Morgan, which ended its recent poor run at the federal level with a 53.5-46.5 result on the eve of the election, has produced the first post-election poll on voting intention. It shows Labor enjoying a honeymoon boost to 58.5-41.5, with a primary vote lead of 49 per cent to 36.5 per cent. Newspoll will presumably return to the fold in the new year.
Reflections on the Miracle of Democracy at Work in the Greatest Nation on Earth
Morgan: 58.5-41.5
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1,031 Comments
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Martin, how can a law passed by a democratically elected Parliament (and by large majorities in both Houses), be undemocratic? What you really mean is “I don’t like it.” Fine, that’s your right. But don’t try to dress up your personal views in high-flown language.
Where is Howard living these days?
Just because someone has a particular view doesn’t make them a criminal Adam.
Howard has moved next to Rudd.
On comment 687, I think the Green vote is flowing very strongly to Labor – have a look at Robertson in NSW for example and Wentworth (even though Labor did not win in Wentworth, they were way behind the Libs on primaries but ended with a reasonably close two party preferred result).
I suspect that CDP and Family First vote is flowing strongly to the Coalition.
in jest I hate marky karky and intend to kill him
pretty sure thats a crime
Adam, if I could be so bold as to offer a hint, you seem like a much more clever bloke when you stay away from Hicks and ‘Islamo-fascism’, a rediculous concept of the neo-cons, coined by the likes of Hitchen, Fukuyama and others associated with the Project for the New American Century. Fukuyama for one seems embarrassed by it now, and it is shallow and historically offensive for many reasons.
Adam,
Where’s the psephology gone?
Adam
the AWB villians and their deals with saddam’s regime
should we put control orders on them ?
The single point Howard , Bush and Adam avoid is simply to charge him and put
up for trial
The USA (with Howard’s support) denied David Hicks the most basic right
of a democracy. A charge and a trial
The treatment of hicks you support can be found in ALL undemocratic countries
which is why the ALP objected to Hick’s treatment
Terrorism did not start with 9/11 Adam. We have had laws to deal with it for a long time. As for what Mr Hicks may or may not have done – it is all speculation. Last time I checked we did not not lock someone up in this country for what they might have done. Yet you seem blithely happy to accept this is an expression of the Rule of Law. It isn’t; it is an abrogation of it, as is much of the anti-terror legislation we are now encumbered with. The case of Dr Haneef should give us all pause as we realise how these laws can be abused by the government to ensnare any of us.
Marky, you’re obviously a complete fool, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t respond to you further.
Pancho, so who, in your opinion, committed 9/11, Bali I and II, Madrid and London. The Salvation Army? Buddhist nuns? You can quibble with “Islamo-fascism” as a label if you like. “Jihadist” is the term they use themselves. What’s important is the reality of their actions, and the duty that imposes on governments to protect their citizens.
Ron writes: Read the Federal child abuse Report & you’ll be astonished
Ron,
I have been working with Aboriginal people in the NT, SA, Victoria, NSW and Queensland, since 1975. When I first arrived in Alice Springs in that year there were 1300 people living in the towns fringe camps with no housing, no toilets, and one water tap between them (people simply took sewerage polluted water from the Todd River or risked arrest by pinching it from over some whitefella’s fence). The per capita income in the fringe camps then was around $5 per week. There were always families crawling over the local rubbish dump for a half eaten can of baked beans or the like.
Young men I’ve known personally have had wire tired around their wrists, been dragged around the floor , burnt with cigarette butts, had pieces bitten out of their ears and then been arrested for being “illegally on premises” when they were physically unable to leave when requested.
Teenage boys that I’ve known, at Ti Tree in the NT , offering no real threat, have been shot dead in cold blood by police. Others, when I had just moved to Alice in the 1970’s, have been tarred and feathered and tied to the Alice Springs railway line. Old men have showed me the scars on their backs from the whippings they received, while tied to trees, for “giving lip” on pastoral stations in the 1920’s and 30’s. Another old guy I knew, the well known artist Uta Uta Jungala, had his legs broken when he wandered into the Alice Springs police barracks and didn’t have enough English to explain why he was there, in the early 1980’s.
In the 70’s men and women in their mid 50’s (the age I am now) cried and cried while telling me about being hidden under bushes as children by their parents while the policeman Murray and the white vigilantes were shooting their relations during the Coniston massacre in 1928. Some never saw their parents again.
Countless Aboriginal men and women have told me about the physical and sexual abuse they suffered from white staff as adolescents in institutions and foster homes in south eastern Australia, many of the women (though they teenagers at the time) bearing children as teenagers as a result.
I’ve had shotguns pointed at my gut in remote roadhouses and given “30 seconds to leave or I’ll cut you in half” when trying to buy petrol simply because I worked for an Aboriginal organisation. I’ve pulled up at petrol stations on the Stuart Highway in vehicles with Aboriginal passengers and had white men running at me waving tyre leavers yelling “get those f@#&ing Rock Apes out of here”. The same loathsome guy, of course, was known for his love of “black velvet”.
I spent several weeks in Alice Springs Hospital in 1980 after suffering some burns. The guy in the bed in the next room was a young initiated Pitjantjatjara man who had been in a road accident after sniffing petrol. He’d call out “Kumpu, Kumpu”. I’d tell the nurse that this meant he needed a piss. She’d say, “well why doesn’t he say so then. He can understand English”. He’d wet the bed. She’d say “dirty mongrel, why didn’t he tell us, the dirty little boy” (he was about 20), and the process would repeat itself time after time, day after day, with his humiliation growing every time until I complained to the management. Even then, to get them to take any action I had to get the Aboriginal medical service doctors at Congress in Alice involved.
I’ve known Aboriginal men lovingly doing their very best, despite extreme poverty, for children produced by the unprosecuted rape of their wives by white men. I’ve known Aboriginal women explaining terrible actions by their husbands and children on the basis of even more terrible things that had been done to them.
Yet now the entire continent is outraged by a case of statutory rape. Well, I’m glad that people can see the tragedy for the poor girl, but pardon me if I puke about the hypocrisy of a nation that has allowed similar events ,and worse, to to be perpetrated by whites day after day, year after year, decade after decade, and then dismissed such things as the “black armband” view of history.
I’m sorry, but by the time you truly try to get to the bottom of this stuff you will find that there is very little that astonishes you.
Rod
Pollitt, Katha. ‘Wrong War, Wrong Word’
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060911/pollitt
Jeez, why are you all so quick to defend Hicks. the guys an asshole…
Hicks thinks, says and takes steps to act on this… (I wanna kill non-muslims, Oz citizens included)…
Gets caught, then fu(ked over by our “GOV’ sure… but he still says (since he has not renounced) the above statements
But hey, lets all go save this di(k!
#
701
Dogs Says:
December 11th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
Where is Howard living these days?
‘Kirribilli Removals’ says an imposter of Johnnie left the Lodge
which means Howard ‘has not left the building’ yet
#684 – also interesting that there were swings to the CLP in the towns in Lingiari (especially Alice Springs and Katherine). There were enormous swings (even by Leichhardt standards) in a lot of the Aboriginal booths on Cape York too, although I suspect the loss of Warren Entsch’s personal vote had something to do with that.
As far as the 7% average swing in the safe regional seats is concerned, I imagine this is dragged down a bit by the NSW seats (Parkes and Calare) where independents were a significant factor (and where some of the vote that might have gone to Labor in a two-horse race was recycled to the Nationals via independent preferences). I thought it was also interesting that in Mildura, where water is the overwhelmingly dominant issue, the swings were in the 8-10% range. The Victorian rural media would have us believe that it’s the state government that is on the nose over water in those parts, but the hard numbers suggest that the voters see it differently.
#704 – in the booth I worked (in Victoria), the flow of Green preferences to the ALP was the strongest I’ve ever seen (94% – it’s usually in the 70s), and even Family First split fairly evenly. WA may have been different – it will be interesting to see the full preference distributions when they come through.
Pete
Hicks did more than dance, it is a difficult issue but what was the alternative.
Bring him back to Australia because there was no law in existance that he had broken and let him walk around as if nothing had happened.
For the US it would have given heart to those who plotted acts against them as it meant they would be sent home if caught.
For Australia it would have presented us a being a safe haven for them, that we would disregard their acts against the USA because we had no law to act against them.
Oh boy!
When the counting is done, what the hell are you going to concentrate your obvious intellect on?
Oh well.
Adam you have been given plenty of opportunities to acknowledge that Hicks
like any aussie was entitled under our system of justice
a/ to be charged (and not after 5 years detention)
b/ to be submitted to a trial either on US soil under US Law or in Australia
– he was denied either
Whether anyone thinks he was guilty or innocent or naive or we do not know
is beside the point. A charge and a trial is our democratic system
Which you , Bush and Howard are happy to throw away
Grog @ #590 says
The largest swing was Forde 14.43%
The largest swing without changing hands was Calwell 11.14%
The largest swing in a Coalition seat without changing hands was Groom 10.58%
Largest swing against ALP was Franklin 3.11%
Figures are available in Downloads section of AEC website
http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDownloadsMenu-13745-csv.htm
OK let’s deal with the case of Hicks
http://www.australiansall.com.au/david-hicks/
January 2007 from Julian Burnside:
{The facts alleged against Hicks were set out in the indictment which was to bring him before a military commission. The US Supreme Court found the Military Commission to be unconstitutional. [Hamdan v Rumsfeld BTW] None of the things alleged against Hicks involve actually harming any person or property. None of the things he is alleged to have done involved a breach of Australian, US or Afghan law at the time. That is why Australia does not want him back: he cannot be charged with an offence.
When Hicks is charged he will face a “trial” by military commission. The “trial” will have at least three distinctive features:
1.it will be dealing with offences which did not exist at the time of the acts in question;
2.it will receive hearsay evidence;
3.it will receive evidence obtained by coercion.}
Anyone want to refute any of that as of beginning 2007? Importantly, that Hicks was to be tried under laws not in existence at the time he was in Afghanistan?
Anyone for a primer on the rules on hearsay, on coercion to plead guilty by being locked up for 5 years without being charged?
Hobosexual Misanthrope re
{Jeez, why are you all so quick to defend Hicks. the guys an asshole…}
Defending the rule of law. Every person, even an “asshole” has rights. Gitmo was and still is a legal black hole as people have said across the globe, including some UK law lords as I recall.
More utterly moronic and irrelevant comments, but tempting as it is to go on, I have said all I’m going to say on this for tonight. The Parliament has legislated, the law is being enforced, you are being protected from being blown up as you sit in a restaurant, whether you like it or not. Luckily for you all, there are people in Australia who understand the realities of this business, and Kevin Rudd is one of them. If you’d rather the law not be enforced and you not be protected, next time vote for someone else and take the consequences. Good night.
Rod 712
Well and sadly written.
More of ‘on the ground’ reportage may yet move those who fail to have any comprehension of that world.
Pete
Agree he could not be tried or charged because there was no breach of a law in effect.
But let him go free because of this.
I think in Qld and SA the governments have passed laws to keep dangerous inmates inside thogh legally before the law was passed they were entitled to be released on parole.
It is difficult and dangerous but I think the alternatives were worse.
On the other hand we are lucky to have those who argue against what happened to Hicks and co as a way of ensuring that these powers and laws are not widely abused.
FACT: Hicks did not injure anyone
ALL of the most sickening crimes in Aussie history have still required these maniacs to be charged and then subjected to a Trial
What Howard did (which some blogers support) is to deny Hicks the same rights guaranteed by both our Constitution and the US Constitution
All those terrible muslims blowing people up are terrible but what America dropping bombs in Cambodia and Laos and agent orange and Israel bombing a un checkpoint in Lebanon last year and killing un peacekeepers is this not terrorism as well?
From The Simpsons, ‘Much Apu About Nothing’. An episode about a bear attack and foreigners. Synopsis stolen from wiki:
‘Homer rants about these “constant bear attacks”, even though this is the very first bear Ned has seen in his thirty odd years of living on that street. Homer then leads an angry mob and demands that Mayor Quimby do something about this. The mob make their way to the city hall chanting, “WE’RE HERE, WE’RE QUEER! WE DON’T WANT ANY MORE BEARS”! Soon, the Bear Patrol is created, a useless organization which makes use of helicopters, police cars, even a B-2 Spirit. Homer feels happy to know that the Bear Patrol is doing their job, as there are no bears around. Lisa calls it “specious reasoning” and tries to explain, with the help of a rock “that keeps tigers away”, that since there are no tigers around, the rock must be working. Homer contemplates this and offers to buy Lisa’s tiger-repellant rock, to which Lisa agrees knowing better than to try and explain further.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Much_Apu_About_Nothing
Adam @ 696 Said:
“9/11, Bali, Madrid, London all actually happened, OK? They were not episodes of “24?, they were real. Governments have a duty to try to stop such things happening again. Hicks, of his own free will, went to Afghanistan to train to do those things. This is not in dispute, he has said so himself.”
Do you have a reference on this?
Also,
I have been away from The Bludger for a while but I guess everyone has already had a good old chuckle at Overington’s blog disappearing from The Oz?
Whatever rubbish they write to try and dent the credibility of the blogosphere, just say to yourself, how many bloggers assaulted a candidate in the federal election?
LOLOL
Happy annual gift man festivities everyone.
Adam @ 696 Said:
9/11, Bali, Madrid, London all actually happened, OK? They were not episodes of “24?, they were real. Governments have a duty to try to stop such things happening again. Hicks, of his own free will, went to Afghanistan to train to do those things. This is not in dispute, he has said so himself.
Do you have a reference on this?
Also,
I have been away from The Bludger for a while but I guess everyone has already had a good old chuckle at Overington’s blog disappearing from The Oz?
Whatever rubbish they write to try and dent the credibility of the blogosphere, just say to yourself, how many bloggers assaulted a candidate in the federal election?
LOLOL
Happy annual gift man festivities everyone.
Ron spot on- he did nothing but gets found guilty of crimes at Bali, London and in New York. Short sighted dills.
Adam @ 696 Said:
9/11, Bali, Madrid, London all actually happened, OK? They were not episodes of 24, they were real. Governments have a duty to try to stop such things happening again. Hicks, of his own free will, went to Afghanistan to train to do those things. This is not in dispute, he has said so himself.
Do you have a reference on this?
Also,
I have been away from The Bludger for a while but I guess everyone has already had a good old chuckle at Overington’s blog disappearing from The Oz?
Whatever rubbish they write to try and dent the credibility of the blogosphere, just say to yourself, how many bloggers assaulted a candidate in the federal election?
LOLOL
Happy annual gift man festivities everyone.
“Martin, how can a law passed by a democratically elected Parliament (and by large majorities in both Houses), be undemocratic? What you really mean is “I don’t like it.” Fine, that’s your right. But don’t try to dress up your personal views in high-flown language.”
Adam, I have explained exactly, and clearly what I mean. For good measure I have acknowledged that “I don’t like it”.
I have also pointed out that this dicussion starts millenia before I was born. Do you dispute that?
If an argument has been held by amny people for many centuries before my existence, it is obviously not just my personal view, any more than your argument is just your personal view.
If I may lapse into ‘argument by adjuducation’, the comment about “high flown” language particularly demeans your position. Either my argument stands or it doesn’t. Since nothing you wrote above actually contests the substance of what I said and you choose to run a diversionary argument, I will presume until further notice that you have no substantive argument.
712- Rod, you write so movingly,and I hope you will publish your accounts.
Rod
I worked a while in the north of WA and saw similar, not as bad as what you described, just segregation and underlying racism.
I well remember over 30 years ago being taught at school that the aboriginals would eventually die out and it was for the best.
If all you have left are insults Adam, then you certainly have nothing left to say. As for the anti-terror laws, our ‘protection’ did not commence with their introduction. We had many laws before the enactment of this suite of assaults on liberty that protected us from being ‘blown up in a restaurant’ while also respecting the – much mentioned – rule of law.
Peter kemp
julian b, i think does not support “being blown up as you sit in a restaurant” or any such twaddle
as a matter of fact its was his clinical dissection of the flaws in the case that swung my opinion- but what would a guy like julian burnside know as opposed to the chicken littles who want us to believe there are reds(islamists) under the bed(restaurant etc)
I actually stopped believing in fairy stories a long time ago
Rod 712
Dick Kimber is a South Oz, suburban and school family known to me. Activist, indigenous sensibility, terrific!
Dick shows up on ABC Hindsight type programs, I understand he lives in Alice, these days.
Worth considering, as Megan suggests, and thanks Megan, getting in touch with him.
The more recorded history the better.
“Bali, Madrid, London all actually happened, OK? They were not episodes of “24?, they were real. Governments have a duty to try to stop such things happening again.”
Is that a straw argument I see? Does anyone dispute that?
People who do such things should be prosecuted as should people who plan such things.
But we do not expect our governments to act arbitrarily or to torture suspects in that aim.
Is that so hard to understand?
“Unless and until he renounces those views, he must be presumed to be both willing and able to do such things if he gets the chance.”
You have evidence for that? Perhaps you should have passed it on to the US prosecutors, or to the Australian authorities, for neither of them have been able to present such to a court of law.
On the other hand if you really think that your unsupported suppositions should be enough to deprive someone of their liberty, then I am – for the first time – glad that you are not in a position of more influence.
“What’s important is the reality of their actions, and the duty that imposes on governments to protect their citizens.”
Again, I’m not sure what the argument is. Who disputes that?
The question is who is “they”?
The perpetrators?
Their families?
Everyone they have ever met?
People of the same religion?
People who have expressed opinions sympathetic to their views?
CRIKEY whitey, you have to remember theres two sides to every coin and any law can be read in multiple ways by different judges, this i learned well in my years of practically living in courtrooms, we have a legal system rather than a justice system and thats the way it has to be, as a foundation member of Victims Of Crime along with Annemarie Mykyta, Bob Whitington and Ray Whitrod {ex commissioner of New Guinea, commonwealth and Queensland police} and at the time the first contact for victims i dont think theres very much i havnt seen or heard, V.O.C.S is now government run rather than volunteer which is the natural progression but i cant help but think it’s also lost a lot by becoming de facto another government dep. saying that i also opened my home to foster kids who’d had a hell of a run in life so ive seen both sides.
Adam, there’s one hell of a difference between Von Einam and Hicks, yet V.E. believe it or not isnt the kingpin of the “Family, he’s just a half, the other person {who isnt in gaol} is even worse than him, you cant hang Hicks for something he might have been capable of doing in the past, that way you’ll condemm everyone who threatened something and never carried it out– including me, one of my sons carried a cut down rifle for a long time wanting revenge– it’s ok the police know about it now and have had possession of it for years, he carried that gun and trained himself to use it– but never did, nor would he now he’s matured past that stage of his life, perhaps you could give Hicks who has paid dearly for his actions a little leeway that perhaps he may have had to grow up quickly past those immature younger days with the harsh lessons he’s had to endure.
‘The Parliament has legislated, the law is being enforced’.
Too right it is. But as a pause, from George Williams, http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20979036-7583,00.html
“Since 9/11, the commonwealth has enacted 41 new pieces of legislation on terrorism, or about one new law every seven weeks. This continued right through 2006.
Even though such laws were needed, they have often been enacted with undue haste. This has left too few opportunities for debate and refinement, and as a result the statute book is rife with problems.”
You idiots,
The rodent won: you’re all jumping at your own shadows: THERE IS NO ONE WAITING AROUND THE CORNER TO KILL US. sorry to shout but …
Adam
I’m glad you’ve said all you will on this subject for tonight. My blood grows increasingly chilled when I see otherwise rational, democratic people so easily (and vehemently) toss aside the fundamental principles of our society.
You refer to comments like those of Peter Kemp @ 722 as moronic and irrelevant. It’s all too easy to heap contempt on ineluctable argument. But Kemp et al are defending the principles which underpin our whole legal system.
Why didn’t we just torture Hicks before executing him? That way he might have dobbed in some other (maybe even guilty) people while being removed from your outraged sensibility . . . Or it might have been easier for everone if he’d just disappeared . . . there’s plenty of great precedent, after all – worked a treat in Chile and Argentina. And we could have done the same for that obvious terrorist Haneef at the same time. It’s a shame the bleeding heart (obviously communist) mainstream media beat up the issue and blackened the good name of our lilywhite security services at the same time. The government should do something about that.
executive . . . legislature . . . judiciary – that’s what the rule of law is, a balance.
I know he is not here to defend himself, but the rule of Law according to Adam must work according to our levels of ideological perspectives that being convict and jail people who committ crimes against capitalism but crimes against socialism and other ideologies those people can gain impunity. His argument is bizarre, David Hicks convicted before a military tribunal made up mostly of people without legal backgrounds and a tribunal judge who provides a conviction without reviewing the evidence.
If this is how the law works than really he may have little concept of the legal process and justice at all.
Doesn’t it bother any of you that David Hicks is a traitor to Australia??
It wasn’t so long ago that we’d have hung people for that. It’s a pity he wasn’t left to Rot in Gitmo, actually its the Yanks fault for providing massive bounties for live foreign fighters, funny how just one bullet in Afghanistan by the Northern Alliance would have saved all of this mess for us to have to deal with.
732
TurningWorm – you dont find it incriminating that Hicks who fought in Bosnia and then went to Afghanistan on his on free will to be trained by al-Qaeda??? Hicks is a traitor and i blame the Northern Alliance for all of this mess IMHO.
Looks like Downer could be the Liberal Party President after Kennett ruled himself out.
FG, gusface et al,
It was the terrorists who changed the rules, not us.
Islamic terrorists say – very openly – that their goal is to forcibly convert the West to their brand of Islam. By which they mean (amongst other things) killing innocent people in order to scare the populace. (This is not a “fairy story”, it’s clearly on the public record). Why won’t you take their word for it, that this is their intention? Why would they be lying about it? And don’t you think we (or specifically, our Government) should try to stop this from happening?
You don’t have to approve of what Bush et al have done, to think we ought to do something.
Putting Hicks on a control order is, frankly, a no-brainer as far as I’m concerned.
Glen,
You are now officially a fifth column.
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