ludwig
"The question should not be; is the extra impingement on our basic rights justifiable, but rather; is it a genuine attempt to do something about the threat of terrorism or are we being deliberately duped into a slightly increased false sense of security?"

This is nonsensical. Do you know the odds of harm by terrorism to say, death by road accident? You are buying into the fear TOTALLY, like a timid, little citizen handing away freedoms for perceptions. Absolutely inane

"Yes I think the tiny extra restrictions on our freedom"

To artists and writers, who apparently face 7 years in prison for artwork or writing a book, this is definitely not tiny by any stretch. Your sentiment is extremely selfish and narrow minded. All for perceptions and "genuine attempts"

again it's ludwig the twit "But I simply can’t as government employee.........Or putting it another way: much better a very small portion of the populace suffer some further restrictions to their civil liberties, even if some of those people are found to have nothing to do with terrorism."

"much better a very small portion of the populace suffer some further restrictions to their civil liberties, even if some of those people are found to have nothing to do with terrorism."
I can't print that enough. You are a government employee of a Democratic country advocating the potential imprisonment (lookup sedition laws) of those who "may have NOTHING to do with terrorism". ... I would love to meet you to know what type of snivelling coward could say that to about his countrymen who he represents. No doubt the same who cover for government corruption on regular occasions. You truly make me sick to the stomach ludwig. To everyone reading, this is the kind of scum employed by the government. But there are worse, I suppose. Ludwig doesn't realise the consequences of his words or sentiments.

"I don’t have a problem with control orders or sedition laws. Much better we have this added level of restriction on our civil liberties than suffer a terrorist attack."

<sarcasm on> Because, you know, these laws automagically prevent terrorism, because the government said so and I believe them 100%</sarcasm off>

get 'em, steel.

ludwig seems to mean well, but he did admit to tolerating nuclear power, also. clearly we must monitor this lad, he might be an agent provocateur for asio.

Oh Steel your comments on Ludqig are a bit much.
Take a Bex and have a nice lie down.

JSP1488 errr alias JPH, yes sorry when I came to address it I couldn't
remember your netname.

Re the card; you might remember the government is going to introduce an
access card for Centrelink/Medicare etc etc, well I suggested that the
bio enabled card about which you are concerned could also be used to ration
petrol under the Energy Transition Protocol to make petrol available
fairly to all rather than ration by price.

Everyone is in a flat spin about global warming but there is a
limiting factor coming over the horizon that all want to ignore.
The loss of civil rights re terrorism will be nothing to what happens
at that time as we head down the depletion curve.

Which all raises a point, will terrorism survive the oil depletion
power down ? Perhaps they will be too busy growing their food !

Well, we have a live one! Alright Steel, it looks like there’s a rip-roaring debate ahead of us.

But please, have the decency to keep your comments on subject and don’t get personally abusive. Such antics make you appear to be anything but level-headed, being ruled by emotiveness and not logic…which undoes your credibility entirely.

Your third post yesterday reached a gutterous level that should see it removed from this forum, and you suspended for a week or so. Shame on you.

“Censorship is NEVER a ‘pretty minor step’ in a free society.”

This seems to lie right at the core of your thinking. You are fundamentally wrong here. We have all sorts of well-accepted censorship; on pornography, foul language, defamation, offensive behaviour, etc, etc.

Just about every government institution and private business has a code of conduct, which outlines what behaviour is acceptable and what is not. In fact the whole fundamental purpose of law is effectively to censor (or restrict) us in all sorts of ways, for the greater good. We wouldn’t have a functional society without censorship. We’d have anarchy.

“…suggests you believe less in liberty or freedom than in government paternalism.”

Liberty and freedom are not opposite to government “paternalism”. A strong rule of law is necessary for the maintenance of liberty and freedom. A strong governmental regulatory regime is essential.

No one has ever been able to public espouse the virtues of rape, murder or child molestation or heaps of other things, either publicly or in a written form that is legally accessible to the public. Sedition laws are just and extension of this sort of philosophy.

Now you can argue about the detail. But to blankelty oppose the concept of censorship or of mitigating sedition, is just crackers.

Steel, can you look at Australia’s sedition law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_sedition_law#Seditious_Intention_2) and tell me just what it is that you disagree with here. Or do you agree with the concepts but totally distrust out government to observe them as written?

Let’s try the third last paragraph again…

No one has ever been able to espouse the virtues of rape, murder or child molestation or heaps of other things, either publicly or in a written form that is legally accessible to the public. Sedition laws are just an extension of this sort of philosophy.