Never heard about that tissue issue but boy!
Qld has been there before under the flying Peanut.
Those days saw a front of tough on crime but up to their eye balls in it existed.
Our wish for harsher sentences is only if it is not one of our own being imprisoned.
A wise man said when Dictator ship comes the people will call it freedom.

you can loose your life
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3881441.htm
A report estimated around 75% of people taking statins are in the low to moderate risk category, and, according to these researchers, that means up to 30 million people are taking a drug that won't offer them the benefit of living any longer.

*There are a lot of ways that one can manipulate data in a trial. Trials do what they call a washout period, and what that means is before they choose the people that are going to be in the trial, they give everybody the drug, and the people that have side effects get excluded from the trial.

85% of trials are funded by drug companies. A review concluded that if a drug company paid for a trial, it was 24% more likely to report the drug was effective and 87% less likely to report the drug's side effects.

Even the definition of 'high cholesterol' keeps changing. In 2004, a US panel of experts decided to lower the threshold of cholesterol, which sparked outrage amongst many doctors.

Professor Rita Redberg
More and more people think they have high cholesterol even though they don't have high cholesterol.

NARRATION
By changing the definition, it meant that millions more people became eligible for statins, and these thresholds were adopted by many countries around the world.

Dr Ernest N Curtis
Has this been on the basis of any scientific data? Absolutely not. Absolutely not, no evidence whatsoever, just the theory that less is better. You're creating more patients, you're creating more people who now have something to worry about where they didn't have anything before.

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3881441.htm

No Poirot , if someone refuses to give their details to Police, that is a crime in itself.
I have seen Police overstepping the mark before, but I have seen the public giving them a hard time far more often!

Who would be a police officer these days, with increasing violence and drug taking in the community?
I think they need MORE powers to step on criminals even harder...

Suse,

"I think they need MORE powers to step on criminals even harder..."

Yeah, especially those dastardly criminals who accidentally drop tissues from their pockets while removing their wallets.

Nothing like a bit of overzealous policing and harassment to ramp up the revenue raising aspect of things.

$220 fine for accidentally dropping a tissue.

Two policemen and a council officer.

Held for nine hours without bail.

You might think that's dealing with the criminal element.

I don't.

<< Ludwig, I would say there aren't enough police driving around to effectively deal with tailgaters >>

Suse, we don’t need lots more police out there on the roads to effectively deal with this issue.

What we need is a publicity campaign saying that tailgating will be rigorously policed as from such and such a date, which would be shortly after the publicity campaign was launched.

Then we need the police to actually police it and book people for it.

This, accompanied by compelling evidence, would be very easy for them to do. Tailgaters are highly visible in the traffic stream moving in the opposite direction to what you are travelling. All the police need is a camcorder focussed on the oncoming traffic in conjunction with a speed camera as they roll up the highway.

Another camcorder pointing the other way, to catch the rear number plate of tailgaters would be needed, as many offenders tailgate so badly that their front plate isn’t visible.

And they also need to empower the public to report tailgaters and commit a fair portion of their effort towards following up these complaints.

Then once the general public gets the message that the police are actually policing this issue and that anyone can make a complaint which will be followed up - as with neighbourhood watch and various other things in which the public has been implored to assist the police, then the issue will have been dealt with pretty damn effectively.

The same strategy should apply for various other rank driving practices, not just tailgating.

<< Like I said, Ludwig, I wouldn't encourage them. It appears that already Queensland is morphing into a cosy police state. >>

Poirot, I encourage Campbell Newman to recover the rule of law as fully as possible!

But that doesn’t mean that we here in Queensland would be living in a ‘police state’.

What it means is that the law as enshrined in legislation, and as officially espoused by the police and every other authority that administers various aspects of the law, actually applies… instead of something quite different, and often different in different places, or different to different people according to the whims of the authorities!

A well-respected rule of law, with a policing regime that keeps it all in place, does NOT comprise a police state.

A poor rule of law, where the police police something different to what is written in law, police some things vigorously and others not at all, abuse their powers of discretion, and can give people a very hard time over trivial matters and not follow up on serious matter if they can’t be bothered – THAT sort of stuff would comprise a police state, yes?

And….. that is pretty close to where we are at the moment!

Loose and sloppy = police state.

Tight and well-managed, where we all know what the go is with the law and the police = the opposite to a police state.