Prime Minister Declares Police Tactics Of Intimidation And 'Brutalisation' Of Sydney Protesters "Worked Brilliantly"

State Premier Declares "Mission Accomplished"



By Darryl Mason

As far as prime minister John Howard is concerned, the use of more than 2000 police officers, police dogs, snipers, the deployment of the full riot squad and a water cannon circling anti-Iraq War protesters in Sydney on Saturday "worked brilliantly."

So happy was the NSW state premier, Morris Iemma, with the police violence against peaceful protesters that he directly echoed President Bush's infamous May, 2003, declaration on the Iraq War by stating, "Mission Accomplished."

A video published on YouTube reveals that police ID tags did not fall off in scuffles, as senior police are now claiming, but were removed on purpose, according to one police officer :

"It's one of the policies the bosses have this week".

The fact that "no windows were broken" during the protest shows the police tactics were successful, said premier Morris Iemma.

The "forward action" taken by police, a strategy long planned to be used against protesters, was "the right decision" and "it worked brilliantly, it really did."

A former police officer has been quoted as saying on-duty police had no excuse to remove their ID badges, which are normally attached by velcro :

"They're saying they don't want anyone to know who they are, then they are demanding that the average citizen produce identification."

International tourism is one of Australia's biggest industries, generating billions of dollars. That source of revenue, and jobs, may now be under threat from the 'police state' display of security during the APEC summit, as tourism experts fear Sydney's international image has been damaged :

The managing director of the Tourism and Transport Forum, Christopher Brown, said authorities failed to strike the right balance when given a promotional opportunity akin to hosting the Olympics.

"Empty streets with concrete barriers, high fences and riot squad officers, snipers in buildings and helicopters," Mr Brown told ABC Radio. "We just got out of control … we just didn't get the balance right between the imagery and security."

A senator for the Green Party wants an independent inquiry to be held to investigate the tactics and full force display of intimidation used by police. The senator said she was concerned that 'police pointed guns at protesters and people were subject to video surveillance.'

We eyewitnessed more than three dozen police using video cameras to image protesters. Police are now allowed by law to database the faces of every single one of the more than 6000 people, including children, who marched peacefully through the streets of Sydney last Saturday.

Canada's NeoCon-In-Chief Warns Australians On Voting John Howard Out Of Office

NeoCons just can't stop themselves from interfering in foreign elections.

Today, Canada's prime minister, Steven Harper, saw fit to blatantly warn Australians against daring to vote John Howard out of office. There will be repercussions, he said, and then played the terror card for all its worth :

Mr Harper, who regards Mr Howard as a political mentor for the new generation of conservative leaders around the world, warned voters against taking the strong economy for granted.

"It's more difficult than ever to make the right and sometimes very difficult policy choices. Because the wrong choices could unravel our progress and prosperity more quickly than many people would care to believe," he said.

Mr Harper said the two countries had become like strategic cousins.

Mr Harper said September 11, 2001 shook the world and six years on, horrific images from that morning still evoke anger, sorrow, and as intended terror.

"The buildings may have been American, but the targets were every one of us," Mr Harper said.

He said terror has struck again and again, in London, Madrid, India and many other places, including Bali.

"Both of our countries have been bloodied by terror and both of us are doing our part to confront and defeat it."

Prime ministers and presidents interfering in the elections of other countries, however subtly, is widely regarded in diplomatic circles as downright nasty and wrong. You simply don't do it.

But the NeoCons couldn't care less. They will do anything, and everything, to save the skin of a compatriot, particularly now when the people of the US, Australia, Canada, the UK and Europe have well and truly woken up to their poisonous agenda of fear-mongering and seeking political capital from the misery and destruction wrought by terrorism.

Don't Laugh, Live In Fear

Gerard Henderson shows what being a po-faced, humourless, pro-fear, auto-bot is all about with this absurdly miserable take on The Chaser's now worldwide famous jape at the APEC summit last week.

Gerard can barely conceal his outrage : How dare these 'comedians' make fun of terrorism by trying to drive a fake Osama Bin Laden up to President Bush's hotel!

Would relatives of Osama's victims find this "dangerous" stunt amusing, asks Gerard.

Yeah, some of them. Some probably thought it was absolutely hysterical. That's the beauty of humor and humans. You never know what is going to make someone shriek in delight and laugh until they cough. And Australians have one of the darkest, and most morbid, and most well-rounded sense of humour in the world.

But don't let all that stop Gerard. He's wired on his fury at such petulance from "taxpayer subsidised" comedians like The Chaser.

Gerard demands everyone stop laughing right now and instead cower in fear at the wrath of Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden :

In Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, terrorism - and the threat of terrorism - is no joke.

And then there is Australia - where the threat of terrorism is a
(taxpayer-subsidised) joke. The Chaser's stunt, whereby the comedians breached security put in place for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum in Sydney by posing as the Canadian motorcade, received international media coverage. The image of Chas Licciardello, dressed as the al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, was featured in the print and electronic media on Friday.

Soon after bin Laden's latest video message was released. In it, posing with a newly dyed beard, bin Laden praised the Islamists who attacked the US on September 11, 2001, and called on Americans to "embrace Islam". Needless to say, no one regarded the real (bin Laden) thing as funny. Certainly not in Algeria, Britain, Morocco, Spain or the US, where al-Qaeda, or its affiliates, have been into mass murder in recent years.

Actually, plenty of people thought that new Bin Laden video was funny. Millions of people all over the world in fact. They thought it was funny, stupid, ridiculous and yet another sign of just what a complete dickhead and hopeless joke Bin Laden really is.

Seriously, who saw that new Bin Laden video, or read the transcript, and thought anything else but 'This beard-dyeing freak is telling me what to think and what to believe? Get f..ked, wanker.'

Those who happily mocked the new Bin Laden video included American senators, terror experts and commenters to news blogs and websites all over the world, including people in Britain, Spain and the United States.

But paranoid old Gerard detects an evil Leftoid conspiracy :

...The Chaser has moved to embrace fashionable leftist causes - the latest manifestation of which is that terrorism is not all that serious a problem and that, consequently, national security is not all that important.

Members of The Chaser, when asked by the media to comment on their stunt, said in so many words, "Lucky it was us and not Al Qaeda."

Damn right.

Gerard wants his readers to think that those connected with APEC security didn't find The Chaser's gag funny in the slightest. Rubbish. Police who arrested The Chaser can clearly be seen laughing with 'Bin Laden', and American secret service agents, jogging through the Botanical Gardens the next day, were heard howling with laughter over what "those Auzzies" had tried to pull off.

The Chaser's easy cruise through two levels of checkpoints also sparked an immediate and obviously greatly needed review of APEC security, making President Bush and the other world leaders even safer than they were before.

The real reason for Gerard's seething disgust at The Chaser team becomes obvious two-thirds of the way down his column. Turns out Gerard Henderson himself has been 'punked' by these "taxpayer subsidised" comedians :

...the troupe had unlawfully gatecrashed a booked-out Sydney Institute function (Gerard Henderson's Sydney Institute) and trespassed on private property. I was subsequently informed in writing...that such stunts were approved by the ABC and to expect more of the same.

No one can trespass on ABC property in, say, Sydney or Perth. But the ABC management reckons it's OK for The Chaser to trespass on the property of others.

Heartbreaking stuff.

Some years ago, The Chaser sought to make fun out of the victims of the Soham murders in Britain - as if the sexual assault and killing of pre-teenage girls is a suitable subject for humour.

This year Morrow and his colleagues thought it appropriate to turn the genocidal Nazi regime into a joke. And now we are told that we should all laugh at Licciardello frocked-up as the terrorist bin Laden. Tell that to the Germans and the Algerians.

Yeah, and how many comedians and film-makers have built entire careers off making fun of the Nazis? Hundreds? Thousands? Has Gerard never heard of one of the world's most successful musicals The Producers by any chance?

By Gerard's reckoning, any terror group or fucked-up slaughter outfit should not be subjected to mockery or ridicule because the victims, or the victims relatives, might find it offensive, or the danger and fear generated by such terrorists might somehow be lessened.

Tell that to the Australian Prisoners Of War who made fun of their World War 2 Japanese torturers through plays and musicals, right to their faces, even when they knew it would result in savage beatings.

Tell that to the British PoWs who relentlessly mocked their German captors during WW2 and then came home and created vastly successful television series and movies based on their experiences.

Tell that to the victims of 9/11 and the July 7 bombings in London who used humour and mockery to help them deal with their pain, their loss and the PTSD that threatened to cripple their lives.

Tell that to every victim of terror, abuse or crime who have managed to recover enough of their old self to not only laugh at their predicament, but to find relief in their ability to do so.

The Gerard Henderson mantra that terrorists like Bin Laden should not be made fun of because it could lessen the seriousness with which people view the threat of Al Qaeda is downright insulting to everyone who laughed at what The Chaser pulled off.

Who does he think he is to tell us what we should and should not find funny?

And as far as The Chaser being "taxpayer-subsidised" - yes, it's true, but the show is clearly a low-budget effort, and their DVDs have already sold by the hundreds of thousands, generating massive profits for the ABC. Plus their weekly show, and its repeats, pull more than 1.5 million viewers. The Chaser is one of the top five most watched programs on Australian television.

Clearly many, many Australians think they are getting value for money from the "taxpayer subsidised" show. The same cannot be said for the Howard government's insipid, endless advertising and propaganda campaigns, which have chewed up more than $2.2 billion of "fully taxpayer funded" air time over the past ten years.

The Chaser provided an invaluable and important release for Sydneysiders during APEC, after more than a solid month of dire warnings from politicians, police and the media about the
"violence" that was set to engulf the city.

They let us laugh at all that security and police state hardware and the snipers in helicopters hovering over our city and the steel cage surrounding the Opera House and entire streets in the heart of Sydney.

It was the first, and only, big laugh most Australians got out of the entire "taxpayer funded" APEC summit, which cost more than $400 million.

The Chaser's impressively successful joke at the absurdity of all the, however necessary, security gave millions of Australians exactly what they needed most : relief from all that fear-mongering. The very same sort of fear-mongering that Gerard Henderson has used to build himself a very profitable business.

But don't you dare laugh. You might upset Osama Bin Laden.

The Chaser's APEC Security Video Can Be Viewed Here

Peaceful Sydney Anti-Bush, Anti-Iraq Protest Shattered By Police Violence : "That's The Way We Do Business Now"

Police Removed Mandatory ID Badges Before Unleashing On Protesters

Media Assaulted & Arrested, Women Shoved And Knocked Down, Hundreds Of Undercover Police Infiltrated The Crowd


Hundreds of uniformed police removed their ID tags before the arrests and violence began


UPDATE : Prime Minister John Howard has declared that the police tactics of violence and intimidation used against thousands of peaceful protesters "worked brilliantly, they really did."
Go here for the full story.

They came in their thousands, in defiance of a month long fear and intimidation campaign by the state and federal governments, the police and the Murdoch media.

Of the more than 6000-8000 who marched, all but a few dozen protested peacefully, without violence or aggression. More than half of all protesters were women, hundreds of elderly people marched, joined by hundreds of families, with young children.

But the 2500 police deployed, backed by a full riot squad, a water cannon, backpacks full of pepper spray, dogs and snipers in a helicopter hovering above the crowd, were pumped for the long promised "worst riots ever seen in Sydney." A promise made only by the police and state government ministers over the past few weeks.

Protesters were wrestled to the ground, put in headlocks, had their arms twisted up behind their backs, had knees rammed into their spines and, in a number of assaults by police, were punched in the back and neck with a flurry of hard blows while being held down. Few of those assaulted and beaten displayed any resistance at all.

Dozens were removed from the Sydney protest on Saturday for taking photographs or video of police, dozens more were shoved, thrown to the ground and generally provoked. But still the crowd did not erupt into the expected mass violence and disordert.

An accountant, who crossed the street in the wrong place, was slammed onto the footpath and had his face rammed into the ground by at least six police officers. His young son stood nearby, clearly trembling in fear, as police wrestled the man who offered up no resistance, except to protect his glasses. He was held in a police cell for 22 hours and was denied contact with his lawyer and family members. Police didn't return his glasses until after he was released from custody.

But for all the violence unleashed on the protesters, only a few were arrested, and less than 10 face any charges at all. Two of the charges related to nudity. Some were detained for swearing, others were dragged away by police because they dared to question why someone else was being dragged away. Some were charged with resisting arrest. You could be arrested for resisting arrest by simply asking "why are you detaining me?"

The media came under attack from the police as well. Photographers and videographers were assaulted, detained and in some cases arrested.

The vast majority of the violent incidents mentioned above were captured on video.

Of the actions of police, the new Chief Commissioner, Andrew Scipione is reported as saying the tactics were well practised and cleared defined :

"That's the way that we do business in NSW now."

The majority of police officers involved in all the violent incidents listed above had removed their mandatory identification badges before they unleashed on the vastly peaceful protesters who gathered in Sydney on Saturday to voice their dissent against the Iraq War and the presence of President Bush in their city.

Hundreds of police were captured on video with no visible identification.

The Police Service manual advises all uniformed police officers to follow the law and display identification at all times.

Hundreds of police and detectives disguised themselves as as protesters and infiltrated the huge crowd.

When a protester in Hyde Park moved as though he was acting to set fire to a small American flag, six to eight undercover police or detectives swooped on him and dragged him away.

One eyewitness claimed that one of those who took part in the arrest of the potential flag burner had earlier been seen throwing small objects from within the crowd and had been chastised by protesters. At least one protester was reported in the media to have been dragged away by police for throwing objects. The eyewitness refused to give their name, and said he was fearful of repercussions from police.

The issue of police not wearing ID on their uniforms will be investigated internally.


Prime Minister Declares Police Tactics Of Violence And Intimidation Used Against Peaceful Protesters "Worked Brilliantly" - State Premier Declares "Mission Accomplished"

Sydney To Stay Under 'Martial Law' Until September 12

Sydney's Promised "Violent Riot" Protest Descends Into Shocking Peace


An eight year old waves at the massed ranks of the riot squad, many of whom ended up laughing at the stupidity of being deployed in total readiness mode, when there was clearly no trouble to be found, or any violence that needed to be dealt with.


Thousands of people marched through the streets of Sydney today, and nobody died. No buildings were stormed, no shops were smashed up and no police cars were burned.

So many of the hundreds of journalists and photographers who turned up to witness the "scenes of carnage", including Channel Nine's Mike Munro, seemed so very, very disappointed that the peaceful protest ended up being so...peaceful.

Aside from those arrested for swearing, and nudity, and the one idiot who attacked two police officers, the much promoted "anarchy in the streets of Sydney" was a case of wishful thinking for the anti-protest freedom haters of Australian politics and the mainstream media.

After weeks of nervous politician, police and pundits howling about the horrors and spectacular violence that could only follow when Sydneysiders dared to stage a march in the streets of their city at the same time world leaders were meeting at the APEC summit, the protest went off with only a handful of arrests, many of them for minor infractions.

There was easily 10,000 people, far more than the standard police estimate that always slashes the true figure of protest turnouts by two-thirds.

There were about a dozen face-masked anarchists ready to give police a reason to crack heads, and unleash the bone breaking debut of the absurdly expensive water cannon truck, but the NeoNazi anarchists were quickly surrounded and held in place by a number of protesters calling themselves "peace police."

We'll have a special report, with plenty of photos, on the confrontation between anarchists and peaceful protesters tomorrow.

There were hardly any ferals or crusty dread-head Lefties to be seen at the protest, shattering the pathetic cliches spouted by some Murdoch journalists that such protests are only ever populated by minorities. Lefty, feral minorities.

The 10,000 who marched today came from all walks of Australian life and were united in their opposition to the Iraq War, to rich nations refusing to fight climate change and to workers rights being stripped away under the Howard government's workplace 'revolution'.

There were thousands of protesters aged 45 years or older. Hundreds of families, many with young children, came along, defying police warnings to stay away because "your safety cannot be guaranteed.

There were die-hard unionists and angry conservative Liberals from Sydney's north shore, who one voted for John Howard, and now want nothing more than for him to be gone from their lives. There were students and teachers and lawyers and labourers and taxi drivers and bus drivers and plumbers and carpenters and hookers and small business owners and council workers and delighted tourists, who all joined together for a party in Hyde Park following the virtually incident-free protest.

Cafes and shops in the city centre that have suffered crippling 50-80% down turns in business thanks to APEC ended up having a boom day, and many were very happy that the protesters were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on food and drinks while they were in the city today.

Many protesters joked and laughed with police, who were bored out of their minds standing around with nothing to do for four or five hours. Police posed for pictures with tourists and children and explained their new riot gear to the curious.

The disappointment shown by most even television news reports that the protests didn't match up to the overblown predictions of police spokesmen, the NSW premier, the prime minister and a fleet of mostly Murdoch media opinionists was glaring, and obscene.

Those Who Leave Don't Come Back

Chapter Four of the online novel ED Day is now up. Some 'light' fiction for your weekend reading.

This is a novel writing experiment, that's already proved to be both exciting, and terrifying.

ED Day is a serialised novel, where readers can comment and critique the story as it's being written. Most of the comments have been kind and encouraging, so far.

Three or four chapters will be published each week online, free to read, until the tale is told.

ED Day is the story of how a few hundred people survive and build a new society in Sydney, after an apocalyptic bird flu pandemic strikes and kills millions. Most of the people are gone, but much of the city remains undamaged. Supermarkets are full of food, but the streets are littered with corpses. The survivors are now learning that they can't leave the city. At least, not alive.

Here's an excerpt from the latest chapter :

I never really worked out whether the government was lying to us, or whether they didn’t know what was happening, or just how bad the pandemic really was.

The more people who got sick, the less people there were to keep the power stations and the rest of the infrastructure running. There were blackouts and dry taps every two or three days. You got used to it.

The prime minister and the health minister were on the news all the time, but never live on air. People reckoned they were already out of the country, and that most of what they said had been pre-recorded.

In the first week of March, a lot of senior government ministers pissed off to islands up north for “conferences”, taking their families with them.

Some of the survivors here reckon the government knew what was coming, but they didn’t want us to survive. Something to do with a worldwide depopulation program that Prince Philip and Henry Kissinger have been talking about for decades.

The government ministers, say some survivors, saved themselves and their families and friends, by hogging anti-virals and leaving the mainland, and left the rest of us here to die. Bookman seems pretty convinced that's what happened. The more he talks about that version of what happened to us, the more survivors believe it.

When we think back the chaos and confusion in February and early March, it’s easy enough to believe such things might have been true. This is the sort of stuff people end up talking about when there’s no nightly news or newspapers anymore, and no television or radio shows. It’s like we have to make up our own news.

Here’s one of the most popular theories on what happened before ED Day that some of the survivors talk about, a lot :

Those in the government that didn’t leave before March 21 (the day when nearly everyone who stayed in the city ended up dying) isolated themselves away, beneath the city.

Somewhere under the city, some of the survivors reckon, there are all these halls and bunkers and vaults, dating back from World War 2. They were expanded as nuclear bunkers during the 1950s and 1960s, and refurbished during the massive building projects that swamped Sydney in 2008.

Down there, goes the theories, there is a big network of rooms and kitchens and sleeping quarters, with air filters and warehouses full of food and water and medicine. Enough to last a year or more.

That’s where some of the state government ministers, senior public servants, and their families, are supposed to be hiding out right now.

If you go into the basements of the State Parliament on Macqaurie Street and put your ear to the wall, you can sometimes hear something that sounds like the whir of air-conditioning. Or it could just be wind blowing through ducting.

“They’re still down there,” this one guy yelled at a Town Hall meeting last week, “they’re down there right now, waiting for the all clear.”

Go Here To Read Chapter One

Howard, Downer Ban Media So Embarrassing Questions Are Not Asked

Prime minister John Howard and foreign minister Alexander Downer will waffle until your ears fall off about the terrible repression of media in 'regime' countries like Russia and Iran.

But they don't mind engaging in a bit of media banning and compiling a few 'blacklists' themselves, particularly if troublesome journalists trying to ask Australia's APEC guest some hard and important questions might end up queering natural gas deals worth more than $40 billion dollars :

The Australian Government has secretly blacklisted a host of Chinese media organisations and journalists from official APEC functions in an effort to avoid exposing Chinese President Hu Jintao and other dignitaries to embarrassing questions.

APEC officials have drawn up a list of Australian Chinese media that have not been permitted to register for APEC, including at least one respectable newspaper with links to the NSW Government and a journalist who had already been given accreditatio

When Iran and Russia ban media and compile blacklists, they're being totalitarian. When Australia does it, well, we're just being polite to our cashed-up guests.

Howard's Democracy - it's kinda like communism, but with lots more capitalism.

White House On The Chaser's Breaching Of Bush Security - 'We Are Not Amused'

While this story provides only the scantest of detail about the White House reaction to The Chaser's major breach of Australian police and American secret service security around President Bush's hotel, a Washington friend e-mailed to say that "the talk" over there in the corridors and coffee shops wasn't about whether or not the prank was funny, but was all about how in the hell Bush's SS team could have screwed up so monumentally.

When it comes to the president's security detail, "blaming the locals" just doesn't cut it.

The main and most obvious concern about the security breach being, "What if it wasn't a few cars full of comedians? What if it was three cars full of fertilizer, ammonia and a half a ton of nails and bolts?"

Here's the only comment so far from the White House :

Talk to the secret service.

Uh oh.

Here's White House spokesperson Dana Perino on the ultra-security caging Sydney :

“It’s unfortunate that security climates were as such, but, as soon as we get out of town, then Sydney will return to normal, hopefully,” Perino said.

Hopefully?


The Chaser have now joined the growing blacklist of media persons and organisations distributed by the Howard government to police and security personnel.

Conservatives Cut Off Howard's Head

The Chant Begins, You Must Quit

The Bus Of Doom Is Coming For Howard

Nobody likes a loser. Well, some people do.

But not Australian conservatives and neocons (C & Ns). They hate losers and underperformers. It doesn't matter if they can't win a battle, they just don't want to lose completely, comprehensively, and suffer total humiliation.

And with John Howard still planning to lead the Liberal Party into a federal election that is likely to destroy them as a political entity of any great standing for perhaps an entire generation to come, the C & Ns - conservatives and neocons - are rallying their ranks across the media to turn up the heat on Howard to step aside. Before they make him.

For the C & Ns, who have successfully and comprehensively poisoned the Australian national character bedrock of a"Fair Go For All", the moment you stop delivering the goods, providing the payoffs and making them look successful, it's over. You're over.

They want you gone. Not tomorrow. Today. Yesterday. What the fuck are you still doing here, mate? We said "Get Lost!"

Today, John Howard is facing an impossible to ignore chorus of wailing and whining from the once-faithful and worshipful - Quit, hand over, disappear. Do It Now.

Andrew Bolt, of the Herald Sun, has devastated his blog faithful with this spiked boot kick right in the balls of the old man, shredding Howard for daring to appear on the deck of a cruiser on the harbour with George W. Bush. Even worse for Bolt, Howard is laughing. Howard is having a good time, while the C & Ns are suffering :

Could that Liberal genius estimate to nearest 10,000 exactly how many votes that image of a man in denial enjoying his privileges will cost the Government?

Case closed. Howard is not just finished, but punishing the Liberals with each extra day he clings on to power....he either doesn’t know or doesn’t care.

Wow. Harsh stuff. Today, Bolt predicts :

I’d say there’s a better than even chance John Howard steps down as early as next week.

The new prime minister, who should be Peter Costello, will have some 80 days to save the Liberals.

Botl then begins to dream of a brighter, Howard-free future.

The Australian's Janet Albrechtsen, after praising Howard for a few hundred words with lines like these :

Under Howard it became cool to be a conservative. He rebuilt a political philosophy of individual responsibility for a new generation. His legacy is profound...

...unloads the napalm :

But now he must go. The Howard factor is there. Where once it meant success, now it presages defeat.

Like Bolt, Albrechtsen is demanding Howard step aside, because no-one will tell him to bugger off. He must leave now and hand over the leadership to treasurer Peter Costello.

Few of the C & Ns really believe Costello can win the election, but they're praying that he will at very minimum stop the Liberal Party from being decimated like a crate of VB at a grand final barbecue.

The C & Ns are not just panicking. They're pissing their pants in fear. They're one more devastating poll away from looking for volunteers to load up a suicide vest and go give the prime minister an explosive hug goodbye.

But Howard should stay. He should stay and fight the election. And he should be beaten, fair and square. I think most Australians will have more respect for him if he loses the fight instead of ducking out the back door like a coward before the fists begin to fly.

Australians on the whole don't hate losers, unlike the miserable, unforgiving minority of C & Ns.

The vast majority of Australians respect anyone who's willing to have a go, even when defeat is obvious. But they don't have much respect for quitters. And no matter how many in the Murdoch dominated Australian media (70% of all newspapers) try and spin his departure as "going out while still at the top of his game", If Howard quits, the general public will shake their heads and mutter, "Shit, what a gutless bastard."

Howard has to stay, fight as hard as he can and then lose with grace and dignity if he wants to keep the respect that many Australians still clearly have for him.

But the C & Ns don't care about all that. They know this is End Game territory. They're terrified that come 2008 they will be the Australian equivalent of the American Republican Party - shattered by defeat, awash with scandal and infighting and coming apart at the seams in a grisly self-slaughter so appalling to watch that even die-hard enemies can no longer bare to look and have to turn away from the hideous spectacle.

If I was John Howard, I wouldn't be looking for the tap on the shoulder, as they say. I'd be watching out for the bus mounting the curb while out on a brisk morning walk.

John Howard has often mused that he could "go under a bus tomorrow" when asked by journalists if was considering stepping down.

If he doesn't quit in the next week or two, the C & Ns might decide to find a way to make that musing come true. Politically, or physically.

The C & Ns are not fucking around anymore. They're scared, they're desperate and they're utterly dangerous because they know they're just weeks away from losing it all.

That's why they've just scheduled John Howard for termination.

'Canadian' Motorcade Carrying Osama Bin Laden Enters Sydney's Ultra Security Zone, Stops Near Bush Hotel

Stars, Crew Members Of Comedy Show Detained By Police

Fake Beard Confiscated



UPDATE : The Chaser team has issued a statement claiming they were given permission by police to drive into the restricted security zone near President Bush's Sydney hotel, where they were then arrested. Interesting.


The stars of the satirical sketch comedy show The Chaser promised they would deliver something "extreme" during the week long Sydney lockdown for the APEC summit of world leaders.

And they've pulled off a stunning breach of security, driving a three car, fake Canadian motorcade close within 30 feet of President Bush's hotel before being pulled over police.

When the motorcade stopped, a cast member jumped out, dressed as Osama Bin Laden. His beard was confiscated by police. Detectives and police were seen chatting and laughing with members of The Chaser after the arrests.

11 crew members and two stars of The Chaser are now being held by police.

If police are prepared to use the full force of the law against the comedy team for purposely breaching the ultra-security zone, inside the now notorious Sydney Cage, they could find themselves in some very deep, very serious shit.

UPDATE : The 11 cast and crew members of The Chaser were questioned and interrogated by police for eight hours before being charged and bailed.

Police were granted a set of new laws for APEC that allow them to control the movement of people across the city. The Chaser team have been charged under one of those new laws :

... entering a restricted area without justification.

But they had justification. They needed to pull off a very funny stunt for their television show, to cheer up a few million Australians.

The maximum jail time for "entering a restricted area without justification" is SIX MONTHS.

This is one of the numerous new laws police are using to control the anti-Bush protests expected to draw tens of thousands of people to Sydney on Saturday.


Most of the rest of Sydney will bust a gut and give a cheer for The Chaser for bringing some comedy relief and a good laugh to the miserable, repressive atmosphere forced on us by the blocked roads, blocked footpaths, snipers leaning out of hovering helicopters and the endless violations of privacy thousands of workers in the city are being subjected to on a daily basis, with demands to see ID, physical searches in city streets and briefcases and handbags opened and emptied.

While the police are hassling people trying to get to work, or to lunch, or get back to the office, a motorcade cruises by carrying 'Osama Bin Laden'.

What else can you say but "Brilliant!":

Chaser crew members were initially detained in their cars while "police on the ground'' waited for special units to arrive, Taylor said.

Riot squad police formed a cordon around a Corrective Services truck where Morrow, Licciardello and about ten crew and extras were detained.

The Chaser convoy had been dressed up to look like an official Canadian motorcade, with Canadian flags attached to the cars and "Canada'' signs visible in the front windscreen.

"No particular reason we chose Canada," said Taylor. "We just thought they'd be a country who the cops wouldn't scrutinise too closely, and who feasibly would only have three cars in their motorcade - as opposed to the 20 or so gas guzzlers that Bush has brought with him."

The vehicles in the motorcade were hired - two were black "SUVs" imported from the US, and the other was a regular car.

Police superintendent Ken McKay confirmed the pair had been arrested for breaching the restricted zone.

The arrests had been made using new powers available under the APEC Act, he said.

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So much for all a couple of hundred million dollars worth of ultra-security to keep world leaders safe from terrorists.

A television comedy team easily got through the 'steel wall', they didn't even have to get out of their cars.

Meanwhile, confused Japanese tourists are told they can't take photos of Sydney landmarks because of "national security".

So if The Chaser can do it, why haven't all these terrorists, posing such dire terrorist threats that Sydney needs to become a mini-police state, tried giving something similar a shot?

Because the dire threat is all but non-existent in Australia?

Because the ultra-security clampdown is really more about teaching an entire city, filled with dissenters, what it's like to be stripped of their rights, privacy and dignity?

Or is it because when you give security and police forces hundreds of millions of dollars to make up their own laws and to fence off a huge section of one of the world's most famous cities, chaos and madness will always result?

The Chaser comedy team from ABC TV are about to become world famous thanks to this brilliant stunt. And police now find themselves in something of a fascinating quandary.

How they can bust these guys, using the full force of the law, when they simply showed how easy it is to get by all those layers of ultra-security and drive right up to President Bush's hotel?

Incredibly embarrassing, and incredibly funny. Can't wait to see the footage.

If we ever see the footage.


The Chaser's Brilliant 'Osama' Jape At APEC Hits Headlines All Over The World

Chaser Team Charged Under New APEC Laws To Restrict Free Movement Of People Across Sydney - Maximum Sentence : Six Months Jail

11 Crew Members Of Chaser Comedy Team Detained By Police Over APEC Stunt

"Bums Not Bombs" Plan World Record Mooning Attempt

Here's a protest that will really grab the world media's attention :

The protest will take place on Friday in Sydney's Hyde Park, close to where the leaders will be meeting.

In a leaflet to possible supporters, the group calls for 4,000 cheeks -- er, 2,000 people -- to "tell Bush what we really think about his visit."

(Organiser Will) Saunders said numbers for the protest were not yet certain but he had a core group to perform a "21 Bum Salute" to represent each of the countries in the grouping.

"I think there's certain to be hundreds of people," said Saunders, who previously attracted media attention when he and another man painted "No War" on the Sydney Opera House in huge, bright red letters on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The group said it needed 4,000 cheeks to break the previous world record moon. "This is one APEC protest we can all enjoy," it said.

Got The Fear Yet? Police Predict "Full Scale Riot" For Saturday 's Anti-Bush Rally In Sydney

Wednesday : Hundreds Of School Children, And Their Parents, Defy Police And March Peacefully, Without Incident

Anti-APEC Protests? That's The Propaganda Speaking. These Are 'End The War', Workers Rights And Anti-Bush Marches


The absolutely essential security fence cutting through the heart of the Botanical Gardens. This is needed to protect world leaders from jihadist-crazed possums and ducks.


A Question : Why, when running stories on planned peaceful protests in Sydney this week, does the television media point-blank refuse to show footage of the most recent, and most violent, protest seen in Sydney? The protest where police and police cars were bricked and bottled, where ambulances were smashed up and where innocent people were brutally assaulted?

We're talking, of course, about the Cronulla Riots. The violent, anti-police protests that journalists and commentators like Piers Akerman, Tim Blair, Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt now pretend never happened.

Surely it can't be an accident that the Cronulla Riots have conveniently disappeared down the Memory Hole?


When is a "full scale riot" not actually a "full scale riot"?

When it hasn't happened yet.

So insistent were the NSW Police on getting a protest march in Sydney, planned for Saturday, outlawed that they ramped up The Fear and mega-hype to such a level of overkill that the riot that hasn't happened, and is unlikely to happen, has now become an international story, dominating cable news breaks covering the APEC summit, filling front pages on American, Asian and European online news sites and burning up the wire services.

This AFP news report will be in hundreds of newspapers across the world today, on the same day that a poll of 30,000 international tourists voted Sydney the best city in the world. That is the news story about Sydney that should be dominating headlines, not rampaging fear-mongering about a riot that hasn't happened.

Sydney was the best city in the world, until President Bush came to town, and 'The Cage' became a mini-police state reality for more than one hundred thousand city workers.

I sure hope prime minister John Howard and the NSW Police are proud of themselves today.

They've made Sydney sound like a city about to explode, where nothing could be further from the truth.

There is not the slightest hint or sliver of proof, despite the absurd propaganda spouted daily by the Rupert Murdoch media, that any protest group is planning to "confront police" or launch into a "full scale riot" during the Saturday protests.

The international media traveling with President Bush got a taste for themselves today of what happens when Sydneysiders gather to protest against President Bush and the War On Iraq.

300 schoolchildren staged walkouts across Sydney and held an entirely peaceful and incident free march through the streets of the city, before congregating for an afternoon party in a park.

But between 200 and 400 police turned up, including undercover officers and intelligence agents, waiting for trouble that never came.

While police spokesmen were hyping violence, it was left to one young student, Rainee Lyleson, to state clearly and precisely why the marches through Sydney during the APEC summit were so important :

"Protest is not violent, war is violent....We will not be intimidated."

Some of the students parents were so worried about police violence, and the threat posed by 'agent provocateurs', that they volunteered to act as marshals for the protest.

There was not a single incident that made the news, except for a prank pulled by The Chaser, a satirical news/skit television show.

It is unlikely to be any different come Saturday.


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The psychological war conducted by prime minister John Howard, the NSW Police and some in the media against those planning to come to Sydney to march on Saturday has been chilling, and mind-numbing.

Part of the psy-op has been to put forward the notion that what the tens of thousands of people who are planning to march on Saturday are actually protesting against is the APEC summit itself.

APEC helps nations get out of poverty, mumbled Howard, these protesters don't want poor people to get out of poverty.

The man is a moron if he believes such guff. And why should he? He knows where such clearly idiotic propaganda has come from - his own advisers and speech writers.

But the media soaked up Howard's bullshit, and have reported all week on the protests as being 'Anti-APEC'.

The main target of the protest, and much of the dissent and disgust seen and heard in the streets of Sydney this week, is President Bush and the War On Iraq. The second and third key issues are climate change and workers rights, the two loudest issues chanted about by the schoolchildren on Wednesday.

By trying to seize, shape and control the debate about the protests, Howard attempted to present the need for rallies in the streets of Sydney as being nonsensical, pointless and entirely unnecessary.

Why do you want to protest? We're helping poor people. That's what APEC is for, goes the Howard line.

For almost a full week, the NSW Police have done little more than repeatedly claim that the Saturday protest will erupt into violence and the city will be torn apart by rioting and bloodshed.

The top riot squad cop even went as far as saying he has never been so fearful of the violence such a march will unleash on Sydney's streets.

This is all propaganda of the most dubious and anti-democratic kind, and it's been beyond disgusting to witness such a massive psychological operation of intimidation being waged on the peaceful and usually easy-going people of Sydney.

Forcing hundreds of thousands of Sydney workers to endure the daily confusion and disorientation of The Cage is bad enough.

But this war of intimidation on the hearts and minds of Sydneysiders is the only thing about the protests that is unprecedented. And it's disturbing in the extreme.


The Stop Bush Coalition, the main organisers of the marches, lost a court battle yesterday to hold their protest in a public space hundreds of metres away from The Cage and the hotels and conference centres were 21 world leaders will be holding a series of weekend meetings.

The Stop Bush Coalition last night voted to move the meeting place and street route for the protest, but they still have to get the okay from police.

If the NSW Police say no to the march, effectively banning an anti-war rally in a major city of the 'free world', anyone who gathers and attempts to protest can be arrested for blocking traffic.
And they will be arrested. Police have been very clear on this. That's why they have 40 to 60 buses fitted out as mobile prisons, and emptied five hundred beds in local jails.

Before the NSW Police began their attempts to outlaw the Saturday march, the crowd estimated to show up was around 5000 people. It probably would be been 1000, maybe 800.

But now the estimate is 20,000. After all the publicity, it could rise to 50,000 on the day.

At least government ministers have now admitted that the ultra-security locking down Sydney is there to protect the APEC world leaders against possible terror attacks, instead of the ridiculous spin earlier this week from John Howard who demanded that the public "blame protesters" and not the presence of President Bush, for the unprecedented city centre lockdown.


Later tonight, we'll take a look at the history of the 'Black Blok' anarchist groups that are the only ones threatening trouble on Saturday.

Conveniently, they always wear masks and are granted anonymity by Murdoch media to spread their propaganda and threats.

Most curiously, despite providing the media with shock footage of attacks on police, and kicking in shop windows, very few of these 'urban terrorists' are ever prosecuted by the police, in Australia, the US, Canada or across Europe. And yet such 'activists' are frequently responsible for the only acts of violence and destruction at numerous otherwise peaceful protests.

MORE TO COME....


APEC Protesters Should Be Alert For 'Agent Provocateurs'

Police Admit They Sent 'Agent Provocateurs' Armed With Rocks Into Peaceful Protests

PHOTOS : Inside The Great Sydney Cage - "We're Like A Bunch Of Fucking Rats In A Maze!"

The Psy-Op Is Underway : Police Predict "A Full Scale Riot" During Anti-Bush Protest, Warn Of "Unprecedented Violence"

20,000 Expected At Saturday's Anti-War Rally - Top Riot Squad Officer Says He Is Braced For "The Worst Violence Of His Career"

Protest Organisers Vote For New March Route They Hope Will Avoid Confrontation With Police

Police Commissioner Warns Protesters Who Obstruct Traffic Will Find Themselves In A Police Cell "For A Few Days"

Sydney : Inside 'The Cage'

"We're Like A Bunch Of Fucking Rats In A Maze!"


The 'steel wall' goes up only metres from the Sydney Opera House.

Report And Photos By Darryl Mason

On the outside of the 'steel wall' stretching five kilometres through the centre of Sydney, it looks like a fence. A three metre high, concrete reinforced fence.

But it's only once you're on the inside of the 'security zone' that you realise what it really is.

It's a cage. It's not the Great Wall Of Sydney, as the media were referring to it a few days ago.

It's The Sydney Cage.


One of The Cage entry points for vehicles in the heart of Sydney.

Inside The Cage yesterday afternoon, police, security guards and foreign secret service agents patrolled the streets, manned entry points along the 'steel wall' and videod every person who walked past the side and rear service entries to the Intercontinental Hotel, where President Bush is now staying.

The few pedestrians and tourists wandering around inside The Cage barely spoke. Heads down, shoulders slumped, people moved as fast as they could to get to where they were going. Entire cafes, normally crowded with tourists, sat empty, rows of chairs and tables bereft of customers. If you wanted coffee, or food, you waited until you were outside of The Cage to stop and get what you wanted.

Nobody wanted to linger in there. Inside The Cage was a Sydney I'd never seen before. Quiet, subdued, confused and nervous.

Inside The Cage, police can stop you, demand you show your ID, question you about your reasons for being inside the 'security zone' and ask to see photographs on your cell phone or digital camera.

The police 'can' do all these things, according to the media. We must get used to it.

But there isn't any law that allows the police to do any of these things.

The media has actively helped to create the mindset amongst Sydneysiders that they have to do what police and security guards demand of them, whether that be hand over their day planners and cell phones for investigation, or provide details of where they work.

But police don't have the law on their side. You can refuse all these police requests, and on Tuesday afternoon I witnessed a number of Sydneysiders, furious and frustrated at being forced to navigate a series of steel corridors just to cross the street, telling police they were not going to comply with requests for ID and personal details.

"You have no right to ask me for that information," said one elderly man, on Bridge Street. "Show me the law that says you have the right to question me like this."

The policeman couldn't, and he look embarrassed at being challenged.

At best, all the police can do inside The Cage is ask to you leave the area, and if you fail to do so, they are allowed to escort you out. If you resist, police are then able to arrest you on any number of minor offences related to resisting police directives.


More than 40 wireless 'emergency alert' speaker systems were installed throughout the city centre. They emit ear-piercing sirens and spoken alerts.

Before the arrival of President Bush, the general mood of the hundreds of security guards and police milling about at various check points and gate ways along the walls of The Cage was not tension, or paranoia, it was sheer and total boredom.

Inside, or outside, The Cage, there were no hordes of "violent protesters". No "roaming gangs" of anarchists and anti-capitalists as the media and John Howard had promised.

There were just an enormous number of security people standing around doing nothing, or chatting quietly with tourists.


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The only people I found in two hours of walking around inside The Cage who were close to anarchy were the owners and managers of retail shops, tourist outlets and restaurants and cafes.

Dozens of cafes and food courts and restaurants and bars had less than four or five customers, many others sat completely empty. Food outlets that struggle to break even at the best of times were selling off meals and containers of unsold food for a quarter of their normal prices. Literally forced to give away their products and produce by the presence of an economic summit that promoted free trade and free markets.

Nearly all the small business owners I spoke to inside The Cage, that rely on street traffic trade for their livelihoods, said their takings were down 60 to 80% because of the APEC summit, and the presence of the 'steel wall' security fence. They still have five more days of such economic ruin to endure before The Cage is taken down.

For many of these pro-capitalism entrepreneurs, the APEC summit has heralded a financial disaster that will take months to recover from. Staff have been laid off, deliveries from wholesalers cancelled, the financial damage seeps out from these small businesses across the sprawl of Sydney and its suburbs.

Tens of thousands of Sydney workers have been told they aren't needed to work this week in restaurants, cafes and retail outlets. For most of these casual workers, a day off means a loss of a day's wages. A week with no work means big financial trouble for minimum wage workers who are already struggling to get by.

None of the cafes, restaurants and retail outlets inside The Cage who are suffering from a massive loss of trade and income due solely to the APEC summit have been offered any kind of compensation by the state or federal government.


The three metre high 'steel wall' also, bizarrely, cuts through the heart of Sydney's Botanical Gardens. The local fauna were as confused as the office workers who usually eat their lunch in the park.

"I don't want to go in there," said one elderly German tourist to his family, at Circular Quay, as he balked at entering The Cage. "I don't like checkpoints and questions."

Neither do most Sydneysiders.

The crush of pedestrians on street corners at 5pm as people headed home from work was intense. Open gates to get out of The Cage were few and far between. You were forced to squeeze through small openings, people rushing to make buses and get home slammed into each other as the disorientating effects of so many 'steel walls' and checkpoints and gate ways caused confusion and anger.


Sydney, 3pm Tuesday - No cars, few pedestrians, stunned tourists, local businesses suffer 80% downturn in takings.

It's remarkable how easy it is to get disorientated trying to navigate your way through the maze of fences. Street names and routes through the city you've known and walked for decades become mysteries as you discover you can no longer duck down that back lane, or cross the street where you have thousands of times before. Everything looks different when there's a three metre high security fence blocking your view and looming over your head.

"We're like a bunch of fucking rats in a maze!", one business man cried out on a Bridge Street corner. "Look at this bullshit! We're rats in a goddamned cage!"

None of the dozens of people, all trying to squeeze through the one metre wide gap in the fence to get across the road, disagreed with him. Nobody laughed. Everybody just wanted to get out of there.

And then, on the other side The Cage, outside of that rat maze, the tension in the crowd visibly lifted. The pedestrians streaming towards relocated bus stops began talking, some were laughing, but everybody seemed far more relaxed.

It was like being free, for the first time that afternoon.


Bush Tells Australian Minister "We're Kicking Ass!" In Iraq

No Customs, No Traffic, No Red Lights - Airport To City Hotel In Less Than 15 Minutes - It's Good To Be The President

Pro-Bush Rally Granted Permission To March Outside President Bush's Hotel - Inside The Security Zone Cage

Head Of Riot Squad Says Anti-Bush Protesters Run The Risk Of Being "Injured" If They March In Sydney

Police Tell Supreme Court Anti-Bush Protesters Will Target War Memorial, Smash Shop Windows - But Judge Refuses to Believe Them

APEC : Welcome To Australia, President Putin

Thank Russia For 'Winning' World War 2 , Says Former Australian Prime Minister

Former Australian prime minister Paul Keating believes it's time for Australia to make an historic shift away from the America-first focus of our international relations and foreign policies.

Keating recognises Russia under Vladimir Putin as a rising star on Australia's trade horizon, and also thinks its time for Australia, the US and the rest of the former Allies, to finally recognise the enormous sacrifices the Russian people made to "win" World War 2.

If APEC really is about expanding Australia's trade frontiers, as prime minister John Howard claims, then clearly Russia should be of particular focus, as there is enormous new wealth there to soak up our coal, uranium and mineral exports. Along with a good, solid push to ramp up Australia as tourist destination number one for all those cashed-up Russians.

That Australia under John Howard is even thinking about spending billions to help the United States establish its Russia-and-China-baiting global 'missile shield' in our part of the world shows we're still doing the bidding of the US, even when no nation in the world poses a credible threat to Australia.

That Australia is still willing to help the US 'contain' and surround Russia and China in such relatively peaceful and prosperous times shows just how big the American thumb pressing our foreheads still is.

Instead of baring our teeth, t's time to pay homage to the Russian people, then and now, says Keating.

No doubt, Vladimir will be very, very pleased with the former prime minister's editorial :

Russia was offered a place at the APEC table not because it was a natural constituent, but as a consolation prize by the Americans, for their having taken strategic advantage of it in the years immediately following the Cold War.

No one should ever forget that the Russians carried the primary burden of winning World War II, losing 26 million of their people in the process. More than the present population of Australia. A level of death, destruction and misery on a scale unprecedented in human history.

When Hitler failed to smash Britain with his blitz, he unleashed on Russia the full might of his army and air force, then the largest in history. What followed was carnage and human suffering on an unimaginable scale as the Russian people absorbed his ferocious power. A battering they took for four solid years before a second front was opened in the west at Normandy.

The 20th century was nothing but a century of suffering for the Russian people; first the revolution, then the famine and the purges of the 1930s, then the war through the '40s, followed by the belt-tightening and deprivation of the Cold War.

Now the United States and NATO wish to build a series of anti-missile facilities around Russia's front lawn and side driveway, purportedly against rogue states, while none of the so-called rogue states have missile systems capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction.

The Russians know that despite the Soviet Union having been fragmented into 15 nations, with Russia becoming a democracy, the extension of NATO and the ring-fencing of Russia with an anti-missile shield is aimed at Russia itself, the state under permanent suspicion.

Four US presidential terms - the two Clinton ones and the two Bush ones - have witnessed a continual deterioration in relations with Russia. Russia is the state which still has the capacity to threaten Europe, yet its pleas for inclusion and to be taken seriously, have gone unheeded.

The problem is that when the Cold War finished the Americans cried victory and walked off the field. In strategic terms, the world is still set up on the template of 1947, with countries like Germany and Japan not even permanent members of the UN Security Council, while states like Italy and Canada remain part of the G8 at the expense of countries like China and India.

Seventeen years on, the Russians are still on the outside looking in, while the Chinese seek to garner their legitimacy by subjecting themselves to external bodies like the World Trade Organisation. The fact is, the world is run unrepresentatively. This is the problem.

For were it to be run otherwise, Russia, China and India would be part of the world growth amalgam, naturally aligning their security interests with their economic interests.

At least Russia is in APEC with us. Australia won't be circumscribing its interests knowing that inclusion and understanding are the only pathways to peace and progress.

We should welcome Putin on his first visit to Australia and tell him we have not forgotten the 26 million of his countrymen who died for our liberty as well as for their own.

Russians died for our liberty? That can't be right. All those American war movies piped through Australian television sets continually throughout the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s taught us that it was the Americans, not the Russians, that won World War 2 and saved Australia from numerous nasty -isms.


A few recent Russian news stories, of interest :

Russia Flexes Its Muscles Across Asia-Pacific In Bid To Restablish Itself As 'Great World Power'

NATO Hostile Towards Russians, Or So The Russians Believe

Russian Foreign Minister Says There Will Be No Bargaining Over Kosovo Or Missiles

It's Time For Russia To Become One Of Us

Russia Looks To Play Balancing Role In The World

Russia Engages Central Asia In War On Terror

Russia To Deploy More InterContinental Ballistic Missiles In December

Supreme Court Hammers Police For Trying To Block Anti-Bush Protest In Sydney

The New South Wales Police copped an earful from a Supreme Court judge this morning over its attempts to stop a protest march through the streets of Sydney this Saturday, and adjourned further hearings until Wednesday night.

NSW Police were seeing a court order to keep protesters from gathering and marching through public areas outside of the fenced in security zone, but were criticized for not having requested such a court order last week.

The Stop Bush Coalition announced the September 8 march date months ago, and police were criticised in the court for not having made their application sooner.

From ABC News :

A lawyer for Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione says the 20,000 people expected to assemble through APEC's security zone will pose a risk.

The application for the court order caught the protest group off guard and its three lawyers want more time to prepare their case.

The court heard police had the chance to take the matter to court last week.

Police have been in discussion with the Stop Bush Coalition for weeks over their proposed protest route, which they object to because it includes the declared APEC zone of Martin Place.

In declared zones, officers have more powers to search people and move them on.

Earlier today, coalition spokesman Alex Bainbridge said Martin Place was not a restricted area and protesters should be allowed to be in the same space as the rest of the public.

"We are planning to enter the declared area, which is open to the public," he said.

"It's nowhere near the restricted area or any of the APEC venues. What we believe is that nowhere that is open to the public should have protests banned or free speech restricted."

The court clearly understands NSW Police were trying to railroad and pressure them into granting the order to effectively ban the march.

No dice. It is not illegal for crowds to gather and voice their dissent in a public area of Sydney.

Well, not yet anyway.

NSW Police will have to come up with something better, like actual provable threats posed by protesters, for the court to grant the order to legally stop the Saturday march.

Shockingly Awful Poll For Howard Neon-Signs Election Massacre

Howard Was As Much Of A Loser In March As He Is Today

Good God, can the Last Days Of PM John Howard be any more humiliating or hideous for the old man?

The same night that his foreign minister Alexander Downer was reduced to endlessly repeating the words "climate change", "energy efficiency" and "carbon reduction" on Lateline - like Bob Brown after three month long beer and burger binge - John Howard must have been hiding behind the lounge in Kirribilli with his fingers in his ears trying to block out the staggeringly terrible news pumping out of the box.

Not only has Kevin Rudd leaped ahead to his best favourability rating yet, But Howard's has plunged, along with the vote for his government.

He won't just lose the election off these numbers. Howard will be slaughtered like a goat at the end of Ramadan. He will lose office as prime minister and as a federal member of Parliament.

So will Alexander Downer, and about eight to ten more senior government ministers.

These are not just bad numbers. Not "Oh yes, well, it's just another poll isn't it?" numbers. Not even "It just means I'll have to work harder than ever" numbers.

These are "Hand me that pistol and leave the room, darling" numbers :

...Labor's primary vote soaring to 51 per cent and the Coalition's falling to 37 per cent.

On the basis of preference flows at the last election, the two-party-preferred vote gives Labor an 18-point lead, 59 per cent to 41 per cent.

The Labor leader also stretched his lead over Mr Howard on the question of who would be the better prime minister.

Mr Rudd's support lifted two points to 48 per cent and Mr Howard's fell from 39 per cent to 37 per cent.

The longer Howard leaves it to call this frigging election and get the gruesome end of his political career over and done with, the more voters will want him to be gone, kaput, exito Kirribilli.

There are so many demands for Howard to announce the date of the federal election today over at the once rock solid, Howard-hugging 'The Australian' that they might as well have just run one big fat headline across their entire broadsheet front page : "Bloody Howard! Call The Election For Christ's Sake!"


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I still wouldn't be surprised if Howard quit a day or two after the APEC summit ends, and disappears for a few months with the wife on a farewell world tour. Or maybe he'll just throw himself in Sydney Harbour on Sunday night when the final dinner and show of the $400 million-plus APEC summit ends.

Howard showed which party he was most truly committed to last year when he refused to handover the reins to Peter Costello, as promised, as requested, as expected, as would have been the honourable thing to do - exit while still a winner, and a respectable politician (well, kinda).

But the party our rapidly fading prime minister is most loyal and committed to is the Federal Howard Party.

The only thing bigger in Sydney yesterday than that horrendously ugly security wall was Howard's ego.

There probably won't be much left of it by Sunday night after he spends a week gritting his teeth as 20 world leaders who can read newspaper front pages and know what the words "Faces Crushing Defeat" mean, shrug their shoulders and bid him an early farewell, and then get on the phone to Australia's next prime minister.

Why, some of the APEC leaders will ask Howard, did you not invite Kevin Rudd to address the APEC summit?

Howard will quiver with disgust and horror in reply.

Maybe he can announce his resignation as prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party on Saturday afternoon, and then hitch a ride to the US on Air Force One with President Bush?

It's clear that the United States is where Howard's heart truly lies.

Oh, but that's right. Even Bush can't stand a true-blue loser.


UPDATE : Here's a few excerpts from a six month old take on the last days of prime minister John Howard from 'The Orstrahyun'. Howard's poll numbers were appalling in March, and have not improved an iota. But he still refuses to go :

Howard's numbers aren't falling, they're plunging into the basement like a lift crammed full of concrete blocks that's snapped free of its cables. He's almost in George W. Bush territory. And Rudd has led Labor to their best numbers in two decades.

The decline of John Howard's political kingship has already become an amusingly harrowing spectacle. But the laughs won't last. The cacophony of lies, deceit and fear mongering that have punctuated his reign have deafened the masses and deadened their souls. Now they want their revenge. They want to scrape the filth off their shoes and put the past decade of derision and division, of Tampa, of Truth Overboard, of legitimate refugee toddlers razor-wired into desert prison camps, of Australia-funded missiles slamming into Iraqi civilians, of propping up Saddam's hideous regime by plausibly-denying the bribes of the AWB, all of it, all that muck and filth, Australians in the overwhelming majority now want to push it all deep into the back corner of their memories.

Australia has been transformed under the War On Human Decency waged by John Howard for 11 solid years, and many of us have become more like Americans than perhaps even John Howard and Tony Abbott and Piers Ackerman and Andrew Bolt might like to realise.

The Fair Go For All has faded. Give The Little Bloke A Chance is not so popular anymore. But most of all, we don't seem to like Losers as much as we once did, even the ones who try really hard. That's the chief reason why the Iraq War is so vastly unpopular in the United States today. America is losing, and Americans don't like to lose. And now, neither do we.

Howard is a Loser. And everyone knows it. When you're a Loser in Australian politics, you don't get a second chance anymore, as Mark Latham so comprehensively learned.

The stumbling, bumbling, simpering, whimpering decline and fall of John Howard is really going to be almost too cruel to watch. Alan Ramsey called the coming spectacle of Howard's downfall "delicious" in the Sydney Morning Herald last week. Maybe. But there's nothing pretty about a six month long autopsy.

Peter Costello and Malcolm Turnbull must do the decent thing, the humane thing. The only thing that can and should be done. They must feed Howard a handful of sugar cubes and coax him down into the back paddock and...put him out of his misery.

Politically speaking, of course.