I'm rather sick of libertarians complaining about the policing and security law situation under the Coalition governments which they support because (basically) "but Labor wants more tax!".
Jason Soon and Sinclair Davidson both complain about the Federal police raids of last week and point to an IPA media release doing the same. Chris Berg on Twitter tried to do a "well this is a result of both sides of politics co-operating to increase powers" excuse, even though (I think) there has been commentary that recent investigations have not had to rely on recent changes. Jason complained about the newly elected NSW Liberal government now deploying drug sniffer dogs to Central station, to generically harass everyone going through their daily routine, not just people who go to known drug use venues (like doof doof music festivals.)
I agree with all of the complaints, but they're the ones determined to keep supporting the incredible secret state operations of Liberal/Coalition governments because they don't like Labor economic policies.
Look at the freaking awful record of the Liberals going back to 2004:
* the diplomatically and morally scandalous government ordered bugging of East Timor for commercial benefit. It's an outrageous use of our spy service against a near neighbour, and the Liberals just shrug it off. And its ultra-outrageous that there is a prosecution for disclosing it.
* the "operational matters" veil of secrecy that descended on what our Navy and paramilitary "Border Force" was doing to turn back boats - they could have been torpedoing boats for all the public knew and it would have depended on a sailor leaking the information for anyone to know.
* the whole "Border Force" re-branding to make it look and act more like a State paramilitary.
* the convenience of the AFP giving up an investigation when it's a leak that has pro-government benefit.
* the preparedness to leave wannabe boat arrivals in permanent land locked island detention centres with a shrug of the shoulders as to their health.
* now the Home Affairs Secretary Mike Pezzullo - who I think has been a key figure all through the rise of what I call authoritarian-friendly behaviour over the course of the Coalition government - having the hide to ring up a Senator directly to complain that he doesn't like the way he spoke about him on the media. Blind Freddy can see how wildly inappropriate this is for a "normal" government.
What's more, Sinclair Davidson runs a blog that is brimming with praise of the clearly authoritarian sympathetic Donald Trump (even if he doesn't personally care for him); and Jason Soon devotes most tweets to "oh, look at this ridiculous example of identity politics gone mad again."
Stop your whining, libertarians - you've made the call that you getting a tax cut and not wanting stronger climate change policy is more important than living in a secrecy loving, virtual police State.
Own it.
PS: and no, don't wave your hands about an imaginary "well, it would probably be just as bad under a Labor government" defence. As I say above, the Coalition has form going back too far now for that argument to be credible.
PPS: I see that Jason is citing Adam Creighton as "one of his gateways to post-libertarianism". What's the right term for you at the moment then, Jason? Transitioning?
39 comments:
Stephen, they cannot help themselves as neither has a firm grasp of macro economics
Okay - but how do you reconcile your "libertarians are an irrelevant triviality in Australian politics" with your "libertarians are to blame for the ever-growing authoritarianism in Australian politics"?
Sinclair, I didn't say libertarians are to blame - I said you don't have grounds to complain when you keep supporting (via attack on Labor policies, and presumably your first or second preference vote) the party with the "runs on the board" re increasingly authoritarian use of security laws.
The most that you can complain about re Labor is that they are less "freedom friendly" re discrimination law - but the occasional unfair and unwarranted civil or criminal action based on those laws (such as the QUT student case) is a bit of trivia compared to police raids on journalists breaking public interest stories of government misbehaviour.
And it's still true - libertarian parties here attract next to no votes.
did the two raids and almost other raid have anything to do with National Security. Of course not. It was all about intimidating whistle blowers.
I would have thought a 'libertarian blog would be screaming to the high heavens about that.
BUT a libertarian blog would allow comment from almost anybody and Catallaxy certainly does not do that. They and sinkers in particular, hate free speech. They much prefer echo chambers
I think one government agency raiding another government agency (with a billion dollar budget and the ability to engage lawyers) is less of a problem than a government agency persecuting uni students.
This is a man who clearly does not understand civil liberties. how sad.
If the ABS was a government agency then it would be singing the government's praises.
Sinkers deserves Catallaxy
OK - so a female News Corpse journalist having the AFP turn over her house is not much of a problem too, because Uncle Rupert can pay for lawyers to intervene before they get to the undies drawer...
Journalists know full well the risks of their profession - including that they may be harassed by the state. Even in Australia - when you are in receipt of confidential information you can expect the government to ask you how you came into that information.
Now we all agree that the national security laws are over the top and inappropriate and so on.
Homer - STFU, you don't have the IQ to participate in this forum
Steve if you must know
1. I preferenced Labor over Lib at the State election because I thought they deserved the boot for stuffing up the light rail project
2. I did end up preferencing Liberal over Lab at Fed level but it was basically a line ball decision, I expected labor to win but didn't want it to win too many seats and mine was a marginal lib electorate. nothing to do with their econ policies
they are much of a muchness
Soony if you need an IQ participate then why are you here?
Re Sinclair: I reckon the issue with national security laws is often going to be more with the implementation rather than their mere existence. Laws are sometimes like that - it can be difficult to write them to cover all variations on a theme, and you rely on the discretion of those implementing them to do so wisely and appropriately. The possibility of inappropriate use is not always a convincing reason to not have the law at all.
An example outside of security: age of consent laws - good in principle and certainly appropriately used in some, but not all, cases. A lot is left the discretion of authorities and I can live with that.
Anyway, I reckon your priorities are sounding all out of whack - you seem to have been more perturbed that Andrew Bolt faced a court for writing a careless (and snearing in tone) article on race matters than with the idea that the government can wink at the AFP to go hard in search warrants in tracking down the leak of a classified document that is merely embarrassing rather than causing true damage to national security.
Jason: good to hear you are not above voting for Labor (at least at a preference.) I am a bit surprised, since it seemed to me (if your tweet material is anything to go by) that you had drifted further libertarian Right in the last couple of years.
Hang on - no ABC reporter is yet to be charged let alone appear in court. So yes, the Bolt case is (currently) more serious than a raid on a few journalists and perves riffling through an undies drawer.
We know, up front, that any and every Australian government is going to appear to be tough on national security and we know that national security laws are very popular with the masses. So they should be written and interpreted narrowly and not broadly as our pollies like to do, and our police like to do too.
In principle you are right - we should rely on our government agencies to be sensible. But, in practice, how is that working for us?
Oh yeah - so serious that Andrew's career has never been the same since the court action. Wait what - hasn't he got a bigger (and albeit more boring) media profile than ever before?
If he weren't Andrew Bolt, but someone without a media profile and a rich corporation backing him, the matter would have been settled early on with an apology and correction for errors in his original column. He's the one who chose the path of martyrdom - safe, I assume (but correct me if I am wrong) from risk of personal financial loss from the legal fees.
The journalism raids are more serious from the point of view of direct use of police powers to invade the privacy of not just journalists, but all people who are sources for them.
What would you prefer - to be facing a RDA complaint and the "let's see if this can be mediated first" approach they take; or the police turning up on your doorstep with a warrant to search your house and your computers because they think you got an email from a government employee?
'morally scandalous government ordered bugging of East Timor for commercial benefit...outrageous use of our spy service against a near neighbour'
Wrong. You are uncritically peddling Gusmao's propaganda, as does the Left media. We did not bug East Timor for 'commercial benefit' but for our defence and security interests. By the time East Timor seceded, exploration had already shown the Kelp Deeps contained no commercial hydrocarbons. The rest [Bayu Undan, Greater Sunrise] was relative chickenshit, in no way strategic to our future energy security. Borders were. Gusmao had no intention of respecting any agreement made by Fretilin. He used the negotiations run by Alkaitiri to undermine and discredit his opponents prior to his coup d'etat. He was convinced - we all were - Fretilin would win the election and use oil funds to buy patronage to entrench their ascendancy. Everyone was spying on everyone. Gusmao showed his hand as a hostile actor when he accepted massive funding from Jakarta for his 2006 coup. Had we not sent a stabilisation force East Timor would have split into two micro statelets with competing maritime EEZ claims. The Western half may have rejoined Indonesia. Gusmao and Alkatiri hated eachother, wanted to kill eachother. We had a right to seek information on the agendas being played out within their negotiating team because it had implications for our borders with both Timor and Indonesia. Downer and ASIS would have been negligent had they not done so. Woodside's interests were tangential, not central as Gusmao and his apologists would have you believe.
As for your 'near neighbour,' remark, Indonesia is one of those too. We had every right to bug them in 1999 even though we shared a security agreement, to seek intelligence on their political and military intentions towards us. Jakarta later sought to neuter our intelligence activities and have a restraining code of conduct inserted in the Lombok text. They failed. Those presently running the defence in the bugging case similarly threaten to constrain our ability to seek forward intelligence on potential hostile actors to our north. Don't be sucked in by the poor little East Timor shit. It's not about oil and never was. The agreement signed by Bishop hasn't been ratified by Parliament. That shows you the resistance to it in Canberra and the distrust of Gusmao that remains. The article below gives you a snapshot of the context in which those negotiations took place. Everyone was spying on everyone. The author uses an alias for Ricardo Ribeiro, Alkatiri's nephew and head of their intelligence service. The Canadians were clueless, should've stuck to curling.
'I helped create the Timor-Leste Intelligence Agency. The affair ended badly, and as I look over my notes from that time, it reads like a humorously sad Evelyn Waugh novel.'
https://www.macleans.ca/politics/worldpolitics/the-time-i-started-a-spy-agency/
Yours in the interests of truth,
Anon.
Oh yea, stepford. Bolt ran with the case because he knew it would help him professionally. Another example of your hallucinations problem.
STFU Homer, you deranged idiot.
Well, I am curious as to who anon at comment 14 might be.
Sounds like an ex Coalition politician (or writer from The Australian).
JC - if a person thinks the RDA goes too far, has a fan base who agrees with him, is close to the IPA which has campaigned against the section, and has a rich boss prepared to pay for the legal fees whichever way it goes, he has no real risk with going ahead to trial rather than take a conciliatory approach early on.
Bolt now has more media coverage than ever, but (I suspect) weaker less political influence because he hasn't had an original idea for 10 years and has moved to more Hanson-ish immigration scare mongering than ever before. He's suffered from having too much coverage, but there is no doubt he would be making a mint from it all.
good to see JC and soony are on a unity ticket. show the same intellectual depth as well
Problem with JC's apologia for the government they closed uo the case reasonably quickly when they realised the implications of their nefarious activities.
Even this case has little national security implications only embarrassment for the government
Bolt could have been sued for libel but the plaintiffs made it clear they did not want this.
sinkers still wants to disregard what the raids are all about. intimidating whistle blowers.
no coincidence they occurred after the election either
Of course his career benefited. As will that of the young lady at News.
"As will that of the young lady at News."
You mean the young lady whose name neither you nor I remember?
I only wish I had some classified material to anonymously email you, Sinclair, since you seem to consider being on the receiving end of a police search a good career move for nearly anyone.
sorry but East Timor is a fricking basket case. Indonesia is as important to us as that socialist-jesuit basket case which we should have let Indonesia keep at its own expense. that used to be a Labor position so I don't know why anon's very well researched comments suggest to you he is some partisan hack
Gee, I dunno, Jason: maybe I am just more suspicious of strongly pro-government defences of spying when it's a case of a government spy having raised his concerns about the legality of what he had been involved in?
There are a bunch of claims in anon's comments which may or may not stand up to stronger scrutiny. But many of the statements are pretty broad generalisations, or not directly relevant to the spying case, if you ask me, with the distinct air of very partisan advocacy about them.
I don't have a problem with us spying on other countries, whether our allies or otherwise. that is just a routine thing, everyone does it and if you don't think allies don't spy on allies you're just being naive
I don't think I am naive about spying either. But the circumstances and purposes of it make a difference to the morality of it.
Stepford
You have no problem seeing energy costs soaking money from the poor, but you have a moral problem with spying. Good to see you have decent grip on your priorities.
really with people spending money as a % of household spending the same as twenty years ago.
Steve is to the forefront of approving renewables and the lowest cost of electricity is Solar PV and wind is only a touch above old coal power. U I see we have yet another subject JC knows bugger all about.
By the way a unit in a coal fired power station broke down once every THREE days last year
"Steve is to the forefront of approving renewables and the lowest cost of electricity is Solar PV and wind is only a touch above old coal power."
WTF are you trying to say you incoherent mess?
Soony
if you had any understanding of the subject you would understand but unfortunately your knowledge matches JC
Homer
This is a serious blog. Buzz off. Go on shoo.
'Sounds like an ex Coalition politician (or writer from The Australian)'
Reflect for a moment on your unjustifiable suspicion. Do you really think a Coalition politician, or any writer from The Australian, could possibly have the deep knowledge of East Timor that I have? However, I do appreciate you tagging me as 'Comment 14.' Thanks 99.
I almost reacted though to your suspicion of my comments as 'generalisations.' Well, this isn't exactly an academic publication requiring specialist detail is it? Nevertheless and for my own amusement I wrote and almost fired off such detail as can potentially get one in trouble.
In response to your assertion that you are not naive about spying, I didn't think I was either. Reality however can exhilarate, disappoint and confront. Nobody likes spies. There is a very good reason no-one likes them, in fact many good reasons. Bribery, blackmail and betrayal if not daily practice are nevertheless consummated with one's blood and flesh. Unless already damaged in childhood, as some of our best spies have been, show me the person who can do such things and remain unchanged.
I'm not pleased with your reference to morality. Spies work for the national interest not God. Like you they may find some justification for what they do in notions of morality, love, valour - the Romans had a long list of them. As spies, if they're any good and have married wisely, often spy on and use members of their own extended family and friends, justifications predicated on morality get harder and the slippery slope steeper. My favourite justification was: we're a shining beacon to the rest of the world, if our light is diminished others less fortunate lose hope. Having thus fucked over our smaller and weaker neighbours we could then send in Ausaid with a bag of lollies to show how generous we could be in victory. Ausaid of course is no longer with us, having been strangled by Ms Bishop and drowned in a billabong, but it's ghost may still be heard.
yours
comment 14
Jason has made some comment on Jesuits. I don't much like them either Jason, but they don't run East Timor. More Don Bosco, SVD and Franciscan. More recently Brazilian happyclappies and Jehovas Witnesses have made an unwelcome addition to their faith community, attended mostly as it is these days by women fleeing a domestic flogging. If Ms Batty really wants to see toxic masculinity she could do no better than take a visit to Dili.
One well known Australian Jesuit - I don't think we have two, do we? - once wrote that during a visit to Dili the East Timorese and Indonesian SJs so hated eachother they refused to sit together. This is of course nuts. There were just two East Timorese Jesuits in existence. After some five centuries of Lisbonic enlightenment mind you, just two. One of them, the late Monteiro, was from Goa and pro Indonesian. The other had a Goanese parent and you really wouldn't want to sit too close to him anyway. My God I've never seen a man pull his strides so far above his navel. There can be no biblical justification for such provocative dress sense, none.
Jason also refers to East Timor as a basket case. Well yes, but when was it ever not going to be? Australia, Indonesia and China, or some combination of those three great friends, will have to subsidise it forever.
During his extended stay in Jakarta, Mr Gusmao would regularly shapeshift into a white mouse and scuttle by night from his jail cell to Jakarta's redlight districts for congress with some of Indonesia's most attractive actresses. There are many, believe me. Having so increased his supernatural powers he'd scurry back to jail before dawn where a hearty breakfast of fried rice and sambal awaited the man, not the mouse. How does one even begin negotiate in good faith with people who believe this to even be a possibility? Yet, just such a man-mouse defeated the very best our DFAT could muster. We would have done better with Troy Kinne in our negotiating team. Julius Sumner Miller may have asked - How Is It So?
yours in truth
comment 14
Comment 14: Gee, I hope you're not dragging my blog into some international diplomatic incident by your comments. I think you'll find Catallaxy and Sinclair Davidson are much more the place to seek to cause offence and want to be raided for the purposes of free speech martyrdom.
I think I am detecting a whiff of Catallaxy nuttiness in your latest contribution, too..
'cause offence'
Being offended is a risk we take when we do something offensive. Mr Gusmao, an offensive person to both sexes when it suits him, has the skin of a Timorese crocodile, but neither he nor any of their tiny political elite want the truth about their corruption and treachery known to their own people. We gave them a conference table, made from Jarrah, in the shape of a Timorese crocodile motif. It was undoubtedly the same one over which their Cabinet presided while they were being bugged. Like the croc everyone should grow a thick skin.
Their negotiating strategy was to threaten our security interests by bringing into play the status quo of our borders with Indonesia, in order to leverage a better outcome for themselves downstream. These were never just 'commercial' negotiations as the Left media here claim. Was Galbraith ok with that? Did he so advise Alkatiri? And how much of it was bluff? We didn't know and were entirely justified to seek clarification covertly. It should have been sought via HUMINT not SIGINT but our security services had been incompetent, lazy, and thus unable to get what we sought with any confidence from human networks. Alkatiri shared Galbraith's confidential advice with no-one. That is the real story. It's embarrassing. It may well be offensive to some of those who were involved. But it's true.
CMATS had a self destruct clause triggered by a time limit. Any of the parties, the two Govts or Woodside and partners, could delay the start of Sunrise development and cause CMATS to lapse after a few years. That's what happened. It was designed to lapse and Gusmao delayed until it did. One result it that the price they get for gas will now be significantly lower than what they would have obtained earlier.
We enlisted JRH to strongarm a reluctant Fretilin controlled Parliament to ratify CMATS knowing conflict was imminent. By so doing we secured our interests during the coming chaos but still needed to send a stabilisation force to prevent civil war. Had they split into two mini States we would at least have had a ratified Treaty with which to defend our interests. Jakarta didn't want a split. Jakarta just wanted Gusmao to win, after which they assessed their interests were safe and dumped Reinado, without whom the coup would have failed. But that's another story. Don't fret, I'm not about to put everything warts'n all on a blog, any blog.
Jesuits and offence. The Catholic Church has been on the receiving end of much offence lately, having itself caused much offence. Jesuits as much as any other Order are not immune.
Steve - I'd be only too happy to tell the police I got confidential information from you. 😂
I would just like to point out to any Federal Police, ASIO, Foreign Affairs or Defence person reading the blog that I don't even understand Comment 14's acronyms and have no idea whether I am aiding publication of something secret or inappropriate. Thanks.
For the freterati, could I just point out that Timorese political blogs are among the most poisonously offensive on the planet. They leave nobody unoffended. Below is a site used by the two biggest martial arts gangs, both of which have divided loyalties having originated in Indonesia. They both continue to send trainees to and take direction from Indonesia. Members include politicians, soldiers and especially police. One of the gangs has formed a political party and is part of the present Govt coalition. They were both active fomenting the violence of a decade ago. Govt has tried to ban them, but the major parties and figures all use their violence to win elections. And, with such high unemployment, kids have no real alternative to crime. If you have time to scroll down you'll see posts relating to Abilio Mausoko, a policeman. Abilio attacked the home of the military commander in 2006, now the President, to start a civil war and roll the Fretilin Govt for Gusmao. PSHT, KORKA,IKS could be of use to you as new acronyms should you ever wish to research them.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1527259370921068/
Jesus what was Howard thinking in starting the ball rolling on this independence nonsense?
Keep going comment 14. Good stuff
Stepford
You’re such an old woman. STFU and let the dude speak. It’s the most interesting thing that’s ever happened here, you old lesbian drama queen.
'Keep going comment 14.'
Ok then Jason. You are correct in your basket case diagnosis. That was expected by all. It was also one reason why the US wasn't fully supportive. A tisket a tasket a failed State in our basket, if we don't play then China will we all fall down.
The blog host is also correct about acronyms, an inescapable consequence of regional engagement to the north. As their gang related acronyms are alleged to control selection of workers who participate in our seasonal worker scheme let's hope that our law enforcement acronyms are on top of what their gang related acronyms are doing.
What was Howard thinking [when he wrote the letter to Habibie]? Our policy was to prioritise the bilateral relationship during the transition from dictatorship to democracy. But Howard was a domestic politician with domestic concerns and an East Timor lobby to contend with. Just as mixing scrumpy with black shoe polish is a recipe for unintended consequences, so it was when bartend Howard attempted to mix foreign policy with domestic politics. Alexander's promotion of a New Caledonia Matignon model, by which the competing East Timorese elites would have had time to learn to talk to eachother and move from war to jaw until the democratic transition in Indonesia was as good as we could expect, was a good approach to take. Howard's letter wrecked the possibility of reconciliation before a ballot. His enduring excuse 'We didn't expect Habibie to react as he did' has precedents in history, all disastrous, and begs the question, why on earth not? Had we not sought to ascertain from the man himself Habibie's possible reaction before the letter was sent? In his favour, and I'm sure Alexander would agree, it's always better to eat an omelette made with someone else's broken eggs rather than our own. I won't stretch the metaphor with tomato sauce and blood, not even in the interests of us breaking the 40 comment barrier.
A Final word. I only responded because I saw the blog host recycling the Left myth that the Timor Sea negotiations were 'commercial.' That was proven to be wrong when former FM Bishop signed an agreement, not yet ratified, which redrew our borders to East Timor's advantage and has further potential to effect borders with Indonesia in future. How the one can be commercial and the other not is never explained, but the Left promotes many other myths I don't agree with either.
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