Your Freedom Under Threat

Imagine that the Government has the power to lock you up indefinitely without charge, without trial, and without legal representation.

Imagine that the Government has the power to issue arbitrary orders for house arrest, or wearing of a tracking device without telling you why.

Imagine that having been detained and then released without explanation, you are under threat of imprisonment for up to 5 years for just telling someone where you've been.

This is not Communist China or an African dictatorship, but Australia under the proposed terrorism laws, which have been rapidly agreed to by the States and Territories.

Under the new laws, the Federal Police could knock on your door and with very little justification lock you up for 7 days. At the end of 7 days they could release you and immediately detain you again for another 7 days. This could be repeated indefinitely.

If they choose, they can seek a court order to apply other administrative restrictions, such as home detention. These orders can be issued for up to 12 months and then renewed without restriction any number of times.

There is no trial with proof “beyond reasonable doubt.” Just the suspicion of the police, support of the Attorney General and a compliant judge will be enough.

Australia is supposed to be a place of freedom. But now in a knee-jerk reaction to the threat of terrorism, our freedoms are being stolen from us.

People should only be arrested when a crime has been committed. You don't lock up people on suspicion of supporting terrorism- not in a modern democracy.

To make matters worse, the State Premiers seem to be colluding with the Federal Government to allow this to happen. All politicians need to be seen to be “tough on terrorism”, because they know there will be a backlash should there be an attack in Australia.

Why is the Opposition not sounding alarms? Why is the Government determined to rush this legislation through with only token scrutiny in the Senate? Where are the civil libertarians; the churches; Amnesty International?

The reality is, though, that these are bad laws which will not offer any real protection from terrorist attacks. All they do is enable the police to be lazy and to target religious or ethnic minorities rather than carry out serious investigation and prevention of terrorist plots.

They also make Australian citizens vulnerable to dictatorship at home. Sure, in the beginning, it's only the immigrant groups or religious minorities who will be vulnerable. But what if a future government decides that the Anglican church is a subversive group? Or the Farmers' Federation? Will terrorism be slowly re-defined to include opposition to the ruling government?

It seems far fetched until you remember that the Holocaust started with euthanasia legislation, supposedly giving the old and infirm the “right” to die.

Our freedoms and legal processes have been developed over centuries to protect people from arbitrary arrest. If we are not careful, politicians will, in the name of protecting us from terrorist acts which have not yet happened, remove from us all of those freedoms which generations before us fought so hard to maintain.

As a christian I believe that laws cannot change the heart of a person, but I've seen hundreds of people transformed by love, acceptance and forgiveness. The law can only punish a person who does bad things. The law cannot make a bad person good- only the love of God can do that.

Similarly, the most draconian laws in the world will not stop a determined suicide bomber- in fact draconian laws breed discontent and opposition. But we can produce a society that is so open and accepting of all of its members that nobody is marginalised or alienated- a society in which you would have to be totally insane to even think about wanting to attack it.

We are standing at a crossroads in history. Do we stand up for our hard-won freedom or do we let the politicians whittle away our liberties one by one until we end up with an autocratic state?


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