legislature impotent on terrorPlaying directly into the hands of terrorists, Australian Prime Minister John Howard has proposed legislation which virtually mirrors existing law in an obvious attempt to terrify the nation's citizens while feigning a tough stand on terror to maintain electoral support.The proposal has the same effect as a terrorist strike without the loss of life, a departure Howard makes up for by terrorising Australian Government employees and their families.
Dr Ben Saul, a lecturer in the faculty of law at the University of NSW, claims in the Sydney Morning Herald that "it seems difficult to justify intrusive control orders, preventive detention for 14 days, notices to produce, extended time limits on ASIO warrants, stop and search powers, and higher penalties for giving false or misleading information to ASIO. Other proposals are still too vague to comment on meaningfully".
"ASIO already has extensive powers to question and detain for up to seven days people who are not even terrorist suspects, while the federal police may hold terrorist suspects for an extended period of 24 hours. In light of this, it is difficult to see how the proposed power of preventive detention is necessary, unless the intention is to indiscriminately detain whole groups on little evidence of terrorism."
Moreover, "[c]riminal law already allows the prosecution of incitement to crime, so it is a hasty and imprudent overreaction to extend the law further through these vaguely worded proposals".
Having already tortured thousands of children behind razor wire in detention centres and handed terrorists a homeland by supporting the war in Iraq, Howard has now become a jewel in the crown of global destabalisation.
What Australia needs is men who have the decency to empower women, not the current crop of limp-minded misogynist cowards who obligingly do the bidding of terrorists by denying women the right to a legislature and jurisdiction while keeping the nation in a state of fear with bogus legislative window dressing.
September 22, 2005
