Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

"Now that it is clear from Ruddock’s slip of the tongue what is planned, all becomes clear. The States do not have to amend their legislation at all. What is undoubtedly proposed is that the States will pass a referring Act, the Commonwealth will pass the Anti-Terrorism Bill and the States will then re-enact it. ... This changes considerably what has to be done to defeat this legislation. Immediate pressure should be brought to bear on State Parliaments not to pass the referring Act." Malcolm B Duncan

|| Boris Johnson flays the UK anti-terrorism laws || Andrew Sullivan on Bush and the indictment  || Paul Krugman welcomes Ben Bernanke    || Tony Blair on tackling climate change    || Seymour Hersh interviews Scott Ritter on Iraq  || Martin Bell says Ireland should not honour Easter 1916    || Emily Bell on editing a newspaper for the global village  || Lynton Crosby on the wonderful land down under  || TECHNOLOGY: Digital camera update  || Christine Rosen on the children of the narcissistic generation || Studs Terkel on the White Sox curse  ||

"The theory my colleague put forward was regarding who is driving a large segment of the tax debate, and why. The theory went along these lines - that the tax proposals being put forward by Malcolm Turnbull MP were not only the by work of a single MP or small focus group interested in taxation reform, rather the reforms put forward, specifically the proposition to reduce the top tax rates to a 30% level, were driven by an agenda by the Liberal party itself." Stuart Lord

"With honour at such a low ebb in the actions of political men, all were united in praise for the idols of new wealth, who strove to surpass each other in vulgarity of display and constant business, building empires of paper upon the corpses of genuine endeavour. But, formed for malice rather than mateship, Howard remained shunned by these new gods, and he failed to reap full benefit in an age when mere show counted above the rewards of further greed. For, although deriving nothing from their slavish associations but what was low and degrading, the party of labour yet retained the name of power, although all true rule had passed to those who had grasped at wealth." - Apocrypha of Tacitus (Widely suspected to be the clever forgery of Webdiarist, John Henry Calvinist)

"If it is possible to induce an additional 80,000 people to enter the work-force through modifications of the personal income tax situation, then perhaps the haphazard and individually punitive approach of changing pensioners over to Newstart Allowance, while at the same time introducing all sorts of one-off exemptions, was a really silly way to go about the Prime Minister's ambitious adventure." - Marie Coleman

G'day. I'm back on deck and ready to report the next few weeks of action in federal parliament. We can't call it 'our' parliament any more - that much us clear from the Government's behaviour in the two great issues on the table, the terror laws and industrial relations. In both cases, the government has refused to publish its draft laws and wants them to rush through parliament without scrutiny by the people all of us elected to represent us after input from interested citizens provided with the legislation on offer.

My partner and I had just completed our weekly shop at the local supermarket. We returned home to drop off the groceries and take off again to pick up her youngster from school. It was then back home for a family fish and chip and video evening. Two plain clothed policemen greeted me at the gate. They asked me to accompany them. When I asked what this was in connection with they assured me that we were just going up the road and back. I knew I had nothing more to worry about than an overlooked traffic fine so, with curiosity and without concern I complied. Ten minutes later I was being held at the Maribynong Detention Centre." Stephan Willis

Next Tuesday the Federal Opposition in the House of Reps will have only 10 minutes to digest the new Anti-Terrorism Bill 2005. Opposition and debate surrounding the Bill and its rush job is accelerating.

The introduction of the Bill has been delayed.

Today's update includes a press release from Jon Stanhope, and links to further legal opinion commissioned by the Chief Minister, plus reportage on issues that may become illegal to report in a few short days or weeks.

|| Tony Parkinson attacks 'medieval' anti-terror laws || Column says war supporters can not blame Bush incompetence  || Ghaith Abdul-Ahad joins a group of Iraqi insurgents  || La repubblica translations  || Timothy Garton Ash on Europe's challenge from Asia || Report on Harriet Miers stepping down  || Report on challenge to climate sceptics  || Elisabeth Eaves on the price of a lap dance || Albert Einstein on science and religion || Dylan Evans on the loss of utopian idealism || Science on how 'sleeping on it' works ||

You can support the work of Webdiary through a regular donation which will help build our capacity for planning and development; to strengthen independent publishing and achieve long term change. Or you can make a one-off donation whenever you feel like it...

"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 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!" Chris Rau

|| Laura Rozen on the neo-con Niger yellowcake forgeries || Kristof and Tierney on the Plame affair  || Stephen Roach on the challenges awaiting Bernanke  || John Bercow says it is time to act against Burma || Eugene Robinson on Condoleezza Rice's race denial || Report on Australia's anti-terrorism laws  || Alexander Zaitchik on why small is beautiful again  || Christopher Hitchens on the latest Galloway allegations || Scientist discovers how to stop tables wobbling ||

"Two RAAF helicopters, one about 300 metres behind the other, were flying circuits around central Canberra... They each appeared to be mounted with two large lethal-looking missile launchers, slung beneath the cabin. As the helicopters flew maybe 100 metres above my head, I saw these four launchers clearly. I wondered if the loaded missiles were armed, and I wondered what would happen if one of these helicopters were accidentally to crash over populated central Canberra." - Tony Kevin

More links and updates - national and international.
Public meeting - National Library of Australia, tonight 6-8pm.
Call to action from the editor of New Matilda

"The Old Right in Australia was often seen as a single force, labeled "conservatism" but it was actually an amalgam of different political ideas and trends, some of which now oppose the current neo-liberal and neo-conservative hegemony. The great icon of Australian Right, Sir Robert Menzies, for example, supported social justice and the welfare state. The Liberal MP who now holds Menzies' old parliamentary seat, Petro Georgiou, points out that "pro-market purists" in the modern Liberal Party damn any notion of social justice as a 'Labor plot' when it was in fact a foundation stone for the Liberal Party." - David McKnight

"We do not yet know who actually released Plame's name to reporters. We think Novak had one source whose name has not been made public. Two prominent members of the Bush administration have admitted talking to reporters about Plame - Cheney's Chief of Staff 'Scooter' Libby and Karl Rove, but both have maintained that it was reporters who told them Plame's name and job.... According to several sources, Fitzgerald is examining the possibility that blowing Plame's cover was a desperate tactic in a far-reaching conspiracy, first to falsify WMD intelligence and, later, to destroy Wilson's credibility and warn off other potential whistleblowers." Kerryn Higgs

Technical glitches: Both The Daily Briefing's and Webdiary's service providers have given us access trouble today. Webdiary was off-line for an hour or so this afternoon, and we have been unable to post new articles or publish comments until now.

Wayne's ISP problems began in the early hours of the morning (when he begins his daily trawl) and he later informed Webdiary and his subscribers that technical difficulties had hindered the production of today's Daily Briefing. Fortunately things cleared up just before lunch and Wayne was able to produce this brief but, as always, interesting edition. Wayne says: "tomorrow's will be a biggy".

|| Report says terror laws to be used against activists  || Report on the death of Rosa Parks  || Protecting POTUS from the Onion || In the papers... ||

Seditious opinion? Lock 'em up
Media Watch 24 October 2005
An expert legal opinion obtained by Media Watch on the impact of the new Anti-Terrorism Bill says that journalists and the commentators they interview might be caught out by the new laws on sedition.
In last week's show we drew your attention to the new sedition offences, as proposed in the leaked draft of the government's Anti Terrorist bill, which is still on our website.
Dictionaries define sedition as conduct or language inciting rebellion against the government. As a criminal offence it has a long and dishonourable history as a means of shutting down political dissent, back in the Cold War and before.
Our concern is how the new sedition offences might criminalise the expression, reporting and publication of the range of opinions in our society. - http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s1489465.htm

"Labor MP Julia Irwin has now earned herself the title of a serial offender, being lambasted by some of the leading lights of the Jewish community for her recent comments in the adjournment debate. True to form, her own party Leader, Kim Beazley, joined her critics. If the question is: can I find anything which is not right with her comments - then skip the next two paragraphs and read on. However that might not be the only relevant question." - Sol Salbe

"Mars hasn't given up its secrets easily, proving a graveyard for space probes; over half of all probes sent by both the US and the USSR failing. However it has now been the site of the most ambitious and successful space probe lander mission ever: the twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Roving Mars is the story of this extraordinary project." Malcolm Street

We've previously looked at climate change in Climate Change: where are we at?, and Warming up the energy debate. Some aspects also came up in the Peak Oil debates: Peak oil and our government: what energy crisis?, Horse dung up to our ears and in Rita, Katrina, oil and the economy. Quite a lot has happened since the June "Warming up -" debate, in terms of studies published that look at the detail of phenomena relevant to climate change, and other relevant developments. Here are some of those things.

|| Noam Levy on war's impact on Iraqi children || Investigation into the environmental cost of gold mining || Rebecca Solnit on the democratic revolution in Sth America || Interview on article about Bush's foreign policy || David Brooks says Bush is the future of conservatism || Michael Wolff on the UK newspaper wars || David Horowitz on the life and death of Susan Lydon || Report on the appointment of Greenspan's replacement || REST: Twins singing for white supremacism || Jeff Hewitt is unimpressed by the 10 commandments (satire) || BOOKS: 'Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and Its Triumphs' edited by John Pilger ||

How Democracies Fight Terrorism
by Malcolm Fraser
Stephen Murray-Smith Memorial Lecture
State Library of Victoria, 19 October 2005
FULL SPEECH - http://margokingston.typepad.com/harry_version_2/webdiary_community/MalcolmFraserlecture.htm

War of words over shoot-to-kill
The Australian, Brad Norington and Samantha Maiden, October 21, 2005
-POLICE can already use lethal force under the federal Government's Crimes Act to protect lives when making arrests for an offence. - http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16986978%255E2702,00.html

"If Australians are to once again see their government as the instrument of the nation's collective will, and their national parliament as the place consensus is forged, then we have to learn again from Henry Parkes the importance of direct democracy. As Parkes said in here in 1889, it is through democracy that governments gain legitimacy. As our nineteenth century political institutions creak and groan with the effort to keep up with changing times, we are experiencing an increasing deficit of democracy.The apathy and anger that marks our modern Australian democracy is a sign that the deficit of democracy is becoming a lack of legitimacy." John Faulkner

"Under totalitarian regimes, be it Stalinism, Hitlerism or whatever -ism, the code for blind obedience tends to rule. So when my sister Margita failed to follow the code of blind obedience and attended church services in 1979 she was sacked from her teaching post and forced to work in a railway yard. What is perplexing about the communist experience is how so many well-intentioned and apparently decent people could have participated in and defended a movement that directly led to the deaths of millions, and suffering, hardship and lack of freedom for many millions more. It is, in a sense, the key issue of our sad 20th century." Jozef Imrich

"The COAG Agreement states that the "[l]eaders agreed that any strengthened counter-terrorism law must...contain appropriate safeguards against abuse, such as. ..judicial review"... Given the importance of the principle of judicial oversight in the COAG Agreement, this paper briefly explains the proper role of judicial oversight in relation to anti-terrorism laws and the necessary conditions for effective judicial oversight. It then details why the provisions of the draft Anti-Terrorism Bill 2005 (Cth) dealing with control orders and preventive detention orders fall short of providing effective judicial oversight." Joo-Cheong Tham

|| Chas Savage makes a seditious call for revolt || Bernard Crick wants a humanist-religious alliance || Misleading editorial on US politics || Byron Calame on the failings of Miller and the Times || Maureen Dowd criticises her colleague Judith Miller || Rami Khouri on the UN report into the Hariri assassination || Rory Stewart on what is emerging from democracy in Iraq || Robin Blackburn and Oliver Kamm debate Chomsky || Christopher Caldwell worries about humanity in a virtual world || Report on the rise of the anti-consumerism 'Puritans' || Columnist only discusses the placement of 'only' ||

Margo redrafted these guidelines for the new site, and we'll stick by them, subject to your input:

Margo Kingston set the overall direction for Webdiary over the first five and a half years of its existence. The charter, ethics, editorial policy, and discussion guidelines we work to were all created by her.

I believe:
- that there is a vacuum of original, genuine, passionate and accessible debate on the great political, economic and social issues of our time in the mainstream media, despite the desire of thinking Australians in all age groups to read and participate in such debates
- that newspapers have lost their connection with the readers they serve
- that the future of news media which serves its democratic function to inform, expose and analyse the world around us lies in a collaboration between journalists and readers through independent news media.