Tuesday 11 June 2019

Police State: is This the New Normal?


In Australia, freedoms of speech and press are not constitutionally protected.

Last week the Australian Federal Police, which reports to Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton -- himself a representative of the COALition far Right and former policeman -- legally raided the Canberra home of journalist Annika Smethurst (News Corp Australia) and the offices of the ABC.

Both  Dutton and Prime Minister Scott Morrison deny previous knowledge of the raids, and, whether by accident or design, both were in official visits overseas when they took place, all but out of reach of the media. They claim the raids were instigated by the higher echelons of the defense and police bureaucracies acting with absolute independence of their political bosses, the relevant ministers (Dutton being one of them).

Criminal charges against leakers and journalists (and, presumably, against their publishers although no one really expects News Corp being charged) have not been ruled out.

Coming days after the federal elections, the raids understandably raised eyebrows.

The reason adduced is strange itself. AFP claimed to be investigating fairly old reports: Smethurst’s 2018 one on plans to authorise the Australian Signals Directorate to spy on Australian citizens and a 2017 ABC News report on unlawful killings allegedly committed by Australian troops in Afghanistan. To compound, in the case of the ABC, the reporters being investigated (Dan Oakes and Sam Clark) work from the ABC’s Melbourne offices, but the raid targeted its Sydney offices.

The icing on the cake, however, is that leaks of confidential information apparently occur all the time (as when another AFP raid, against the Australian Workers’ Union, was leaked in 2017 to the media … from federal Small Business Minister Michaelia Cash’s office), but those where the COALition benefits are mercifully left uninvestigated (more on this in a moment).

Dutton and other representatives of the COALition unhinged Right are on the public record for their claims that the Australian Greens are as dangerous, if not more so, than One Nation, the wannabe figurehead for hire for the American NRA, also linked to local crypto-Nazi. The ABC itself is now and has been for a long time target of intense hatred from sectors of the COALition.

I wonder if AFP raids on the opposition (or on environmentalists, vegans, teetotalers, New Agers, GetUp! or on any other “dangerous” elements, for that matter) are in our future.

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It’s however the fact that some leaks are spectacularly investigated, while others are quietly ignored that highlights the madness of VS experts in the media -- often even in the ABC -- constantly urging Labor to self-destruct by aping the COALition. The idea is that it would be politically costly for Labor to take an independent and openly critical stance on subjects like national security (or on climate change action, inequality, or what have you).

Probably nowhere else as in national security, however, has Labor followed that advise more uncritically. In fact, other than introducing amendments here and there, Labor has essentially rubber-stamped every single bill on national security the COALition has proposed, no matter how hare-brained. So long as Labor wasn’t seen (Q: By whom? A: By the COALition) as weak, all is well.

Given parliamentary horse trading, maybe Labor couldn’t have effectively stopped the COALition from seizing all the power they seized and are deploying now. With the support of crossbenchers, perhaps the COALition would have rammed those bills through Parliament against Labor’s opposition. The thing is Labor didn’t even try to stop them.

The bottom line? By constantly seeking COALition’s acceptance, by blindly following VS experts’ advice, Labor became a de facto accomplice.

If that mess wasn’t bad enough, Labor itself is not above demanding police intervention when leaks occur.

Now that there’s a huge and justified outcry over these latest abuses of power, Labor’s leadership is undermined by Labor’s own record.

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In varying degrees the same applies in a host of cases. To mention just one this year: the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

Pragmatism is a bitch, isn’t it? There’s a price to pay when dealing with the devil, yes?

It’s times like these when old-fashioned Marxist principles (aka “dogmatism”) prove their value.

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