Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

If any continuous theme runs through [Paul Keating's] career, it is power: the acquisition of it, the exercise of it, the company of it, being on the side of it, loss of it, and now reminiscence of it. I cannot put it more appropriately, even though my grandmother once told me never to use language: power has been to Keating as shit to a blowfly.

In 2005 the Australian government dramatically expanded the security powers of many state agencies as part of the “war on terror”. The new sedition laws, control orders, and secret pre-emptive detention all seem major threats to civil liberties, dissent, and (dare I say it?) democracy in this country.