PM Finally Admits Iraq Was A War For Oil

Howard To Iraq : We're Not Leaving Until You Say We Can

Howard Shoots For National Security Poll Rise In Desperate Attempt To Stave Off Leadership Challenge


Update : According to this story from the Melbourne Age, on today's speech by PM Howard on national security and the Iraq War, detailed below, Howard will say that Australia has a "major stake of oil dependency", and this is one of the key reasons why we had to become involved in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. So it was a war for oil after all.

Perhaps by no coincidence, The Australian newspaper also features a major story today on how we are now entering an age when Australian will suffer from major oil deficits, where in the past we had enjoyed locally sourced oil supply surpluses.

Update II : Both John Howard and defence minister Brendan Nelson discussed the need for Australia to continue the occupation of Iraq to secure future oil supplies, and all hell broke loose.


Original Story Follows :

John Howard will move today to dispel any doubt about his intention to keep more than 550 Australian combat troops in Iraq until the Iraqi government says they can go home.

Which raises doubts about this story from last week, which claimed Howard had a secret plan to pull out most of Australia's fighting forces from Iraq in early 2008. The doubt raised, then, is that the leak used in the story was a plant, a set-up to gauge the public reaction to a withdrawal of Australian troops. The reaction from most Australians was "yeah, so what?" Howard can now dismiss any notion raised by Labor on the way to the federal election that he is planning to pull troops out once the election is over.

Off the back of the currently very weak links between the spectacularly hopeless car bombing attempts in London and Glasgow and an Australian-based doctor, Howard is expected to ramp up both the threat of homegrown terror, and the threat of terror attacks from non-Australians who are visiting, or working, here.

Howard's core message will be simple : Australia is not pulling its fighting forces out of Iraq, and Australia is not withdrawing from Afghanistan. Not until the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan say our troops are no longer needed :

In a major security speech, Mr Howard will stress the stark consequences of a failure by the US and its allies to secure Iraq.

He will argue that the military coalition cannot allow weariness, frustration or political convenience to dictate strategy in Iraq.

Mr Howard today will launch a new defence policy statement, which underscores the strategic importance of the Middle East to global security and Australia's broader national interests.

The document warns of a far more complex and challenging global environment facing Australia's military.

It says Australia's new security challenges dictate a military force able not only to play a lead role in the region, but also to operate in an expanded range of operations further afield with close allies.

The 65-page defence update declares that violent extremism will remain a threat around the world for a generation "and probably longer".

It says the stakes are high in Iraq and Afghanistan, not only for the peace and stability of those countries, but also because the outcome will influence how the US will deal with future global security challenges.

A critical danger remains the prospect of terror groups such as al-Qa'ida getting hold of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons.

Increasingly, military technology once available only to nation states is being used by terror groups and other non-state actors. Organisations such as al-Qa'ida are unlikely to be deterred from using WMDs by the threat of military retaliation.

The update says extremist terrorism continues to draw funding, support and people from Middle Eastern states.

"For as long as that is true, Australia and like-minded countries need to fight terrorism at its source rather than wait for it to come to our shores.

"To help defeat terrorism Australia must have patience, a sustained military commitment, a willingness to adapt to conditions on the ground and work closely with our friends and allies."

It forecasts the defence force will increasingly be called on to fight irregular opponents and be capable of mounting counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations.

In short, Australia will keep fighting the 'War on Terror' for as long as the 'War on Terror' helps to keep spawning new terrorists.

Which also means Australia will keep spending more than $23 billion a year on defence, the second highest per person defence spend in the world (after the United States) for years to come. Not much is expected to change on that front even if Kevin Rudd, and Labor, win the federal election later this year.

Don't expect Howard to do much talking up of the Australian-United States alliance between now and the federal election. He will acknowledge it, but he is unlikely to be seen publicly praising President Bush. At least if his advisers have any say in it.

Pledging a strong and ongoing commitment to fighting the 'War on Terror' is now a coded way for Howard to say that he will continue to support Bush-led American military misadventures around the world for the foreseeable future.

It will be surprising if Howard has anything to say about Australia's involvement in the US 'missile shield' between now and the election, or Australia's involvement in helping the United States to 'encircle' China, in anticipation of a coming trade war between China and the US.

Howard's speech today on Australia's future security "challenges" and his government's role in helping to fight the 'War on Terror' will be seen as probably Howard's last major chance to buzz up his own dismal standings in the polls before Parliament resumes, and to tamp down the grumblings within the Liberal Party on whether or not Howard will destroy their chances of holding onto power in the coming elections.

There was speculation a few months back that Howard had to score a decent rise in national polls, like Newspoll which will begin collecting data on Friday, after Howard's key speech today, or he could be rolled by his own party and removed from the leadership. If Howard was replaced, the coalition government could delay the federal election until early 2008 to give themselves a fighting change. But they still need someone to replace Howard. Someone from the front ranks of the government who doesn't make most Australians wince every time they open their mouths.

Howard may see a slight rise in the polls from today's speech, partly due to unease caused by the, however weak, Australian links to the London car bombing attempts, but he will really have to rally the nation to knock Rudd and the Labor Party off their election winning perch, which they have enjoyed for all of 2007. This seems incredibly unlikely.

The chief problem for Howard today is that while he can pledge to try and keep Australians safe from terror, Australians are more concerned about who is going to keep them safe from Howard and his dishonest, double-dealing, secret agenda heavy, gang.


March, 2007 : Howard Sees Only "Faint Glimmer Of Hope" In Iraq

February, 2007 : Howard Keeps "Own Interest" Option For Early Troop Withdrawal From Iraq

Australian Defence Minister Says There Is No Hope Of Victory In Iraq War

The Skies Have Opened, And The 'City Of Drought' Eases Back Water Restrictions

Many residents of Goulburn, in the NSW southern highlands, used to shower with buckets around their feet to collect every spare drop of precious water. Water was precious they weren't allowed to wash their cars or water their gardens.

For more than two years, Goulburn was the largest 'dry' town in Australia, and the savage drought that almost emptied local dams looked like it was never going to end. Lawns turned to dust, gardens died and people all over the country saw in Goulburn a dawning reality that they feared they would soon have to deal with themselves, in their own towns and cities.

But the skies have opened up over Goulburn and the primary dam for the city's water supply is now more than 50% full, after a low of a mere 12% capacity.

Goulburn residents may not be dancing in the streets, but they are watering their gardens.

In a number of interviews with locals aired on television and radio today and tonight, Goulburn residents talked about how they would never take water for granted again, and how the drought and increasingly harsh water restrictions had changed their lives.

Many seemed to think the changes are for the better.

They said they had learned that water could not be wasted, and some shook their heads in disbelief at how, years before, they had treated water as a commodity that would never run out.

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

The NSW southern highlands city, which had come to symbolise the plight of the state's drought-stricken rural areas, will go from level 5 to level 3 water restrictions following June's heavy rain.

But one nursery owner said it wouldn't make much difference to his business as most residents had already adapted to the dry conditions.

"When it first started [in 2002], well, you could stand in the store and there would be no one around,'' said Shane Nelson, 42, who owns the Gehl Garden Centre & Wholesale Nursery in Goulburn.

"As time has progressed people have actually seemed to have adapted pretty well to the restrictions. People started adjusting to the conditions and got water-tanks on their houses, used grey or bore water. We definitely diversified ourselves into other things like garden furniture and pots.''

Mr Nelson said the restrictions had meant his customers moved towards plants that were less thirsty and more able to cope with the dry conditions.

"Roses have done very well as they actually seem to thrive a lot better in the dry conditions,'' he said. "They are very disease and pest-prone in moisture.

Plants such as camellias and rhododendrons, which favour moist positions, are not as popular now, Mr Nelson said.

"I talk to customers now and they use more water than they've ever done because of their tank supply,'' he said. "The first couple of years of the restrictions, if I could have picked up my plants and left, I would have. But soon we were holding our own.''

After strong June rains Goulburn's dam levels more than quadrupled, with one of its storages spilling over for the first time in six years.

Greer Vs Ackerman On The 'Aboriginal Intervention'

Two columns about prime minister John Howard's 'Aboriginal Intervention' campaign from two of Australia's most hysterical, hyperbolic, clarity-challenged blabbermouths - Piers Ackerman and Germaine Greer.

One of the two thinks Howard is just brilliant and never puts a foot wrong and has a heart of pure gold and would never let politics or the thought of winning the coming election influence his decision making, particularly when it comes to the fate of Australia's Aborigines.

The other thinks Howard is the scum that grows on scum and wants to drink the blood of abused Aboriginal children while stealing their tribes' land so his rich mates can move in and start mining more uranium.

You can guess for yourself which one is which.

Ackerman : While a majority of Labor supporters (80 per cent, according to Galaxy) believe the move is an election stunt pulled by Prime Minister John Howard, those most affected see it as an attempt to remedy a disaster long-neglected by governments. ...those who stupidly claim the Federal Government could have acted sooner are ignoring the tens of millions Canberra has given the states and the Northern Territory to deal with the inherent problems faced by those who have been kept subject to abuse in their isolated reserves by the appalling policies so warmly embraced by misty-eyed members of the kumbaya crowd.

Greer : Ever since white men set foot in Australia more than 200 years ago, they have persecuted, harassed, tormented and tyrannised the people they found there. The more cold-blooded decided that the most humane way of dealing with a galaxy of peoples who would never be able to adapt to the "whitefella" regime was to eliminate them as quickly as possible, so they shot and poisoned them. Others believed that they owed it to their God to rescue the benighted savage, strip him of his pagan culture, clothe his nakedness, and teach him the value of work. Leaving the original inhabitants alone was never an option; learning from them was beyond any notion of what was right and proper. As far as the pink people were concerned, black Australians were primitive peoples, survivors from the stone age in a land that time forgot.

Ackerman : Those most to blame for this horror are the promoters of the Aboriginal industry - from H.C. "Nugget" Coombs and his successors to the legislators who disenfranchised rural Aboriginals from the economy through the equal wage case 30 years ago, to the jurists who conspired to concoct the Mabo case and the authors of flawed reports on Aboriginal deaths in custody and the so-called "stolen generations".

Greer : As commander-in-chief of an army of police, the Australian Defence Force and hordes of doctors and nurses, (John Howard) will storm the 70 or so autonomous Aboriginal settlements in the Northern Territory.

Ackerman : It comes as no surprise that Labor's true believers - the dilettante North Shore doctors' wives - are loathe to support genuine action - because it focuses attention on the abject failure of the ill-conceived apartheid policies they marched for and in which they placed their deluded, emotive trust.

Greer : The name of the game, as usual, is bad faith. Everything Howard does is calculated to win him votes. The suffering of Aboriginal women and children at the hands of their deranged menfolk has been going on all Howard's life. For most of that time whitefellas made a joke of it. At this late hour, on the eve of a general election, he is suddenly taking it seriously. It is of no consequence that what he is doing is illegal. His treatment of asylum seekers and boat people is just as illegal, and it is widely admired by Australians and people who should know better.

Ackerman :The dewy-eyed media handwringers and academics who rarely miss an opportunity to bray their compassion for Aborigines are now silent....It's time these poseurs said sorry to the generations they have so tragically exploited.

They both need to take a cold shower. Together, to save water. But for God's sake, don't post the footage of it on YouTube. We might accidentally stumble across it and then have to gouge out our eyeballs and use the new memory flush pill to empty our minds of that horrific vision.

But in reality, Germaine Greer's article is one of the better, and more comprehensive, stories on the realities of the 'Intervention' you'll find online today. She's spent plenty of time in Aboriginal communities up north where the elders have already intervened and worked out most of the problems of their society and want to be treated with the respect they deserve. They're still waiting. Greer is harsh on the history of the whitefellas treatment of the blackfella, because that treatment has been appallingly bad, more often than not, for more than 200 years. And not much has changed in the 11 years John Howard has been running the country.

Ackerman, meanwhile, just provides another example of why he is one of the highest paid propagandists in the country. He is so good at it. Never has a failing, disconnected and inherently dishonest Australian government as John Howard's had such a master of The Big Lie so firmly on their side. In Australia, there are few, if any, more rehearsed proponents of the vile, insidious personal attack, and practitioners of The Big Lie than Ackerman.

Greer still has hope for the communities she spent time, and believes that most Aboriginals need less interference from the whitefella, not more, particularly from those whitefellas who sell them booze and drugs and buy sex from their children, or just rape them for nothing. Almost nowhere in the storm of media coverage about the appalling child abuse in some Aboriginal communities was it mentioned just how often whitefellas with a few cartons of booze, or a cheap bottle of scotch, were the perpetrators.

Greer also believes the Aboriginal people still have a lot to teach white Australia about this massive country where we all mostly cling and congregate near the coastlines.

As Greer points out, on behalf of the female Aboriginal elders she calls friends, it doesn't seem to occur to the Howard government that the whitefella might actually have something to learn from the people who lived in these lands for more than 50,000 years.

Ackerman, meanwhile, is just dripping with his trademark rancid snobbery and dealing from the same tattered deck of tired old cliches he was already wearing out back when he was still even remotely relevant. And that was a long time ago. His bile and bitterness is so toxic, you might need to eat a big spoonful of honey after reading this to get back your sense of taste.

The Great Australian Beer Disaster

It's not really a disaster, for most of us, I just wanted to use that headline.

But in a cynical, purely capitalistic attempt to boost profits, the makers of the beer VB - or Victoria Bitter, or Vitamin B, as we used to call it - are slashing the iconic brew's alcohol content, and raising the price.

There'll be rioting in the streets. Slightly less drunken rioting :

The alcohol content of Victoria Bitter is to be cut as brewer Foster's tries to slash millions of dollars from its tax bill.

Foster's will also raise the wholesale price of all its packaged beers by about 2 per cent next month.

Industry experts say the VB alcohol content reduction - from 4.9 per cent to 4.8 per cent - could save Foster's $20 million in beer tax a year.

But the company has assured drinkers the taste of the iconic VB will stay the same.

Yeah, that's what they want us to think. But VB afficionados will be able to taste the difference.

"The taste will stay exactly the same. Our master brewers have done a lot of work to make sure of that."

Master brewers? For VB?

Clearly a boycott is in order. Maybe.

Beer sales, according to this story, are actually showing a "long-term decline" in Australia. But we spend more on beer, because we're going for the premiums now.

Clearly it's a dirty, nasty conspiracy to make our booze-heavy beer more like the Americans - weak as piss.

BTW, the (staged) photo that goes with the story here, of a clearly shattered old VB lover, is excellent.

Australian Military "Unlikely" To "Pressure" Other Countries To Change Carbon Emissions Policies

Not Yet, Anyway

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has issued a report explaining how the Australian military will likely become engaged in dealing with the results of a rapidly changing climate in the Pacific and South East Asia in the coming years.

The military may find itself engaging in more relief missions and disaster recovery work within Australia, and the region, and there may be a need to also "defend" Australia's borders against expected flows of "climate refugees" once a number of Pacific islands go under, or widescale water and food shortages force people our way.

More cyclones, extreme weather events, bushfires and flooding will also need the resources of the Australian military, and the report urges the military to think about the kinds of gear and equipment they will need to deal with such work in the future. In short, start buying more trucks than can drive through five feet of water and pick up some more rubber dinghies while you're at it.

Nothing all that new in all this, but clearly these are important events and situations for the military and its related agencies and policy boards to discuss and plan for.

But here's the bit that really caught my eye :

...the paper said it would be unlikely the Australian Defence Force (ADF) would be deployed to pressure another nation to change its carbon emissions policies.

Wow. Has that even been under discussion? That the Australia's military might be deployed in the future to "pressure" another nation into lowering its carbon emissions?

Close down those coal-fired power stations, buddy, or we're sending in the troops.
Which raises the very interesting question : If Indonesia was found to be in violation of its allowed carbon emissions quota in 2026, and the EU and the North American Union demanded it shut down 56 coal-fired power stations to get those emissions levels down, would those who support the war against climate change also support going to war, actual war, to make sure Indonesia met its targets?

Anti-Oil & Anti-War activists could find their children growing up to become Anti-Climate Change But Pro-War.

Of course, the carbon emissions produced by the military during any such intervention to force a neighbouring country to lower its emissions would need to be factored in. Naturally.

Claim : Howard Has Top Secret Plan To Abandon America In Iraq

Australia Tells Iraq : We Ain't Leaving

Howard Admits ADF Role In Iraq Should "Already Be Over"

Stuck for an attention grabbing story for the front page, or early pages, of your Sunday newspaper? No sweat, just hype the rumours about Australia pulling its troops out of Iraq just in time for the federal election. Don't worry about whether the story is true or not, or whether your newspaper is ramping up the hopes of military families keen to see their loved ones return home sooner rather than later.

Just concoct a semi-legitimate sounding theory to go with the claims from your "senior military source" and you've got an attention grabbing, newspaper selling story.

From the Sunday Telegraph :

Prime Minister John Howard has a secret plan to begin withdrawing Australian troops from Iraq by February, a senior military source has revealed.

And Mr Howard intends to use the plan to ambush Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd at this year's election.

Mr Rudd has committed Labor to pulling out Australian troops from the increasingly unpopular war, if he wins.

A well-placed source said the plan is one of the most closely guarded secrets in the top levels of the bureaucracy.

It is understood the plan has not yet been put to the Bush Administration or even gone before the National Security Committee of Cabinet.

Is that because it's complete and utter bullshit?

"The Government is quietly saying to Defence: 'We don't want to get caught in Iraq if it comes unstuck for the Americans'," another well-placed source said.

"They want to be ready to go, even before the Americans."

Australia's planned troop withdrawal is expected to begin at the same time the US military is expected to begin drawing down its presence in Iraq in February.

Ha! Bush isn't pulling American troops out of Iraq. At least, not until the shattered US military pull George W. Bush out of the White House.

Most Australians will laugh long and hard to hear that John Howard is planning to do anything in relation to Iraq without first seeking the approval of President Bush.

This whole bucket of rotting fish-heads, passing as a news story, is little more than an attempt to bolster John Howard's appalling poll ratings by making it appear he intends to bring the troops home, after the election, and is planning to do so without seeking the permission of Bush Co. first.

It's little more than an attempt to paint Howard as something other than the Bush Co. bootlick that so many Australians, rightly so, now believe him to be.

The majority of Australians are not going to vote for John Howard again, whether he promises to bring the troops home or not. The prime minister's credibility stinks as badly as that news story.

Although the Australian foreign minister, Alexander Downer, is infamous for lying even when he says "Good Morning", he was doing his master's bidding (Bush, not Howard) when he was in Iraq just the other day, stating Australian troops will remain in Iraq "for the foreseeable future" :

Speaking after talks with Iraqi Government and US military leaders in Baghdad, Mr Downer emphasised there were no plans for a pre-election pullout and that Australia would not walk away from the difficult challenges facing Iraq.

"I made it very clear to the Iraqis while I was there that we would not abandon them," Mr Downer told ABC radio yesterday. "I made it clear Australian troops would stay."

Mr Downer said it was vital that extremism in Iraq was defeated.

What happened to defeating terrorism? Terrorism's okay, is it, now we can't stop it? So we're going to "defeat" extremism instead.

Maybe we should just go for the enforcement of a total ban on smoking in Iraqi restaurants. You know, something clear and achievable.

Another story of interest here, attempts to reframe Howard and his faithful lackeydom when it came to following Bush Co. orders on deploying Australian troops to Iraq back in late 2002, in anticipation of the war that he claims he wasn't sure was actually going to happen when most of the Australian troops had already been told it was going to happen, because that's why they were all there in the first place :

Mr Howard told the Ten Network that he spoke with US President George W. Bush and then defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld about an Australian deployment....

And that was back in mid-2002, but Howard insists to this day it was much later in the year than that.

"The understanding we had with the Americans, when we originally participated, was that after the sharp end was over we weren't going to have any troop presence," he said. "I made it very clear that we would commit forces - if we did commit forces, they'd be committed for the sharp operational stage, the invasion stage if you like, and then after that, we would not be leaving forces on the ground."

Except for all the forces we would be having on the ground, because we told Bush Co. we would be having those forces on the ground, that we were in fact committed, while John Howard was still telling the Australian public that we hadn't yet committed to the war, something he continued to do only 48 before the war began when dozens of missiles ploughed into Baghdad .

Howard has lied so often and spun himself into so many confusing circles about Australia's involvement in the Iraq War, he can no longer keep track of all the threads of disinformation and obfuscation he has hurled at the public over the past five years.

Mr Howard was...forced to defend the role of Australian troops in Iraq, after recent complaints from soldiers that they were being accused by some coalition partners of not pulling their weight.

When Defence Minister Brendan Nelson visited troops in Iraq in April he was questioned about Australia's participation.

"There's really a very real sense that our forces are being withheld from actual combat roles with the exception of the special forces," one soldier said.

"I think that some of our coalition partners are starting to certainly make comment on the ground to soldiers about that."

Yes, they are. And it's been a personally degrading embarrassment for many Australian soldiers in Iraq, who trained to fight a war, who went to Iraq to fight a war, and then found themselves locked out of key battles because the prime minister was, and remains, so utterly terrified of the reaction of the Australian public if military casualties started to enter double digits.

Go To 'The Fourth World War' Blog For More News On Iraq

Australia's Secrets - Media Losing Battle To Access Truth

Lives Destroyed When Whistleblowers Tell The Public What They Have A Right To Know

A remarkable coalition of Australian media giants are fighting to protect journalists right to report the news and to free up access to government documents and records, as Howard Corp. tightens the rules of access, and extends the time that government records can be kept from the public. This huge media vs government battle comes as two court cases about government secrets and whistleblowing roll through the courts.

Two journalists from the Herald Sun were recently slapped with criminal records, and fined $7000 each, because they would not give up their sources.

A senior public servant had leaked documents to the journalists two years ago that exposed a Howard government plan to cut funding for the ongoing care and rehabilitation of Australia's war veterans. A disgusting, cynical and stunningly Un-Australian move by Howard's people, particularly when the country has thousands of soldiers deployed to two major war zones.

The senior public servant was rightly disgusted by what he learned, and believed the public should have been informed. So he blew the whistle, and almost found himself in jail for doing the right thing.

In another case, an officer with Customs found his department was trying to suppress a report that exposed just how vulnerable Australia's major airports were to drug smugglers and terror attacks. He found serious security flaws and he went public, and had his life destroyed by the vindictive federal government, and his retirement funds depleted trying to keep his freedom.

Again, a whisleblower did the right thing by bringing to the attention of the public important information they should have been aware of.

There's a good story on all this from 7.30 Report. You read the full transcript of the report, and watch the show here :

Unlike countries like Britain, Australia has no national laws to protect so called 'whistle blowers'. In the eyes of some observers, such prosecutions are symptomatic of a new climate of secrecy that has seen Governments clamp down on the release of sensitive information in the public interest.

Allan Kessing is the second public servant to be prosecuted for leaking to the media in the past two years (over airport security flaws). Desmond Kelly, a senior Veteran Affairs officer, was found guilty of leaking a government email to Herald Sun journalists McManus and Harvey.

It was another embarrassing expose revealing Federal Cabinet plans to knock back a proposed $500 million increase in war veterans' entitlements. The conviction was later thrown out, but the Secretary of the Prime Minister and Cabinet Department, Dr Peter Shergold, is unrepentant about the Government's aggressive pursuit of public servants, telling the National Press Club last year that he regarded all leaks, even those in the public interest, as democratic sabotage.

...prominent Australian author and journalist David Marr says the silencing of public servants reflects a disturbing pattern in the last decade. His thesis outlined in the latest 'Quarterly Essay' warns thuggish spin doctoring and punitive legislation like the 2005 sedition laws, have been used by all Australian governments to shut down criticism, and starve journalists of information the public has the right to know.

The coalition of Australian media giants have formed The Right To Know Committee to fight state and federal government suppression of information, to broaden the Freedom Of Information Act, and to find ways to protect the rights of whistleblowers. Well, to give rights to whistleblowers. They don't have rights at the moment.

More on all this from David Marr :

The rules of secrecy have been policed as they have never been before in Australia in peace time. There is a squad, the Australian Federal Police. They work tens of thousands of hours chasing down leaks to the press. That's their work. They prosecute. People are supposed to go to jail for telling the public things the public needs to know.

News Limited's John Hartigan, who is the force behind the Right to Know Committee, is no whingeing leftie, take it from me. This is a problem in Australia now which is recognised to span right across the media and political spectrums. The head of News Limited, the head of the ABC, the head of Fairfax... these people have unparalleled access to Government. Their capacity to privately lobby to fix these problems is almost limitless, but they haven't been able to do it privately.

The press is being locked out, the public servants are scared, they're shutting up and as a result, public debate in this country, which is a crucial part of democratic government in this country, is closing down.

What's most troubling about all this is that the governments involved in suppressing the truth, and punishing the whistleblowers, are not doing it for the good of the public. They are doing it to protect themselves from criticism and accountability.

The formula is simple : the more secrets they can hold onto, the more powerful they are.

It's a shocking state of affairs for a democratic country.

Our politicians continually forget that they are our employees. They are not rulers of a kingdom, or dictators, as much as they sometimes appear to wish to be so.


As far as the media goes, the gags on what journalists can and can't report, in this 'War On Terror' age, are getting tighter :

This automatic preference for concealment means Australia's record on press freedom is a national disgrace. The latest index published by Reporters Without Borders puts us in 35th place, behind South Korea and Namibia, and alongside such bulwarks of democracy as Bulgaria and Mali. Politicians from all sides are guilty. They may parrot cliches about freedom of information when in opposition; in government they obey the instinct of the powerful to gag and to ban.

The Right To Know Is At The Heart Of Freedom

Andrew Wilkie, Australia's Most Famous Whistleblower On The False WMD Intelligence That Led Us Into The Iraq War, Vindicated After Shocking Smear Campaign By Politicians And Media

Blowing The Whistle On Hypocrisy - Hundreds Of Comments From Australians In Support Of Whistleblowing

Blogocracy - Governments Don't Like Sunlight

The Gags On The Media Are Getting Tighter

'Mobile Prisons' Readied For APEC Summit

Stripping Away Democratic Rights For The Sake Of 'Democracy'


Photo from the Sydney Morning Herald website

It's always nice to be reminded of the kind of democracy you're living in.

31 buses are reportedly to be used to detain protesters during the APEC summit in September, when some 70 world leaders will converge on Sydney and turn most of the central business district into a two week preview of a high-tech police state.

Sorry, did we say "mobile prisons"? Apparently, according to the NSW State Government, the correct terminology is "mobile holding cells".

Each bus can hold some 70 people. To turn them into mobile prisons, the buses have had their back windows blocked by a panel and the windows replaced with wire mesh.

Considering that the rear window in these buses double as the emergency exits, it will be interesting to see how they are going to provide the necessary safety measures that any bus in New South Wales is legally required to have in case of a fire or a traffic accident.

Or are these buses just yet another attempt by the government to intimidate the thousands of peaceful protesters who are planning to exercise their democratic rights during the APEC summit?

Interesting that they would need so many buses to deal with the presumed troublemakers. The NSW police, and ASIO, have a hit list of those they believe are likely to try and protest violently, and there are reportedly less than 60 names on that list. Or one bus load. And the police have already stated they intend to "round these people" up if they even think about heading into the Sydney CBD while the APEC summit is underway.

So not only will you need an approved ID card to access entire blocks of downtown Sydney in the first two weeks of September, you will need to pass through checkpoints, get used to being subjected to random body searches, the sight of snipers on rooftops and armed soldiers patrolling the streets, but you may also find yourself thrown into an escape-proof bus just because you happen to look like someone who might be thinking of causing trouble.

Plus, if you are detained because you are protesting incorrectly, you can be held without charge for "the entire duration" of the APEC summit.

Of course, all these rules won't apply to the undercover agents who regularly infiltrate peaceful protests around the world to make sure there are some dramatic scenes of violence and chaos for the media to fill their news bulletins with. It happened all the time during the anti-war protests of the late 1960s, you seriously don't believe that it doesn't happen today?

Haven't you wondered why virtually none of those arrested for kicking in shop windows and tearing up chunks of pavement never end up in jail? Or even facing a court of law?

At any huge protest, there will be a few dickheads. But there are also people who are paid to be dickheads. They are usually the ones who get on television, but rarely get arrested.

Mobile prisons in the streets of Sydney. No wonder the government has already advised people "to leave town" while the APEC summit is being held.

There's nothing more ironic, or New World Order iconic, then stripping away the vestiges of a democracy to welcome the leaders of the world's democracies to a summit, where spreading democracy in the Middle East will be under discussion.

APEC : Random Body Searches And Detention Without Charge - Sydney To Become A Mini-Police State

Sydneysiders Told To Leave Town During APEC World Leaders Summit

APEC Security Will Cost Taxpayers A Mind-Boggling $24 Million Per Day

Efforts To Free Coal Freighter Grip Millions Around The World

Greenpeace Lasers Australia's Favourite Stranded Ship



If the massive coal freighter now stranded in sand off a Newcastle Beach is ever set free, people are going to miss it.

Not just the locals around Nobby's Beach, some of whom have done a roaring trade in t-shirts, fast food and car boot beer sales in the near three weeks the freighter has been stranded there, but many of those who tuned into the news tonight to see efforts to free the ship leading the news on nearly every channel.

Australians usually pine over stranded whales, now some are getting emotional over the plight of a beached coal freighter.

The trials of the Pasher Bulker have certainly been newsworthy.

The freighter could break up, spilling thousands of tons of oil and causing an environmental disaster, it could be freed, or it could stay there and become a permanent tourist attraction, and a challenge for any local kid to find a way to get on board the 230 metre long behemoth.

The tugs are in place and are trying to free it tonight, while the king tide is in, but in the meantime Greenpeace activists saw their chance to pump their anti-coal message Australia's biggest semi-permanent billboard, by spraying the vast side of the vessel with a laser messages, including :

This Is What Climate Change Looks Like

Coal Causes Climate Chaos

And stranded coal freighters can cause traffic chaos in the little Nobby's Beach community, as thousands of people decided, during the past two weeks, that they don't want to get out of their car to take a look at such a spectacular site.

So many people were expected to head towards Nobby's to watch the de-beaching tonight that local roads and pedestrian routes were closed down.

More on the 'Free The Ship' movement from The Age :

Three tugs and winches aboard the $35 million coal carrier will haul together during today's 7pm high tide to heave the massive vessel seaward.

The 40,000-tonne ship's ballast water, which has been holding her steady on the sand, will be pumped out and the hull pressurised.

Since the Pasha Bulker ran aground during a severe storm on June 8, its plight in pounding seas has been a source of fascination.

The ship has about 700 tonnes of fuel and 100 tonnes of other chemicals on board, prompting worries of a possible hull breach.

Wind gusts of up to 80 km/h and three-metre waves around the ship are forecast to ease today and continue to lessen over tomorrow and Saturday, when the salvage operation is expected to continue.

There's even a live webcam up so you can watch the action, or see waves crashing against a huge coal freighter. Excitement! I just saw it moving! The webcam has had an extraordinary two million viewings from around the world in 48 hours.

Nobby's is actually a man-made beach, and the impact of the coal freighter running aground, and the efforts to free it, have caused concern with the local surfers, who fear the activity might change their surf conditions forever.

If it stays there, it is going to be one hell of an object to try and surf around.

Aboriginal Families Flee The Police, Military 'Intervention'

Howard's "Invasion" Of Aboriginal Lands Begins Today

Prime Minister John Howard said he was left with no choice but to act immediately to stop the rape and molestation of children in a number of Northern Territory Aboriginal communities, after the release of a report detailing the living horror that is daily life for thousands of Aboriginal children, living in Third World conditions.

For many who have spent years and decades trying to help Aboriginal communities devastated by alcoholism, petrol sniffing, gambling, social decay and sexual exploitation, Howard's move to action has been years overdue.

But the speed of Howard's 'emergency intervention' has reportedly left some Aboriginal communities reeling, and horror-struck, and there is much angst that Howard did not consult enough with Aboriginal leaders before setting his plans into immediate action.

Howard said the time for talk and discussions was over. It was time for action.

Today, the first wave of police, backed by Australian Defence Force soldiers, will enter Aboriginal communities to start rounding up the more violent, abusive offenders, and to close down pubs and liquor outlets.

According to Howard's rushed, vague and possibly disastrous plan, medical professionals will follow the police and military and will conduct medical examinations of all children under 16. The examinations will be compulsory, and parents will not be required, according to Howard's comments, to give their consent.

Howard's stated mission is for health workers to examine the children for signs of sexual abuse, or infection by sexual disease. Many of the doctors who are taking part said they will use the opportunity offered by the intervention plan to do complete check-ups of the children they encounter, and they will not be rushed in their work by the politics that will overshadow the intervention as the federal election draws near.

Neither Howard, nor the vast sprawl of critics of his plan, know what the eventual outcome of the intervention will be. But few, obviously, are hoping it will fail. Virtually all Australian want the exploitation of Aboriginals, by their own, and by outsiders, to cease. Today.

But it will be a dream many years in the realisation, with some extremely ugly and possibly deadly confrontations to come.

It is not only a small number of Aboriginal elders who don't want the social order, the power of their rule over their communities, by decree or by sheer force of violence and threat, to change, or to be lessened by the presence of police and soldiers.

There is also a lesser known number of white Australian males who have grown rich and powerful from the illegal trafficking of alcohol and drugs into remote Aboriginal communities, and who control pedophile rings where Aboriginal children are prostituted and traded between communities, and between mine workers.

Howard has vowed to stamp out alcohol and pornography in more than 60 Northern Territory communities, and not all of them are dominated by Aboriginals. There is a small number of camps filled with white Australian miners, who will also be told their days of heavy drinking and watching hardcore porn, and buying sex from Aboriginal kids with a few litres of petrol, are well and truly over.

To believe that all of the people in the isolated communities of the Northern Territory will relent to the police and military is a fantasy. For a few months, at least, the police and military may be facing their own mini-insurgency, as hundreds of members of Aboriginal gang members go bush and possibly begin to fight back.

The police, and the military, already have their 'hit lists' of the more violent and abusive and dangerous members of the communities they will be entering.

There will be jubilant scenes in some towns as drunken thugs are taken away and the sober grandmothers and community elders are able to take back control of what alcohol, rape and violence had desecrated for so many years.

And it all begins today.

In the first community to be targeted, located near the base of the majestic Uluru, reports claim that Aboriginal families are packing up and fleeing their community, terrified that their children will be taken away from them, and a replay of the 'stolen generation' stories of their parents and grandparents, will become their reality as well.

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

Panic about the Howard Government's crackdown on child sexual abuse has spread widely throughout remote Aboriginal communities, where parents fear their children will be taken away in a repeat of the stolen generation.

Some families have already fled the first community to be targeted, Mutitjulu at Uluru, but the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough, blames "liars" who have something to hide from police and military personnel for terrorising people and spreading hysteria.

"The reason people are scared there at the moment is because people are putting around that the army are coming to take their children away, that the army is coming in to shoot the dogs and the Government is going to take away their money and make them sit there and do what they're told," Mr Brough said.

Social workers and indigenous MPs in the Northern Territory are being swamped with phone calls from Aborigines wanting to know what will happen in their communities.

An indigenous MP, Alison Anderson, said she had been trying to persuade families in her huge desert electorate south of Alice Springs not to take their children and flee before police and troops arrived, which in some places could be within days.

"In one telephone hook-up last night people told me they were going to run away to a waterhole 50 kilometres away," Ms Anderson said. "I have heard from many people thinking they may do the same thing. I've urged them not to panic and to stay on the communities and work with the people who arrive."

Marion Scrymgour, a Northern Territory Government minister, said: "There's a lot of fear, particularly among elder woman. Not so long ago - 30 to 40 years - children were being taken out of the arms of Aboriginal mothers. There is real fear that is going to happen again."

The Chief Minister, Clare Martin, told MPs yesterday to travel to their bush electorates as soon as possible to tell people "what is fact and what is fiction" in an effort to halt the panic.

Lesley Taylor, one of the Territory's most experienced child abuse workers, said: "They are scared stiff … This is creating very stressful environments that could lead to even more children being at risk."

Sixty to 70 communities will be targeted, and small teams of police, military and government officers will begin arriving today to audit people's needs. They would be replaced by teams who would stay to meet those needs, Mr Brough said. Public servants will oversee the programs, with a manager in each community responsible for what happens.

This is only the beginning. The road ahead will be hard, long, historical and will hopefully change the nature of how Australian state and federal governments deal with Aboriginal communities forever.

Hundreds of Aboriginal tribes survived more than 50,000 years in this country, in some of the harshest environments in the world. It wasn't sheer luck that saw them survive, and in some regions absolutely thrive. Aboriginal culture holds knowledge and secrets about this land that we can barely comprehend, that we have barely begun to understand.

It's no time to tell them all that they were wrong, that they don't know what they're doing, and what they believe is bad for them, and destructive for their children and societies.

Australia stands on the edge of a new beginning for its Aboriginal people. But the 'emergency intervention' cannot last only to the federal election. It must mark the fresh start of a new life for the tens of thousands of people left behind, and it must usher in decades of rehabilitation, rebuilding and re-integration.

But it is not only into the dominant white society of Australia that Aboriginals must integrate. We must meet them halfway, and protect what they hold sacred, and preserve the knowledge and traditions that helped them survive for hundreds of centuries before white man arrived in their lands, and changed their societies forever.

We may believe we still have much to teach them. But they have so much more to teach us, about this land, about their ancient knowledge, that we are only beginning to understand after 200 years.

We all have a long way to go.

But something, finally, and hopefully for the better, has begun.

$500,000, And Nobody Wants It

For weeks now, a surgery in country New South Wales has been offering $500,000, in a lump sum payment, to any obstetrician, GP or anaesthetist, who was willing to relocate from the city and get to work.

Even after widespread media coverage, the southern NSW town of Temora hasn't receieved a single application from a "city based or recently qualified doctor". They are looking for a medico from the city, or one fresh out of med school, so they will not be depriving other country towns of their own rare health professionals.

When country Australian mayors and community leaders say they are struggling to find enough doctors, nurses and other professionals to keep their towns alive, they're not exagerating. So grim is the skills shortage in Australia today, that a half million dollar relocation payment goes begging :

"What it clearly shows is that there aren't the younger doctors out there with the skills and expertise willing to take on this golden opportunity," Dr Mara said.

The $500,000 would be paid on completion of a three-month probationary period, and would be on top of the successful candidate's annual salary, estimated at more than $200,000.

The town's only anaesthetist and two other doctors have left, and without a replacement the surgery has been faced with closure.

A spokeswoman for federal Health Minister Tony Abbott said the poor response to the $500,000 offer was "obviously very disappointing", but the Government "cannot force doctors to move towns".

Yes, but your government could have made sure, say, five or ten years ago, that there were enough incitements for people to study medicine and the health professions, so that this appalling shortage of medicos in rural Australia did not become a reality. Or you could at least make it easier for migrants who are already trained as health professionals, to localise, and refresh, their qualifications and take up such vital roles in the rural health services.

Mr Abbott cannot say he wasn't warned that such a skills shortage was coming. The warnings have been coming loud and strong from rural Australia for a decade that the local doctors and nurses were leaving and there was nobody to replace them.

A typical example of neglect from the Howard government, and a common one when it comes to medical/health professions and services in regional and outback Australia : Ignore a problem until it becomes an emergency, and then announce a solution that will take years to reach fruit. And wait until an election is within eyesight before you make the announcement that you're going to solve the problem.

American Sailor Arrested For Underage Online Sex Crime

US Military To NSW Police : "Give Him To Us"

An almost off-radar battle has broken out between the NSW police and the American military over the arrest of a visiting US sailor, David Wayne Budd, now charged with using the internet to try and procure a 14 year old girl for sex.

Budd was caught in a sting operation. A detective, from the NSW Police Child Protection and Serious Sex Crimes Squad, posed as a 14 year old girl online in a "honey pot" operation and Budd allegedly responded and arranged to meet the girl in Sydney for sex.

He was arrested when he arrived at Sydney Airport from North Queensland, where he had been taking part in the huge American-Australian series of war games called 'Talisman Sabre.'

The US military is not happy. They want their lawyers to take over the case, and have asked the NSW police to hand Budd back.

NSW police have refused, believing they can get a successful prosecution.

Budd was charged with "grooming" an underage person for sex, and denied bail. He is due to appear via video-link from his jail cell in a hearing today. Budd has refused to leave his cell.

There was a hearing today, but it was adjourned to Tuesday, June 26, when Budd's lawyer will push for bail.

The police charge sheet claims that while online in Rockhampton, Budd made contact with the undercover detective and supplied "material that is indictable and the sender did this with the intention of making it easier to procure the recipient to engage in sexual activity".

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

"The US military is asking for jurisdiction in this case … they will investigate the matter and take appropriate action," said a US military spokesman, Lieutenant Chris Maddison, of the US embassy. Such a move was allowed under a bilateral "status of forces agreement".

But NSW police sources said the submission would be vigorously opposed. Harsher US penalties and court martial proceedings overseas did not outweigh the potential deterrence value of a successful Australian prosecution, they said.

The US attempt to claim jurisdiction echoes similar controversies in Japan, where there was outrage after men accused in two rape cases remained on US military bases rather than being immediately handed over to Japanese authorities.

In those cases - one in 1995 and another in 2001 - the US cited its status of forces agreement with Japan as justification.

Only The United States Spends More Per Person On 'Defence' Than Australia

Australia's Massive Plan To Become A World Military Power

Per head of population, Australia's defence spending now ranks second only to the United States.

While the US regularly criticises China and Russia for vast spending on re-arming, Australia is now outspending both of those countries. By 2014, more than $140 billion of Australian taxpayers money will have been funneled into the world's defence contractors, here and in Europe, Israel, the UK and the United States.

There are just under 21 million people in Australia, but the Howard government has set aside an extraordinary $22 billion, or more, to spend on defence through 2008. The defence budget for 2009 could climb to $26 billion, and to almost $30 billion in 2010.

Most Australians don't know about any of this. Arguments in the defence industries, and its myriad of think tanks consulting agencies, about whether or not we should be spending $15 billion on these jets, or $12 billion on these destroyers, rarely make for headline news.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown that when it comes to quelling insurgencies, tanks, helicopters and submarines are all but useless. The improvised explosives Iraqi insurgents are burying by the sides of roads, and along the edge of tracks, to take out tanks and heavily armoured vehicles have proven to be so effective that American troops have been told it's now safer for them to"get out and walk".

But while the world enters a new age of war amongst the people, rather than government against dictatorship, or nation against nation, Australia is laying out tens of billions of dollars to deck itself out with enough new military gear to move it swiftly into the ranks of the world's biggest military powers.

And who exactly are the enemies of the next decade against whom we need to be so heavily armed?

Are we really expecting to go to war with China? Or Indonesia? Or Taiwan?

Foreign minister Alexander Downer likes to claim that Australia needs to become a part of the US missile defence system because of the "threat" of North Korea, but few serious analysts see North Korea as being anything more than an annoyance in the next decade.

Are we instead now, quietly, part of a larger plan to help the United States encircle China? Will it fall to Australia to move in and help cut off China's sea lanes in the, regionally, local Malacca Straits? It is through the Malacca Straits that China ships most of its new energy supplies. Should the bubbling trade war between China and the United States become far more serious, will Australia be called on to move in and blockade China?

This scenario, by Greg Sheridan,for how Australia may come to put to use its extraordinary new collection of submarines, jets, tanks and war ships, sounds as though it was dreamed up with China, or China's allies in the region, squarely in mind :

Two huge amphibious ships, each weighing 27,000 tonnes, each carrying a full battalion of Australian soldiers and then some, with more than 1000 soldiers on each ship.

Each is also carrying a dozen Abrams tanks, as well as lighter vehicles and amphibious vessels for landing. Each has a fully equipped hospital in case there are casualties. Each also has eight helicopters, six for unloading troops and two for defending and supporting the ships.

The troop ships are escorted and guarded by three air warfare destroyers. Each of these is equipped with the US Aegis combat system, the most advanced naval combat system in the world. Each has a phased array radar that enables it to engage and destroy hostile aircraft at a range of more than 150km. Each of these destroyers, at a modest size of 6250tonnes, has 48 separate missile cells. Each is also equipped with advanced sonars for anti-submarine warfare.

They also have harpoon missiles for anti-ship warfare and they have five-inch guns that can fire extended range munitions in support of our troops once they land.

This convoy is given air cover by 100 joint strike fighters, or F-35s. They are masters of stealth and advanced detection. The aircraft are supported by Wedgetails, mistakenly called spy planes but in reality giant electronic networking command and control planes that make sure that an enemy aircraft is destroyed long before it becomes aware of its Australian opponents.

The Wedgetails, the F-35s, the destroyers, the amphibious ships and the commanders of the land force are all networked into the giant US-based satellite and electronic intelligence system, which detects any movement or communication of any potentially hostile force the second it happens.

Finally, Australia's quiet, immensely capable Collins class submarines have gone in close to the destination point and landed Special Air Service troopers, the best small-unit infantry forces in the world, to prepare the way for the larger Australian party to follow.

Pause.

Hopefully, Australia will never have to conduct such an operation.

Yeah, hopefully. But just in case...

Before China gets the chance to militarily, strategically, empower other nations in our region, like Indonesia, Australia will move first to get the military, technological edge.

The message is clear : You won't be able to beat us, so don't even think about trying anything. Or we will hammer you, hard. Just look at all our new toys.

The fact is that when Australia becomes a vital part of the US missile defence shield, and such plans are already underway (without the public being a part of the debate, or even being consulted), Australia will need all the submarines and war ships and jet fighters and arms detailed above, and more.

And there will be more. More tens of billions poured into becoming a military proxy of the United States, a 51st (heavily weaponised) state of the future North American Union. America wants to own the Pacific in the next two decades, and it needs Australia to complete this goal.

The mega-spending on 'defence' will continue. Because once this kind of military mega-spending begins, it doesn't end, until the next world war is over.

How Australia Will Help The United States 'Surround' China

Australia Will Spend Billions To Help US Create Its 'Missile Shield', But No American Missiles Will Defend Australia

$100 To Walk On Bondi Beach

In the early 1990s, I lived in Sydney's King Cross, where I'd regularly see tour buses come straight from the airport and deposit Japanese tourists at their hotels. From that moment on, they were not allowed to leave the eyesight of the tour operators. The tourists drank only at bars chosen by the tour company, the same went for restaurants, who kicked back money for all the international patronage shuttled their way, and the tourists were charged three or four times the standard admission price to get into places like Featherdale Wildlife Park so they could pat a koala bear. Of course, once they were inside the park, the Japanese tourists were often told there was an additional "patting fee".

None of them understood English, so how were they to know they were getting scammed?

I only know all this because I used to drink in a bar in the hotel where many of these well-scammed Japanese tourists used to stay, and I'd overhear tour operators laughing about how much they had fleeced from their patrons that day. Sometimes it was hundreds of dollars. Often it was more than $1000 from a tour group of 20 or 30 Japanese.

I lived in tourist-heavy Katoomba, in the Blue Mountains, in the late 1990s. At the beautiful lookout from where you could see an expanse of valleys and the rocky outcrop known as 'The Three Sisters' I once heard an English speaking bus driver tell his interpreter, to tell Japanese tourists, that there was an additional "viewing fee" of $20 each to just go and take a look at the scenic view from the free lookout.

It used to be the Japanese who got mugged like this. Now it's the Chinese tourists getting fleeced. The only thing that's changed is how much more brazen the tour operators have become.

Some Chinese tourists are being charged $100 just to talk a walk along the very-free Bondi Beach :

The situation is so bad that tourist industry officials fear Australia could be damaged as a brand and the massive economic benefits of the boom in travel from China could disappear.

Scams uncovered in Sydney include:

* Charging tourists $100 to walk on Bondi Beach or to have their photograph taken at the Opera House;

* Locking tourists in shops and confiscating passports until they spend big on overpriced goods;

* Unfulfilled promises of luxury central business district accommodation;

* Travellers crammed into minibuses and denied free time for their own shopping and sightseeing.

According to Choice consumer group spokeswoman Indira Nadoo, the Chinese are the perfect victims for such scams :

"...they are not used to international travel and can be quite naive, and many of them have little or no English, so if someone tells them that a sign on the beach says it costs $100 to walk on it, then they will believe them.

"Culturally, also, the Chinese are reluctant to create a fuss and complain so they will go along with what they are being told.

"We are already receiving thousands of complaints every year from Chinese tourists who are unhappy and we think that is the tip of the iceberg.

"We estimate that only about 10 per cent of those who are unhappy actually make a complaint, so in reality, tens of thousands of tourists are being ripped off."

China is Australia's fastest-growing inbound tourism market and annual numbers have soared by 280percent to more than 300,000 in the past seven years, making it the fifth biggest in terms of visitors and economic benefit. By 2015, almost 1million Chinese visitors are expected to visit Australia each year.

Charging vulnerable tourists to walk on a beach is sickening enough. But the following is downright disgusting :

Some are bussed directly from the airport to suburban warehouses which they are told are duty-free shops. "They are told they can't shop in normal shops in Sydney because Australians don't like the Chinese..." Ms Naidoo said.

If the Chinese tourist market is worth so many millions to Australia, and such scamming is likely to impact significantly on future tourism revenue from China, we clearly need to have people at the airports, or at least some Chinese-language signage, to warn them to be wary.

Or at least to tell them they don't have to pay $100 to take a walk along Bondi Beach.

Government Wants To "Screen" All Internet Content

'Hate Sites' To Face Total Ban

It's not often you see the Attorney General, Philip Ruddock looking all flustered and aggravated. Even during the enormous public pressure of the David Hicks fiasco, Ruddock rarely lost his cool, or spoke in anything but a calm, collected, near-robotic monotone.

So what's the reason for Ruddock's sudden transformation in federal Parliament into a hand-waving, fist-clenching, voice-cracking, sweat-producing ranter?

Okay, he wasn't completely over the top, but for Ruddock, it was full drama in recent days.

Somebody is turning the vice on Ruddock's temples at the moment, and it would appear the source of this demeanour-cracking pressure is his current plans to unroll new anti-terror laws aimed at restricting the sale and distribution of books and DVDs that may "inspire" or "instruct" acts of terrorism, and his struggle to find a way to control terror-inspiring and jihadist-recruiting internet content reaching Australian eyes.

Ruddock has been told that his anti-terror content crackdown has to be in place by the time the APEC summit of world leaders begins in Sydney in September. Presumably, prime minister John Howard wants to unveil his state of control over the content of the internet, and Australia's book and DVD stores, to the world leaders and the gathered world media.

So the pressure is on Ruddock to deliver. APEC is, after all, only a few months away.

Ruddock is now sinking deep into an online war against terror talk and jihad videos, and like China, Iran and other restrictive regimes have already learned, filtering internet content, or "screening" it before it reaches Australian-based eyes, can be one hell of a big ask.

The jury is still out on whether it can actually be done effectively at all.

Ruddock has apparently been hanging out in the cyber-jihad-zone and he's shocked by what he's seen and read and heard :

"It's very disturbing and I have been on some of the chatrooms and sites that promote terrorism," he said.

"At the moment the internet is the biggest problem in this war and we are only going after people we can get our hands on, but that is changing," Mr Ruddock said.

"We are looking at ways and means of using technology that detects hate publications and removes them.

"To do it effectively we will need the help of law enforcement agencies in the US and Europe."

Mr Ruddock revealed he had himself visited terrorist recruitment websites - to gain an understanding of how they operated - and believed many of them presented a "dire threat".

"But how do you go about stopping something that crosses so many jurisdictions?" he asked.

You try, and mostly fail. Unless, of course, you can convince the US, Europe and most of the rest of the world that the entire contents of the internet should be somehow "screened" for "hate sites" through a series of 'gateways'.

Unless Ruddock's cyber anti-terror squads are looking at beta-stage software not currently being debated anywhere online, he will eventually discover just how incredibly hard it is to cut off the lines of online communications between Al Qaeda commanders and their enthusiastic wannabe jihadis across the world.

That's one of the most shocking ironies of the 'War on Terror'. The very freedom of communication and exchange of ideas so cherished by Western democracies allows Al Qaeda to recruit virtually at will anywhere they want to. If they can find the audience, that is.

Six years ago, some of the 9/11 terrorists apparently communicated by burying messages deep into the background of porn sites. Even now, anti-terror fighters in cyberspace are having trouble cracking communication lines like those used by the 9/11 terrorists.

But Ruddock is talking of a solution. This would presumably take the form of a 'gateway' forced onto every internet company and server in Australia. Or locked down at the source in the government's half-privatised new national broadband plan.

But the means of content control that Ruddock is thinking of would change the very nature of internet freedom in Australia, for everyone. And in doing so, it would impact hugely on our freedom of speech and freedom to communicate ideas and information.

If "hate" DVDs and books are to be banned from retail stores, then obviously their digital online versions would also eventually face a complete ban.

As per usual in such talk of "hate" speech and "hate" books and DVDs, there is next to no clear idea from the Attorney General on what "hate" actually means, and who will be deciding what material should fall under this restriction.

Even on the introduction of "legislation making it an offence to produce or disseminate material that 'advocates' terrorism" Ruddock is facing very real challenges and dissent from state governments, the arts community and civil libertarians.

His message to those who take offence at his plans is simple : Oppose the new laws all you want, exercise your freedom, it won't make a lick of difference :

"The Commonwealth is going to legislate on it anyway. I have worked with the states to find a solution and all they are doing is frustrating it," he said.

"This needs to be introduced before APEC (in September). It needs to be introduced right away because the public expects it."

Do they? Must have missed those poll results.

Philip Ruddock officially classes the internet as one the biggest threats to Australia's national security.

Think about that. The internet is a threat to Australia's national security. And this is coming from the mind of the Attorney General.

It's not hype. This is a reality. This is the way the government views the most extraordinary communication system in the history of humanity. As a threat.

Ruddock has little time for those who say that his plans to lockdown the internet, and introduce anti-hate DVD and literature restrictions, impinge on freedom of speech and expression.

"The idea we should be stepping back and saying terrorism is not a serious problem is ridiculous," he said.

Almost as ridiculous as believing you can lockdown the internet in Australia without causing chaos in the digital economy. You can't do it. Unless, of course, you can install a new national partly government controlled, internet access system, aiming to reach into almost every home, school, library and business in the country.

Fortunately for Ruddock, the federal government is now planning to unroll a nationwide broadband network, half fibre-half-wireless.

The government's national broadband system, and Ruddock's plans to 'gateway' every bit of content that reaches an Australian-based laptop or monitor, actually falls into line with new plans emerging across the world to not only restrict access to the internet, and control all the content, for viewers and publishers alike, but to actually dump the entire worldwide web V.1, as it now stands, and begin again.

But begin again with all the controls that the US, the UK, the EU, China and now Australia have clearly already discussed and decided should be set into the bedrock of the new worldwide web from day one.

The federal government's new nationwide broadband plan presumably will be designed and outfitted to allow Ruddock's dreams of a gateway "screening" or "filtering" system to be built into the entire system. He's been briefed on this, and he either doesn't understand the new software, or he is waiting to see some solid proof that the kind of screening he wants will actually work.

Access the government's half-owned broadband network in 2010 and you will activate the RuddockGate "screening" programs.

Now all the government has to do is work out a way to charge a fee for every e-mail sent and received within Australia and they will be praised by the UN and the EU until their faces flush red in embarrassment.

The government is hoping they can present their plans to the planet's most powerful leaders at APEC in September, and show them all that Australia can lead the world...

...in controlling access to the internet.