This whole visa revocation thing is getting ridiculous now

[silencio]

Isn't it more likely that due to the Privacy Act and Confidentiality in a pending investigation procedure the official authorities are not allowed to make a statement? Upsetting stories are always good selling stories. There is a lack of details why this did happen, that's for sure.

 

Though at the moment the Western world has other enemies than a bunch of bikies in relation to the horror just happened in France/Paris...

[Parley]

http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/first-kiwis-to-fail-the-character-test-deported-peter-dutton-20151119-gl2vfy.html

[robfromdublin]

Typically, incarceration occurs AFTER an investigation, not before one. In a functioning democracy in any case.

 

I'm not sure how he would be free to apply for a new visa given he has supposedly failed his character test. And how would be argue against the charge without legal representation or a court to submit his case to?

 

All of this misses the point. The legal process is being circumvented because it doesn't suit Peter Dutton to have to do pesky things like providing evidence or arguing a case. It's all too hard. And people are defending this! You might say, "Well we don't know the full story. He's probably an evil bollox." That is EXACTLY the point. We don't know the evidence, and we should know the evidence before someone is torn from his community and sent to prison. Even if the evidence is kept from the public then it has to be presented to a member of the judiciary to determine the outcome. This is the basis of separation of powers, which in turn is the basis of the democratic system.

 

Now, you could say I'm being heavy-handed by calling this a threat to democracy, but this is definitely nibbling at the edges. If we accept this then the next intrusion of government on the judiciary will go that little bit further, and then the next further and the next further. Each time it seems like a reasonable approach to take 'emergency measures' but each time we put more power in the hands of the government and less in the hands of the two other pillars of democracy (the legislature and the judiciary).

 

Six pages in, I think it's time to invoke Godwin's Law. Hitler moved from chancellor to dictator by convincing the German parliament to invoke emergency measures following an arson attack on the Reichstag. It was a pivotal moment and following that Act (the 'Enabling Act') all the parliament's power was gone and resided with Hitler. In the leadup to that moment, those opposed to the Nazis were intimidated, imprisoned without trial and killed (communists, Jews, etc.). Hitler had a lot of support because white Germany feared those groups and he helped instil that fear. Now, I am NOT saying that the current government is on that level, but I AM saying that we've seen the consequences of allowing democracy to be eroded and we should fight against that erosion all the more as a result.

[flag of convenience]

Typically, incarceration occurs AFTER an investigation, not before one. In a functioning democracy in any case.

 

I'm not sure how he would be free to apply for a new visa given he has supposedly failed his character test. And how would be argue against the charge without legal representation or a court to submit his case to?

 

All of this misses the point. The legal process is being circumvented because it doesn't suit Peter Dutton to have to do pesky things like providing evidence or arguing a case. It's all too hard. And people are defending this! You might say, "Well we don't know the full story. He's probably an evil bollox." That is EXACTLY the point. We don't know the evidence, and we should know the evidence before someone is torn from his community and sent to prison. Even if the evidence is kept from the public then it has to be presented to a member of the judiciary to determine the outcome. This is the basis of separation of powers, which in turn is the basis of the democratic system.

 

Now, you could say I'm being heavy-handed by calling this a threat to democracy, but this is definitely nibbling at the edges. If we accept this then the next intrusion of government on the judiciary will go that little bit further, and then the next further and the next further. Each time it seems like a reasonable approach to take 'emergency measures' but each time we put more power in the hands of the government and less in the hands of the two other pillars of democracy (the legislature and the judiciary).

 

Six pages in, I think it's time to invoke Godwin's Law. Hitler moved from chancellor to dictator by convincing the German parliament to invoke emergency measures following an arson attack on the Reichstag. It was a pivotal moment and following that Act (the 'Enabling Act') all the parliament's power was gone and resided with Hitler. In the leadup to that moment, those opposed to the Nazis were intimidated, imprisoned without trial and killed (communists, Jews, etc.). Hitler had a lot of support because white Germany feared those groups and he helped instil that fear. Now, I am NOT saying that the current government is on that level, but I AM saying that we've seen the consequences of allowing democracy to be eroded and we should fight against that erosion all the more as a result.

 

Much my argument for quite sometime. Few seem to care though and apathy and ignorance will continue to carry the day. One day the odd Oak may just wonder 'whatever happened to the freedoms we once experienced? Or was it a dream?

[Parley]

There is something differnt about the bikie's case. Not sure exactly why.

Usually these people have served more than 12 months jail to qualify for the free trip home all expenses paid.

[Harpodom]

Typically, incarceration occurs AFTER an investigation, not before one. In a functioning democracy in any case.

 

I'm not sure how he would be free to apply for a new visa given he has supposedly failed his character test. And how would be argue against the charge without legal representation or a court to submit his case to?

 

All of this misses the point. The legal process is being circumvented because it doesn't suit Peter Dutton to have to do pesky things like providing evidence or arguing a case. It's all too hard. And people are defending this! You might say, "Well we don't know the full story. He's probably an evil bollox." That is EXACTLY the point. We don't know the evidence, and we should know the evidence before someone is torn from his community and sent to prison. Even if the evidence is kept from the public then it has to be presented to a member of the judiciary to determine the outcome. This is the basis of separation of powers, which in turn is the basis of the democratic system.

 

Now, you could say I'm being heavy-handed by calling this a threat to democracy, but this is definitely nibbling at the edges. If we accept this then the next intrusion of government on the judiciary will go that little bit further, and then the next further and the next further. Each time it seems like a reasonable approach to take 'emergency measures' but each time we put more power in the hands of the government and less in the hands of the two other pillars of democracy (the legislature and the judiciary).

 

Six pages in, I think it's time to invoke Godwin's Law. Hitler moved from chancellor to dictator by convincing the German parliament to invoke emergency measures following an arson attack on the Reichstag. It was a pivotal moment and following that Act (the 'Enabling Act') all the parliament's power was gone and resided with Hitler. In the leadup to that moment, those opposed to the Nazis were intimidated, imprisoned without trial and killed (communists, Jews, etc.). Hitler had a lot of support because white Germany feared those groups and he helped instil that fear. Now, I am NOT saying that the current government is on that level, but I AM saying that we've seen the consequences of allowing democracy to be eroded and we should fight against that erosion all the more as a result.

:notworthy: excellent post sir

[akiralx]

There is something differnt about the bikie's case. Not sure exactly why.

Usually these people have served more than 12 months jail to qualify for the free trip home all expenses paid.

 

Exactly - there is something different: Dutton decided to deport him even though he hadn't actually broken the law, he wanted to do it so he just did it.

[Harpodom]

Exactly - there is something different: Dutton decided to deport him even though he hadn't actually broken the law, he wanted to do it so he just did it.

I wonder what sort of cop he was?

[Parley]

There will be a good reason.

Maybe we can't know everything for some reason.

[Harpodom]

There will be a good reason.

Maybe we can't know everything for some reason.

baaaa

[robfromdublin]

Usually these people have served more than 12 months jail to qualify for the free trip home all expenses paid.

 

New Zealand is not home for some of them, nor has it ever been. Home is Australia.

 

I really hope there is a good reason that Dutton is not providing, that this is tested in a court of law, and that justice is done. I hope but I have no confidence.

[Parley]

Here is another nasty Kiwi we should send back asap.

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-20/perth-carer-michelle-stirling-jailed-for-stealing-from-103-yo/6958748

[BacktoDemocracy]

How much can you entitle to non-citizens? Isn't this a hugely grey area and one that should be approached with caution?

 

Yes, illegal detention and ongoing torture is about as bad as it can get. Australia has made it clear that asylum seekers who arrive on boats will not be given a home here. That is a clear deterrent to those who wish to breach national security policies.

 

There are always ramifications. There is a war going on. The cracks in national security have started to become clear.

 

I'm honest enough to admit that in peace time a country can afford to take more liberties. In a war, everybody's liberties are thrown into chaos. Ironically, the desirable outcome is peace.

Why do you think we are always being told we are at war, it justifies any behaviours, any curtailment of civil liberties and justifies the transfer of huge sums of money to the military and the arms/military technology industries away from the benefit of the civil populations as US President General Eisenhower warned against when he retired as President in the 1950's.

It is the oldest ploy of all authoritarian regimes to convince its citizens that they have to support the regime whatever its actions.

Today I was sat here in the half light of a cold grey, wet, English day which has been the same for the last 2 weeks, feeling very sorrowful missing the warmth of Brisbane and being dismayed by the continuing onslaught by the tories here using their stupid austerity policies to take us back to some inane version of Edwardian England and then I read about that imbecile Dutton's strutting around like some jackbooted stormtrooper and the complete rejection of due legal process and knew why I had had enough of Oz and its seeming acceptance of such undemocratic and authoritarian behaviour .

Edited November 24, 2015 by BacktoDemocracy

[Guest]

If it makes you feel better it is nice and sunny in Brisbane :wink:

[Maggie2012]

Why do you think we are always being told we are at war, it justifies any behaviours, any curtailment of civil liberties and justifies the transfer of huge sums of money to the military and the arms/military technology industries away from the benefit of the civil populations as US President General Eisenhower warned against when he retired as President in the 1950's.

It is the oldest ploy of all authoritarian regimes to convince its citizens that they have to support the regime whatever its actions.

Today I was sat here in the half light of a cold grey, wet, English day which has been the same for the last 2 weeks, feeling very sorrowful missing the warmth of Brisbane and being dismayed by the continuing onslaught by the tories here using their stupid austerity policies to take us back to some inane version of Edwardian England and then I read about that imbecile Dutton's strutting around like some jackbooted stormtrooper and the complete rejection of due legal process and knew why I had had enough of Oz and its seeming acceptance of such undemocratic and authoritarian behaviour .

 

You can only see how non-democratic the English system is if you have lived in the US and returned home. It is a Feudal system under a democratic blanket, rooted in the middle ages. Same goes for the Australian system, which is stuck halfway between the English and the US form of democracy. All three of these need an overhaul, but because politics is always influenced by money (you can argue as much as you want that it is not) that will not happen any soon.

 

Unfortunately as humans we are built to wage war and although you may like the hippie idea of a peaceful society, our very own human nature will never allow us to achieve that. Spending moneys on defense is an essential evil

[Parley]

Australia is the most democratic country in the world.

[BacktoDemocracy]

Australia is the most democratic country in the world.

It may have a framework that aims to achieve democracy but the players within the system have actively sought to subvert the system for their own ends and have used their powers to create a powerful authoritarian state which has marginalised and neutered the legal systems ability to exercise constraints on the politicians powers.

The politicians have achieved all of this behind the smokescreen of pointing to the enforced voting and short office terms system whilst the voice of dissent is muffled by a compliant opposition which is only interested in getting its hands on the levers of power to jack up wages, not to dismantle the authoritarian state, add into this a servile and acquiescent press, which in some quarters is actively encouraging it, and you have the makings of any dictatorship from south America thro to Sisi's Egypt to Nazi Germany in the 1930's.

The other danger for Aus is a very large immigrant population which are essentially ignorant of how the system really works, and because they are disassociated from the state have little interest in it beyond it delivering a living for them, the system simply perpetuates itself.

Edited November 25, 2015 by BacktoDemocracy

[BacktoDemocracy]

You can only see how non-democratic the English system is if you have lived in the US and returned home. It is a Feudal system under a democratic blanket, rooted in the middle ages. Same goes for the Australian system, which is stuck halfway between the English and the US form of democracy. All three of these need an overhaul, but because politics is always influenced by money (you can argue as much as you want that it is not) that will not happen any soon.

 

Unfortunately as humans we are built to wage war and although you may like the hippie idea of a peaceful society, our very own human nature will never allow us to achieve that. Spending moneys on defense is an essential evil

I would agree with you about the feudalism but would hardly hold up the US as a beacon of democracy or at least judging on the social inequalities that exist there and on the inability of its governments at all levels to govern even vaguely in the interests of all its citizen's and the extraordinary power of vested interests such as the arms/warfare and pharmaceutical industries .

With regards to defence I would only want to point out that the US has the highest levels of illiteracy and extremes of poverty in the west and the highest spend on defence and the UK is going the same way, I don't see those problems in Switzerland, the nordic countries or indeed in Germany so as they say, go figure.

Edited November 25, 2015 by BacktoDemocracy

[BacktoDemocracy]

typically, incarceration occurs after an investigation, not before one. In a functioning democracy in any case.

 

I'm not sure how he would be free to apply for a new visa given he has supposedly failed his character test. And how would be argue against the charge without legal representation or a court to submit his case to?

 

All of this misses the point. The legal process is being circumvented because it doesn't suit peter dutton to have to do pesky things like providing evidence or arguing a case. It's all too hard. And people are defending this! You might say, "well we don't know the full story. He's probably an evil bollox." that is exactly the point. We don't know the evidence, and we should know the evidence before someone is torn from his community and sent to prison. Even if the evidence is kept from the public then it has to be presented to a member of the judiciary to determine the outcome. This is the basis of separation of powers, which in turn is the basis of the democratic system.

 

Now, you could say i'm being heavy-handed by calling this a threat to democracy, but this is definitely nibbling at the edges. If we accept this then the next intrusion of government on the judiciary will go that little bit further, and then the next further and the next further. Each time it seems like a reasonable approach to take 'emergency measures' but each time we put more power in the hands of the government and less in the hands of the two other pillars of democracy (the legislature and the judiciary).

 

Six pages in, i think it's time to invoke godwin's law. Hitler moved from chancellor to dictator by convincing the german parliament to invoke emergency measures following an arson attack on the reichstag. It was a pivotal moment and following that act (the 'enabling act') all the parliament's power was gone and resided with hitler. In the leadup to that moment, those opposed to the nazis were intimidated, imprisoned without trial and killed (communists, jews, etc.). Hitler had a lot of support because white germany feared those groups and he helped instil that fear. Now, i am not saying that the current government is on that level, but i am saying that we've seen the consequences of allowing democracy to be eroded and we should fight against that erosion all the more as a result.

absolutely.

[silencio]

You can only see how non-democratic the English system is if you have lived in the US and returned home. It is a Feudal system under a democratic blanket, rooted in the middle ages. Same goes for the Australian system, which is stuck halfway between the English and the US form of democracy. All three of these need an overhaul, but because politics is always influenced by money (you can argue as much as you want that it is not) that will not happen any soon.

 

 

The US is more democratic than Australia? Must be a joke. What about Guantanamo? There have been people held by the U.S. without any jurisdiction.

 

Furthermore, a country that withholds free basic healthcare to its population is even worse than the UK etc. Imagine being poor and sick...a nightmare comes true.

 

I don't want to go into more detail like the death penalty which makes Australia and the UK really good countries to live in.

Edited November 25, 2015 by silencio

[BacktoDemocracy]

You can only see how non-democratic the English system is if you have lived in the US and returned home. It is a Feudal system under a democratic blanket, rooted in the middle ages. Same goes for the Australian system, which is stuck halfway between the English and the US form of democracy. All three of these need an overhaul, but because politics is always influenced by money (you can argue as much as you want that it is not) that will not happen any soon.

 

Unfortunately as humans we are built to wage war and although you may like the hippie idea of a peaceful society, our very own human nature will never allow us to achieve that. Spending moneys on defense is an essential evil

I really don't believe this mantra about built to wage war, some megalomaniac's may be willing to send others out to do their dirty work in pinching what someone else has but having lived thro the aftermath of the last war with 2 parents whose lives were shattered by it I prefer Corbyn's considered approach over the gung-ho, jingoistic, knee jerk nationalism of your average Cro-magnon man/politician approach.

[Ken]

You can only see how non-democratic the English system is if you have lived in the US and returned home. It is a Feudal system under a democratic blanket, rooted in the middle ages. Same goes for the Australian system, which is stuck halfway between the English and the US form of democracy. All three of these need an overhaul, but because politics is always influenced by money (you can argue as much as you want that it is not) that will not happen any soon.

 

Unfortunately as humans we are built to wage war and although you may like the hippie idea of a peaceful society, our very own human nature will never allow us to achieve that. Spending moneys on defense is an essential evil

 

English and Australian democracy may not be perfect but it as at least more egalitarian than the US system where the choice is which multi-millionaire from which monied family do you want to vote for. Clive Palmer would of course still be a politician if Australia had the US system but (whether you take it as a good or a bad thing) precious few others of our current crop would have been able to afford to get into Parliament if we had a US style "democracy".

[Harpodom]

English and Australian democracy may not be perfect but it as at least more egalitarian than the US system where the choice is which multi-millionaire from which monied family do you want to vote for. Clive Palmer would of course still be a politician if Australia had the US system but (whether you take it as a good or a bad thing) precious few others of our current crop would have been able to afford to get into Parliament if we had a US style "democracy".

yeah, but Aus federal parliament still has the likes of Cory Bernardi, Ian MacDonald, George Brandis, Eric Abetz, Kevin Andrews, Barnaby Joyce, Christopher Pyne, Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison, George Christensen, Andrew Nikolic............Bill Shorten, Clive Palmer, Steven Conroy.......

[Quinkla]

English and Australian democracy may not be perfect but it as at least more egalitarian than the US system where the choice is which multi-millionaire from which monied family do you want to vote for. Clive Palmer would of course still be a politician if Australia had the US system but (whether you take it as a good or a bad thing) precious few others of our current crop would have been able to afford to get into Parliament if we had a US style "democracy".

I'm not sure that's entirely fair. In recent times, Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan have come from pretty modest family backgrounds. You don't have to have been born wealthy to succeed in Amaerican politics but if you are presidential material, you probably have the skills to persuade wealthy people to back you and may well have been able to accumulate personal wealth before going into politics.