July 2007 Archives

I caught this interview on Radio National a couple of weeks ago while driving to work. Normally, I would have missed most of it due to arriving at my workplace well before it concluded, but I was so taken with what this guy was saying, I stayed in the car to listen to the whole thing. I found it fascinating.

The transcripts and audio mp3 can be obtained from here.

The Doctor puts the finger squarely on the food industry as one reason why so many more people are fat today than was the case 20 years ago.

A few extracts follow, with my emphasis, but I recommend you read, or preferably, listen to, the whole thing.

I'm no legal expert, but common sense would indicate that Dr Haneef's charge of "recklessly lending a SIM card to terrorists" has little chance of resulting in a conviction. If the item was, for example, a rare, hard to obtain bomb fuse component, then there'd be some justifyable grounds. But there's none for supplying an item as common and easily obtained as phone sim card.

Obviously, the magistrate who granted Haneef bail thought the same. Enough's enough.

The subsequent removal of Haneef's residency visa as a means to keep him locked up is the most outrageous example of government interference in the legal system that I can remember. The presumption of 'innocent until proven guilty' has been thrown out by Kevin Andrews.

Andrews' action reinforces concerns I have about the erosion of protections in our legal system. Putting aside Haneef's guilt or innocence for the moment, these arch conservatives are allowing terrorist actions to undermine the very thing which sets us apart from the perpetrators. By eroding the basic legal protections, they are bridging the gap that differentiates our society from the one the terrorists would like to impose.

We suspected from the David Hicks saga that this conservative government places little value on the process of the law and human rights. Haneef's treatment confirms it.

Hopefully, this action will misfire for the government. To the conservative mind, retention of power is solely about the delivery of rosy economic outcomes to their natural constituency. The polls are showing that the electorate is looking beyond the financial numbers. Andrews' action will only reinforce the notion that the incumbents are mean, soulless and out of touch.

He probably should have. If he'd left a year ago, he would have bowed out at the top of his game, given Costello time to stamp his authority on the Prime Ministership, and (perhaps) given his party a better run into the election.

As it stands, there must be many Liberals who'd wished he'd done just that.

To my surprise, the disdain in the electorate toward the government has not abated. Not even the action to protect indigenous children has had any effect. I expect party discipline to hold for now, but if by September the polls still predict a rout, private misgivings will become public.

It's not beyond possibility that a panicking party may be temped to depose the illustrious leader. The election can be delayed til early next year, perhaps enough time for the new leader to turn things around.

An even more enticing thought is that the great leader finds the idea of losing so unpalatable that he does what he should have done a year ago.

Really, I should try to hold these fantasies in check!