Oz election thread #3 - Rudd's Labour

....Hackers replaced festival information with the Chinese flag and anti-Kadeer slogans soon after the launch of the 2009 festival.

.....Festival director Richard Moore told AAP he had been alerted by a minority Chinese student living in the US that instructions on how to sabotage the festival were travelling fast.

"It's a very, very concerted and pointed attack," Mr Moore said.

"Everyone's watching this - it's totally global."

The email provides instructions for loading tickets into "shopping carts" from the festival's website, and Chinese are being urged to teach others how to "purchase" MIFF tickets online.

The circulating email reasons MIFF should be sabotaged "because the festival invited Kadeer".

Online sales represent 65 per cent of all tickets bought, Mr Moore said, with the weekend being the period of "maximum traffic".

"We knew there would be another attempt," he said. "There will be a decline in sales as a result."

Kadeer is scheduled to attend a question-and-answer session after the screening of The 10 Conditions of Love on August 8.

Security remains a priority, organisers say. "We've been in constant liaison with the police. We're monitoring it," Mr Moore said.

Film buffs can still buy tickets at the festival's box office or over the phone.

AAP

Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan was unrepentant about the conference's stage-managed agenda which critics suggested lacked the debate and passion of previous party gatherings.

"I know there were many in the media who were looking for unconstructive brawling and pomp and ceremony and all of that," he told the Nine Network on Sunday.

"I'm sorry it wasn't entertaining enough or there wasn't enough razzle dazzle, but so be it."

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the three-day conference, which ended on Saturday, showed ideas could be worked through in a mature way.

"We are a political party in government, we have accepted that responsibility and that's what you saw on show," she told ABC Television.

The conference had worked through Labor's platform on education, health, workplace relations and climate change.

"I know it wasn't all that much fun for the media, but we're not entertainers, we are a political party in government and that's what you saw." ...<cont>

IN WHAT is supposed to be the lowest key, most modest ALP national conference imaginable, Julia Gillard allowed herself just a note of triumphalism.

‘‘We have completed the climb from valleys of opposition to the summit of power and, delegates, doesn’t it feel good?’’ she said. Of course, she went on to warn about the responsibility that power brings, and the difficulty of the climb.

But there was a touch of what Paul Keating would have called the sweetness of victory.

Not that the 400 delegates gathered at Sydney’s Darling Harbour Convention Centre are to be allowed to revel in that sweetness. After the first of three days, it seems a fair bet that this conference is destined to be remembered for almost nothing.

It’s not an election year, and so it has no campaigning role and none of the theatrics and excitement of Kevin Rudd’s 2007 conference or Mark Latham’s 2004 one.

Rudd didn’t even make an entrance for his speech; already seated on the platform, he just got to his feet. It was a typical Rudd address, long on what had been done by this ‘‘sleeves-rolled-up’’ Government and with plenty of the now-too-familiar Rudd cliches. He linked back strongly into Labor history, with its strands of ‘‘fairness’’ and nation-building and to all the Labor heroes, and the emotive Chifley ‘‘light on the hill’’ vision.

Labor had been in government only one-third of Australia’s federal history and ‘‘our resolve from this conference should be to apply every effort, every energy and every discipline to build a long-term reformist government’’, he said.

Rudd reprised his familiar analysis of the cause of the global crisis: ‘‘This crisis has been caused by a combination of unrestrained greed, unlimited credit and unregulated markets " all cornerstones of an ideology of free-market fundamentalism promulgated by the political right over the last decade and more.

‘‘Of course, the free market fundamentalist accepts no ideological responsibility for what has occurred. Instead, governments of the responsible centre have had to step in to clean up the wreckage.’’

Rudd’s critique became a theme for the conference’s subsequent economic discussion. The result, in an almost choreographed debate, was a strange mismatch between the modernism of the Rudd Government and an ideological rhetoric that seemed to belong to another time and mainly to the left. Now it seems to have spread infectiously across the party. The stand-out example was the resolution moved by Mark Dreyfus, chairman of the national policy committee and from the right, and Doug Cameron, firebrand of the left. It declared that the conference believed the global crisis ‘‘has arisen because of the dominance of a culture of greed and short-termism that rewarded speculation over long-term investment, and enriched a few at the expense of the many. This culture was nurtured and advanced by an extreme capitalist ideology of neo-liberalism and free-market fundamentalism.’’

It went on to support the role of government and applaud the Rudd Government’s economic actions, as well as welcoming Labor taking a ‘‘leading role’’ internationally on financial issues. No wonder Cameron applauded the attack on neo-liberalism as ‘‘fantastic’’, quipping ‘‘I don’t feel alone any more’’.

In terms of specifics, the conference also had more of a leftish tinge in some of its economic resolutions and amendments than might have been expected. Its attack on excessive executive salaries was very strong and it opposed any fall in company tax revenue coming out of the Henry review of the taxation system. But Trade Minister Simon Crean headed off an amendment that could have been seen as favouring ‘‘green’’ tariffs on imports from countries that don’t bring in carbon price regimes.

Once, great significance might have been put on some of these conference decisions that got through. But they will sink into nothingness.

Why? Because what the conference decides matters hardly a whit.

A lot of work has gone into heading off a few potential embarrassments, such as over government procurement policy, but at the end of the day if anything unacceptable to the Government is passed it will simply be ignored.

Many years ago, these conferences were vitally important, on issues as central as the US alliance and uranium mining.

Now all power is in the hands of the parliamentary party, and Rudd has further strengthened the role of leader within that party. In opposition, he seized the right to appoint his frontbench (rather than just allocate portfolios) and he entrenched this right in government.

Of course, the reality is never quite as stark. Rudd is supreme now, riding at immense highs in the polls, and having reduced Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull to a sort of dead man walking.

But even now, though Rudd rejects the notion of factional balance being important to him, he still observes it and is close to factional leaders such as the NSW Right’s Mark Arbib.

If things eventually go badly, as they often do for leaders, circumstances and colleagues would bring curbs on his power.

However the Rudd story plays out in the years ahead the national conference will have little role in it or, for that matter, in the stories of future Labor leaders.

Michelle Grattan is political editor.

Never the less, the Mad Monk's motivation isn't at the 'death of democracy' but the lack of public division available for his party to try and distract the media from his own party's obvious divisions.

Rudd is trying to hold on to the swinging voters who want to be 'relaxed and comfortable'.

Blah. monday mornings.

The Melbourne Magistrates Court heard some of them discussed obtaining a religious ruling from overseas or interstate in support of their alleged plans.

One of the suspects, Nayef El Sayed, 25, of Glenroy, has been charged with a terrorism-related offence.

He appeared in court today and was remanded in custody.

Federal Police also won an application to further question three other suspects who appeared in court today but have not been charged.

A fifth suspect is in custody on other matters.

Raids

About 400 law enforcement officers took part in the series of raids that led to today's arrests.

The 19 raids took place across Melbourne and regional Victoria.

Australian Federal Police Acting Chief Commissioner Tony Negus says the operation was the result of seven months' work by several agencies.

He says more arrests are possible.

"There are further inquiries being conducted both in Australia and overseas," he said.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says Australia will not be increasing its terror alert level.

But he says today's events are a strong reminder of the security threats facing the nation.

"The threat of terrorism is alive and well and this requires continued vigilance," he said.

Call for calm

Some of those arrested have a Somalian background and Islamic groups are urging people not to seek retaliation against Melbourne's African community.

Shereen Hassan, the vice-president of the Islamic Council of Victoria, says Muslims have been shocked by the raids and are calling for calm amid fears of a backlash.

"But we have faith that the overwhelming majority of Australians will not react in this way and remain calm," she said.

"[We] urge the wider community and the media to respect the privacy of the families concerned.

"The overwhelming majority of Australian Muslims unequivocally condemn all forms of terrorism."

Mohamed Baaruud from the Somalia Advocacy Action Group says the community cannot believe some Somali Australians have been implicated.

"We are all shocked," he said.

"This is the last thing we were expecting.

"Our community came to Australia about 17 years ago when the civil war started in Somalia and it took us a long time to recover from the trauma that we have experienced in our country of origin and start a new life here in Australia."

Doctor Jamal Rifi from the Lebanese Muslim Association says the authorities are to be congratulated for preventing the alleged attack.

"We'll do our best for anyone who will have any information to actually contact the relevant authority and to work cooperatively to uncover any or similar events that may take place," he said.

New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione says authorities feared the group was planning to carry out its attack in the near future.

"It was likely imminent and that was part of the reason behind moving as we have," he said. ...<cont>

“We and everyone were very gravely misled,” Mr Turnbull said this afternoon

It's not just before an election, so it's likely true, she said cynically.

Bugger.

BTW, a number of the homes of the "terrorists" that were raided by the police were in very familiar territory for me. A very near, neighbouring suburb to mine, all along the route I drive to work.. & in the actual suburb I work in. One of the students was telling us in class today about the high drama in his own residential street. This has frightened a lot of people.

Allied ourselves with the American infidel devils, I suppose?

Neil Fergus, the head of security for the Sydney Olympics, said if the suspects’ alleged links to the Somali group al-Shabab were correct, ‘‘one of the key questions would be if there was any suggestion of direction coming from the leadership in Somalia, or indeed whether they were self-motivated to plan this type of operation’’.

But Australian National University terrorism expert Clive Williams said it was likely the group decided on a local attack because of the difficulty of joining al-Shabab in Somalia.

‘‘Al-Qaeda has been encouraging people to travel to Somalia to join al-Shabab. The next best thing is to do something at home,’’ he said.

Professor Barton said al-Shabab reached out to Somali communities worldwide, seeking young men vulnerable to recruitment to its cause.

‘‘If it’s like the American case, we are dealing with people who have sometimes been orphaned or … have experienced violence first hand and are often deeply scarred and angry,’’ he said.

‘‘They have real issues that need help. Just parking them out in the suburbs and saying, ‘You have a new start, make the best of it,’ that’s not enough. They have come from the most violent scenarios we can imagine. They need strong friendships so that when someone turns up with a seductive message, it doesn’t have such appeal.’’

He said it appeared recruiters were moving into the communities to identify those vulnerable to appeals on religious or nationalist grounds.

Pete Lentini, the deputy director of Monash University’s Global Terrorism Research Centre, said that unlike in Britain and Europe, those known to be involved in militant Islamism in Australia were not tertiary educated.

‘‘We have to ask what’s going on here, but also look at it positively,’’ Dr Lentini said. ‘‘What are we doing right that the best and brightest aren’t going down the path of violence?’’...