The same threats are being made here as ACMA moves into a review of children’s programs on the teev.

This is not Latham and his weird ideas about getting parents to read to children.

Isn’t that hilarious? Kev’s going to stop Shrek from advertising burgers. I wonder if he knows he isn’t a real person and not Joe Hockey…….
Can you imagine? There’s Julia and Kev at the front gate of a school each day checking kids BMI before they go in. Anything 20 and over they go to the fat farm for re-education. Oh my lord, where’s Hawke when we need him.

Sorry as off topic.

Sit back and enjoy it.

‘dont they have a Hitler Seniors Brigade or something for people like you, Harry?’
‘

Give it a rest guys. That narrative has exhausted itself. The world is more complicated than that. Even the Americans have tired of the knee-jerk attempts to divide their world into boxes marked “liberals” and “patriots”.

It’s interesting, too, that the right, having accused the left for so long of patronising the masses, is now doing just that by making all sorts of assumptions on their behalf about where they stand on every issue.

It smacks of desperation.

Is the ALP going to change the policy on visa appliactions in any noticeable way? Please tell.

WTF!
I think we have met ‘son of inner city latte slurping, chardonnay sipping, elites’. We have also met the next bit of insanity from a deluded authoritarian right, who believe, against all the historical evidence, that Australia really is the heimat downunder, sturdily resisting the siren call of liberalism in any form, refusing to do anything including laughing at the powerful when they manifestly cock up, that might disturb the deeply held attraction of this crap for a certain kind of F**kwit..

Youse all need to get a ‘grip’ and that includes the superior and very opinionated Rod Cameron who knows diddly squat about anything not like the circles he moves in. Out there, where the voters live and work, this is being described, succintly and perspicaciously as ‘It’s children overboard all over again’.

Yes,a certain demographic approves of locking up dark skinned muslims, “just in case they, well I am not prejudiced, but you know….” But hardly anyone else does, because suddenly everybody can suddenly imagine, what it must feel like to be held in detention by the likes of Andrews, at his whim and pleasure. He is toast, and so is Howard if he persists in pretending that his sentiments appeal to anyone other than his rusted on supporters in nursing homes.

It’s unlikey a person will be murdered too. However it doesn’t mean we hire less cops.

Seriously – the whole terrorism thing is a massive beat up. The probability of tripping down the stairs and dying in the resulting fall is more likely.

Fair enough. Then I take it you would be the first person to argue agaisnt building codes for second level houses.

No fencing around pools……

David, I didn’t realize you were an anarcho-libertarian. Congratulations.

Yes, getting killed by an act of terror is a low probability event. But is not zero. There have been far more people killed in acts of terror in the West than have died in plane crashes since 911.s. Do you suggest we ease up on regulatory supervision of airline safety?

Seriously – the whole terrorism thing is a massive beat up. The probability of tripping down the stairs and dying in the resulting fall is more likely. It doesn’t sell newspapers or win elections though. I’m declaring a war on stairs.

Like the rest of us, your dad doesn’t have enough information to make a reasonable conclusion other than what’s been said by his legal mouthpieces, which to a large extent is really only propaganda anyway.

We need to know exactly what is in the dossier. Before that time we have no idea.

David R.

You’re over the map on this one. You don’t believe in statistical sampling used by law enforcement, you introduce straw men like the people who are 6-foot tall example and you’re making wild assertions about people like Kelty.

Yes, getting killed by an act of terror is a low probability event. But is not zero. There have been far more people killed in acts of terror in the West than have died in plane crashes since 911.s. Do you suggest we ease up on regulatory supervision of airline safety?

The first role of any government is to ensure public safety for all citizens. I fail to see how profiling wouldn’t fit into the strategies needed in controlling terror. Youre emoting lots of personal preferences but nothing solid.

Is it a series of stuff-ups and misjudgments that should’t happen but inevitably sometimes will, which the public will forgive if it doesn’t happen too often? Given that the public generally supports strict rules on terrorism and immigration, they could well decide to let one instance like this pass.

Or do they like the political class see this not as stuff-ups and misjudgments, but further evidence that civil liberties are threatened and the government is playing political tricks again – their runnning narrative.

I think the former interpretation is more likely.

Tampa is quite different. The public is strongly against illegal migration, and Howard took clear and decisive action to implement their preferences.

Also, we have the ‘bundling’ problem – potentially thousands of issues that could affect people’s vote, but only two actual votes, one for the H of R and another for the Senate, to cast. It makes it hard for issues like Haneef or AWB to count, since they lack broader implications for voters.

Do terror suspects under our new anti-terror laws have to be quietly spoken, educated doctors to get all the attention?

No – we’ve had Hicks, Jihad Jack and now Haneef. All botched. It’s easy to assume the 18 suspects cooling their heels have also been screwed over, given the acquiescence of Keelty, who has a whole lot of form on exporting justice to other countries and chasing down political targets rather than criminals. It’s very hard to have any confidence in a justice system like that.

David, back in Nov 2005, 18 terror suspects were picked up in Melb and Sydney and a dozen of them are still in jail awaiting their day in court. Not a murmur about that, so why all the fuss over Haneef many would ask? Do terror suspects under our new anti-terror laws have to be quietly spoken, educated doctors to get all the attention?

I am shocked to hear that your second cousins could be terrorists. I will get the paddy wagon sent round right away.

“Real Australians”

Bloody hell, don’t they have a Hitler Seniors Brigade or something for people like you, Harry?

Since when were you the arbiter of what constitutes ‘real’ Australians? Is there a selection criteria I can check out?

Presumably, despite your bourgeois lifestyle, you seemingly qualify for this yourself. Are ‘real’ Australians only the ones that happen to agree with you politically? Sheesh, no wonder you’re a fan of anti-terror legislation. Real Australians don’t commit thought crimes, eh?

A ‘real’ Australian is any citizen of Australia, much as that may offend your sensibilities. And there are plenty who agree, and plenty who disagree, with your thoughts on this issue.

I agree with James and others painting this as somewhat of false dichotomy. Further more, the idea that you, me, Rod Cameron, etc. have any idea what these so-called ‘real australians’ (I love how real Australians are considered to be uneducated right wing bogans) think is laughable.

The last question is how do you risk manage if you consider all of us to be equally risky?

The answer is you don’t. We have a very, very good idea of the probability of terrorist attack in Australia. It is below worrying about, to the point where anti-terror activities and legislation right now are doing more harm than good (Haneef being a perfect example).

One positive has emerged though: the mendacity and incompetence of Andrews and Ruddock were on full display, yet again, for the entertainment of Australians. Thankfully that old dirt kissing groveller Downer couldn’t help himself either. All I need is for Abbott to write something fatuous in his regular column with bigoted overtones for a all four aces to come up.

On a separate issue, the use of the term “slightest” is no more ambiguous than the use of the term “reasonable” in the legal system. We seem to have coped with this tpe of ambiguity for a long time now, so I don’t think it is likely to be a major problem.

Note that when it comes to incidents like the Tampa situation and the AWB scandal, I am critical of the Howard government. If Howard did not know that the claims that were being made were not true, it was probably because he had set up situations where he was not informed of such things so that he could subsequently claim plausible deniability. If he didn’t know, then he probably should have known.

And I think that, as far as anyone can tell for now, the whole thing looks like a complete cock-up which exposes institutional weakness if not incompetence and serious ministerial irresponsibility (in fact, irresponsibility and incompetence from top to bottom). I could be wrong, of course.

That said, using an Age website poll as representative is beyond farcical. Age readers have probably been over 75% Labor for Howard’s entire leadership. A poll of voting intentions on the Age website adds even less information than your usual website poll.

Just to emphasise the point, I am probably the only one of my non-Age reading friends who cares much at all about Haneef (actually, I can think of one other, so there are at least two of us). All my Age-reading friends were voting for Rudd anyway.