On stranger tidings
3-Nov-2005It seems that “specific intelligence and police information this week [...] gives cause for serious concern about a potential terrorist threat” and needs to be addressed with an urgent change to anti-terrorism legislation in the Australian Parliament.
The amendment allows authorities to act in regard to a terrorst act that is not able to be specifically identified. The current act only allows authorities to act in regard to a specific terrorist act because of use of the word “the” rather than “a” in the act. The “specific intelligence” can’t be too specific if it requires a change to the legislation to be less specific to a particular act of terrorism.
In general, and without reading the rest of the existing act, it sounds like an amendment most people would support. So why do we need this much fanfare?
The urgency and character of this amendment indicates, according to my inner bush-lawyer, that we should be elevated to at least “High” on the four-level Australian Counter-Terrorism Alert Level:
The four-level system defines the levels of alert as:
- Low – terrorist attack is not expected
- Medium – terrorist attack could occur
- High – terrorist attack is likely
- Extreme – terrorist attack is imminent or has occurred
The system was not introduced as a reaction to any particular threat, rather a sensible arrangement to inform national preparation and planning and to provide greater flexibility for responses.
I guess the paradox is, having identified a likely terrorist attack, law enforcement would be signaling defeat if the alert level were ever raised.
Better to recall the Senate than mess with counter-terrorism processes.
I guess you could have specific knowledge that I was about to go to blow up something, without exactly knowing what it was.
The most shameful thing about this whole situation is probably Kimbo’s internal polling which apparently makes him think that pushing back on IR reform will win more support from the voters. Not only that, but of the two new bills, it is the IR reform which is going to have the greatest impact of civil liberties (!) If ever there was evidence that the federal Labor party was directionless, it would be this.
I’m not so hard on Kim. I think that by pushing both counter-terrorism and industrial relations bills through at the same time, the Government is using its strengths to deflect the media from its weaknesses.
By pushing the seemingly innocuous emergency amendment through without fuss, Labor hasn’t contributed to the media hysteria around the imminent terrorist threat, but also hasn’t bought much airtime on an issue the media have gone berserk with.
I think Kim wants to keep his powder dry for the IR debate, even though he’s probably more qualified to talk about national security than anyone else in the parliament.