Why doesn't George Williams realise that we are at war? The majority of the people do, and that is why we acquiesce in these powers. From what I have been able to find out, they are not as great as those that applied during the second world war. It begs the question as to what terrorist atrocity is needed before those opposing these measures realise the sort of world we now live in?

PERICLES.. "wet lettuce" ? :) awesome. Being the sandwich maker for my 17 yr old, and using the stuff daily, your term is very apt I assure you.

OTHERS
The prolem with the 'Rule of Law' is that its promoted mostly by LAWYERS and might be better phrased "The rule of Lawyers" who, at up to $8000/day do quite well out of that.

When a lawyer asked Jesus "What must I do to be saved" Jesus responded "you know the commandments, etc" (knowing full well what the LAWyer wanted to hear) and he said he had followed them all, so Christ said "fine, now go, sell what you have and give it to the poor"
oooooops ! Now THAT was too close to 'REALLY' loving your neighbour which was the intention of the 'LAW', and the Lawyer went off sorrowful. This tells as much about the motivation of the 'Rule of Law' crowd as anything.

BILL OF RIGHTS ? when we swerve from being a community which is based on 'Love your neighbour as yourself', to one of a 'everything has a rule' we end up like the Pharisees of Christs day (and the orthodox Jews of today) with 634 extra rules on how to interpret the 10 commandments. A rule trying to cover every aspect of life. The Decalogue was just saying 2 things, - Love God, Love your neighbour.

All a bill of rights will do is line the pockets of the Ruling Lawyers, and fund the next Labor extravaganza via Slasher and Morgon. (name changed to protect the guilty)

plerdsus says we are at war. What we are told is tht there are terrorist suspected activities in Australia. We have been lied to a number of times by the Howard Government, interest rates and medicare being two examples at the last election; believe them at your peril. There have been no reported terrorist incidents in Austrlia, we get lots of noise from a discredited government. Its a means to an end ,it allows the Coalition government to subjugate the freedoms and rights of the ordinary Australian citizen. Its a way to keep themselves in power. Malcolm Fraser, a former Liberal Prime Minister, has stated that he is concerned about the excessive legislation passed by the Howard Government in relation to terrorists.

Let's think... off the top of my head:

GST
WMD
Babies overboard
Industrial relations
Telstra

Not to mention the countless other distortions, porkies and disingenuities that this government routinely deploys for political advantage.

Q. How do we know when Howard is lying?
A. His lips are moving.

There has never yet been a Bill of Rights that does anything more than a) keep lawyers in a permanent state of financial bliss and b) become a tool of governments to control their people.

In fact, the whole idea of a "Bill of Rights with teeth" is self-contradicting. If you want teeth, make an explicit law, so that people can see exactly what you are up to. Anything else is deceitful, and open to exploitation.

The phrase is used constantly as some kind of talisman against evil, whereas it is nothing more than empty posturing. Which is of course a favourite pastime of both politicians and lawyers, but gets the rest of us absolutely nowhere.

Get it out of our vocabulary, and start to concentrate on the reality of what we are doing. If we are heading towards a police state, sure as can be a wafty piece of do-goodery verbiage isn't going to stop it happening, now is it?

GST
...in retrospect, it has provided more available money for the government than they ever dreamed. Good thing if used wisely.

WMD
... one of those "We have to get them going, fired up, persuaded about invasion, how else will we achieve the greater strategic purpose of placing available troops in the centre of the worlds hot spot which has the highest probability of being the target of genocidal Bin Ladins and company, to strangle the west by controlling the countries which control the oil. Garra, grow up ! We arn't all as naive as you seem to think, but enough us are I guess that governments are prepared to 'spin' things for the sake of our best ultimate interests.

BABIES OVERBOARD.

A stupid ploy, never needed to swing the election, it was already won without that. Didn't change me one iota except make me wonder how dumb people like Wrieth etc think we are. I don't recall speaking with ANYone (except labor or green phone receptionists)who had sympathy for the Tampa mob who were in the Indonesian rescue area when picked up. They had 'refuge' on the Tampa. It was not 'refuge' they were seeking as much as it was AUSTRALIAN economic and social benefits as opposed to non existent Indonesian.

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
If the government does nothing about the brutality and coersion and thuggery rampant in the construction industry, I can't think of anyone who will. Unfair dismissal as it currently stands is just as bad and open to abuse (as it IS) as pernicious and mean spirited employers can be under the a less rigid regime. Welcome to life. If we don't like our boss CHANGE JOBS.
I note with absolute cynycism the pathetic attempts by various political groups to hijack the IR demonstrations, like GREEN's and others.

TELSTRA.

Yes, why sell the golden goose ? Still, they have been shafting me and others with their OVERly expensive and UNDERvalue broadband for some time now, hence I'm now with TPG getting twice as much for half the price + other benefits. So, competition is a good thing.