Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

G'day. The Senate Inquiry report into the Anti-Terrorism bill was released today at 4.30 pm. Labor and Liberal have come together with a bipartisan report that gives maximum power to small 'l' Liberals in their dealings with Howard. Here are the recommendations and the chapter two overview.

I got an email from a long-time Webdiarist today 'gobsmacked' by documents dragged out of the NSW Government which show its proposed desalination plant is, quite simply, not in the public interest.Scully has let the cat out of the bag, hasn't he? It's a classic case of the mess that results when the interests of government become merged with the interests of business.

|| Labor and Liberal, workers united || Laws don't protect workers: Andrews || Blog views || More photos - keep sending them in! ||

|| Thousands protest around the country || Workers sacked for attending rally || Union to take legal action over Govt. rally leave advice || Webdiarists were there - photos and reports. Send in yours! ||

G'day. Hot off the press, here's the Law Council of Australia's analysis of the terror legislation. The Council's president will give evidence to the Senate inquiry into the matter this afternoon. 

"Major changes to basic human rights threaten to undermine the foundations of both our society and economic system. As international investors with considerable experience covering the emerging economies of Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, as well as the world’s major economies, it is our observation that strong basic rights enshrined in the law and the judicial system are fundamental to creating economic prosperity. Indeed the “level of trust” within societies and the correlation with economic prosperity has been an area of significant academic study in recent years. We believe there is a high risk that the provisions of the Anti-Terrorism (No. 2) Bill 2005 will, over time, damage the level of trust in Australian society... We concur that Australia faces the real threat of terrorist acts on our shores. However, in the event of an attack(s), the subsequent confusion, fear and sense of injustice could produce an environment that sows the seed for a discordant civil order, exacerbated by poorly considered and drafted legislation." Kerr Neilson, MD of Platinum Asset Management, Australia's biggest offshore fund manager

|| National community day of protest - Tuesday 15 November 2005 || 'US Style' working poor || Labor would scrap IR laws || Do unions still matter? ||

November 28 is now the date the House of Reps will vote on the terror laws AND the date the Senate inquiry into them will report its findings. I wonder - will the Government heavies force a House of Representatives vote BEFORE the Senate report is tabled to stop true liberals having to examine their consciences and perhaps cross the floor in the House of Reps to support Labor amendments duly altered to reflect the Senate inquiry's recommendations? And how heavy will Howard's enforcers' pressure be on the Liberal Senators on the inquiry to toe the government's line or else? People, there is suddenly a big space for you to have a say. A two week space. It ain't over yet.

"We have to give our police and intelligence agencies sufficient powers to protect us, but we must also do so without betraying the very values we are defending. It is vital that we address the concerns of all groups seriously, as a matter of both principle and pragmatism. Parliament needs to ensure that the intelligence and law enforcement agencies have the necessary powers and protections to operate effectively. Equally, it must ensure that the application of the law does not lead to the alienation of community groups whose active participation is essential for the success of intelligence collection and law enforcement." Petro Georgiou, Liberal, in Parliament today.

G'day. The House of Representatives began debating the Anti-Terrorism package late this morning. The Government intends to guillotine the debate sometime today. Here is the text of the Labor amendment Parliament is now debating followed by the speech by Shadow Attorney General Nicola Roxon. Liberal dissident Petro Georgiou has just delivered a speech to Parliament detailing his significant concerns with the package and urging the Senate Committee to come up with several amendments to improve it. I will publish his speech as soon as it is available.

"The Court is also the final court of appeal in criminal and civil matters and determines disputes between citizens and government and between governments within our federal system. Because judicial power must be exercised in accordance with judicial process it is the final protector of the rights of citizens. It is impossible not to feel the weight of the responsibilities involved." High Court Justice Susan Crennan

"Don't forget, Mr Howard, that if ever there is a terrorist attack in Australia, it is you personally who must take the lion's share of the blame, for it as a result of your rushing to support George Bush in the Iraq war. Remember how you flew in the very face of public opinion, as evidenced by those huge street marches back in February 2003 and whose clear message you just chose to ignore. What a monumental error of judgment that was for Australia. Had it not been for your rush to please George Bush, would there have been any grounds for this week's raids and arrest? Would there have been any need for all your frightening legislation? Would we be having to devote so much of our resources to anti-terrorism and security?" Former Liberal Party President John Valder

"In an environment in which the executive is required to explore the interplay of individual rights against the need to provide collective security, surely there is a role to also explore the reverse. Some Australians are uncomfortable with the executive’s stronger pursuit of collective security at the expensive of individual freedom, even in the face of more calculated and malicious terrorist attacks. Other Australians place a higher emphasis on the need for collective security over individual freedom and are not necessarily concerned with a possible erosion of Western democratic principles of individual supremacy. Our personal views will, of course, reflect our respective weighting of these two competing demands. It is my contention that both viewpoints can be suitably comforted through the introduction of a statutory bill of rights in Australia." Liberal MP Stephen Ciobo

National Party backbenchers are taking credit for today's changes to the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and other Measures) Bill 2005. Others are claiming the  backdown on welfare 'doesn't go far enough'.

G'day. The Government today tossed aside the right of our elected representatives to properly consider the Terror Laws in the House of Representatives, formerly known as the People's House, and to have their say on them for the record. The voluminous package was released just last week, yet the PM decreed that a mere 4 hours be allotted for Parliamentary debate in the Reps, from 9am on Thursday, before the guillotine is applied and a vote forced. UPDATE 11.20pm: Ruddock admits on Lateline that there is NO investigation into leaks to News Ltd newspapers last week of operational details Howard and Ruddock refused to discuss at their press conference the day before on the grounds that to do so would compromise national security.

"All things considered, the worst crime of fascism and its twin brother, German national socialism, is their suppression of free thought and free speech. Now, why is this freedom of real importance to humanity? The answer is that what appears to be today’s truth is frequently tomorrow’s error. Hence, if truth is to emerge and in the long run be triumphant, the process of free debate - the untrammelled clash of opinion - must go on. There are fascist tendencies in all countries - a sort of latent tyranny. And they exist, be it remembered, in radical as well as in conservative quarters. Suppression of attack, which is based upon suppression of really free thought, is the instinctive weapon of the vested interest. Power is apt to produce a kind of drunkenness, and it needs the cold douche of the critic to correct it." Sir Robert Menzies, 1942

"We must frankly admit that fear has not only been a large and deadly element in international relations. It has also been a recognized and potent instrument of domestic policy. Indeed, a powerful case might be made out for the view that the emotion of fear is the most significant of all the emotions on the field of politics... Nothing can be worse for democracy than to adopt the practice of permitting knowledge to be overthrown by ignorance. If I have honestly and thoughtfully arrived at a certain conclusion on a public question and my electors disagree with me, my first duty is to endeavour to persuade them that my view is right. If I fail in this, my second duty will be to accept the electoral consequences and not to run away from them. Fear can never be a proper or useful ingredient in those mutual relations of respect and goodwill which ought to exist between the elector and the elected. In time of war it is the absence of fear in individuals and groups which gives dignity and strength to the nation's bearing in the midst of difficulties. It is the presence of fear and the yielding to it which produces hysteria and greed and burden-dodging."  Sir Robert Menzies, 1942

"If we are to view war problems from a national point of view and - what is even better - from a world point of view, then we must inevitably conclude  that if this war with all its tragedy breeds into us a deep-seated and enduring spirit of hatred, then the peace when it comes will be merely the prelude to disaster and not an end of it. It is an offence to an honest citizen to imagine that the cold, evil and repulsive spirit of racial hatred must be substituted for honest and brave indignation if his greatest effort is to be obtained.  It is not highfalutin to have a noble and decent cause in war. It is the very moral height of our great argument which alone can reconcile the mother to the death of her son in battle. This war is no sordid conflict of racial animosities. If it were, it could never end in your lifetime or mine. We should refuse to take the honest and natural and passing passions of the human heart and degrade them into sinister and bitter policy. We shall, in other words, do well if we leave the dignity and essential nobility of our cause unstained and get on urgently with the business of so working, so fighting, and so sacrificing ourselves that the cause emerges triumphant and the healing benefits of its success become available as a blessing not merely for us but for all mankind." Sir Robert Menzies, 1942

"The NATSEM modelling demonstrates that without significant change to aspects of Newstart, such as to the income test, or to taxation treatment of additional earned income or to the activity test, individuals with a disability and women and men supporting children who attempt to improve their circumstances by entering the workforce face shocking Government imposed income losses. They'll not be able to pay the rent, put food on the table, and if they are on a part-allowance, they'll lose up to 75 cents in each dollar earned." Marie Coleman

|| Unions plan industrial action || Lawyers say new IR laws a 'dog's breakfast' || Eighteen MPs ejected from Parliament over two days || Joyce raises doubts over support for new IR legislation || more... ||

Begining today, resource and links updates on the new IR legislation. This first collection comes from the Parliament of Australia Parliamentary Library.

Andrews: That is what Work Choices is all about – securing the future prosperity of Australian individuals and families. ... Work Choices does this by accommodating the greater demand for choice and flexibility in our workplaces. It continues a process of evolution, begun over a decade ago, towards a system that trusts Australian men and women to make their own decisions in the workplace and to do so in a way that best suits them.

Beazley: It is the product of an extreme, outdated ideology. An ideology that has nothing to do with the challenges Australia faces in the first quarter of the 21^st century - nothing to do with the nation's economic needs. ... It's the most savage attack on the values of Australian society and the security of working families that I've seen in 25 years in this Parliament.

G'day. I don't suppose anyone in the Opposition will dare make these obvious points today, so here goes. Where did the newspapers get their information from of the supposed details of the specific intelligence which Howard claimed triggered his emergency amendments to terror laws yesterday? I've read the news stories linked in today's Daily Briefing, and lots of detail - mostly stated as fact and unsourced - is there in black and white. I've set them out below.Yet Howard himself said over and over at his press conference yesterday that he wouldn't, indeed COULDN'T go into any detail IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST.

G'day. I don't suppose anyone in the Opposition will dare make these obvious points today, so here goes. Where did the newspapers get their information from of the supposed details of the specific intelligence which Howard claimed triggered his emergency amendments to terror laws yesterday? I've read the news stories linked in today's Daily Briefing, and lots of detail - mostly stated as fact and unsourced - is there in black and white. I've set them out below.Yet Howard himself said over and over at his press conference yesterday that he wouldn't, indeed COULDN'T go into any detail IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST.

Key national anti-terrorism body 'not activated'
ABC Online November 3, 2005. 9:41am (AEDT)
ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope says a key national counter-terrorism body was not informed of the latest terrorism threat. - http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200511/s1496633.htm

True test is just around the corner
The Age, November 3, 2005, By MICHELLE GRATTAN
ONE test of the need to rush a minor change to the nation's anti-terrorism laws through Parliament today will come almost immediately. This week the Government has received specific information of a terrorist threat to Australia. The PM says passage of the amendment will strengthen agencies' capacity to respond. If authorities require this instant legal finetuning, they'll presumably act at once. Logically, we should see arrests over the next few days. - http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2005/11/02/1130823280998.html

G'day. The PM and Mr Ruddock have just told reporters that a little bit of the terror laws package will be rushed through the House of Reps after question time, then through the Senate tomorrow arvo. It will, Howard said, alter current law referring to 'the' terrorist act to 'a' terrorist act. He wouldn't say why this particular change was urgent, and ensured there were no informed questions asked on behalf of Australians by insisting that he'd give reporters a statement on the detail AFTER he'd said his bit and gone to lunch.

G'day. Here we go folks. This morning the government released most of its mega Industrial Relations package of legislation. Actually, it didn't do it until AFTER the minister Kevin Andrews introduced the bills into the House of Representatives flanked by a smug PM. That led to a shit-fight for an hour on the floor of the House, because House rules require that MPs each get a copy of a proposed law before the debate starts. Fair enough, eh? The government didn't bother with that. The People's House is a sham, after all.

G'day. Kim Beazley's determination as of yesterday to pass the reign of terror laws regardless of their contents folded today in Caucus, for now. Anticipating the disgust from many Labor MPs at shadow Cabinet's capitulation to Howard's sight unseen agenda yesterday, Beazley did not ask Caucus to endorse his stand. Instead, he successfully moved that Caucus support tough security laws with strong safeguards and promised a special Caucus meeting to decide Labor's position when the bill was finally published.

G'day. Mr Beazley, since you've forgotten what the role of the opposition is, here's a speech by Sir Robert Menzies - made when Australia was in the midst of World War II and we faced our greatest security threat - to remind you. And you might, though this is doubtful given your poor memory of what you or your Party stood or stands for, vaguely recall your pledge to the people of Australia in a speech after you regained the Labor leadership you called Accountability.

"In all of these hypothetical cases, the play, or film, or book, or song, or picture, or television programme could well be found to constitute, objectively, the “urging”, of a person or persons exposed to it to engage in proscribed conduct. In any such case, ordinarily all of those involved in the dissemination of such works would potentially be guilty of sedition under the Bill: writers, directors, producers, actors, singers, painters, editors, publishers, distributors, broadcasters. All would arguably have “urged” such conduct." Advice from Peter Gray SC to Peter Garrett MP.