Well, the PM has basically had his way and the Premiers, probably with an eye on the electorate, have gone along with so-called tougher security measures. No one can quibble about tighter and more efficient security measures at airports. It's the other aspects of the proposed legislation which should concern - no, seriously trouble! - every Australian citizen, especially those who are most likely to be the target of profiling and the like. Even the police are concerned about their role in acting as enforcers of this new security regime. Needless to say the politicians have in effect dismissed concerns about any infringment of civil liberties. The catch-cry? - those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear! That's not only trite but plain rubbish! For a rather balanced summing up of what the security measures mean the article in the SMH today says it all.
Only a gigantic bureaucracy could get away with spending of such dimensions - and the amazing waste involved in part of that ginormous spend. Think US Pentagon..... "From spending $150 million on private villas for a handful of personnel in Afghanistan to blowing $2.7 billion on an air surveillance balloon that doesn’t work, the latest revelations of waste at the Pentagon are just the most recent howlers in a long line of similar stories stretching back at least five decades. Other hot-off-the-presses examples would include the Army’s purchase of helicopter gears worth $500 each for $8,000 each and the accumulation of billions of dollars' worth of weapons components that will never be used. And then there’s the one that would have to be everyone’s favorite Pentagon waste story: the spending of $50,000 to investigate the bomb-detecting capabilities of African elephants. (And here’s a shock: they didn’t turn out to be that great!) The elephant research, of course, represe...
Comments