Revoking civil liberties in the face of a threat to civil liberties
Tuesday September 27th 2005, 10:07 pm

keeping the government safe... from criticism

Prepare to be Parkinised.

For the next 10 years, the Australian government now reserves the right to quash dissent by deporting you for no reason at all or by jailing you for 14 days while under no obligation to tell anyone about it, including your family. Neither can you tell anyone you have been jailed, nor do you have a right to contact legal counsel. There is no reasonable check against this freewheeling government power to detain.

What do you think the government wants to do while they habeas your corpus incommunicado for two weeks? It ain’t to play tiddly-winks, that’s for sure.

I’m waiting for the next step- redefining Australian citizenship which has been acquired by naturalisation. Since 1958, Australian citizenship acquired by naturalisation has been equivalent to that acquired by descent from at least one parent who is a citizen. At present, only if the naturalised citizen committed fraud in the course of the application can that citizenship be revoked. I’m anticipating HoWARd will put some new caveats in place to be more easily able to remove ‘threats to national security,’ like peaceniks and civil rights activists.

If you are presently a permanent resident of Australia, you are well warned to keep out of protest marches or other forms of peaceful civil disobedience. Your liberty or your ability to continue to live in Australia is in grave danger if you don’t shut your yap.

Chalk one up for the terrorists. Osama is surely howling with laughter in his cave.

-weez 


11 Comments so far
Leave a comment

I’m expecting a broader redefinition of what constitutes fraud in an effort to draw an even wider net.
What if the ‘naturalized parent’ is ill, demented or dead?
Will the onus (and cost) of proving that fraud was not committed fall on the detained person and their family/friends?
Will this Government just wait someone out as they and their family/friends run out of resources? I believe they will.
I’m going to tell my mother to put it all down on tape just in case…

Comment by suki 09.27.05 @ 11:55 pm

Suki, the definition of fraud on a citizenship application was in the fore of my mind when I wrote this one. I’m waiting to be told that there was some fine print somewhere on my citizenship application where I agreed not to be a rabble rouser and have since roused rabble.

However, the Alvarez case makes it fully clear that the Australian government doesn’t actually have to go through the formality of revoking naturalised citizenship to deport a person.

BTW, Suki… what about your olds? Were you not born to furriners? You mightn’t be as Strayan as you think.

Comment by weezil 09.28.05 @ 12:02 am

Crikey Weez.
My Birth Certificate says Ferntree Gully.
How can I not be an Australian?

Comment by suki 09.28.05 @ 12:19 am

Strewth, Suki! Far canal!

Hate ta say it, but just being born in Australia DOESN’T make you an Australian citizen. Ask Janie Hwang …

Comment by weezil 09.28.05 @ 12:22 am

I haven’t heard anything about interdependency migration which a lot of gay people use before being granted permanent residency. Is that Ferntree Gully, Victoria, Suki?

Comment by JT 09.28.05 @ 11:33 am

Those crazy conservatives! I thought that they were all for smaller, less intrusive government. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Comment by David Heidelberg 09.28.05 @ 2:14 pm

Anyway, like you weez, I’m an ex-pat yank. I’m waiting for the knock on the door.

So, If I go missing suddenly, you’ll know to find me in Prescott Arizona.

Comment by David Heidelberg 09.28.05 @ 2:18 pm

“Those crazy conservatives! I thought that they were all for smaller, less intrusive government. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha” -David Heidelberg

True that, Tories just ain’t what they used to be…

Even old Pig Iron Bob wouldn’t have countenanced such a assualt on liberal democracy.

And in response, rather than say ACTUALLY BE AN OPPOSITION, we have Beazely instead playing a game of “Look, I can be even more right wing than you” with his proposal to fuck over the civil liberties, not only of individuals BUT also the entire suburb of anybody with the misfortune of being declared a terror suspect.

What in god’s name is the man thinking? Labor will never win in a game of outrighting the tories, and it’s got me pretty pissed off that they’re even trying.

Comment by Marcus 09.28.05 @ 4:02 pm

Fear and hate

Let’s just say that I am a Muslim woman of middle-eastern origin.  My husband and I have lived in Australia for 15 years.  We are the proud parents of a young son aged five.  Shahrdad is dark, charismatic and asks us lots of quest…

Trackback by Suki Has An Opinion 09.28.05 @ 7:25 pm

Two weeks? Pah, child’s play! How about three months?

Comment by Flashman 09.29.05 @ 10:47 am

Marcus, I find it hilarious that Beaz can’t work out why his approval rating is nonexistent. You’d think the term ‘leader of the opposition’ would give him a clue as to what he’s NOT doing, but neither he nor the rest of the ALP are particularly interested in acting like opposition.

Comment by weezil 09.30.05 @ 8:13 am



Leave a comment

(required)

(required)





Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function show_subscription_checkbox() in /home/www/machinegunkeyboard.com/wp-content/themes/benevolence/comments.php:155 Stack trace: #0 /home/www/machinegunkeyboard.com/wp-includes/comment-template.php(1618): require() #1 /home/www/machinegunkeyboard.com/wp-content/themes/benevolence/index.php(28): comments_template() #2 /home/www/machinegunkeyboard.com/wp-includes/template-loader.php(106): include('/home/www/machi...') #3 /home/www/machinegunkeyboard.com/wp-blog-header.php(19): require_once('/home/www/machi...') #4 /home/www/machinegunkeyboard.com/index.php(17): require('/home/www/machi...') #5 {main} thrown in /home/www/machinegunkeyboard.com/wp-content/themes/benevolence/comments.php on line 155