Dear Bill Shorten: you're the opposition leader, not me. It's time to drop your soft bipartisanship
I
can’t oppose the government alone. Shorten needs to realise that
legislator’s remorse doesn’t make up for Labor’s weak opposition to
national security creep
can’t oppose the government alone. Shorten needs to realise that
legislator’s remorse doesn’t make up for Labor’s weak opposition to
national security creep
‘Labor once had a fine tradition of defending civil liberties. What happened to that?’
Photograph: Mike Bowers
Dear Bill Shorten, I’d like a word.
Leading the opposition, in case you haven’t noticed, is your job. So
could you do it, please? I’m not the opposition leader, despite the fact
that the media keep pretending I am.
Don’t get me wrong, I admired the way you faced down the Australian Christian Lobby on marriage equality,
but in your position, once is not enough. If you don’t stand up for
civil liberties, we will soon have no liberties left to defend.
At the moment I’m the only consistent defender of civil liberties in the current parliament. On 35P and journalists going to jail,
18C and people choosing to be offended, or super-secret search warrants
that cannot be mentioned, I am the only one to have raised objections
each time.
Of course, there are people in all parties who agree with me, but
they’re either unwilling to speak up, or are selective about their
concerns. I’ve also had minimal support from the Coalition media
commentariat, who don’t seem to understand that their “team” will not
always be in power. I’m left to do it, and I’m sick of it.
Your desire to avoid being seen as “soft” on terror has led to a
situation where you’re competing with Tony Abbott to see who has the
hairiest chest, and since we’ve all seen Tony in his budgie smugglers,
this is a competition you are destined to lose.
It’s time to drop the bipartisanship, particularly on the data
retention proposals. These have nothing to do with national security and
everything to do with allowing every busy-body who works for the
government to snoop on ordinary citizens.
I’d like you to tell the Australian people that until the European
court of justice struck down the EU’s 2006 data retention directive
earlier this year, the equivalent legislation in the UK to Australia’s
data retention bill was used to chase people for things like minor
welfare fraud, littering, and dog fouling. Yes, I know that standing in
dog shit isn’t fun, but spying on perpetrators isn’t going to help
defeat Islamists either.
Data retention will not bother the technically competent and those
who hide in the recesses of the “DarkNet”. It will catch the journalist
who finds the odd leak and the parliamentarian who wanders into a
brothel with his iPhone switched on. Thanks to the wonders of GPS, the
Chinese will know every Australian politician’s geographic foibles for
the previous two years.
And I’m sure the ATO and the ACCC will love data retention as much as
their counterparts did in the UK. In fact, I’m fairly sure it will be
used to spy on petrol stations in the ongoing “bowser wars”.
Your bipartisanship on national security is also galling because it
is stopping the Senate from functioning as Australia’s house of review.
During my first week as a senator, in early July, you may recall
inviting me to meet with you and Penny Wong, where you stressed the
importance of allowing the Senate to do its job and not curtailing
debate.
This bipartisanship meant that last Wednesday, a number of useful
amendments to the risible, illiberal foreign fighters bill were voted
down without a single word of debate. This happened because on Tuesday,
Labor agreed to the government’s guillotine motion.
Only now, after passage of that bill into law, have you written to
Abbott, asking him to “please reconsider” both tranches of the national
security legislation. Only in the hurly-burly of the chamber in the
midst of a sitting week did you let your shadow attorney general produce
some decent quality amendments.
I doubt that any amount of legislator’s remorse will be of much help to the people who discover they have been criminalised.
I urge you to lead the alternative government, the
government-in-waiting. Labor once had a fine tradition of defending
civil liberties. What happened to that? Just because the Coalition is
struggling in the polls at the moment doesn’t mean victory in the next
election will drop into your lap like a ripe plum off a branch.
I know the scene at the end of Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus – where
lots of people stand up and claim to be Spartacus – is one of the great
cinematic moments, but that’s not how Australian politics works. You are
the leader of the opposition. You need to stand up and be counted.
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