The only nations for ID cards at one time were dictatorships or totalitarian countries. If howard, with his record of lies, deception and deceit says ID cards are good - then all good citizens should beware. If he or his little unthinking brainless sycophantic followers (with the exception of the three or four who ACTUALLY thought for themselves recently and forced mean spirited howard to show a little leniency re Baxter etc.) say that the country needs them for its security and for the common good - then all good citizens should beware.
Quote: Of all tyrannies,a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelity may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated;but those who torment us for our own good (or security-My word)will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience: C.S.Lewis
Should this card be foisted upon us in the near future we will have these ID cards forever numbat

I would agree that the issue of “dichotomy” becomes crucial, as the ID card system will likely become a black and white system with no middle ground, or any other option.

Some sections of the Liberal party are supporting the concept of the national ID card, but another supporter has been Qld’s Premier Peter Beattie, and in some ways this is not surprising, considering the size and scope of his Premiers Department.

Apparently with an annual budget of $300 million, this department employs numerous journalists to fashion the statements made by this state government, and I personally know of a local state representative (Labor party) who will regularly transfer correspondence from their constituents back to the Premiers Department, so that this correspondence is answered by a centralised group who spin the official line. Seems very similar to the Cheka, and numerous other like minded centralised information organisations, that have eventually collapsed under their own weight.

While there is the chance that fraud may actually increase through having a centralised ID system, the system can easily become an industry that basically spies on the public, and everyone becomes suspicious of each other, and a person can become guilty simply by association.

In China, a person cannot officially access the Internet at an Internet café without using their ID card, with systems in place to track their online movement, and of course the Internet is heavily censored in that country for political reasons.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6707

The UK government intends to basically spy (although the official term is “monitor”) Muslim groups for “extremists” (although what constitutes an extremist is subjective and non-defined)
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/british-spy-units-will-keep-tabs-on-muslims/2005/07/20/1121539033185.html

In the US, the FBI has been amassing information on groups such as Greenpeace and the American Civil Liberties Union, although this was only exposed through the Freedom of Information Act, and without that Act, it would not have been known about.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/071805Z.shtml

So, the principle that “either you are for it, or against it” can easily become a recipe for a severe limitation on people’s right to free speech and free association.

Eighteen years I opposed an ID card. Times have changed. Now we are not only at war, but we have a fifth column in our midst. We had identity cards during World War 2, and we will have them now. When the threat is over, we can discard them.

In addition, the opportunity to deport the large number of illegal immigrants here is another reason to support its introduction.

Most of us may well have nothing to fear - today.

Trouble is most of us do not know what we may have to fear tomorrow, or after the introduction of an ID card.

What is legal today may well be illegal tomorrow.

Inciting terrorist acts today, opposing "western" (of unknown and variable description) values tomorrow.

Seems like we are moving back to the middle ages.

Federal Income Tax was a temporary measure introduced in WWII. Somebody forgot to repeal it when the war ended. And it has been a blight on personal liberty every since.

No to a national ID card. And please remove income taxes

Something significant has changed since the Australia Card was proposed. Many of us are now used to being required to wear and display an ID card to earn our living.

That may dull the edge of concern at an proposal to introduce a national card. Personally I don't see an ID card making my train safer.

R0bert