The Adventures of QueerPenguin

Eternal Contradictions of the Howard Mind

So...

If the Government's IR changes (I've given up on the ironic use of "reforms" in quotation marks) are so good, beneficial to employees, not biased towards employers and necessary to enhance productivity, why does it need to spend many millions of our tax-payer dollars to tell us this? Couldn't they just ram the legislation through parliament (as they will anyway) and let us bask in the WorkChoices afterglow ourselves, saving us a few million bucks?

(Additionally: Why do labels for new government initiatives always adopt a gimmicky advertisement style? Does WorkChoices have to become one word? Would it lose any credibility if it were expressed correctly?)

If extreme laws supposedly designed to combat terrorism are needed to protect our wonderful, free and democratic way of life, exactly which aspects of freedom are being protected? The freedom for potentially innocent people to be incarcerated, held incommunicado for up to two weeks with no access to legal counsel or friends and family? The freedom to be shot-to-kill by our police force even where there is not a life-threatening situation involved? We've seen recently how important it is to maintain that freedom.

If democracy and freedom of speech form the basis of the style of Western lifestyle we enjoy - the sort of lifestyle Islamic extremists apparently hate us for and seek to destroy - why is the government attempting to rush through sweeping and revolutionary legislation without proper and due parliamentary, democratic process? One day for a parliamentary committee to examine the legislation?!

And why did the Government get so stroppy about ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope releasing a draft copy of the Bill onto his website if it supposedly comprises no more than what was already agreed to by the Labor premiers during the COAG meeting? Surely it wasn't that they were upset people would have more time to actually examine this Bill and formulate their opposition to it?

And why did it have to take government backbenchers (presumably the usual Commo suspects - Georgiou, Moylan, Payne, etc) raising their concerns before a clearer line was re-drawn between freedom of speech and inciting hatred or sedition?

Indeed, why is there even a provision for sedition when "the term is deprecated in most countries, though equivalent language may still be in use in totalitarian and fascist jurisdictions"?

Can I be jailed for up to 7 years just for even asking these questions aloud?

Where is the line drawn? Am I a terrorist, or am I inciting terrorism, if I suggest on my site that Islamic resentment of Western society, particularly against countries so closely aligned to the US, perhaps should be examined rather than blindly condemned the next time a bomb goes off in or around the neighbourhood?

Phew! Good thing I didn't say it, then. (*wink*)

posted by Sam @ Monday, October 17, 2005