The NEXT coming Oz election thread!

I just want to know, after a "major terrorist attack" was averted, why the charges against these men were not more serious than merely being members of a "terrorist organization". All the talk in the media suggested that they were much more implicated in something far more serious!

This worries me. It worries me greatly. I have a good mate in the AFP but I have never asked him (because he is a mate) if Mick Keelty isn't a bit too comfortable with the Fed Govt. I don't know Keelty so I have no idea. But it is a worry. It would also worry me if Uncle Ken or Christine Nixon (I don't know Uncle Ken but I did a training job with Christine Nixon once when she was still a C/I in NSW and I have a great deal of respect for her) were also roped in to make this politically advantageous for Howard.



I feel better now - SOP

... & how was it that the media was actually there at the time that number of these men were being apprehended & taken into custody? I thought these things were meant to be secret?

Good point msolga but I think - as dadpad rightly pointed out - the less about these specific cases that appears in the media before any committal or trial (always assuming they will be sent for trial) the better.

But if I can make just a leetle legal point. In the common law there are a collection of crimes known as "inchoate" crimes. These are such offences as incitment, conspiracy and attempts. At common law it was always an offence to do any of those things but they had to be specific to a particular instance, not a general instance. For example, I could incite some to commit a crime, say murder. It would require me to be very specific, to actually incite A to kill B. Same with conspiracy. I might conspire with B and C to do X (eg commit an armed robbery). With attempt it's even more specific. To gain a conviction for an attempt (eg attempted murder) there is a lot to prove, the mental element alone is very specific, the physical element is also very specific and the case law in Australia on attempts to full of exceptions. It's sometimes easier to convict for the completed offence (eg murder) than attempt. However the victim doesn't see it that way (sorry, sick copper humour).

I think that in this instance the specificity required in the inchoate offences isn't required in the new statutory offence. So A, B, C, D etc can be charged with substantive offences that may not have been recognised at common law.

At the risk of taxing everyone's patience:

Two people - A and B - both go to separate stores and each buys a bag of nitropril (ammonium nitrate), a can of diesel oil and some detonators.

Why?

A jumps in his truck and drives out to his opal mine at the Olympic Field at Coober Pedy and stores his materials fullly intending to use them the next morning when he and his partner will continue working in their opal mine.

B takes the materials home and stores them in his suburban shed and goes back to the internet to find out the rest of the instructions in how to make a bomb.

At that moment police "swoop" (we always "swoop", fair dinkum sometimes I think I'm Batman) on B in his shed. He is arrested and charged with a series of offences relative to his association with a known terrorist group. His actions are seen through the prism of his association with certain other people and fall within the legislation. B is not given any chance to use the stuff. So he may be charged with knowingly being a member of a terrorist organisation and his actions in purchasing the materials, of itself not a crime at common law, indicate that he was embarking on a course of action, none of which would be seen - in my example - as incitement, conspiracy or attempt at common law. So the new legislative arrangements trap A and he is charged with knowingly being a member of a proscribed organisation (not with purchasing the materials which, as we have seen, is quite legal).

Meanwhile A blasts away in the drive of his mine and finds heaps of opal.


Sorry if I've over-simplified this but that's how I think the new legislation will work.

Were the media there or was that footage given to the media by the police media units?

Either way - good question. I mean a perp walk is one thing but if the media were tipped off to be there I would be worried. I am a bit worried about the idea that police media units may have taken their own footage for distribution to non-police media.

... but it's done the trick, though, hasn't it? Who in the media was talking about the proposed IR "reforms" today? I just want to report that in my workplace almost every teacher intends to take stopwork action next Tuesday. I think there was one dissenter (who is now wavering, re-considering ...) amongst the 60 staff members.
Let's not get waylaid by all this terrorism stuff!

.... & speaking of the IR "reforms": The ABC news tonight has just reported that employers can require doctors to supply workers with a fresh certificate for each day of an illness like flu, etc ...
Just imagine: you're sick, the doctor has already said you are & should be in bed for 3 - 4 days. But you have to drag yourself back to your doctor each day for a another certificate! Understandably the AMA has expressed concern about this. We already now that GP's are extremely stretched for time. Imagine this added burden to keep those nasty, pesky employers happy! Doctors' waiting rooms would be clogged each winter! And nice to think that workers can't be trusted to be really sick, after the doctor has already said so once ....

I thought slavery was outlawed in Australia.

Apparently the idea of neo-slavery is very attractive to the far right of the Liberal Party, gf! Perhaps someone should tell them that miserable employees might go through the motions of towing a nasty employer's line ... but productive? Cooperative? Responsive to the employer's problems? Ha!

Too right msolga....I believe though that they have over-reached. Howard's hubris is all over this. While the cunning little - sorry, I will edit that - while he is a skilled manipulator of public opinion in Australia and is quick to seize any opportunity to use wedge politics I think his ideology has overriden his cunning this time. And I don't think the anti-terror business is going to get him off the hook. I do believe that people can separate the issues. Terror might be grabbing the headlines right now but most people don't believe they will be victims and when they do sit down and work it out they realise that driving in South Australia is infinitely more dangerous than taking a bus in Sydney (so to speak). But the sort of treatment that Howard and his mob has for us is very different. He wants to grind us down so that we're useful little components for his mates to use to boost their profits. But I don't think we're buying it.

You know I think if Machiavelli worked for Howard then Machiavelli would quit due to a conflict over ethics.

But seriously, though, what sort of victory will this be? So much of business, the public service, etc, relies on the good will of workers to keep the wheels turning smoothly. A lot of extra work happens simply to get the job done, despite the prescribed conditions of the job. This type of extra effort is not part of any current award, does not gain any extra dollars for employees. Services like teaching & nursing have depended on this type of commitment, for years. So let them drive workers to the wall, reduce them to mere slaves. Let's see how vital & dynamic things are when workers abandon this attitude & simply work to rule. If they are unhappy enough & feel exploited, they will. I think employers have a lot to lose, but simply don't realize it yet. But, they certainly will!

Smart employers will know. The ones that worry me are the desperate, the nasty, the ideologically driven.

Last Update: Wednesday, November 9, 2005. 9:15pm (AEDT)

IR bill debated ahead of vote

The Government is set to guillotine debate on the industrial relations (IR) debate in the Lower House tomorrow morning, as its moves to have the changes in place before Christmas.

MPs from both sides of Parliament have been rising to have their say on the Government's IR changes this evening.

With the Government set to bring on a vote tomorrow morning, MPs are making the most of the time they have left. .... <cont>


http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200511/s1501520.htm

It's all confused. They use the guillotine, we get to eat brioche.

Perhaps we should be getting things in order. Build the tumbrils now. Watch out Johnny, the sans-culottes won't be too happy when the truth is revealed.

Who can follow the process anymore?

That big, fat document & no time to debate it. Still, not surprising at all ...

Not remotely connected to any of the above.
I needed a laugh. Here it is. :

He has to go.

Seriously.

Yes, I know. But I noticed a pro-Kevin feature in my Good Weekend magazine on Saturday. A sure sign he means business! The gist being that lots of folk hate him, but hey, he's the one! Come on, Julia! Where are you hiding?

Kevin - up himself.

Julia - good sort.

Done deal

Right then, gf! Done deal!