A traveller gets on a train, and notices that the only other occupant of the compartment is behaving strangely. From time to time, he takes out a little silver box and sprinkles something around the carriage.
“What are you doing?” asks the curious traveller.
“I’m sprinkling this special dust. It’s to keep the elephants away” his travelling companion tells him.
“But the nearest elephant is miles away”
“You see! Elephant dust works really well, doesn’t it?”
[Old joke, this version lifted]
With no apparent sense of irony (or even a sign of having read the title of his legislation) Simon Corbell has announced he’s introducing the Terrorism (Extraordinary Temporary
Powers) Amendment Bill 2011 into the Legislative Assembly.
“This Bill will extend the operation of the Terrorism Act to 2016 and requires the Government to conduct a second review of the Act”, Mr Corbell said.
“The Bill also makes a small number of amendments to ensure that the rights and responsibilities that the Terrorism Act imposes are clear.
“The Government considers the continuation of our counter-terrorism law is necessary in the current security environment.
If the current security environment warrants running these “extraordinary temporary powers” out to 2016 one really has to wonder what security environment would justify bringing them to an end.
[Photo by _Mrs_B (CC BY 2.0)]
Thanks to Spectra and P1 for reminding us of this: