The 3am knock on the door
FEDERAL POLICE RAIDS ON MEDIA
THE Australian Federal Police raid on senior press gallery reporter Annika Smethurst together with the raid on the Sydney offices of the ABC are a cause of great concern. My parents lived under the reign of Stalin and Hitler where the apparatchiks of both regimes performed their roles of terrorising the population with ruthless efficiency. People lived under the shadow of the proverbial 3am knock on the door. A free press underpins our democracy and our newly elected Government has the responsibility to ensure that Australian citizens live in a society that is democratic and where government agencies are accountable for their actions. Raiding the ABC offices and journalists in the name of national security has no place in Australian society. conflict is at stake. When you apply the pub test to publishing classified information, make sure you ask the diggers wearing ribbons for their opinions first.
Destroying documents
A FACT revealed in the first TV interview regarding the Australian Federal Police’s raid on the ABC (while the raid was actually in progress), and which has been ignored, was that the warrant issued to the AFP allowed them to not only search for, but to destroy or change documents. In other words, they were given the right to destroy or change potential evidence. The AFP may well have had reasonable grounds to conduct a raid, I don’t know, but to have the right to destroy or change documents is as close to fascism as this country has come since federation.
Freedom in jeopardy
WE all should be very concerned about the AFP raids on the media. If no member of Cabinet knew about these raids, who initiated it? Perhaps Paul Keating is right and there is something wrong with our security bosses and their powers which are apparently independent of ministerial review. Given the lapse of time since the articles were aired and the fact that David McBride had already been named as a source, the timing of the raids has to be explained as well as the motivation. As the whistleblowers tried the ‘appropriate’ channels before going to the ABC, both the events reported and the lack of action by those in charge are appropriate for the ABC to expose. Justice Kirby is right and Everyday hero saved 300 lives through a simple act WOW!!! Literally wow!!! To have saved up to 300 lives is a genuinely extraordinary achievement. Where’s his knighthood or place in the Hall of Fame? It’s a weird world we’ve created. Arise, Sir Michael! we need a formal Bill of Rights to protect us because the moral standard we previously trusted to protect our rights has been shown to be flawed. Freedom of the press is one of those protections — if that no longer exists, what other freedom we take for granted is now in jeopardy?
Russia and China
I THINK too many democratic state and federal leaders have been travelling to places like China and Russia too much. Now we are having secrets kept from the masses and they want to spy on us and see what we are eating for breakfast. Certainly kept the last issue quiet until after the election. What next? Are all citizens going to be banished to work on collective farms or maybe a few years in the harsh cold of somewhere like Siberia would cool our heels and make the leaders proud.
Not always right
EVERYONE has rights, and many of them. These rights are sacrosanct and should not be impinged upon. Among those rights are the right to know what our government is doing on our behalf, but there is also the right of every citizen to expect that government is acting in our best interests, especially on national security, which can be breached by the so-called right to know. If publication of intelligence issues places my right to protection from terrorism etc in jeopardy, then the “right to know” in these instances is wrong, and breaches should be prosecuted.
Madeira cable car top-notch
ON the island of Madeira in Portugal the cable car is the leading tourist attraction, packed out with cruise ship passengers and holiday-makers. At the top of this mountain is a complete town of more than 6000 inhabitants. Everything looks spectacular. Such a sight makes our so-called icon very insignificant.
Footy homes
WHEN Tasmania gets an AFL team, maybe the homeless could sleep in the grandstand.
Pollies working together
IT takes a superfluous issue like having a Tassie AFL team for our politicians to meld together and to have a secure scheduled plan ( Mercury, June 8). Pity the same can’t be said for important issues like Macquarie Point, Royal Hobart Hospital, Airbnb, homelessness, mental health, traffic congestion, etc?
So slow for refunds
SAYS it all. Three years to initiate a recycle, refund system. This is the government running our state. Doesn’t instil confidence regarding important issues, does it.