so why?

Thanks to one Iain Murray for posting a comment to my old blog, updating the news on peace activist Scott Parkin. The Age on November 1 published something – and online it’s very brief – to the effect that he was ‘blameless’. This was the newspaper’s word. ASIO have admitted that he wasn’t involved in anything violent or dangerous. So why the adverse security assessment? They’ve also ‘revealed’, or at least claimed, that no US pressure was exerted on authorities to act against Parkin, who has written much about Halliburton’s devious business practices. It’s just appalling that this government, so often having been found guilty of lying to us about immigration, detention and foreign policy decisions, is now using the ‘secret men’s business’ excuse of national security concern to trample on the rights of someone who doesn’t share their ideology and doesn’t himself make a secret of the fact. Are they really hiding anything important from us? In the case of Parkin you can bet your bottom dollar they’re not. It’s sickening, and it’s a disgrace. And what does this tell us about Beazley? I’m sorry, but it’s time he was removed as opposition leader. I recognise his expertise and vast experience, and his good work in the industrial relations, taxation and social equity areas, but his me-tooism about civil liberties has quite frankly lost me. I wonder how Julia Gillard feels about all this.