Page 332 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 7 March 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
divisions between these blocs. The presence of our troops in Iraq is seen as one of the ways in which this occurs. We have heard several reasons for their being there but, whatever they are, their continuing presence is serving as part of that large project.
The project of dividing the world into cultural-religious blocs has been accompanied by a fear campaign around terrorism. Governments that are seen to be protecting citizens against an enemy—even a diffuse one like terrorists—are rarely questioned. In today’s Canberra Times, Robert Fisk—a person who has been watching and commenting on the Middle East for decades—is quoted as saying that US President George W Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Australian Prime Minister John Howard are doing a better job of spreading the message of terror than bin Laden himself. The article continues:
Fear is the message from the world’s leaders, Fisk says, and they are injecting it into voters as effectively as bin Laden could have wished after the September 11 attacks on the US ...
Bin Laden wanted 9/11 to change the world, and this is what they—
Mr Howard, Mr Bush and Mr Blair—
are saying.
In 2002 Tim Anderson, who was wrongly accused of the Hilton bombings, wrote about the suite of antiterror laws put to parliament in 2002 when, thankfully, there was a coalition minority in the Senate, which meant that changes were able to be made to the particularly draconian laws of the ASIO Act. He said:
Any real “terrorist act” is already illegal. The real targets of these laws in Australia are not bomb throwers or assassins. The new powers in Australia will be used selectively against activist targets, marginalised groups and individuals, and racial minorities.
I note that Mr Stefaniak referred to the Hilton bombings a number of times during the hearing. I wish to make clear for the record that he apparently had not been reading up on the aftermath of the bombings in the various legal proceedings which showed that the prime accused, Tim Anderson, was acquitted of all charges. There are still very real questions about who was behind those bombings. We have no proof at all that it was a terrorist attack of the kind Mr Stefaniak mentioned.
Since the underground bombings in the United Kingdom a very different approach has been taken. Apparently that is the main reason why we have these new terror laws. The British Prime Minister announced a 12-point plan of measures designed to tackle terrorism. There are 12 points, not just one suite of laws against terrorists. The 10th point is to establish with the Muslim community a commission to advise on how there should be better integration of those parts of the community presently inadequately integrated and to strengthen police and community partnership. We have problems in the Prime Minister’s Islamic advisory group; he would do well to have a look at what is really representative.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .