AND what are we to think of John Stanhope, at the one moment rolling over to the secret advice of ASIO and the AFP that yes there are people in Australia with close links to terrorism, about 60 that we know about, and agreeing to new terrorism legislation and then putting the draft legislation out there for all to see.

Is it gullibility, is it a sense of democratic process or is it playing politics with this very useful hare em scare em tool.

PM Howard admits that even an ASIO with twice as many staff and some $300 million more for other resources that it is not ironclad protection. The same claims are made about the hard security systems put in place in ports and other vulnerable locations. There is no guarantee.

Stanhope has said he believes that the treatment of the Palestinian people since 1948 has fed the anger that fuels the Muslim fundamentalists. He has described the events in Iraq as adding to that fuel. He has said that legislation that is used to harass elements in a particular community could also be home grown fuel for our won fires.

Is there any advantage in developing the legislation in secret, the love of those fighting a behind the scenes war in the murky realms of the cloak and dagger world of security.

Certainly it limits the time it is in the political arena, the time when those in the community who wish to limit state power over the individual [Remember, it used to be a basic tenet of liberal philosophy] and so protect civil liberties to build momentum to get changes to the draft.

Developing legislation in secret only allows those who would do harm to use this period to manipulate that secrecy, it does not provide additional protection against what cannot be guaranteed to be prevented anyway.

It is an odd process where all the structural processes of democracy have to be so limited. Secret discussions between the states, Senate inquiries so short as to be a sad joke on the house that is supposed to protect State rights and so defacto our own rights with a Federal system. All this to rush more terrorism legislation in before Christmas.

Terrorists will not be scared by proposed legislation, secret or not. They may be hastened to action by its forecasting. However, that will only be dealt with the procedures and networks already in place.

And still this legislation will provide no guarantees. Is this the governments out, we did our best but we said there were no guarantees.

The cost of blame

Will they then add that, as this is a matter of ongoing security there can be no inquiry into how an incident was handled. No 911 Commission to find if there were any omissions.

No party would want to overly delay new anti-terror legislation, the cost of blame would be high were an act to occur. By being bipartisan Howard would give us real leadership, rather than taking partisan advantage in the Federal sphere whilst rolling out something the States have little but Federal advice to base their support on.

Process is about guaranteeing what we are defending, civil liberty and democracy, is not lost in the acts of defending it.

Rather than feed the monster of secrecy that comes with security, John Stanhope has taken the correct course in posting the draft legislation on his website for all to see.

Perhaps there are still elements who believe that the civil liberties movement works hand in hand with unmentioned dark forces with an unstated agenda and they must be kept at maximum distance.

However concerned we are about terror coming to a place near each of us, we are also tired of politicians lying, secrecy being one of the guardians of those lies.

The legislation will be all the stronger for debate about its provisions, any supposed weaknesses arising from that debate our guarantee that we retain the twins of civil liberties and democracy whilst adopting legislation which give us no guarantees anyway.

phill Parsons finds there is much to opine on and little springtime to do so. He notes that now business is taking a serious interest in climate change and perhaps the weather will now improve, especially if it can be a fee for service option. [ABC Background Breifing,16,18 and 19OCT].

He also notes that a leading denier, Hugh Morgan has moved from denying to dissembling and evading. Has his faith been changed?.

He looks forward to home detention under the new legislation, he is sure he can still craft a comment within the draft legislation proposed.