You are correct, Frank. We in Victoria do not need extra powers for police. We have transport ticket inspectors.
Those annoying types use public transport. So, if the need arose, anyone wearing an inconvenient tee-shirt could be challenged by a foursome of shaven-headed, black-coated 90kg toughs. A violation could be extracted and the pilgrim escorted away for interview. Problem solved, lesson learned. Sweet, eh?

Thank you Frank Brennan for this eminently reasonable argument against the ludicrous legislation enacted by the NSW Government.

This kind of legislation has proven elsewhere to be anathema to democracy - and although it might seem far-fetched in Australian terms - could yet prove to be ultimately to the detriment of democracy in Australia.

Is it part of the same anti-democratic trend initiated by the Bush, Blair and Howard Governments in allegedly dealing with presumed terrorists and asylum seekers?

The more gut-wrenching sadness is that the Australian Catholic Bishops as a body are content to stand idly by and make no attempt to have these offending regulations put aside.

They'be been given a good example by the SES and the firefighter volunteers who are empowered by the new regulations but who have opted to waive them.

Cardinal Pell has already derided Fr Brennan's earlier comments on this as a "storm in a teacup"...in this regard that was his second cardinal error.

I agree with Frank. Unfortunately the Catholic hierarchy in NSW do not. Further it seems inconceivable to me that that hierarchy and or those organising WYD did not have some input into the regulatiosn restricting protest and/or the timing of its introduction (outside parliamentary sitting times when it could be reviewed and overturned.)

I think there is a wider issue here, as the present controversy Pell finds himself engulfed in over sexual abuse. It is that the Church sees itself above the law and outside it. It wants the State to protect its role in society yet does not follow normal procedures for example in dealing with sexual abuse allegations. It does not appear to follow normal standards of democratic society when its precious WYD might have some annoying protesters at it.

And to draw what some might say is an even longer bow, Mugabe is a devout Catholic. (He visited the last Pope when he lay in state.) Mugabe's belief in his divine right to rule and the righteousness of his cause, no matter what the majority of Zimbabweans want, springs I believe from the world view of the Catholic Church and its ways of thinking. There is something inherently dictatorial in Catholic thought.

The Church that gives us Mugabe also gives us wide spread sexual abuse of children and regulations restricitng free speech and protest in Sydney.

Mugabe is NOT a devout Catholic.

He is a manifest opportunist, liar, gangster, embezzler and thug.

Just because someone CLAIMS to be devout does not mean that they really are. Mugabe also CLAIMS to be a "democratic" Socialist. His "Catholicism", along with his "egalitarian" and "democratic" Socialism, are specious fabrications designed to mollify the "progressive" media and institutions of the INTERNATIONAL community. They have obviously failed. Just because Mugabe was educated in Catholic schools, as a child, does not make him a true believer. Even the genocidal Pol Pot was educated in Catholic schools during his childhood. He promptly discarded every moral principle he had ever been taught, as soon as he went to university in Europe.
Mugabe's regime is NOT a government. It is an arbitrary kleptocracy . . . and not ONLY against the productive white entrepreneurial class, which no longer exists in Zimbabwe. His mafia has confiscated land even from some black Zimbabweans who dared to be actively involved with the political opposition. Many of Mugabe's cronies, who were given previously productive white-owned land, did not even know anything about farming. The land, of course, has largely fallen into stagnation. Many years ago, a black friend of mine from Zimbabwe told me that it was common knowledge there that Mugabe's first wife was receiving kickbacks from a lucrative car-theft syndicate that was allowed to freely operate in Harare. Mugabe's nepotism toward his relatives is not even hidden.
It is perfectly understandable that any responsible international lending institution would be loath to pour more money into the hands of a gangster regime that has no discernible mechanism for real accountability. Mugabe cannot reasonably blame anyone, or anything, for the sanctions imposed on his "government", except his own megalomania.