Last night GetUp hosted a meetup in Sydney.

I went along. There were less people than I would have thought could be attracted to a movement such as GetUp in Sydney.  Admittedly, we were half an hour late and yesterday was an unseasonably grim, rainy night.

What surprised me was the age demographic. The GetUp team were the youngest people in the room by decades. The where-are-the-youth theme informed my entire evening. We listened to David, Jeremy, Toby and Lachlan.

Coming in late, I’m not sure what we missed, so by the time we were broken into groups of eight to brainstorm ideas for making GetUp bigger, better and faster, my contribution came down to ways of engaging youth in the alternative political debate. I have grand desires, but few ideas.

Inspired I take it upon myself to do some qualitative research.  I seek out the 20 year old girlchild.  For the 2.3 minutes that I had her attention she tells me that,

"Placards and protesting and feminism and left-wingedness is just so 80’s…Young people don’t care mama." 

"Why don’t you care? What has to happen for you to care? What would radicalise you?" I ask.

Girlchild’s answer, "Can I use your car?" 

It’s about getting their attention.  Now how do we keep it?

  

Images scanned from last nights meetup handout 

One alert Australian has complained on Radio 2UE that his privacy has been breached as a direct result of providing information to the  national security hotline.

Attorney General Ruddock has this to say about the lack of privacy on his confidential, anonymous terrorism hotline.

"Part of the problem is that a lot of this information gets into a number of hands, and one of the areas that I’m going to have looked at to see whether or not it came from this source is that information is often included on search warrants to provide a basis upon which the warrants can be exercised, and that information is handed over to the parties concerned."

With Ruddock’s history as the minister in charge of DIMIA and his clearly persistent and pervasive ineptitude, the biggest terror threat comes not from the guys stockpiling lawn food, but from anyone with a portfolio in this government.

 
Image from here 

As an opinionated Australian who is very vocal about her dislike of the Prime Minister, the government, many of it’s policies and even more of it’s Ministers I am wondering just how must freedom of speech I actually have. 

Schedule 7-sedition.
Crimes act 1914

4. At the end of section 30 A

Add:

(3) In this section:

seditious intention means an intention to effect any of the following purposes:

(a) to bring the Sovereign into hatred or contempt;

(b) to urge disaffection against the following:

(i) the Constitution;
(ii) The Government of the Commonwealth;
(iii) Either house of Parliament;

(c ) to urge another person to attempt , otherwise than by lawful means, to procure a change to any matter established by law in the Commonwealth;

(d) to promote feelings of ill-will or hostility between different groups so as to threaten the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth.

Under this government’s proposed sedition clause in the anti-terrorism legislation I am not the only Australian to ask this question.  Comedians, satirists and commentators are seeking advice and clarity with regard to their rights which might include urging others to feel disaffection with the Government, the constitution or parliament.

Professor George Williams an expert in constitutional law at the University of NSW has stated,

"But the possibility that you could be jailed is enough that people will question whether they want to make the comment in the first place…why would you risk it? It is a very risky thing to play with free speech…it should not come down to trust."

I guess I’ll have to be careful and avoid saying things like HoWARd is a terrorist. 

1. Manipulating Australia’s fear of being overrun by queue-jumpers and the assertion that children were thrown overboard. 
2. Manipulating Australia’s fear of an attack on the west by Saddam and the WMD falsehood.
3. And now the fear of a specific homegrown attack somewhere in Australia (or its territories) by extremists that hate our way of life.

"Whatever will happen, will happen at an appropriate time, if at all" – Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock.

The A terrorist manipulates the a population by using fear. 

Image from here     

On the same day that Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews tabled the Work Choices Bill, HoWARd, with his wingman Ruddock has told Australians that there is a specific terror threat to Australia.

During the press conference, after fending off specifics, HoWARd implored Australians to just get on with their day-to-day events.

Really, in what order should I worry in an Australian-kind-of-way.

Should I start with collecting my daughter and her friends so that they do not travel by train through the heart of Sydney?

Or should I start with working through lunch and staying back late so that I impress my employer so that when the next round of supervision comes I will be assessed as a triple A rated worker?

Or should I start by telling all my peaceful, intelligent, olive-skinned young male cousins to never ever run with a backpack…

The alert levels do not need to be officially raised for me (and mine) to be alarmed.

Update: Very Alarmed.

Image from here

The poultry industry has called for John Howard to eat duck in public to highlight the message that Australian poultry is safe from bird flu.

John Millington, the manager of Luv-A-Duck at Nhill in Victoria, says the Prime Minister should follow the lead of other countries in reassuring consumers.

“The prime minister in Turkey, he ate chicken salad at a traditional dinner to break the daily fast of ramadan, and that was really to show his confidence in the control efforts by the authorities in Turkey. So what we need now is our prime minister to do the same thing. Sit up heartily to a duck dinner.”

While our PM sits down to one formerly feathered feast, why not two?

I propose that a more suitable dish to be served to our PM is crow.

Adding weight to the groaning table of his statements that have been proved wrong is WorkChoices and the Anti-terrorism Bill 2005.

“Truth is absolute, truth is supreme, truth is never disposable in national political life” – John Howard, 25 August 1995.

Image from here