I am confused. On Thursday 3/11 John Howard said the Australian Government had received specific intelligence and police information this week alerting it to a potential terrorist threat. He also stated that Government was satisfied that the urgent and immediate passage of new terror laws would strengthen the capacity of the law enforcement agencies to effectively respond to the threat. He even recalled the Senate to make these urgent changes.
However, on Friday 4/11 John Howard informs us that we should not expect arrests within days just because urgent terror legislation was rushed through Parliament.
So what is the real urgency behind this? It does not appear to be a specific or immediate terrorist threat, based on the above contradictory statements made by John Howard. Is it a desire to rush through hasty and ill-considered legislation that compromises our human rights?
Rushed legislation has a high risk of being bad legislation. We need leadership from our political leaders rather than scare mongering.
The only thing certain is that Australia has become a less safer place since John Howard sent Australia to war in Iraq based on faulty intelligence. Let’s not make a similar mistake by passing bad legislation in undue haste that will not actually prevent terrorist acts.
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