22 October 2005

ACT Locked Out of National Terror Laws - Good!

| johnboy
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[Story first Posted on 10.21.05 by johnboy @ 3:22 pm]

The Chief Minister is circulating a press release (our copy is here, I imagine he’ll get it online someday soon) in which he expresses shock and horror at the inevitable consequence of his actions.

Chief Minister Jon Stanhope said the ACT Government had been informed by email today that the latest draft of the Anti-Terrorism Bill was about to be forwarded from the Commonwealth Office of Parliamentary Counsel, but that the office had been instructed not to provide the ACT with a copy.

However I think he’s over-egging the pudding with this expostulation:

”I am astounded and dismayed that the Commonwealth takes it upon itself to lock out of the process one of the parties upon whose support it relies. Rarely has the obvious contempt of the current Federal Government for the people of the ACT been so blatant.

C’mon Mr. Stanhope, this was an inevitable consequence of your principled stand.

Anyway if they don’t want to share their crappy laws with us then I guess we’ll just have to muddle by without them. Just as we have since Magna Carta.

UPDATED: Google News have a huge number of stories on this. Most interestingly the ABC posted a story at 1am in which the Prime Minister calls Mr. Stanhope a liar.

“He’ll be getting all drafts, he won’t have missed anything, I can assure the people of the ACT that,” he said.

“The ACT will be receiving all future drafts of this legislation.

“I want the agreement of all governments and there is no purpose served, I have decided, in the people of the ACT being treated with the discourtesy that Mr Stanhope displayed towards his fellow leaders.”

Murdoch’s News published the story three hours earlier at 10pm [According to google news] working from AAP.

The obvious course is for Mr. Stanhope to print a copy of the email he says he received on his now legendary website.

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The whole thing is getting loopier by the day. Now the ACT town council is “grateful” for it’s re-inclusion in the loop: according to this morning’s news.

It’s not a loop we want to be in.

Samuel Gordon-Stewart12:18 pm 22 Oct 05

And put a bit of fear in Stanhope, make it look like he is risking getting kicked out of the loop if he is naughty again.

I’m suspecting the PM has played Stanhope like a two dollar banjo on this one.

Get an underling to send an inflamatory email, watch the inevitable fireworks, then come in as the magnaminous big man, willing to look beyond the petty tantrums of the insubordinate chief minister.

Vic Bitterman10:37 am 22 Oct 05

stanhope is a dickhead, this proves it even more.

Samuel Gordon-Stewart11:57 pm 21 Oct 05

news.com.au have joined the party here

Samuel Gordon-Stewart9:25 pm 21 Oct 05

AAP have just released a report saying that John Howard will now send a copy of the draft legislation to the ACT government. Apparently Stanhope will be invited to all future meetings about the laws as Howard wants agreement from all the states & territories.

ABC and others should have the story soon…

I’m pretty sure jon Stanhope was not motivated by a desire to improve the hitrate on his website.

Samuel Gordon-Stewart5:09 pm 21 Oct 05

But then he wouldn’t get to look over the shoulder of somebody important talking about “Today’s amazing events” on the news. It would also prevent him from having an extract of his rant on the TV.

He got national coverage of himself and his website with the legislation leak, but leaking the activities info would make the media less likely to attend and therefore bring him less cameras and microphones to rant into.

Has there been any progress on the Stanhope pull string doll which was going to talk about “grave concerns”?

It’s a wonder that Stanhope didn’t reveal the details of the counter-terrorism exercise Mercury 05 on his website before it commenced!

Samuel Gordon-Stewart4:35 pm 21 Oct 05

Now if the federal government will send Jon Stanhope some turnips I’ll be happy…because then he can talk to them and not us.

It would appear that the federal govt is doing to the comrade exactly what he does to the citizens of canberra on a regular basis. only difference is that we didn’t have a whole lot of collegiate spirit i nthe first place

I think they would have reached this conclusion without our help.

It’s a bit of ‘I told you so’ happening here. Perhaps some of our coworkers in the triangle have been browsing on through this website…

well if he does get shut out of COAG he won’t be able to bullshit us that the next tablets he brings down the mountain have to be agreed to without further debate.

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