Sixteen people have been arrested in Sydney and Melbourne and charged with terrorism offences. While the individuals involved are legally entitled to a presumption of innocence, the police were right to act when faced with evidence suggesting a threat.
What’s important here is that the threat has been dealt with under criminal law, rather than through the use of arbitrary powers of secret detention, as proposed in the new anti-terror laws. Moreover, it appears that the offences created by the 2002 legislation are sufficient to encompass a wide range of terrorist activities. By contrast, it’s hard to imagine how the revival of the notion of sedition in the 1914 Crimes act could have proved useful in this, or any similar case.
It appears that the amendments passed by the Parliament last week were used in framing some of the charges, and certainly the general tenor of the changes seemed reasonable enough. On the other hand, it’s not clear that a major public announcement was a good idea. The fact that one of the suspects was armed and allegedly fired on police may have reflected advance warning. It’s not clear whether it would have been feasible to pass the amendments quietly, then proceed with the arrests and charges, but some of the police quoted (off-the-record) over the weekend seemed to think so. Still, these issues are largely academic (in the pejorative sense) now.
The new and amorphous features of the terrorist threat we now face may well create the need to define criminal offences more broadly before. But they shouldn’t be the basis for granting arbitrary powers to the secret services or the executive government, apparently based on nothing more than an ambit claim wishlist.
John Quiggin 
Poor Commissioner Keelty is a bought man, but what do you do if the PM is heavying you? Do the ‘right thing’ and resign, so throwing a career away and watch the govt and its toadies such as Gerard Henderson impugn your mental state etc?
I put the odds that the PM’s office directed Keelty, ASIO et al to ‘request’ last week’s legislative changes at about 50%. Mick learnt last year that it’s easier to go with the flow.
Let’s hope for everyone’s sake that there is some substance to these arrests. The evidence needs to be more than just scary talk on the phone and the odds and ends found around most homes. It’s standard practice for the police to gather incriminating evidence at the scene but sometimes it can paint an unrealistic picture. Bearded men can be scary just by themselves. It would be a blow to the credibility of the police in both states if the evidence is weak (and NSW doesn’t need any less confidence in their police). The NSW commissioner’s ‘catastrophe’ comment was not helpful. He should just stick to the facts.
The two previous comments read per “Western culture’s disillusionment with institutional ‘anything’, our suspicion that the world is a conspiracy and our yearning to read life as a cryptogram”.
“Let’s hope for everyone’s sake that there is some substance to these arrests.”
3 police commissioners, 500 police, ASIO, 3 DPPs, 3 Governments were involved. They’d look like the world’s biggest idiots if there was no substance to it all. It’s a reasonable bet the arrests were justified. Whether anybody gets convicted of anything remains to be seen, but the trials should be interesting.
Hi John,
The sad reality is, the political success of these raids may well see those ambit claims become a reality. Joh Public is unlikely to distinguish between changing “the” to “a” in the existing laws and the new anti-terror legislation. For a largely depoliticised public, strengthening security laws is all good, and necessary to keep us safe.
Beasley has already signalled his punches regarding the new legislation. He will try to make some amendments, but he won’t block the legislation.Those amendments are sure to fail along party lines, and the only thing that could stop these ambit claims is the Lib backbench rolling howard in the party room. Very unlikely.
Beasley’s support for the sedition legislation is going to bite him in the bum big time come next campaign. Howard will abuse these laws, there is very little judicial reveiw and people opposing the government will be silenced during the next campaign.
The scary thing is, you can see it coming a mile away and Beasley is too gutless to do anything about it.
Of course arrests are probably justified. But likely they were rushed into it early because Mr Howard wanted to take ownership of the thing. No need to call it a conspiracy. Let’s call it political reality in the Howard years.
a friend – you obviously have little experience of large organisations, let alone State and Federal beauracracies if you think that your kind of conspiracy theory has a snowball’s chance in hell of being true, let alone being kept secret.
Got any other conspiracies? I can recommend a good agent and publisher.
Australia police say Muslim cleric led attack plot
…and (presumably) proceeded with planning terrorist attacks in Australia.
If that’s true, the guy and his followers probably deserve a special prize for the world’s most stupid terrorist group.
From abb1’s link:
“Benbrika was charged with directing the activities of a terrorist organization and remanded in custody until January.”
So two things: one, the judge figured there was sufficient evidence to hold the guy, which suggests that this is anything but a beat-up; and two, it seems there’s no chance of bail under these charges. Is that a direct consequence of the new legislation?
Two of the Melbourne accused applied for bail, the rest did not. I’d be surprised if someone charged with an offence of this kind got bail, both because of the seriousness of the charge and the likelihood of fleeing the country, but that’s just an application of the standard principles used in bail hearings. There’s no special law being used here to prohibit people from getting bail, and I hope we won’t see a change in the existing rules.
abb1, they were being watched for 18 months. Benbrika didn’t come to the police’s attention for the first time in August. Although it does take a certain brazenness to go on national TV and praise Osama Bin Laden if you’re a Muslim cleric.
Good post, John – I’m in complete agreement with you on the matters canvassed.
Incidentally I understand none of them were charged under the new laws that had to rushed through Parliament last week.
The (not so) secret war
But everyone appears to be in on it, especially the neighbours. Maybe the authorities have in their arsenal Men in Black style Neuralyzers that wipe the memories of any witnesses.
After the arrests, the NSW police commish had this to say on Labor’s…
“Osama Bin Laden, he is a great man..”, posts abb1.
The power of selective quoting.
The next phrase from our friend of Osama was “…Osama bin Laden was a great man before 11 September..”. Now it’s a bit less clear what he actually means.
Hopefully the police have got it right and weren’t compelled to move now because of the glare of publicity. From what I heard today, it seemed that part of the police case presented to the courts was that the suspects were talking of “jihad”. Let’s hope that this is just background, not an example of kind of evidence the police will be relying on and that the rest is a lot more substantial than this and a guy talking about being a “martyr”.
Michael, if he meant to convey unqualified disapproval of violence against innocent civilians, he was at best inept. Here’s another excerpt from the 4 August 7.30 Report (I corrected a typo in the transcript):
NICK McKENZIE: And while Abu Bakr says he teaches his students that it’s forbidden to hurt innocent people, a small number have attended terrorist training camps in central Asia. He stresses the decision was their own. Isn’t it important that you say to them, “You shouldn’t go and engage in violence.” “You shouldn’t go and train”?
ABU BAKR: If I do this, it means I am betraying my religion.
NICK McKENZIE: But don’t you think Australian Muslims, Muslims living in Australia also have a responsibility to adhere to Australian law? To not fight, for instance, if they do go to Iraq to not fight against Australian troops, to make sure they follow the laws of this country?
ABU BAKR: This is big problem. There are two laws, there is an Australian law, there is an Islamic law.
Hmmmm anyone remember what happened after the last “terror” swoop? If I remember correctly, it generated a lot of heat with the media, and some PCs were taken away, but no one gang was charged.
The government of the day always gets some extra support whenever there is a terror claim. Rightly or wrongly.
On one hand, I have friends and relatives in Sydney and Melbourne, these are innocent people and I don’t want to see them get hurt. On the other hand, the people who are caught are members of a small identifiable community.
I just watched a DVD of Hitlers power grab and the same kind of paranoia and xenophobia that drove the Germans are now driving us. We may live in the 21st century, but our tiny human brains betray our caveman origins.
Abu Bakr is an ignorant peasant, not some omnipotent Dr. Evil. We should not rearrange our entire society to accomodate the likes of him (and the relaxed and comfortable well-off who don’t mind the idea of living in the equivalent of South Africa).
1. The accused have been charged under state laws. NSW, Vic and Fed police have particularly emphasised this point.
2. Legal experts say there is no difference between “a terrorist act” and “the terrorist act”.
3. Intelligence sources, unattributed, have complained about the risk associated with the sound and fury surrounding Howard’s change of articles.
4. Costello has the job of talking up the enormous contribution of the Federal Government to this piece of state law enforcement. Howard has the nose of a truffle pig for favourable publicity. But why has Costello agreed to being the mouthpiece for Howard’s blatant hijacking of this state police action?
Katz, as much as I hate defending Johnny Howard, it’s a reasonable bet that he would have got a lot of legal advice before legislating to change “the” to “a”. Legal experts might disagree on the need for it, but this isn’t something Howard would have dreamt up himself or done without advice.
My concern here is the embellishment by the police etal.
These people were watched for over 18 months indeed they were raaided last year.
The AFP actually talked to kiddies in the street up here when ‘surveilling’ these people.
Last thursday for petes sake we were told in the OZ these people in Sydanee had already gaained chemicals although I note the coppers said yesterday they didn’t know whether anyone had bombmaking expertise!
These people advertised themselves. They were complete idiots as Brian toohey showed on Insiders last Sunday.
These raids could hardly be a surprise given what was in the OZ last thursday!
If these incompetents are the only ‘terrorists’ in Australia then we are very lucky!
To all those Howard haters for whom everything is an excuse to bash the man – give it a rest. If you have to comment, please just say “I hate Howard” and leave it at that. Save the rest of us a lot of trouble.
JQ, I believe Dogz is offering to be your moderator-in-chief.
DR: “it’s a reasonable bet that he would have got a lot of legal advice before legislating to change “theâ€? to “aâ€?.”
There has been every opportunity for the great and the good of the legal world to enlighten the tapayers of Australia on why it was a good idea to pay for what must be, on a letter for letter basis, the most expensive piece of legislation in world history. Not a single voice has been raised to provide a rationale.
On the other hand, much opinion has been expressed along the lines that, in this context “the” and “a” mean exactly the same thing.
It’s a simple question to pose:
what act is prosecutable under “a terrorist act” which is not prosecutable under “the terrorist act”?
[Cue SFX: Chirruping of crickets.]
No,
It wasn’t a conspiracy, but the alert will notice as pointed out here and elsewhere the arrests were effected using existing laws. Now, let’s wait and see what the trial reveals. The issue is the need for new and draconian laws, not the need to vigorously weed out would be murderers. And BTW, it has always been a crime in this country to plot to kill others and destroy property, and to throw bombs. The issue is the need for increased powers which strip us all of our rights and liberties in the name of the ‘war on terror’-not the need for vigilant and competent policing.
Howard is playing security for all it is worth, but that doesn’t mean there is not a need for better and more informed policing against crackpots and would be murderers. I am as unconvinced today as I was yesterday concerning the need for Howard’s new laws, and I am equally convinced that the answer lies in competent smart and intelligent policing.
He is the most unscrupulous politician this country has ever had since Billy Morris, but no-one can say he has ever undersestimated the capacity of people to forget what happened yestrday in order to further his real agenda which is not to impose ‘fascisim’ or anything else-it is just to keep him there long enough to vindicate his pathetic childhood ambition to be another Bob Menzies-It is all so retro, so aimless and ultimately so pointless.
The main issue is that the uncritical media are totally lapping up the story that the recent legislation was entirely necessary for the arrests, without any justification or analysis.
“I hate Howard” (happy Dogz?) and I think he’ll manipulate the media and Parliament successfully for his own ends, but I still trust the various security agencies enough to believe the arrests are entirely legitimate and timed mostly for operational reasons. There is no valid connection to the recent legislation though.
I have long espoused the theory that “incompetence is the norm, competence is the exception”. This is based on oberserving people in a range of jobs both private and government.
It seems the same thing applies to terrorists. A few may be able to brilliantly hide their plans, but these guys are probably more typical. They have been stuffing around for at least 18 months, talking on the phone in ways that would alert the police, advertising their philosophy on national media but still may not have picked a target or got the materials together to fully build a bomb.
The overwhelming majority of terrorist acts can be stopped by standard state criminal legislation, provided the police can manage to show a slightly higher level of competence than the terrorists. It is doubtful that any more will be stopped by the laws Howard is trying to slam through on the back of this raid.
Howard is a savvy politician and there is no doubt that he manipulates the media where he can – but that’s just politics. Getting hung up over that is pointless, and clouds debate on the genuine issues. I think the sedition thing in the current legislation was probably a cockup rather than a conspiracy, but I am thankful the Liberal beackbench has enough heavy-hitters to ensure this sort of crap doesn’t get through.
I imagine, more than anything else, Howard doesn’t want to go down in history as the PM who didn’t successfully prevent a major terrorist attack, which is why he is erring on the side of more draconian laws rather than less.
Surely John Howard is in legal terms a discredited witness? WMD, kids overboard etc etc. We are entitled to disbelieve anything he says unless corroborated by uncompromised parties. The fact is that even on his own say-so he was aware for over a week of the alleged problem with the ‘the’ and ‘a’. So launching the fear campaign ten minutes before introduction of the Work Choices legislation was entirely his own initiative – it could have been done at any other time. The known facts support a ‘proven liar exploits fear to distract attention’ hypothesis.
[…] Update: More at John Quiggin […]
So, here we have all this backslapping from John Howard, Kim Beasley, Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon, Chief commissioner Maroney, Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Keelty and more and more about the successful raids and how the amended legislation was “critical� to it all.
Now let be realistic. The Supreme Court of Victoria previously dismissed numerous charges of trespassing in regard of the Albert park incident because it was discovered the legislation never had been Gazetted.
Next week, I am back in court still challenging the 2001 federal election because the proclamation was never Gazetted on 8 October 2001, but too late there after! Hence the writs were ULTRA VIRES.
With the amendments, I have checked it out, obviously, and it had not been published in the Gazette meaning it is not legally enforceable!
Before the raids took place, I did notify Malcolm Turnbull MP in writing about this issue on 5 November 2005! As such, the government could have had the amendment published on Monday by Special Gazette.
WATSON v_ LEE (1979) 144 CLR 374;
QUOTE
To bind the citizen by a law, the terms of which he has no means of knowing, would be a mark of tyranny.
END QUOTE
It might just well be that Senator Boswell saying that everyone criticizing John Howard have egg all over themselves may find that the egg will be on him, when those detained walk free from the courts because of the failure to publish the amendment(s) and as such failing to have any legal force.
If just John Howard had taken more notice of my warnings, more then 4 years ago, he could have avoided this fiasco!
To bind the citizen by a law, the terms of which he has no means of knowing, would be a mark of tyranny. heard of Hansard? Heard of television? While you may have a correct technical case, gazettal or not has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not these laws and the 01 election were tyrannical.
Razer, if you think it not possible that Howard could/would instruct ASIO, AFP or DPP to request the change in the law, or to request it now, rather than just wait for the bill to go through parliament later … if you think that can’t happen then you’ve been on another planet for the last several years, and there’s a bridge I think you should buy.
Howard’s office nobbled Keelty early last year and now has him eating out of Howard’s hand. Poor fellow, but what can he do?
The golden thread of British justice
… was of course the peroration of many of Rumpole’s closing addresses to the jury.
But before I start talking about the presumption of innocence, I’d like to make my position on the terror laws amendments last week as clear as it can be. Unli…
Three cheers for John Howard. Someone with the guts and vision to push through all the noise.
I still can’t believe some of the comments I’m reading above.
Have a read of Greg Sheridan’s piece in the Australian today –
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17183587%255E28737,00.html
The last few paragraphs are excellent reading –
“It is worth noting that Beazley has behaved impeccably throughout, subjecting proposed legislation to scrutiny, suggesting amendments, especially in relation to the vexed issue of sedition, but unwaveringly supporting the basic need to take action. He was privately criticised by some in the Labor Party for this, but Labor could easily have made itself unelectable if last week it had taken what would now be seen as the irresponsible position of opposing the legislation.
Labor’s whip, Michael Danby, in a brilliant and withering opinion piece in the weekend’s The Australian Financial Review, skewered this thinking.
Danby wrote: “We are seeing at the moment a strange state of affairs in Australian public life, in which the politicians and the people are in broad agreement both on the nature of the terrorist threat and what ought to be done about it, while a large slice of the intellectual class is in furious disagreement … In the world of Alan Ramsey and Phillip Adams and Michael Leunig, all the world’s troubles are the fault of the Western democracies or a witches’ brew of Zionists and neo-conservatives; terrorism is a myth or a trick by George Bush and Tony Blair to divert our attention while they seize the world’s oil.
“The strange disconnect between the people and the intellectual elite is dangerous and damaging. Countries where the majority of intellectuals are alienated from their societies and think the rest of the population are fools and dupes can drift into serious trouble, as France of the 1930s attests … [Last] week in Canberra, despite all the shouting, we saw a mature democracy at work. When the national interest is at stake, the parties work together.””
Katz asked : “It’s a simple question to pose:
what act is prosecutable under “a terrorist actâ€? which is not prosecutable under “the terrorist actâ€??”
The amendment allows charges to be laid where evidence has been collected of specific intent to commit a terrorist act but the specific target has not been identified.
It is a sound amendment and it allowed the most recent arrests to be made without needing to wait until it is possibly too late because a target was not clearly identified.
Razor,
Anyone who read last thursday OZ or watched Insiders on Sunday knew what was coming so I doubt if these clowns could threaten anybody
The Age is running a poll “Was the rush to amend Australia’s counter-terrorism laws justified?” @ http://theage.com.au/polls/results.html
Respondents to The Age are typically anti-Howard, but the results at 1.40 look as if the majority viewpoint is with the Government.
No danger of that in Oz. The _intellectual_ elite as such is largely confined to academia, the ABC, the Public Service and a few remnants of left-wing commentary in the media (eg Philip “my sh*t doesn’t stink” Adams). As a group, they’ve never been that relevant to Australia’s security or prosperity, something they despise Howard and the Liberals for making painfully obvious.
There’s plenty of IQ outside the elite, and a lot less baggage.
I think StephenL has it pretty much right,
“The overwhelming majority of terrorist acts can be stopped by standard state criminal legislation, provided the police can manage to show a slightly higher level of competence….”
The case for the extra powers is far from having been convincingly made.
I suspect it is a manifesation of the old adage – when you have a hammer in your hands, every problem looks like a nail. Parliaments can pass new laws, so that’s what they do. The resulting ‘feel-good’ factor is probably quite high.
My impression of the experience in other countries is that human error and difficulties in managing the inevitable turf-wars between different agencies are more likely to be the cause of problems, than is the lack of sufficiently powerful laws.
“It is a sound amendment and it allowed the most recent arrests to be made without needing to wait until it is possibly too late because a target was not clearly identified.”
That’s nonsense Razor. Has it escaped you that these arrests were executed under state law, which has nothing to do with federal law?
Michael H. and Stephen L.
Yes you are both probably right – good policing should probably stop most criminal acts. But where there is a flaw in legislation (“the” rather than “a”) it needs to be fixed. Well done to John Howard for having the guts to make the change in time, despite the danger that the cynics would claim it was all done for political purposes. Bob Brown was absolutely disgraceful in parliament last week for trying to use the change for political purposes. How ironic is that Brown was claiming that Howard was doing it for political purposes when in fact he was the one guilty of that charge!
And yet still nobody has cogently stated what the new laws have to do with anything….
The Age’s Poll: “Was the rush to amend Australia’s counter-terrorism laws justified?” (@ 4.42)
Yes – 56%
No – 44%
Total Votes: 2173
Dogz: What you quote & refer to as the “intellectual elite” more accurately should be termed the “so-called intellectual elite” 😉
I would have thought that given that they had been under survellience for 18 months that it would have been better to let the ‘plot’ develop more. The reports are that we do not know what they were planning to attack or when. To go from this stage to an active attack phase would, I am sure, have exposed more links in the chain as the people involved asked for expert help fom other organizations.
It is really hard for me to believe that this gang was not hauled in to justify harsher terror laws. To me it sounds like John got on the phone to Mick and asked for some terrorists, any terrorists and Mick complied. Most drug operations are carried through right to delivery. I really think that a golden oppurtunity to actually get some real terrorists has been squandered for political expediency. Now all the other cells will go to ground and slip survellience.
Good thing that after watching them for 18 months they were able to stop the Jewish communists from burning down the Reichstag…
Wait. Sorry. Same plot, different era. Hang on…
Good thing that after watching them for 18 months they were able to stop the Muslim terrorists from burning down the Reichstag.
Dogz: “As a group, [the intellectual elite have] never been that relevant to Australia’s security or prosperity, something they despise Howard and the Liberals for making painfully obvious.
“There’s plenty of IQ outside the elite, and a lot less baggage.”
So, stuff me with feathers and call me a continental doona! Dogz joins the swelling ranks of complainants against that great conspiracy against decent Ozzie values, the “intellectual elite”.
But you see, folks (intellectually elite or not) theres’s a problem inherent in all this obsessing. It’s very difficult to dismiss this group of people as weak and irrelevant and at the same time bang on ceaselessly about them.
If they really are such a no-account group, then why waste all that emotional energy condeming them? A case of protesting too much perhaps. Perhaps, also, a just a little greenish tinge of envy.
I imagine that if any of those members of the intellectual elite took time off tasting premiers crus to lay down in their state-subsidised cellars, and read this blog, they’d just shake their shaggy beret-restrained hair and smack their Trotsky-goateed lips, and whisper a quiet prayer of thanks to the shade of Jean Paul Sartre that so many people like Dogz out there were still thinking about them.
Better still, they may well congratulate themselves, that they don’t have to actually mix with such ghastly vulgarians and return to the task of corrupting a milk-fed virgin fresh from a Blue-Ribbon suburb.
Katz – well we now have the Enabling act. This is important for state security.
I particularly like usages like “so-called intellectual” or “pseudo-intellectual”. The user vaguely recognises that intellectuals are necessary, but would like it much better if the actual intellectuals could be counted on to agree with whatever party line they want them to stick to. Hence the implication that there are “real intellectuals”, unfortunately hard to find, who would perform this role.
The most amusing aspect of the term ‘intellectuals’ in the pejorative way, is the sort of people who fling the term around. They are often high-profile politicians or columnists, who seem to want to position themselves outside this group. One that sticks in my mind was Mr Howard railing against “elites”. Hello?
Anyway, as JQ suggest, it’s mostly about denigrating ideas you don’t like.