Crikey piece: High Court curbs NT’s ‘pre-crime’ catch and release scheme

High Court ruling on the Northern Territory’s “paperless” arrest scheme proves a doubled-edged sword. READ MORE

Quick Thought: Abbott’s ABC onslaught and Civic Weakness

The weeklong escalation of Tony Abbott’s attack upon our national broadcaster began with shared criticism of an editorial mistake and ended with claims the ABC “betrayed our country” for broadcasting convicted Australian terrorist Zaky Mallah’s spontaneous hostility.

Strong arguments have been made for and against Mallah’s appearance on the ABC’s Q&A panel debate. The Mallah defenders backed his challenge to the new Ministerial power to strip foreign fighters of citizenship. The Waleed Alys countered that Mallah was careless to accuse Parliamentary Secretary Steven Ciobo of inciting further radicalisation of Aussie Muslims and achieved nothing except distracting the public from the question of governmental overreach.

However, by equivocating the ABC with a terrorist mouthpiece there is no doubt Abbott has pushed the question of ministerial revocation powers only further from the public mind. Ironically, by Waleed Aly’s yardstick, Abbott has out-Mallah-ed Mallah.

Regardless of position, it was abundantly clear to both panellist and viewer that Mallah’s comments had offended many and misrepresented most of Australia’s Muslim community. Mallah’s hostility lent him no favour against the backdrop of his terrorist past and host Tony Jones’ appalled reaction perfectly summed the public’s discomfort.

Some viewers contended with the merits of Mallah’s initial question and pushed aside his later spontaneous outburst as an obvious indiscretion. Other viewers wrote letters of complaint expressing their outrage at Mallah’s very appearance. Indisputably, both viewers arrived at positions that could only have evolved from understanding the spontaneous nature of political debate.

Over the week, the government has ratcheted up its cries of institutional failure, Ministers have boycotted Q&A and Abbott has threatened the ABC with a government-led inquiry.

Yet, were we to call Mallah’s appearance an egregious misstep by Q&A, he joins only a handful of incidents that fall embarrassingly short of institutional failure. Without question,  Q&A’s few missteps are a small price for the overwhelming public benefit of a weekly debate on our politics.

The real tragedy of Abbott’s efforts is that he confuses a citizenry that shouldn’t have to tolerate Mallah’s indiscretion with one entirely incapable of tolerating spontaneous debate over the Government’s security agenda.

Once the Government’s tirade extended to attacking the entire institution, the argument was no longer about how offensive Mallah’s spontaneous outburst is, but instead a decision that we are unable to tolerate the spontaneous altogether, that spontaneous dialogue should be removed from our politics, heaven forbid it be at the expense of the government viewpoint. A viewpoint our healthy democracy demands the ABC to criticise.

This is most offensive, for the idea that the Abbott government isn’t presuming an engaged, self-assured citizenry confidently capable of wielding its political sovereignty, but rather directionless citizens needing to be shepherded. Agreeing with the government’s manner of attack is a plea by Australians needing to be administered by democracy rather than living democracy in the sense of exercising our sovereignty.

As long as the ABC continues to inform us, it is certainly on ‘our’ side and an independent public broadcaster is the sign of a robust democracy with citizens worthy of wielding sovereign power. So when Abbott raises the challenge ‘whose side are you on?’ it is not the ABC’s response but the very asking of that question that degrades our civic engagement.

THE WIRE: Myanmar Refugees boost rural Aussie economy by $40 million

The resettlement of Myanmar refugees to rural Victorian town, Nhill, has grown its economy by $41 million and saved the community from further decline in population. Deloitte and AMES’s Migrant and Resettlement Report has found refugee resettlement has been socially and economically beneficial. We take a look at which factors lead to successful resettlement in a rural setting.

LISTEN HERE

THE WIRE: Non-coercive measures could make Islamic State less attractive to Aussie foreign fighters

The rising number of radicalised Australians leaving to fight for Islamic State has put pressure on the Government to respond by imprisoning returning foreign fighters.

A Lowy Institute report claims a bigger role for rehabilitation and community support may be the key to making Islamic State less attractive to at-risk Australians. We ask terrorism expert Andrew Zammit how his reports findings are different to the Government’s current approach.

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Amending the Data Retention Bill: Is a Public Interest Advocate really enough to protect Journo’s metadata?

The deal struck between the Coalition and Labor to better protect journalist’s metadata with a ‘journalist information warrant’ hurdle has been passed as the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment Bill 2015.

The most promising feature of the Bill’s additional thirty pages is the role of Public Interest Advocate, making submissions to at least limit the extent of surveillance allowed under a warrant.

Attorney General George Brandis supports the balance stuck between security interests and protection of privacy and says about the Bill,

‘It does contain safeguards that were not there before.  It is in the Government’s view – shared.’

However, the lack of independence and reach of the Public Interest Advocate is attracting criticism from legislators and privacy advocates.

An Advocate appointed by the Prime Minister’s office is dismissible at any time and will be privy to the same information the security agency chooses to provide the government-appointed decision maker.  They are not allowed to contact the relevant journalist without attracting a 2 year jail sentence and the Bill’s lack of clarity has left many unable to decipher exactly who the Public Interest Advocate is meant to be representing.

The decision maker’s test is whether ‘the public interest in issuing the warrant outweighs the public interest in protecting the confidentiality of the identity of the source.’

The Public Interest Advocate’s submissions have no enforceability under the Bill but are one of six factors the decision maker considers before issuing a warrant.

Independent Senator Nick Xenophon says he is unable to see how one can be an effective devil’s advocate under the Bill’s conditions.

‘If the Government and the Opposition think that the public interest advocate amendments that they put together in haste will do the job, then they’re sadly deluded.’

In the wider context of a Bill that compels telephone companies to retain two years worth of every Australian customer’s metadata to be searchable by security agencies and the Police, the inadequacy of the Public Interest Advocate’s protection of journalist’s metadata does not bode well for a public expecting future Government measures to protect their privacy.

ACMA reports over 500, 000 authorisations granting security agencies access to Australian phone customer’s metadata in the 2014 financial year.

Quick Note: The $80b Australia-China anchor

PM Tony Abbott and Chinese President Xi Jingpin concluded a historic Australia-China bilateral free trade agreement lessening the regulations upon Chinese investments in Australia in exchange for opening up China’s market to Aussie farmers tariff-free.

By unlocking several Chinese markets, the agreement promises to breathe fresh life into Australia’s agricultural sector.

The Australian government sees tariff-free access to China’s lucrative dairy markets as a positive financial step to redistribute Australia’s financial stability away from mining-led growth and relieve post-Mining Boom anxiety.

Noticeably, both elements of the deal allow China greater purchase of influence in Australia.  Traditionally, Australian resources have answered China’s reliance on exported energy and minerals to fuel it’s rapid expansion into the Asian Century.  Should Chinese tariff-free concessions cure Australia’s agricultural sector, the government’s shift towards an agriculture-led economy will rely on Chinese markets.  A shift has occurred between China’s previous dependence on our exported energy and this FTA’s leaving the health of our economic prosperity dependent on China.

The lowering of regulations over Chinese investment in Australia is a still more direct purchase of influence over national finances.  If criticism should be levelled at the FTA, it isn’t over the quality of the concessions made in the agreement, but rather that the FTA is absent of any Australian leverage even close to China’s purchase of influence over Australian economic prosperity.

The Australia-China FTA is the latest in a series of bilateral agreements China has signed with each of it’s neighbours.  The $18b deal is heralded as China’s largest FTA signed in the Asia-Pacific region.  The agreement reflects China’s intent to continue it’s self-made economic rise independently of it’s Asian neighbours.  The region’s shift beyond Western-assisted economic stability towards independent economic growth has displaced existing Australian influence with an Asian-centric agenda.

The success of Australia’s regional influence is maintained through organisations like APEC which level the economic playing field amongst our Asian neighbours by encouraging the very multilateral cooperation and mutual growth that restored their economic stability.  However, Australia’s influence through these multilateral channels is unravelling as our neighbours abandon cooperation for self-interest in territorial disputes over the South China Sea and it’s strategically important international trading sea lanes.  The future of Australia’s weight in the Asian Century largely rests on how successfully it can broker multilateral economic relations inclusive of all the regional players.

By this standard, though perceivably a welcome short-term boost for the Aussie agricultural sector, concluding a bilateral agreement places China well out of this sphere of influence.  The decade long negotiations fall short of the more remarkable achievement of coercing China into multilateral cooperation to dilute it’s regional influence and encourage Chinese participation rather than dominance.  The $80b worth of the deal is as much an estimate of China’s direct and indirect purchase of interest in Australia.  The deal does little to secure Australian prominence in the Asia Century and excels in securing a China-centric Asia-Pacific region.

The Wire: Asylum seeker safety on Manus Island

The recent Manus Island attacks have cast further doubt over the safety of asylum seekers in Papua New Guinea. The conflicting accounts of the past weekends events beg the question of how safe PNG detainees really are? Refugee advocate Ian Rintoul tells us about detainee safety on the island. LISTEN HERE.

The Wire: TPP Coverage

Negotiations over the US-led Transpacific-Partnership (TPP) trade agreement have remained shrouded in mystery until a series of leaks have revealed far reaching terms affecting Australia’s freedoms and economic position… Listen Here

Leaked Memo casts doubt over controversial TPP agreement

On the cusp of what were predicted to be final negotiations, a leaked intergovernmental memo has described the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement as approaching impasse between an unwavering United States and its eleven partner countries, including Australia.

Following Wikileaks’ posting of the TPP’s Intellectual Property chapter, this month’s leaked intergovernmental memo points to the “zero flexibility” of the United States as preventing substantial progress at the 19th November round of negotiations in Salt-Lake City.

The leaked memo particularly mentions Singapore’s uncertainty at concluding negotiations “given the number of outstanding issues that still remain”, and follows with a warning of “partial closure or even a failure” at the upcoming December negotiations.

La Trobe University Public Health lecturer Dr Deborah Gleeson assesses the US-led TPP provisions as causing “deep rifts among the negotiating countries, with the United States pushing provisions that, in many areas, are not in the interests of other countries”. The scope of the provisions requires consensus ranging from regulation of pharmaceutical prices to local media content, though the commitment to confidentiality by participating countries leaves little public insight into the specific terms.

Australia’s alarm at the secrecy surrounding TPP negotiations escalated this week as Minister for Finance Mathias Cormann rejected the Greens-led Senate order for production of the TPP final text ahead of Cabinet signing off on the deal. Cormann’s letter noted the lengths of secrecy to be “normal practice in negotiating international treaties” and confirmed the text will be made public during the parliamentary process of ratification to legally bind Australia to the Partnership. The element of secrecy is a widespread concern, particularly echoed by US Congress with a letter of opposition attracting 150 member signatures in the House of Representatives as President Obama attempts to fast-track TPP approval.

Australia’s TPP representative, Trade and Investment Minister Andrew Robb has been criticised for considering the inclusion of an Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) clause, a move opposed by the previous ALP government. Robb believes that consenting to the ISDS clause, an avenue for foreign corporations to sue the Australian Government, is justified by the “substantial market access” Australia will be granted in return, reported the Sydney Morning Herald.

Australian Greens member Peter Whish-Wilson sees the ISDS as “a real threat to Australia’s public interest laws that protect our environment and rural industries, and underpin public health.” Notably, the inclusion of an ISDS clause between Australia and Hong Kong allowed tobacco company Phillip Morris to launch further action challenging Australia’s tobacco plain packaging laws despite rejection by the Australian High Court.

In a press release approaching the final negotiations, Robb claims “I will be pushing hard for outcomes that provide significant and material opportunities for Australian businesses and exporters, including farmers, manufacturers and service providers.”

University of Ottowa Law Professor Dr. Michael Geist indicates the leaked documents show Australia’s close agreement with the United States on “several key issues”, including controversial Intellectual Property provisions criminalising copyright contravention and allowing the termination of Internet access.

Despite Australia’s close proximity to the US viewpoint, unsurprising given the existing Australia-US free trade agreement, rejection of the provisions by the majority of participant countries casts doubt over whether any agreement will be reached let alone ratified by Australia.