David Hicks' conviction vacated: Every member of the former Howard Government, including the current Australian Prime Minister, now have egg on their faces

Every Australian Senator and Member of Parliament should take note of this monumental error by the former Howard Government, its prime minister, ministers and backbenchers – which included Prime Minister Tony Abbott - and the failure of domestic national security agencies to offer advice based on law and fact.

What this clearly demonstrates is that an Australian Parliament when passing anti-terrorism/national security legislation and, a Federal Government when creating policy in relation to terrorism/national security or responding to citizens held by foreign powers, need to eschew any tendency to hysteria and block their ears to dog whistling in the media when considering legislation before the House of Representatives and/or the Senate or the circumstances of individual citizens.

Governments make mistakes and giving them the additional powers will not eliminate the potential for error. Instead it may perversely increase this risk.

ABC News 19 February 2015:

Australia's David Hicks, a former prisoner at the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, has won a legal challenge to his terrorism conviction before a military court in Cuba….

Last year, an appeals court ruled material support was not a legally viable war crime but prosecutors argued the conviction should stand because Mr Hicks agreed not to appeal as part of the plea deal, an argument that has now been rejected by the US Court of Military Commission Review….

Stephen Kenny, Mr Hick's lawyer in Australia, said the decision confirmed his client's innocence.

"Well it means David Hicks' conviction has been set aside and he's been declared an innocent man so it confirms what we knew all along," he said.

"David Hicks was innocent and that has formally been recorded by the military commission itself."….

BACKGROUND

Law Council of Australia:

David Hicks, an Australian citizen, was ‘captured' in Afghanistan in December 2001. He was transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he was detained by the US Military on the basis that he was an enemy combatant.

                         

After almost three years in isolated detention, Hicks was charged with conspiracy, attempted murder and aiding the enemy and was committed to face trial before a Military Commission established pursuant to Presidential Order. However, before the trial could proceed, the US Supreme Court found that the military commission system was unlawful.

David Hicks was once more left in detention without charge and with no prospect of release in the short or long term.

In late 2006, the military commission system was re-established by an Act of the United States Congress and in early 2007 David Hicks was again charged and committed to face trial before a newly constituted Commission.

In March 2007, over five years after his initial capture, David Hicks pleaded guilty, pursuant to a pre-trial agreement, to a single charge of "providing material support for terrorism".

In April 2007, Hicks was returned to Australia to serve the remaining nine months of his suspended seven-year sentence.

Hicks was released on 29 December 2007, but was placed under a 12 month control order.

The Law Council took a close interest in David Hicks' case and played a prominent role in bringing his plight to the attention of Australian public. Throughout his period of detention, the Law Council was highly critical of:

* The inability of Hicks to effectively challenge the legality of his detention;

*  Hicks' treatment in detention;

* The flawed and inherently unjust rules of procedure and evidence of the military commissions;

* The lack of any legal foundation for the charges initially pursued against Hicks;

* The retrospective nature of the charge eventually pursued against Hicks;

* The acquiescence of the Australian Government in Hicks' detention without charge;

* The acquiescence of the Australian Government in Hicks' trial before a military commission;

* The terms of Hicks' plea agreement; and 

* The unnecessary imposition of a control order on Hicks upon his release.

Over this period the Law Council issued more than twenty press releases, public letters to Parliament and reports, including three reports from the Law Council's Independent Observer at Hicks' trial. These materials are available below.

Debrah Novak throws her hat into the ring for Clarence at the NSW state election this month

Debrah Novak

Candidate For Clarence

Media Release

A surprise candidate has thrown her hat in the ring for Clarence at the state election next month.

Yamba woman Debrah Novak is running as an independent.

Ms Novak has lived in the electorate for more than 30 years and raised her three adult children here.

"I have worked and played in most corners of the Clarence electorate for over 30 years and believe this unique region is worth holding onto for future generations," Ms Novak said yesterday.

"I am not a career politician and until recently had no desire to go into politics.

"However, I will not stand by and watch the Clarence be stripped of jobs and have its farmland devastated by people who have no interest in us.

"One of my reasons for running is to put our local community front and centre.

"It is a daunting task to take on the might and money of a political party as an independent. However, I am determined to get better representation for the Clarence.

"What gave me the fire in the belly was the march against CSG I attended in Sydney organised by the NSW Farmers Association a couple of years ago.

"In it, the NSW Country Women's Association marched for the first time in its 90-year history.

"I stood among 5000 country folk who went to Sydney to take part in the march.

"I figured if these amazing folk had it in them to step up for the first time, I needed to do what I could to support the Clarence.

"If our political parties and politicians are not protecting their people and land, ordinary people must step up and do it.

"Join me in the new dawn of Australian politics, where people and communities matter," Ms Novak said.

Ms Novak will host a number of forums across the electorate where you can contribute your views and opinions on a range of issues. Other candidates are welcome to attend so we can all hear what voters want.

If you would like to get involved or would like to find out more about Debrah Novak's campaign and how she plans to support the Clarence visit her website www.votedebrahnovak.com.au , phone or text M:0499796297, or email votedebrahnovak@gmail.com

Was there a councillor walkout before Clarence Valley Council voted on the Mayoral Minute concerning early renewal of the General Manager's contract?

This Twitter exchange between the Clarence Valley mayor and no_filter_Yamba occurred on 18 February 2015. It relates to Clarence Valley Council’s ordinary monthly meeting of 17 February.

At the time of posting the mayor still had not answered that last question.

I strongly suspect that it was not answered because it was less than the nine elected councillors attending that monthly meeting who actually went into the Committee of the Whole and voted behind closed doors for renewal of the general manager’s five year contract.

Based on the open debate concerning the resolution to close part of the meeting to the public, I calculate that only seven of the nine councillors voted in closed session.

In other words, there was a walkout by two councillors who appeared to want to disassociate themselves from this early contract renewal.

Clearly councillors’ differing opinions of the actions of the mayor did not create the consensus implied in the mayor’s tweets.

Background

SATURDAY, 14 FEBRUARY 2015

Is Clarence Valley Council's general manager trying to inoculate himself against any regime change at the 10 September 2016 local government election?

Abbott's 'snoopers' charter continues to cause concern

Liberty Victoria has a history of campaigning for civil liberties and human rights for more than 70 years. Officially known as the Victorian Council of Civil Liberties Inc, its lineage extends back to the Australian Council for Civil Liberties (ACCL).

This is its 22 January 2015 media release:

Scrap Abbott's 'snoopers' charter, says human rights group

The human rights group Liberty Victoria today called on the Federal Government to use its review of security laws to introduce a much higher threshold for access to telecommunications data and limit access to agencies directly responsible for national security and the investigation of serious crime.

 Liberty warned that the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act, which gives government agencies access to this data, is open to abuse because information can be obtained without a warrant or any independent oversight. “A full-scale campaign has been launched against similar laws in Britain, targeting the `snoopers’ charter,’ as it is known.”

The Abbott government’s proposed data retention bill, which will amend the Act, will make things worse, enabling retrospective surveillance of the private lives of ordinary Australians throughout the two year data retention period.

“The Abbott government is trying to justify this bill as a necessary tool for security agencies and the police in the fight against terrorism and serious crime. The legislation goes much further than is necessary for this purpose, however, allowing access to telecommunications data, even if the investigation only aims at non payment of a fine or a tax.

“The law now allows Australian Post, the tax office and a municipal council, among many others agencies, access to an individual’s telecommunications data. And there is no sanction if information is accessed unlawfully by authorised officers working in these agencies.”

Liberty said that in spite of  statements to the contrary by the Federal Government, the proposed data retention bill will not necessarily limit the number of agencies that have access to telecommunications data and nothing in the bill will set a higher threshold for access to such data.

Liberty echoed the view of Alistair MacDonald, QC, chairman of the English Bar Council, that one of the aims of extremists, who are willing to commit barbaric crimes in support of purportedly religious or political ends, is that the hard-won liberties of the civil population should be curtailed and a wedge driven between those in society with different views about the degree to which personal freedom should be sacrificed for public safety.

Electronic Frontiers Australia 11 January 2015:

Right now the Government is proposing to introduce a mandatory, society-wide regime for the retention of communications data (‘metadata’) for two years. In the latest public hearing into the Government’s proposed legislation a number of important matters were revealed by the Attorney-General and Australia’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

If you weren’t paying attention to the workings of Parliament in the lead up to the festive season then you may have missed a crucial public hearing by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS), held on 17th December. This hearing delved into the Government’s proposed mandatory, society-wide data retention regime. It was a crucial hearing because from it we learned five things.

1. There remains no final definition for the data set and what exactly will or won’t be retained. In fact the hearing revealed continuing confusion about what the Government and the law enforcement and intelligence communities consider to be relevant data.

2. The Government doesn’t know how much it will cost to implement the Government’s mandatory, society-wide data retention regime, and they won’t be able to make meaningful estimates until they’ve finished defining the data set. What we do have are estimates about the costs to telcos and ISPs for implementing the regime, which the industry has already admitted will be passed on to consumers. So, you’ll end up paying more through higher connectivity charges, through your taxes, or probably both.

3. The Government and the Australian Federal Police cannot say how many times existing surveillance laws and the subsequent data collected have contributed to intercepting criminal activity or successfully prosecuting suspects.

4. There were no new details provided about the circumstances under which access to data is granted or what it will be used for. This is particularly interesting given the recent passage of laws enabling the AFP and ASIO to delete, add or change data on computers of people who are not ‘persons of interest’.

5. It was confirmed that the mandatory, society-wide data retention regime could be utilised to pursue civil legal actions, particularly copyright infringement actions, and admitted that the regime represented a security risk as personal user data would be centrally stored for two years; offering a tempting target for crackers to steal data.

For some, the public hearing confirmed our worst fears about the mandatory, society-wide data retention regime…..

What they want now is for that information to be retained for two years for ALL Australians, even if you’re not being investigated or considered a person of interest. The regime represents a massive invasion of the privacy of all Australians, while subverting a fundamental principle of our legal system – the presumption of innocence – by treating all of us as suspects.

And we the public will get the privilege of paying for it all as telcos and ISPs will pass on the costs of implementing the regime to customers. While the telcos and ISPs have been measuring the possible cost of this poor policy, the Government has yet to work out how much it will cost taxpayers to implement it.

In addition, it was confirmed during the PJCIS public hearing that the laws pave the way for the pursuit of civil legal actions, especially related to copyright infringement, but also potentially unfair dismissal and in many other contexts. This means a new threat to the public who aren’t persons of interest as ordinary Australians get caught up in civil actions because they downloaded some movies from the net….

CNet 29 January 2015:

Both Australia's largest telco and a leading digital privacy organisation have warned that mandatory data retention could create a "honeypot" of personal information that could be compromised by hackers and criminals.

The warning came at a Parliamentary Committee hearing on proposed Data Retention legislation, which is hearing from telecommunications providers, security experts and privacy advocates in Canberra today and tomorrow.

Both Telstra and digital civil liberties group Electronic Frontiers Australia have warned that requiring telecommunications providers and ISPs to store metadata on every Australian for a period of two years would create a massive cache of personal information that would need to be protected with extra security to prevent hacks.

To highlight how much more data could be retained under a mandatory scheme compared to current practices, Telstra Director of Government Relations James Shaw said that, at peak times such as New Years Eve, some data is only retained by the telco for a few hours before it is overwritten -- significantly less than the two-year period that would be required under proposed legislation…

Telstra Chief Information Security Officer Michael Burgess warned that keeping two years' worth of metadata could pique the interest of people aside from law enforcement and security agencies, and that the company "would need to take further steps" to ensure security.

"The internet is a very busy place for people that choose to do harm," he said. "We would have to put extra measures in place...to make sure that data was safe from those that should not have access to it."

Furthermore, Burgess warned that the data retention scheme would require "new functionality" to be rolled out across Telstra's network to ensure the proper storage of the correct information. Compared to current storage methods, he argued that a new centralised system could provide an easier access point for hackers…..

Surviving the leadership challenge and Day One of Good Government didn't give more than a dead cat bounce in Coalition polling numbers?

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s ability to find the numbers to quash the 9 February 2015 leadership spill motion may not have translated into anything more than a dead cat bounce in polling for the Coalition.

It picked up one percentage point, Labor held its ground, the Green gained one percentage point and, the two-party preferred vote remained the same.

Which means that Labor would have won government if an election had been held between 13-16 February 2015.

This were the voting intentions of poll respondents between 4-8 February in the Essential Report of 10 February 2015:

These are the voting intentions of poll respondents between 13-16 February in the Essential Report of 17 February 2015:

Not a good look for NSW Premier Baird a little over five weeks out from a state election

"Tony and I are mates.”

[NSW Liberal Premier Mike Baird, speaking about Prime Minister Abbott on 6 February 2015]

Hamming it up for the Fairfax media on 13 February 2015

The Daily Telegraph 15 February 2015

Found at Country Labor candidate Trent Gilbert's Facebook page 16 February 2014

Undated photo opportunity

The real difference between these two Liberal leaders?

One has more hair.

Premier Mike Baird (left) in  advertisement for Tony Abbott's fan club, News Corp

October 2014

Meet the Candidates (Clarence Electorate, NSW Election) at Dundurrabin on Sunday 15 March 2015