11 October 2007

Crispin's parting words

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Recently retired Supreme Court Judge Ken Crispin has given us mere mortals an interesting insight into the thinking of our bench during his retirement speech this week. CT bring us the story that Crispin has “praised the ACT Government for standing against the tide of knee-jerk legislation, for providing statutory recognition of human rights, and for resisting the clamour to jettison principles of fairness and compassion”.

Suitably long winded and wordy for a judge as you would expect.

He points out that “Commonwealth Government has not been an island of reason in the flood of hysteria over terrorism” and goes on to ask “Australia has also faced greater dangers from violent enemies. Why then are we now engaging in a panic stricken rush to jettison our rights and freedoms?” which i’m sure we all find to be rivetting stuff. It does however go a long way to explain the mindset of a man who’s been responsible for a lot of decisions that have sparked so much debate on this site.

I couldnt help but wonder if his parting words were addressed at the less moderates here.
“It is fashionable to chant mantras like ‘tough on crime’ as though every social problem can be solved by locking people up for longer periods.”

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hingo_VRCalaisV61:35 pm 12 Oct 07

“There has never been a terrorist attack on Australian soil (unless you count the bombing of a certain hotel last century)”

Thats like saying the twin towers never fell down unless you cound 9/11

barking toad11:39 am 12 Oct 07

Woody, there’s a few jihadists facing court now because the anti-terror legislation stopped them.

Openyourmind,

I would counter the claim that increasing prison populations is indicative that we as a society are not softer on crime by saying that statistic is irrelevant. A more accurate stat would compare it with number of criminal charges per 100,000 over the last 30 years. If the graphs plot the same then you could say that there’s been no change in how tough we are on crime.

and the welfare state.

I was amazed by the stats on the rates of incarceration too.

I think one reason we seem to see more crime around now, despite having more people locked up is that there are less police around, and that there are no secure facilities for mental health. and a general lack of support for mental health issues.

Woody in a lather again, reduced to spitting bile.

Typical though.

Where can I get the job as ACT hang-man?

OpenYourMind28:14 pm 11 Oct 07

I was really impressed by the comments made by Ken Crispin. An excerpt from CT: “Much of the rhetoric about crime was misleading. It was not out of control, the streets were not full of criminals who had escaped conviction ‘on silly technicalities’ and sentences were not ever more lenient. In 30 years the prison population had grown from 62 to 163 per 100,000. In fact crime is driven substantially by drug dependency and mental illness. Neither of these problems are amenable to correction by simplistic slogans….”

Seems fair to me. America has a ridiculously high incarceration rate and it doesn’t seemed to have helped their crime problem.

I don’t profess to be an expert in this area, but I’d certainly put more trust in the judgement of this well spoken man than I would in the armchair legal/social experts here who probably have a lot less exposure to the true situation and the true statistics on criminology than Ken Crispin does.

Ingeegoodbee6:31 pm 11 Oct 07

If you’re prepared to give up a right out of fear, then you didn’t deserve that right in the first place. Surrendering fundamental freedoms sends a clear message to the towel-head fundamentalist Allah-fucker$ who oppose us that their use of terrorism against us gets results. We just end up looking weak and stupid.

Woody Mann-Caruso6:30 pm 11 Oct 07

Sometimes rights we enjoy that are exploited by terrorists

By “sometimes” I assume you mean “never”. There has never been a terrorist attack on Australian soil (unless you count the bombing of a certain hotel last century). Of the terrorist attacks on US soil in recent years, two-thirds of them were committed by white Americans. Of the terrorist attacks committed in the UK in the last few decades, most were committed by Catholics. We’re a few thousand times more likely to be killed by our fellow WASPs than by jihadists.

We already had laws against blowing people up, and they seem to have worked fine til now. You poncey-arsed nancy-boys are the ones with tits, shivering under your beds, wetting your pants about OMFG TRRRSTS FTW.

barking toad5:20 pm 11 Oct 07

Appeasing wimps such as this one are responsible for the spread of islamofascism throughout the western world.

Sometimes rights we enjoy that are exploited by terrorists need to be curtailed to stop the infection.

If you don’t run round preaching death to Israel, USA, and all infidels while wearing a bomb vest there’s a fair chance you won’t have a problem.

And anyone who praises the nohope government is a bit suss.

VYBerlinaV8...the_original_and_best5:03 pm 11 Oct 07

Woody has great tits! I reckon she’s hot as.

hingo_VRCalaisV64:55 pm 11 Oct 07

Wow, someone really twisted Woodys tits.

Woody Mann-Caruso4:47 pm 11 Oct 07

The average law abiding citizen has nothing to worry about from the Government’s terror laws

Have you enlisted to fight the war on terror yet, Ralph? You seem to support it so strongly, and I know you’re not a gutless coward. Or is your role limited to taking surveillance photographs of the bus stop across the road?

Good riddance indeed. He can now go join David Marr in complaining about how disgusting Australia apparently is, and dreaming of an activist judiciary – for the good of the heathen proles.

hingo_VRCalaisV612:10 pm 11 Oct 07

Well said Ralph. Shouldn’t this old fart be pottering around in a garden somewhere?

Mike Crowther11:07 am 11 Oct 07

“It is fashionable to chant mantras like ‘tough on crime’ as though every social problem can be solved by locking people up for longer periods.”

Ivan Milat hasn’t killed anyone since 1995 when he was locked up. Now that is not a mantra, that is a fact. (I don’t know whether it’s one of those ‘legally admissible facts’ that only seem to exist in the rarefied atmosphere that judges occupy). But there are those who either cannot, or will not live at peace with any community. OK, Gaol is not the only tool, but in the hands of a judge with a bit of guts and a modicum of social responsibility, it’s not a bad tool.

Leftist babble.

The average law abiding citizen has nothing to worry about from the Government’s terror laws. As we are law abiding citizens, we don’t ever have to worry about our ‘civil liberties’ being impinged. Different story if you happen to be an Islamic jihadist.

As for “tough on crime”, what do you want? More counselling services? Get real. I’m sure your opinion will change when your house gets done over, or you are randomly beaten by somebody on ice, or your elderly mother gets knocked to the ground at the Canberra Centre, and later dies.

Sounds like a good bloke, from those snippets. The FedGov has been running round like a bunch of headless christians over the whole War Of Terror, and the knee-jerk conservative “tough on crime” meme needs to be beaten to death. So what are you complaining about here?

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