I don’t think the government or Border Force officials expected such a rapid blowback to their “operation” which, after the protests, was cancelled. They blame a poorly worded press release.
Former independent MP Tony Windsor was on ABC radio. This is what Windsor had to say: (reported in The Age)
(the Abbott government) “hopes that something goes wrong domestically”, that the Border Force operation was no mistake, but a “deliberate agenda to create fear in the community.” “I’ve got no doubt that some of these people in Abbott’s government hope that something goes wrong domestically. That they can taunt a Muslim into doing something so that they can say that we’re the only ones that can protect you, the Labor party are too weak to protect you, vote for us.”
The ground is shifting (as Christopher Brooks says), when some officials and politicians begin to understand and speak about the modus operandi of the power structures.
That reminds me. I should write to Windsor about the Belle Vista Affair. The fake attack (Sept 2014) on a sailor created a fear-buzz to coincide with parliaments discussion on the (anti-terror) National Security Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1).
Operation Fortitude may have all been a deception or a diversion.
But what can we expect from a puppet government being led by Tony Abbott – who seems to have his own take on the the law. With his willingness to embrace more conflict in Syria – he made the stunning statement “They don’t respect borders, so why should we?“.
Dee, what an incredible hypocrisy you identify in that final quote from Abbot who paints illegal immigrants in Australia as deserving of urgent and harsh treatment in the very same conversations that he is advocating our Government ignore the Syrian border and militarily transgress their law with deadly illegal migrant bombs.
Windsor stated the situation with a rare degree of honesty.
Barnaby Joyce, who holds his former seat would be a prime desk for questions and views, along with all our independent minded MP’s, legal reps and Talk Back if the opportunity presents.
I trust you have linked to WRH as these comments are a significant public broadcast and a tool for all reference kits.
So do the cops do wrong if they scare the living daylights out of you, unjustifiably? At the wonderful website Judicial Commission of NSW, A Whealy, QC provides a chart of “Intentional Torts.” Can things have changed so much since 2005? In that year there was the case of NSW v Ibbett. Whealy says:
The circumstances of the case were that two policemen gave chase to Mr Ibbett, in the township of Foster, suspecting that he may have been involved in a criminal offence. They pursued him to a house where he lived with his mother, Mrs Ibbett. Without legal justification, one of the policemen entered the property and arrested Mr Ibbett. His mother came into the garage where these events occurred. The police officer produced a gun and pointed it at Mrs Ibbett saying, “Open the bloody door and let my mate in”. Mrs Ibbett, who was an elderly woman, had never seen a gun before and was, not unnaturally, petrified.
The trial judge held that … the confrontation between the police officer and Mrs Ibbett was more than sufficient to justify the requirements of an immediate apprehension of harm on her part, so as to amount to an assault. The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge’s factual findings while increasing the damages awarded.”
Your quote from Abbott may be read as an epitaph for Australia’s once strong regard for international law. It is only the latest example. An early example was joining the Americans in their ill-adventure in Vietnam, a country still suffering the after effects 40 years after the war ended. In my view the rot really set in with us joining the illegal invasion of Afghanistan based as it was on a wholly false argument about the events of “9/11”. We then compounded the felony by joining in another illegal invasion, this time of Iraq. To say that was based on a lie only hints at the depth of deception. In the space of a few days we have a prime minister who declares in effect that international borders have no meaning and his foreign minister joins the chorus by saying that the border is unclear because fighting is taking place.
We are told this morning that Cambodia (a byword for corruption) has taken $55 million in exchange for four refugees from Nauru but now will take no more. The UN had condemned that particular deal, but consistent with the pattern of lawless government we ignored those concerns.
To this we add the farce of “Border Protection” embarking on another assault on civil liberties in their Melbourne “visa checks” proposals. Amid the frantic arse covering going on over that fiasco there is an important lesson to glean. We have a government whose contempt for the law, both domestically and internationally, knows no bounds. Abbott and his cronies will say and do anything to cling to power, and if that means trashing our democracy, well, that is a price they are prepared to pay.