© Joel Carrett/AAPA protest rally calling for the protection of press freedom after the AFP’s raid on the ABC.
We need to ensure democratic freedoms apply to everyone. If they don't, they'll soon apply to no one
For most of its history, Australia managed with no specific federal legislation dealing with terrorism.
That might seem shocking, since, in the past 18 years, politicians have passed more than 60 anti-terror laws, generally on a bipartisan basis.
That "hyper-legislation" brought us, as Rebecca Ananian-Welsh notes, "expansive lists of criminal offences with uniformly severe penalties, and ... vast powers [for] police and intelligence agencies to search, seize, surveil and even detain."
In 2001, when the first anti-terror measures were mooted, the then president of Liberty Victoria, Chris Maxwell, queried why they were required at all.
"All that distinguishes a 'terrorist' act from any other criminal act," he said, "is its scale and its political motivation ... We already have offences like murder, like conspiracy to commit murder. We don't need this whole set of new powers to be conferred."
Comment: Refreshing to see an artist or celebrity who actually has the good sense to accurately read societal ills correctly - and appropriately speak up about them.