Separated at birth, part 42: Mr Andrews and Mr Bean
Wednesday August 01st 2007, 9:43 am

Both hapless, one by choice, one just can't help itMr Bean and Mr Andrews are both hapless and hopeless screwups; however, one is an actor- and one just can’t help it.

Fresh out of the Haneef cockup where Kevin Andrews believes that an oblique comment from non-native English speakers chatting online about Haneef ‘not being found out‘ is cause to revoke Haneef’s work visa, Andrews is pulling out some more pure HoWARd wedge politics with a new ‘citizenship test,’ which is absolutely nothing but thinly veiled racism- and not so thinly veiled, to boot.

The test will be comprised out of a pool of 200 questions- which are to be kept secret- so, according to Andrews, migrants would not learn the answers in advance. Begging pardons, but when exactly is the best time to learn the answers to any test of knowledge? Maybe Andrews can revert to the old White Australia Policy tactic of giving citizenship tests in languages thought to be unfamiliar to the applicant:

The Australian Immigration Restriction Act, following Natal and the United States, incorporated a literacy test, in this case, a dictation test, that was so framed as to give Customs Officers maximum flexibility in ensuring that all undesirable immigrants would fail. Applicants could not prepare for this test, which required them to write out, at dictation, any prescribed passage of fifty words in any European language.

Dictatorships have long relied on secrecy and abuse of authority to hold on to power. AFP now intend to obtain authority to secretly enter any home and place listening or recording devices, with no proper judicial oversight. The warrant to perform these secret home invasions will be issued by the head of a police service, without the approval of any judicial officer/s. Such warrants can also be extended for more than 18 months with the sanction of the minister.

While we’re barrelling down the highway to authoritarianism and dictatorship (which we’ve been on since Bob Carr allowed drug sniffer dogs on public transport and in pubs and clubs in Sydney), NSW Police now also want the ability to collect DNA samples from suspects even of the most minor alleged offences.

Lest we forget, in free and democratic societies, people move around unfettered by police interference, unless they are reasonably suspected of committing a crime. Searching or interrogating persons not suspected of a crime is a practice of police states and dictatorships, neither of which I thought I was getting as part of the bargain when I moved to Australia 10 years ago.

No thanks. Time for a change of government to some other lot who are interested in real national security- not frightening voters into perpetually re-electing incumbents.

-weez


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Give us the whole story, minister

Tony Wright
August 1, 2007

KEVIN Andrews’ highly selective release of fragments of documents and a chat-room discussion designed to convict Mohamed Haneef of bad character – or much worse – fails to mention a crucial piece of evidence.

Missing is that part of Haneef’s phone record that shows he dialled the telephone number of a British police investigator several times after he was alerted by his family about the discovery of his SIM card in Liverpool.

Few terrorists call police about themselves.

Balance of story on The Age.

Comment by weez 08.01.07 @ 11:55 am

The fact that the conversations were

‘translated’ from URDU

gives me great pause.

and I wouldn’t want to be held responsible for anything my own ‘second cousins’ did.

Comment by BwcaBrownie 08.02.07 @ 12:44 pm

…Urdu?

Oh! Well, Mick Keelty is a fluent Urdu speaker (between mouthfuls of chips and pie), so my faith in the power of the AFP to arrest anybody is fully restored.

Comment by weez 08.02.07 @ 4:51 pm

And surprise surprise, the bastards are still heaping more shit on Haneef, what with this strange accusation that Haneef has Al Qaeda affiliations.

Kevin Andrews et al must be pretty damn desperate, because at this rate some of it’s guaranteed to fly straight back into their own faces.

What really pisses me off is that it seems to be only The Age thats even bothering to cover the whole story, instead of blindly following what can only be described as a festival of bullshit.

Times like these, I sure do miss Margo Kingston.

Comment by Marcus 08.03.07 @ 1:26 am

NO shit, where’s Margo when you need her!

Andrews runs his yap lately and invariably, someone pipes up and disproves each defamation. And speaking of defamation… I’m thinking Andrews is working into 7 figs by now, don’t you?

Comment by weez 08.04.07 @ 4:06 pm



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