hillsongs chequebook

The central question in the Haneef case is not that he was held by the AFP and questioned, or even that the AFP acted on false information in a "keystone cops" fashion, the central point of contention is the action of the Minister for Immigration in rejecting the courts decision in favour of his own grubby, misplaced, politically inspired delusions.

The central question is should a politician (let alone one in an election year) without oversight be given the power to imprison anyone.

In an election year, with a grubby government willing to do anything to get back into power, should a politician have unrestricted power to place anyone behind bars with no oversight, no review, no limits, on their whim, then keep all of their reasons for acting placed behind the dubious rationale of national security. Our PM is once again playing his dirty little word games, referring only to the detention of Haneef by the AFP, in all his answers he mentions only the AFP case, not the one that has everyone on edge, his Ministers decision to overturn the courts and place Haneef back in jail. It smacks of political expediency, smacks of playing politics for polling gain, once more, with national security.

With the Kevin Andrews continuing to smear Haneef, then instantly hiding behind a cloak of national security, is it any wonder people are more than a little cynical, they have played that game so often in the past, making false claims, pumping out their hairy chests, then running for the cover of secrecy or blaming their departments for their own pomposity and incompetence. Andrews refrain of "if you only knew what I knew" wears very thin when he said the same things at the start of the case, and when we got to find out what it was that he knew, it just made your skin crawl that a thin tissue of quarter truths and outright distortions could land you in jail with no prospect whatsoever of being released. Clearly the laws governing the Immigration Department need to be reined in markedly, with genuine independent oversight desperately needed, just ask the 247 Australian citizens who have been locked away for up to six years on the back of the unlimited powers given the bureaucrats and incompetents fools governing their supposed oversight, eg, amanda vanstone, phil "disaster" ruddock and now the first fool in the workchoices fuck up, Kevin Andrews.

Kev is trying to squirm out of an inquiry by claiming that theres been inquiry's at every step.

"This process has been overseen by the judiciary at every step," he said.

Except when you overturned the results of the judiciary and placed Haneef back in detention, based on the same flimsy evidence that the magistrate saw and granted bail over.

Andrew Bartlett of the Dems said it best

"I was half expecting them to come out today and say Dr Haneef had all the weapons of mass destruction that we've been looking for all along."

The Howard Government will try one more wedge issue on National Security before the election, an increase in the governments powers, reflecting those that are in place in the UK. They will of course be hoping that Rudd will oppose them so they can accuse him of being weak on national security, but why would anyone let those clowns in power now have more power and less oversight on the back of this case. If we follow the UK rules, none of the bullshit surrounding this case could possibly have emerged, none of the already lax oversight, mainly by the press, could have occurred and two years down the track Haneef would have emerged from the process blinking in sunshine, wondering where his life has gone. Who in their right mind could endorse giving these people more power to play politics with individuals lives, especially as we know that no one will pay any penalty for utter incompetence or venal disregard for the rule of law.

If national security is truly important to this government, then an independent inquiry is crucial to get to the heart of this issue, or will the same incompetence rule the nation in the face of what Howard declares to be "a threat to our very way of life." What a joke, the real threat lies behind the ministers stuff up.

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Lots of headlines will proclaim one thing, THE SURGE IS WORKING. This will be based upon one simple little fact, the number of US soldiers dying in the meatgrinder that is Iraq has fallen to its lowest level all year, a mere 77 dead in comparison to the average of well over a hundred.

One problem, July is, for any number of reasons, always the lowest month of the year for casualties, and in fact this July is the deadliest in the sordid history of the war, so the headlines should read, Surge Failing, provided you don't cherry pick the facts.

July 2007: 77

July 2006: 46

July 2005: 58

July 2004: 58

July 2003: 49