi when he’s evicting a labour member 10 minutes later.
Ooooppppsss, mistake – commies are great as Communist China has become affectionately ‘China’. God bless Petro.
Shane: Try to ignore him. He is one very sick member of the opus dei.
“But the trial judge, Bernard Bongiorno, apparently took exception to the comments” a begrudging Bernard Keane ‘allows’ .
There was nothing merely ‘apparent’ about his concerns Mr. Keane
This bungle by McClelland is not excused by AFP incompetence and possible political interference in the case of Haneef which is presently the subject of a judicial review. Political interference has not yet been found nor allowed by Andrews or Ruddock. Some level of AFP incompetence has been admitted but the extent of it is yet to be found.
Fortunately for Andrews, Ruddock and Keelty, Bernard Keane is no judge otherwise they would surely all be hanged without the need for rule of law…..and good job he is not God because McClelland and Rudd would probably be beatified!
JamesK - perhaps you mean Beattie-fied?
So Mmmm: “you just got the feeling News Corp were getting a bit pissed with Johnny after that”. Are you saying that News Corp journalists got drunk with John Howard? Because that is what that sentence means in standard Australian venacular. Or do you in fact meant that they were “pissed off” with him? Why adopt the American usage? And by the way, I also object to “ass” instead of “arse” and “math” instead of “maths”.
J James
I spent spent enough time behind the iron curtain and in Australia to be able to make some comparisons.
- Personal search at the airports: in Berlin, Warsaw, Moscow, Prague, etc. the airports provided spare rooms for personal search to secure some privacy. People, regardless their gender, did not have to take off their pants, shoes and shirts in public. Aged people and disabled were exempted from the ‘pleasure’.
- Telling jokes was allowed at the airports.
- as an ‘enemy of the state’ everybody could be a suspect, regardless the creed, denomination, skin colour, clothes, sex or ethnicity.
-equal access to bribes. Bribes were affordable for most families to get a person out of ‘suspicion zone’. Overpaid lawyers were unheard of.
- the only gulags/concentration camps were in Siberia. But to put someone into a detention ( no open air prisons and no electric wires were established) at least mock trials had to be conducted.
-children, babies and pregnant women were not allowed to be imprisoned.
When we arrived in Australia, ( we were granted refugee status in Vienna) this country was a bulwark of democracy, and human rights were sacrosanct. There were no computers, no cameras, no sniffing dogs, etc., and no terrorists. We felt safe. Nobody checked our very modest luggage and the officials and the police were very friendly.
The Howard government shuttered dreams of many people; Australian-born included.
And for the record: Gen. Franco was not a ‘leftist’, neither was Pinochet.
Shane, I agree:
1.The personal searchers in public are a bit over the top. I watched a poor guy at Heathrow stripped down to his underwear. I think he was a Kiwi and no-one could understand him.
2. I agree, no-one has a sense of humour anymore.
3. The only enemies of the State these days are Catholics, so watch out for them!
4. I’ve always thought lawyers are overpaid.
5. Now we have ‘psychological’ Gulags where political correctness reigns.
6. Now they bundle the pregnant women to an abortion clinic. Saves everyone so much trouble!
7. I’ve seen the Howard government blamed for alot of things but bringing in “terrorists” is a first. I think Crikey may have a role for you.
8. Those silly bloody conservatives keep insisting that Australia is one of the oldest democracies in the world with a great constitution. A constitutional monarchy no less! And Franco restored the Spanish monarchy. Mate, I see your point.
It appears, judging by his comments in response to Bernard’s artice, John James didn’t progress beyond primary school level. What a rediculous response, grow up.
It’s good ur thinkin’ Spook even if we can almost see the cogs grinding ……at least it’s an improvement on: “He’s been rendered to Egypt by the CIA and he was still in the torture chamber yesterday”
But you really would be best served by avoiding sarcasm and irony altogether.
In the conspicuous absence of an intellect you fail miserably…….
I was only talking sainthood Bernard. Not the Ascension after the Crucifixion. Merri Rose used always give him a rise…..
I would have to consider subscribing after reading this rubbish. Give a terrorist an inch and he will take a thousand lives - Islamic, Christian, agnostic, anyone.
J.James
I am not from the Left. Quite the opposite. But well over 20 years ago I came to Australia from a very left socialist/communist country. Why? Because of the show trials, sentencing suspects rather than criminals, mass hysteria conducted by the government against the ‘imminent threat’ of’ American nuclear bombs being prepared on all countries with Left-winged governments. It was enough to have relatives in ‘the rotten West’ like England or the USA to be convicted. Many people spent years in jail on the very suspicion to have ‘a negative attitude towards communism and its value system’. Just wondering where the right wing Ruddock and Howard got their ideas from?
Dr Haneef !!!!!!!! Still rediculous. What degree of confidence do the Liberal right have in John James ’ Precious Security Services’ after that fiasco and disgraceful miscarriage of so called Australian justice, which was non existant. So is there a degree of no confidence in those who are charged with our safety?, you bet your bloody life there is. If Keelty had any self respect he would have handed in his badge months ago. So lets not have this rightous right nonsense, doesn’t cut.
So what is your point, Shane? That the Western democracies are analogous to the marxist dictatorships in the way they deal with those of whom they are suspicious? Sounds like a common Left-wing axiom to me! I think your time behind the iron curtain affected you a little more than you’re prepared to concede
… actually that cartoon looks like a crikey cornwall from back in Nov 2006. Sydney incident. Lots of egg beating.
I don’t think technically it’s what the AG says he said that is the legal test but what the effect of what he actually said actually is in (a) compromising the jury (b) also generating any appealable points as a matter of equity of process with every other defendant.
Fair point about the opposition in Govt being hypocrites - I still have a pic downloaded of the car that was burnt out destroying forensics after an alleged tip off via Howard presser …. just after some initial arrests, while some others did a runner … and burnt that car around 16 Nov 2006 on the pic file. It ran in the Daily Telegraph and there was a cartoon of Howard holding a top secret folder with a megaphone holding a press conference, and you just got the feeling News Corp were getting a bit pissed with Johnny after that. Very security aware have been our Holt St amigos after all that 2003 misunderstanding about WMD.
And lastly I just want to say sorry to Big Bernard (Bongiorno that is) for drinking directly out of that milk carton on the family holiday when I was 10 in the deep north of NSW. Talk about a voice that chilled the blood. Won’t happen again your honour!
Shane: John James is a characteture of Australian Roman Catholic thought police. Google Santamaria aka Bartholomew Augustine Michael (call me Bob) and you will see what I am on about. He sails into print with his antiquated views and reduces arguments to irrelevence by his repetitive, leaden syntax, and his repetitive droning on the same arguments. He uses the same arguments over, and over again. If you think you had it rough behind the iron curtain, it will be as nothing compared to the Catholic “Paradise” for Australia imagined by these hard right-wing clods. The would be priests, these members of Opus Dei, who flagellate themselves, and wear rusting steel jocks, with shark’s hooks attached. Google Santamaria, and all will be revealed.