Australia has introduced counter-terrorism measures and is planning more. Australians have shown a great capacity to give John Howard's Liberal-National coalition government carte blanche on so many issues from border protection, detention of asylum seeks in concentration camps, through to an outstanding majority in government including the control of the senate by the government for the first time in a long time.
In the same week, as the Prime Minister has announced all this comes evidence - if any were needed - of the threat such laws can be to ordinary peaceful human beings not just the stereo-typical al-Qaeda personnel. This has come in the form of the arrest in Melbourne of Scott Parkin as a security threat.
The electorate has taken a miserly attitude in the taxes it allows government to take from it. How about it turns such a niggardly approach to the civil liberties of Australians and allow the Howard Government to take so much and no more than needed - not all they want and feel able to take.
