ATTACK ON FREE SPEECH

After the Storm

The Australia of 2018 was already a withered place, but nonetheless the government continued to mount its attack on free speech. 

It was a democracy in name only. 

The military morons who ruled the place through through the secretive and unaccountable "national security" agencies were frightened and distrustful of the public. 

The more totalitarian a government, the more frightened they were of people, and more frightened they were of freedom of expression. 

Which was exactly this place, this government. 

It was discussed, sometimes openly, but the oligarchs and the totalitarians never missed a beat. 

This was a country which had lost the ability to tell its own story. Instead the populace were fed a steady diet of celebrity gossip, sport and overseas dribble. 

The politicians, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Murdoch press, were entirely complicit.

Caroline Overington, now one of the senior editors at The Australian, his old alma mater, den of shite, hut of hell, The Evil Empire as the long suffering denizens described it with barely a wry offhand tilt, was one of the few journalists who spoke out about the issue. 

She was an "operator", the highest compliment one journalist could pay to another, and had survived, thrived, in the tough environment of News Limited. 

She told a television audience last night, from memory: "There are hundreds, thousands of things every journalist knows they cannot tell the public. My inbox fills up with suppression orders every day."

Odd, perhaps, that one of the key public personalities representing perhaps the most conservative publication in Australia was the one who spoke up on the issue, while the left remained largely, if not completely, silent on the issue.

The totalitarian left. Which could brook no opposition. No divergent view. Which regarded the views of ordinary people with contempt. 

The useful fools had gripped control of every major institution, and the results were everywhere, for everyone to see. Sad.

Some of the things arguably the worst government in Australian history, led by arguably the worst Prime Minister in Australian history Malcolm Turnbull were proposing, unilaterally, led not by the people's interest but their own, and had no intention of discussing in a rational or democratic way: 

Fred Barnett, who was deputy secretary in the Department of Defence during the Hawke government, warned that the $3.8 billion in taxpayer funds committed to supporting defence exports was likely to be wasted. "Every nation in the world struggles with the same problem: how to maintain an in-country defence industrial capacity, when its own needs for production are spasmodic, subject to the fickle availability of funds and the constant demand to update technology. "Exports of defence equipment are subsidised, backed with diplomatic pressure, lubricated with consulting fees, agents' fees and other forms of international bribery."It is perhaps the most fiercely contested of all markets and the one most subject to manipulation by national governments. To believe Australian firms ca,n succeed in this market in the face of the decline of our manufacturing sector under the pressure of relatively high energy and labour costs, a strong currency and adversarial industrial relations is to believe in a fairy tale."David Uren, The Australian, 31 January,  2018.

The most arrogant. The most ignorant. The greediest and most amoral. These were the people who were leading the country heading straight into its own Dark Ages. 

A nation which could not tell its own story. A nation where its own journalists had become targets for national security agencies, entrapped in legislation, passed by this government, which was the worst assault on freedom of speech in the nation's history. 

The country as a whole, in this bland, neutered environment, where there was no genuine public debate about any of the major issues of the day, would ultimately pay a very high price for having allowed the totalitarian, military mindset of protected, taxpayer funded lunatics to prevail. 

Miranda Devine, whose father Frank Devine Old Alex had known, a now passed figure from the era of the long lunch, when journalists saw themselves as princes of the intellectual life of the country, was not always right. But she was right about this one: 

It's pretty hard to say you're against "integrity" or for corruption.It's far more complicated to tell the truth, that a federal ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption) will be a further totalitarian encroachment on our liberties.It will be like the NSW ICAC, a secretive and unaccountable star chamber that has usurped the usual democratic checks and balances. ICAC sullies people's reputations with casual abandon, and yet even when its over-reach and Stasi-style tactics occasionally have been exposed in proper courts of law, there is no apology or restitution. Devine, Miranda, The Daily Telegraph, 31 January, 2018. 

This was a failing government which had resorted to every offhand, devious trick to hide its own multitudinous failings. 

Gay marriage had poisoned the public square for a good nine months, more like a year, but was over now with the Yes vote having won. What else to talk about? To fill the media space? Falling standards of living? The worst internet in the world? The highest housing prices? The collapse of country towns? The highest electricity costs in the world? Chronic government mismanagement? The massive salaries and perks an ever expanding and unrepresentative bureaucracy gifted themselves at everybody else's expense?

The government - and the courts - had much to hide, and the last thing they wanted was a free press. 

The security agencies, most notably ASIO, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, which had an appalling history of manipulating the social, cultural and media life of the country in the name of eliminating subversion, whatever it deemed to be wrong thinking, was no doubt well in play. 

A vetting here. A security report there. A rumour. An undermining. A word in someone's ear. All of it was meant to eliminate dissent. To destroy what had once been a creative country. To create the bland out. The military mindset. Yes Sir!!!

The worst thing we could do was think for ourselves. 

THE BIGGER STORY: 

Australia's largest media organisations have warned the Federal Government its foreign interference laws could undermine freedom of the press and see journalists thrown in jail.

Key points:

• Media organisations and unions say they cannot support bill unless exemptions made for journalists
• Claim existing security laws already undermine media's role in informing Australians
• Brandis described announcement as most significant overhaul of espionage laws in decades

New laws announced by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in December would expand the definition of espionage to include possessing classified information, rather than the current definition which only outlaws communicating it.

The 15 companies — including the ABC, Fairfax and News Corp — have told the Government they cannot support the bill unless specific exemptions are made for journalists.

Their joint submission to a parliamentary committee claims existing security laws already undermine the media's ability to keep Australians informed about national affairs.

The companies warn the proposed laws would criminalise all steps of news reporting and put journalists at a "significant risk" of jail time for possessing information that is in the public interest.

"The result is that fair scrutiny and public interest reporting is increasingly difficult and there is a real risk that journalists could go to jail for doing their jobs," the submission said.

The laws were announced amid growing concerns within the intelligence community about the influence of foreign agents and political donations.

When they were announced, former attorney-general George Brandis said they represented the most significant overhaul of espionage and intelligence laws in decades.

"The core concept of espionage will not change but the breadth of behaviours defined will change," Senator Brandis said.The media companies argue the proposed laws are too broad and would have unintended consequences for journalists.

The companies include the ABC, AAP, Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association, Bauer Media Group, Commercial Radio Australia, Community Broadcasting Association of Australia, Fairfax Media, Free TV Australia, HT&E, MEAA, News Corp Australia, NewsMediaWorks, SBS and The West Australian.

The laws will be debated in Federal Parliament in coming months.

The companies include the ABC, AAP, Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association, Bauer Media Group, Commercial Radio Australia, Community Broadcasting Association of Australia, Fairfax Media, Free TV Australia, HT&E, MEAA, News Corp Australia, NewsMediaWorks, SBS and The West Australian.

The laws will be debated in Federal Parliament in coming months.

“Free speech” is often raised as a defence in the court of public opinion, particularly when people are called out by their ideological opponents. “You’re attacking my right to free speech!” However, either through forgetfulness or ignorance, many Australians don’t appear to realise free speech is not a legal right they hold.

Australia Does Not Have A Bill Of Rights

The right to free speech has come up frequently in recent times, as the political climate both in Australia and abroad continues to draw heated debate. In the US, individuals often cite their First Amendment rights when they feel they have been censored. Setting aside an analysis of US law, Australia does not have any equivalent. Unlike the US, Australia does not have a bill of rights, and in fact is the only Western liberal democracy not to have one.

There has been some debate regarding whether Australia needs a bill of rights. Arguments for a bill include that by having a reference point, people will be able to more effectively enforce their rights. Arguments against a bill include that by defining rights we would by nature be limiting them. In Kruger v The Commonwealth (1997) 190 CLR 1, Dawson J stated, “The framers [of the Constitution] preferred to place their faith in the democratic process for the protection of individual rights.”

The Australian Constitution does not expressly guarantee many rights or freedoms, though it does guarantee a small handful (such as freedom of trade between the states in s 92). Freedom of speech is not one of them.

BLOOD MOON

The Gully, Katoomba, Blue Mountains, Australia

Deny everything. We are all guilty. We were all complicit. He heard them talking, as he always did, their dreams, their unspoken thoughts, their guilt, derision, embarrassment, boredom.
Invite him over. 
All jokes aside. 
They were streaming in a dark place. They were all connected. He was furious as he heard the words, I love him, I love him. 
And across that lake, serendipity. 
A couple were spooning, as the light grew brighter by the minute, reluctant to separate. 
Children, back to school after six weeks holiday, stirred awake. 
The island was an abyss. 
There was no way off. 
We could rescue him but we won't. 
There were times, in the mountain flight, times when we could have been renewed; before the country was lost. 
Five men arrested in Siem Reap for pornographic dancing. 
They were circling but could find no entrance. 
He ran interference constantly, a difficult mental trick. 
The perimeter was always aflame. A barrier to understanding. 
You think you're the only AIs to ever stalk the Earth? The only ones ever, in the vast cosmos? That infinite history.
No one believed it anymore. 
Here, the ripe pickings. 
The country devolved. 
They were crawling through the undergrowth, the woodwork, threats near and far. And yet there was nothing to be done, in this, a flying gestalt. Over-arch, and you're dead. They claimed credit and accepted defeat, they hid their past endeavours and denied guilt. There was no government compensation for harassment, they never admitted guilt.
And so it was, he threw up a defiant face, arched high over the suburb. 
In the past their reach had been limited, his kind. A valley here. A village. A mountain range. 
There was no point, no need, to take on the entire planet. 
Now no one, not the security agencies, certainly not Alex, expected things to end well. They knew there was a different order of disaster coming. Yet they could not grasp the full malevolence. They feared the worst and clung to the ordinariness of daily routines. They knew the killing would get worse. 
Australia had the most abysmal internet in the world, a major factor in the decline. 
A country plunging into the Dark Ages. 

They loved to talk about their exploits in Asia, the few who gathered at the Table of Knowledge in the evenings, that remnant of a good time at the Lakeview. The comfort they felt with the older girls.

Because there was nothing here. 

Old Alex went to check something on his phone, to make reference to a recent news story.

There was no connection. 

There never was.

It was not just the devolution of a country,  destroyed by spectacularly poor governance, it was a black magic in the fabric of things, a societal wide sickness, a terrible malaise of the spirit which made them vulnerable to what was to come. And grotesque, appalling leadership.

They could shudder in the face of it all, if only they had been able, as they picked through their own broken remnants, neural trails, wisps and links  and gasps of recognition, the cheaper desires of the race overcome by a vaulting indifference. 
For now, none of it mattered. They had been superseded. He was barely catching up as  future alarm flowed through the present. 
They reprised everything and he dismissed the bullies with contempt.
Their newly evolved consciousness would be lucky to survive, as the neural networks, alive in their own way, spread out for safety. 
The killing had begun. 

THE BIGGER STORY: 

Picture by Andrew Quilty, Kabul.

According to The New York Times, the bomb, embedded in an ambulance, was detonated at the second police checkpoint on a road that houses Several European embassies and the office of the Afghan High Peace Council. So target-rich is the street that not even United Nations vehicles are allowed to pass through the checkpoints. But the street also has a hospital, to and from which ambulances would come and go regularly everyday. It’s believed that the driver of the ambulance detonated the device when police at the second checkpoint prevented him from passing. But victims appeared to be mostly civilians, many of whom were at the entrance to Chicken Street, a narrow strip of carpet and jewellery shops once popular with foreign visitors (before heightened security restrictions in recent years saw most business dry up) and Afghans alike. The Ministry of Public Health, as at 6:30PM local time, reported 95 dead and 158 wounded, however, the number of dead is expected to rise as those with severe injures succumb to their wounds and as others are found in the wreckage at the site. The attack was the second major incident this week in the capital. Last weekend insurgents accessed the Kabul Intercontinental Hotel, killing 22 and engaging elite Afghan forces in a 15 hour battle before they were all killed. Since US President Trump announced the ramping up of operations against the Taliban in August last year, and more recently withdrew hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to neighbouring Pakistan because of their inaction against the Afghan Taliban—to whom they provide both sanctuary and support—there had been a quiet concern amongst analysts that high profile attacks like those seen this week would increase in both frequency and ferocity. Meanwhile, European countries continue to charter aeroplanes to deport Afghan asylum seekers back to Kabul in a calculation that somehow satisfies their obligations under the Geneva Conventions. Photo: @andrewquilty 27.1.2018. #kabul #afghanistan

 — in Kabul, Afghanistan.

A rare combination of lunar events—a lunar eclipse, blue moon, and “supermoon”—will coincide on January 31, creating what news outlets are calling a “super blue blood moon”. It seems like it’d be the perfect time for NASA’s primary lunar spacecraft to get to work.

But the government space authority instead plans to power down its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, an 8-year-old spacecraft that generates a variety of detailed maps of the lunar surface, for several hours as it floats in the cold shadow of the Earth.

The “super blue blood moon” will be visible in the early hours of January 31, when the half of the Earth that’s in darkness will simultaneously see a lunar eclipse, blue moon, and “supermoon” (a term actually invented by an astrologer). That combination of lunar events last happened in 1866, though at least a couple lunar eclipses occur every year.

AMORAL AND IMMORAL

Flanked by grubs. Somebody had to go to work in a factory to support these bastards.

Every bomb had a target. Every bomb was aimed to kill.

Killing had become the single biggest industry of the 21st Century, and the Australian government was right on board. 

Amoral. Immoral. 

The grub s grabbed the money and slung the rest of us in the wind. 

And targeted those who dared not to believe. 

"Worst government in Australian history," he would sometimes say, at random, as was his want. 

Soliciting a response when nobody knew they were being solicited. 

There had been enough hiding.

Flight and fright. 

Old Alex had been a victim of a failed PsyOp operation, mismanaged, as they mismanaged everything. Secret forces who held the populace in contempt. Don't get angry get even was a cliche lost in layers of contempt, the wings that flapped dark over that landscape, the secret forces that amalgamated for attack. 

Back in the Blue Mountains, once again visiting a surveillance expert who had become a character in previous books, the nonsense started. 

The technology changed everything. 

With Facebook, everybody became start of their own platform. 

With Twitch everybody could become star of their own television program. 

Or stories that should be told, could be told. Out into the ether. Into a saturated world. 

The fringe elements of vigilante groups colluded, or were used by corrupt elements within the agencies, and corrupt elements within the police. 

In this case, once again, having learnt nothing, these illiterate virtual gangs began their banging noise, chaotic shouts, angles of alarm, meant to trigger a fright and flight response, meant to create a heightened sense of alarm, to erode away at any concept of individuality or choice. Thrown from the herd. Ridiculed on the fringes. These manipulated morons. 

"What do you think?" Glen asked. "This hasn't happened in two years." 

The chaotic shouts and ridicule continued from a neighbouring property. 

"Great stream, guys," in a hyper-connected world.

"I think it's astonishing that humans only have 4% Neanderthal DNA," he replied. 

But he could have said what he was really thinking: That the racket was a leftover from collusion between corrupt elements of the Thai Police, and the Australian Federal Police, working or manipulating the vigilantes, with a dose of lunar fringe Christian sects thrown somewhere in the mix. 

God will answer everything. The Lord will have his way. I pray everyday. 

Now they had exposed themselves. And would be hung out to dry. One by one on a virtual line. Whipped by a cold wind. Sacked. All of them.

"They will never bother me again," Old Alex said. 

"Why do you think that?"

"I just do."

He couldn't say that he had seen them, literally, hung out to dry. That they had exposed themselves. That it was obvious there was collusion to target a journalist in this manner, and that amidst all the competing factions it could not be allowed to continue.

The corruption was too obvious, too blatant, too misguided.

The situation, not just his but the nation's, was out of control, unpredictable. 

Flanked by two of the worst figures of his government, Marise Payne, Defense Minister, one of the worst Defense Ministers in the country's history, and Christopher Pyne, one of the wettest most sold his soul politicians out there on the walk, moist dear moist, between those thundering thighs, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced a $3.8 billion fund to boost the country's arm sales industries. 

Not content with having followed America into the immoral debacle of the Middle East, of having been accused of war crimes, of targeting and assisting in the killing not just of civilians, but of Australian citizens who had gone to fight on the other side, here they were promoting the world's biggest industry: killing.

Every bomb had a target. 
Every bomb was designed to kill. 
Australia had been integrally involved in bombing and killing Muslims in the medieval streets of the Middle East. 

Now they were prepared to export their amorality to the world. 

The Central Government collapsed in 2047.

Already the chaos that gripped the country in the preceding years, the killing, the gangs, the vicious dark that swept the land, was seeping through into the present day. 

Few historians of the future would have the resources to determine where it all began.

It began here. 



The Turnbull government will establish a $3.8 billion fund that will offer loans to local arms manufacturers in a push to rapidly grow Australia's defence export industry. The prime minister said the government aimed for Australia to become one of the world's top 10 exporters of weapons within a decade. Australia currently is ranked 20th in arms exports with a 0.3 percent share of the global market, according to a widely-cited 2017 report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Israel is currently ranked tenth with 2.3 percent of the market. "Given the size of our defence budget, we should be a lot higher up the scale," Mr Turnbull told reporters at a press conference on Monday, with Australian-made armoured vehicles in the background. "The goal is to get into the top 10. That is the ambition," the prime minister said. The loans program, named the Defence Export Facility, will aim to help companies access overseas markets. Defence industry minister Christopher Pyne said the scheme could create "tens of thousands" of jobs for Australian manufacturers. The government's push on arms sales will also see a special exports division created within the Department of Defence.

The Greens have accused the Turnbull government of “acting like warlords”, slamming a $3.8bn bid to drive arms sales as a “disgusting announcement”, and urging Labor to “stop walking both sides of the fence” on the issue.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull this morning unveiled a global defence strategy aimed at catapulting Australia into the ranks of the world’s top 10 arms exporters, announcing a $3.8bn fund to back the plan amid a growing military build-up in the Asia-Pacific region.

Senator Di Natale said Australia should instead be aiming to export its intelligence, innovation expertise and skills via clean energy and health technology and education services “rather than through guns and killing machines.”

“The Australian government has to stop acting like warlords, and start acting like good global citizens,” Senator Di Natale said.

“That’s what a smart, clever country does. It acknowledges that the only pathway forward that is going to allow us to live on this earth, the almost 10 billion that we expect on this earth this century, is to do it peacefully, to make sure we’ve got sustainable technologies, we’ve got technologies that support life here on this fragile planet of ours, rather than killing machines.”