I try not to rant on this blog, but recent political events in Australia and my lack of spare time make it inevitable. Earlier today, huge changes to the liberal institutional framework that have helped guide Australia to its current enviable place in the world were passed in our lower house before an almost empty room, unopposed. There is no reason to suspect anything but a similar passage through the Senate.
Despite the fact that the proposed changes doubtless anger an enormous portion of our population, the opposition has loudly accented. What the hell is going on?
When the previous administration was considering the application of an ISP filter I was informed that large swathes of the army reserve, hardly the kind of people you'd expect to side with terrorists or kiddy-fiddlers, were vehemently opposed to the reforms. I wonder what such typically conservative groups make of the new provisions for ASIO to monitor the entire Australian internet.
I also wonder what contortions the mind of our Attorney-General, George Brandis, the man who defended the right of every Australian to be a bigot on the grounds of liberal principles, is engaged in trying to convince itself that allowing detention without charge is okay. In my estimation, Habeus Corpus is second only to rule of law itself in the liberal hierarchy of critical institutions.
The right to privacy is pretty high up there as well.
The new laws also allow for the rather easy jailing of whistleblowers. Surely the vetting processes of our intelligence services are such that whistleblowers only pipe up midst matters of the grossest misconduct. Whistleblowers should be protected to ensure citizen oversight of bureacratic overreach. In any case, what does a terrorism panic have to do with Whistleblowers?
Why do you need to detain someone without charge to control terrorism? If you have good reason to suspect someone is a terrorist then you should be able to get an arrest warrant!
This all ties in quite nicely with the Federal Police's cooperation with the Daily Telegraph and its syndicated papers to cover the raids on terror suspects in Sydney. Make a huge brou ha ha, actually press charges against nobody and then request new powers to detain. Because new avenues for the abuse of police power are always great.
If there is cause to expand the ability of ASIO to monitor then by all means go ahead and draft some legislation. But be sure to also expand the ability of the parliament to oversee the activities of the department under the new powers, and ensure you have left all available avenues open for critical conduct within the department itself. Instead, we've given ASIO license to do whatever it wants with no changes to our meager oversight provisions and severely limited the ability of ASIO staff to speak up if they think something inappropriate is happening.
Are there any limits to this legislation? Will ASIO be able to police illegal downloads of Game of Thrones? Why aren't some limits or parameters being included in the legislation? At least some limits on what information the department is allowed to act on!
All this is being conducted under the auspices of a supposed terror emergency. If that's the case and this is an unusual spike in activity, then put a sunset clause in the legislation.
Why is everything an emergency with this government? Might it be that they are shit at thinking through and crafting good, sound, robust policy?
Given that we've just made a bunch of raids across Sydney, surely we are quite capable of monitoring terror activity without the need to monitor the entire internet.
While all this is frankly terrifying, what disturbing me the most is the complete acquiescence from the Labor party. They have a duty as the opposition to oppose something this dramatic. These are fundamental parts of our institutional architecture! My fear is that Labor continues to think it can win back the xenophobe vote from the liberal party, and that opposing these changes will see them labelled unpatriotic.
That is completely the wrong view. Labor needs to stop focusing on a few seats full of ESFJs and instead embrace the centre where it can win over basically the whole country. The working class is small and no longer voting left. Support the educated, liberal-minded, high-skilled, cosmopolitan, welfarist, centrist middle class of Australia and you'll romp home.
The Gillard government, for all its faults, could at least craft big pieces of legislation - Gonski, the NDIS, the Carbon Price. In opposition, Labor has turned into a wet towel arguing over marginal increases in superannuation while our institutions burn. Medicare is under threat and we have to pay to visit the GP while the rich get rebates on their health insurance, university is set to be made less accessible while research funding crashes, charities are being hit hard, our soft power aid and media in Asia has been cut off at the joint, we're poised to sign on to the TPP and it's ridiculous IP regulations, the barrier reef is dying and the bush is burning. Make some noise Bill!
Opposing this government should be a cinch. They're completely incompetent! Everything they do is a matter of urgency because they have no ability to plan or produce coherent policy. Their economic policies are opposed by the top economists in the country. Even the banks hate them! Their environmental policy contravenes all scientific evidence and all economic sense - it's the laughing stock of the G20. They're trying to make you pay to go to the doctor! Their foreign policy amounts to making everyone less safe and then restricting individual rights in order to prevent terrorist attacks! Their budget was the most bare-faced redistribution from the poor to the rich in the nation's history.
Who the heck is running media and strategy for Labor?! Sack those fools and get some people whose IQ is higher than the number of twitter messages they read each day.
I'm going to have to vote fucking greens again! If your policy alienates precisely the kind of people that want, desperately, to vote for you, you're doing something wrong!
Despite the fact that the proposed changes doubtless anger an enormous portion of our population, the opposition has loudly accented. What the hell is going on?
When the previous administration was considering the application of an ISP filter I was informed that large swathes of the army reserve, hardly the kind of people you'd expect to side with terrorists or kiddy-fiddlers, were vehemently opposed to the reforms. I wonder what such typically conservative groups make of the new provisions for ASIO to monitor the entire Australian internet.
I also wonder what contortions the mind of our Attorney-General, George Brandis, the man who defended the right of every Australian to be a bigot on the grounds of liberal principles, is engaged in trying to convince itself that allowing detention without charge is okay. In my estimation, Habeus Corpus is second only to rule of law itself in the liberal hierarchy of critical institutions.
The right to privacy is pretty high up there as well.
The new laws also allow for the rather easy jailing of whistleblowers. Surely the vetting processes of our intelligence services are such that whistleblowers only pipe up midst matters of the grossest misconduct. Whistleblowers should be protected to ensure citizen oversight of bureacratic overreach. In any case, what does a terrorism panic have to do with Whistleblowers?
Why do you need to detain someone without charge to control terrorism? If you have good reason to suspect someone is a terrorist then you should be able to get an arrest warrant!
This all ties in quite nicely with the Federal Police's cooperation with the Daily Telegraph and its syndicated papers to cover the raids on terror suspects in Sydney. Make a huge brou ha ha, actually press charges against nobody and then request new powers to detain. Because new avenues for the abuse of police power are always great.
If there is cause to expand the ability of ASIO to monitor then by all means go ahead and draft some legislation. But be sure to also expand the ability of the parliament to oversee the activities of the department under the new powers, and ensure you have left all available avenues open for critical conduct within the department itself. Instead, we've given ASIO license to do whatever it wants with no changes to our meager oversight provisions and severely limited the ability of ASIO staff to speak up if they think something inappropriate is happening.
Are there any limits to this legislation? Will ASIO be able to police illegal downloads of Game of Thrones? Why aren't some limits or parameters being included in the legislation? At least some limits on what information the department is allowed to act on!
All this is being conducted under the auspices of a supposed terror emergency. If that's the case and this is an unusual spike in activity, then put a sunset clause in the legislation.
Why is everything an emergency with this government? Might it be that they are shit at thinking through and crafting good, sound, robust policy?
Given that we've just made a bunch of raids across Sydney, surely we are quite capable of monitoring terror activity without the need to monitor the entire internet.
While all this is frankly terrifying, what disturbing me the most is the complete acquiescence from the Labor party. They have a duty as the opposition to oppose something this dramatic. These are fundamental parts of our institutional architecture! My fear is that Labor continues to think it can win back the xenophobe vote from the liberal party, and that opposing these changes will see them labelled unpatriotic.
That is completely the wrong view. Labor needs to stop focusing on a few seats full of ESFJs and instead embrace the centre where it can win over basically the whole country. The working class is small and no longer voting left. Support the educated, liberal-minded, high-skilled, cosmopolitan, welfarist, centrist middle class of Australia and you'll romp home.
The Gillard government, for all its faults, could at least craft big pieces of legislation - Gonski, the NDIS, the Carbon Price. In opposition, Labor has turned into a wet towel arguing over marginal increases in superannuation while our institutions burn. Medicare is under threat and we have to pay to visit the GP while the rich get rebates on their health insurance, university is set to be made less accessible while research funding crashes, charities are being hit hard, our soft power aid and media in Asia has been cut off at the joint, we're poised to sign on to the TPP and it's ridiculous IP regulations, the barrier reef is dying and the bush is burning. Make some noise Bill!
Opposing this government should be a cinch. They're completely incompetent! Everything they do is a matter of urgency because they have no ability to plan or produce coherent policy. Their economic policies are opposed by the top economists in the country. Even the banks hate them! Their environmental policy contravenes all scientific evidence and all economic sense - it's the laughing stock of the G20. They're trying to make you pay to go to the doctor! Their foreign policy amounts to making everyone less safe and then restricting individual rights in order to prevent terrorist attacks! Their budget was the most bare-faced redistribution from the poor to the rich in the nation's history.
Who the heck is running media and strategy for Labor?! Sack those fools and get some people whose IQ is higher than the number of twitter messages they read each day.
I'm going to have to vote fucking greens again! If your policy alienates precisely the kind of people that want, desperately, to vote for you, you're doing something wrong!
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