BY ALISON DELLIT
On November 20, NSW's largest selling tabloid, the Daily Telegraph, screamed "Direct threat" on its front cover. Prominently displayed above the headline was a quote from acting federal attorney-general Chris Ellison: "The government has received credible information of a possible terrorist attack in Australia at some time over the next couple of months." Inside the paper, a double spread was headed: "Time to develop suspicious minds."
This "terrorist" hysteria is not unique to the sensationalist Telegraph and other tabloids around the country; most major "broadsheet" newspapers have followed suit. An article by Michelle Grattan in the November 20 Age began with: "Our nation is at a frightening point in its history."
Shortly after Canberra's warning, the Labor premiers of NSW and Victoria, Bob Carr and Steve Bracks, suggested that troops would be deployed on city streets to "guard" national landmarks such as the enormous Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Ellison's warning, supposedly designed to "prepare" Australians, provided no useful information at all. It was wrapped in meaningless language like "generic and non-specific". The announcement boiled down to telling the public that terrorists might attack Australian citizens — or they might not.
In the words of the November 20 Sydney Morning Herald, "Chris Ellison said he could not divulge the source of the information or provide any enlightenment as to how Australian citizens could best take precautions".
The repeated advice that Australians should "be alert" is more likely to create an atmosphere of hostility to the media-manufactured "suspects" — Muslims, Arabs and those who dress differently — than to net any terrorists. After all, what are we looking for? The November 27 Daily Telegraph reported that one journalist responded to the warning with the quip: "Could someone please let the prime minister know that I've seen an empty car parked outside an office building?"
The point of the "alert", of course, had nothing to do with averting an attack. It had everything to do with whipping up a climate of fear and paranoia to justify greater state interference in our lives.
This atmosphere of fear fuels Australian nationalism and xenophobia — which was deliberately stoked further by the capitalist media and politicians in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in the US — to create support for the First World's expanding war on the Third World. We are all being taught to fear that "our way of life" is about to be stolen by the desperate and the fanatical.
The new police powers being suggested at a breathtakingly rapid rate by state and federal governments both build on, and benefit from, this fear. Australia's politicians — Labor and Coalition — believe that the climate is right to permanently remove some of the safeguards that protect our right to dissent.
Police powers
The first raft of these powers was introduced by the federal government earlier this year, creating new "terrorist" offences, defined as "action, or threat of action, taken for political, religious or ideological reasons". This legislation drew a distinction between violent acts committed for financial gain, which are not "terrorism", and those motivated by political belief. This definition of a terrorist act is wide enough to encompass some normal protest activities.
At the time they were passed, Prime Minister John Howard argued these laws were needed because "after September 11, the world is a more dangerous place".
The second raft of federal powers, those giving more powers to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), are currently being discussed by a Senate committee (the fourth such committee to have done so).
The legislation will give ASIO new powers to detain people without trial, such as anybody who ASIO believes may have useful information relating to a terrorist offence. Individuals can be held for up to 48 hours, without access to their own lawyers. Even contact with ASIO-supplied lawyers will not be private. The legislation will apply to people 14 years old and older.
The vast (and irrelevant) "consultative" process that this legislation has been subjected to indicates the level of pressure that the ALP is feeling on the issue. Unwilling to clearly support or oppose the proposal, ALP MPs keep sending the bill back to the committee stage while they desperately try to draft a compromise that looks like it will defend civil liberties, while delivering ASIO most of the powers it is salivating for.
Labor's latest compromise was rejected by Howard on November 30. It was a proposal to allow the Australian Federal Police (AFP), rather than ASIO, to execute a warrant for detention sought by ASIO, and for AFP officers to carry out the questioning. It also raised the minimum age of detainees to 18.
With just one more week in which the legislation can be passed before the Christmas adjournment, it seems likely that either the ALP or the government will blink, and the laws will be passed in some form.
It matters little whether the questioning is undertaken by the AFP or ASIO. Either way, these powers will be used to harass migrant communities and to seek out those who support struggles overseas, particularly in Palestine. Although it is unlikely in the current climate that these powers will be widely used against white lefties, the powers provide a powerful tool for political persecution.
State laws
In addition to these federal powers, several state governments, including South Australia, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory are preparing to pass their own "anti-terror" laws. The most extreme, on the details currently available, are those proposed by the NSW Labor government.
Under the Terrorism (Police Powers) Bill 2002, introduced into parliament on November 21 and supported by the Coalition parties, the police minister will be granted unprecedented powers.
The minister will be able, in effect, to declare a state of emergency. Once a "target" (a person, area or object) has been declared by the minister, all civil liberties safeguards are null and void. Homes can be searched and people strip-searched, removed from an area, have their possessions confiscated and be ordered to stop doing perfectly normal and legal activities.
Such powers could make it legal for police to violently disperse just about any protest action, no matter how peaceful.
Worst of all, as Margo Kingston reported in the November 29 Sydney Morning Herald, "Section 13 of Mr Carr's bill states: 'An authorisation (and any decision of the police minister under this part with respect to the authorisation) may not be challenged, reviewed, quashed or called into question on any grounds whatsoever before any court, tribunal, body or person in any legal proceedings, or restrained, removed, or otherwise affected by proceedings in the nature of prohibition or mandamus.'"
None of the new powers have a sunset clause. Once passed, they will be on the law books until a successful campaign forces their repeal. This represents one of the most sweeping attacks on democratic rights in Australia's history.
Critics of the harsh new laws are getting short shrift. After attacking Kingston for her opposition to government attacks on civil liberties, Carr on November 26 called Supreme Court Judge John Dowd a "thickhead", who needed to "wake up to the real threat of terrorism". Dowd had presented a critical submission to the Senate committee investigating the ASIO bill. "Doesn't he realise Bali has happened?", moaned Carr.
We can expect the Bali atrocities — which did not take place on Australian soil and were probably not targeted specifically at Australians — to justify massive attacks on the right to protest. For everyone's sake, we must reject the politics of fear.
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, December 4, 2002.
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