"in community hands?"

is yours the party that had 'citizen initiative referendum' on the policy, but took it off lest the community could defend itself without putting labor trotters in the treasury?

i don't mind a bit of hypocrisy from politicians, where would you be without it, but this whole screed is nonsense, probably just career inflation, and certainly useless.

Personally I am more concerned about many of the Democrats perverted policies than the access card.

I can imagine many advantages to having sure identification of individuals along with lifespan health and lifestyle data. We value privacy to the detriment of lives that could be improved and saved if only the information were available to research. So, in an ideal world I would be glad for everyone to be bar-coded or electronically-chipped from birth and followed through life.
But the downside to sure identification and deep archives is the potential for abuse, and this is not paranoia.
We have to weigh benefits against possible abuses.
I would like to see much stronger and punitive sanctions against those who abuse privileged information. Those who are tempted to pinch an archive for commercial use ought be dealt with very sternly because they are the enemies of society. Orwellian rulers need to be voted from office. Maybe then the balance of privacy and openness to the world can be judged in favour of identity cards.

This Access card is but a play on words, the reality is more dangerous than most people even Natasha realise. The last attempt was by the Hawke Labor government in 1987 and on that occassion the thinly vailed card to control the population fell apart. It contained items of control IE
1/A cardless person cannot hold employment
2/A cardless person cannot access his/her OWN bank account!
3/A cardless person cannot get medical help

All of the above carried a $20,000 fine to employer,bank manager, doctor.
The clincher was that the Government gave themselves the power to cancel anyones card without any guidelines as to trigger to do so and no time limit on cancellation or no avenue of appeal.

SEE http://an-m.net/AuID.htm by copying and pasting this into you explorer address bar. On this address you will find the Government link to see the original legislation.

One very worrying aspect to all this is that Howard finds it expediant to lie about the nature of the function of this card . Then we have the media complicity to cover the FACT there is a rollout in almost evry nation on this planet of thees smart card ID devices.

You have to ask yourself what is driving all this? If they say its to stop terrorism that can be quickly discounted as bunk because the supposed hijackers on 911 flew under their OWN ID's / names.

As I took the article to be about the Access Card and not about political opponents' opinions of the author and her party, I'll respond accordingly.

Ronald Reagan's handlers had a way with words when they had Reagan recite that the most frightening words in the English language are "I'm from the Government and I'm here to help you".

Indigenous NT residents are given this scary message as the government offers temporary protection from child molesters while removing the permit system enabling communities to control access of uranium miners to their land.

And now we are reminded by Senator Stott Despoja that all Australians are still offered "help" from the Government in the form of an Access Card (a.k.a. ID card).

As this project could, it seems, be fanned into life as hastily as the "invasion" of the Northern Territory it behoves us to make sure that nothing in the card can facilitate surveillance of lawful citizens who dissent from government policies and actions

As people travel through life they change either their appearance, via ageing, or their circumstances, via well....circumstances. What concerns me is that once the initial data is imprinted, WHO can alter it?
Can the Yr-10 receptionist at the local 24-hr clinic alter my medical data? What about the stressed, lowly paid Clerical Officer at Centrelink, can they make alterations? Can they delete stuff? And if they can, how do I know they have? In point of fact, how do we know what's on there in the first place? The data won't only be on the card, every change will be registered on a database somewhere, so will be be able to look at it? Who else can look at it? Two bob to a penny farthing the ATO and the Commonwealth cops will be able to get at it as well, because they already have a cosy little agreement in place.
In short and in principal - NO!