![\"Both](\"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/blogimages\/andrews_bean_sep_at_birth.jpg\" "\\"Both")
Mr Bean and Mr Andrews are both hapless and hopeless screwups; however, one is an actor- and one just can’t help it.<\/p>\nMr Bean and Mr Andrews are both hapless and hopeless screwups; however, one is an actor- and one just can’t help it.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>‘ is cause to revoke Haneef’s work visa, Andrews is pulling out some more pure HoWARd wedge politics with a new ‘citizenship test<\/a>,’ which is absolutely nothing but thinly veiled racism- and not so thinly veiled, to boot.<\/p>\n 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<\/strong><\/em> 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<\/a> of giving citizenship tests in languages thought to be unfamiliar<\/a> to the applicant:<\/p>\n 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. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Dictatorships have long relied on secrecy<\/a> and abuse of authority<\/a> to hold on to power. AFP now intend to obtain authority to secretly enter any home and place listening or recording devices<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n 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<\/a> 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n Lest we forget, in free and democratic societies, people move around unfettered by police interference, unless they are reasonably<\/em><\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n No thanks. Time for a change of government to some other lot who are interested in real<\/em> national security- not frightening voters into perpetually re-electing incumbents.<\/p>\n -weez<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mr 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, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/machinegunkeyboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}