When Kevin Rudd was elected Prime Minister of Australia, I - as many others at the time - thought that this move would incite some changes in the way the country has been run. So far, the only changes that have been made were the ones that are necessary to keep the Government in office because they promised during the election campaigns to make said changes. Primary one would be the withdrawal from Iraq.
However, this is not a blog based on that aspect of politics.

What has become painstakingly clear to a lot of the contemporaries is that this Government is not intent on making any changes to censorship and classification laws. Granted, I have been unable to establish Governor-General Designate Quentin Bryce's stance on the topic, but given that she is a 65-year-old politician with heavy involvement in children's welfare - and having herself five grandchildren to five of her own children - I believe there is a good chance she will retort with the "we must protect our children from this vicious social disease" bullshit that Barnaby Joyce spits everywhere.
Lucky I brought Barnaby up, too, because I forget about addressing a letter to him. Swell.

[I know you can't tell, but I'm going to go and have my (now 5-hour cold dinner) and return with a fully belly of splendorous potato bake]

And I'm back.
I was only gone XX minutes. Did you miss me?
Bah, no-one's reading this anyway, what does it matter?

Anyway, so...
The dilemma we have is that, if I am not mistaken, it's either the Governor-General or Attorney-General in a position to introduce the R18+ classification. This sounds a little stupid, but from what I've been reading lately it seems like it's the only way to get it to happen.
Now, I'm not in the business of making assumptions and sweeping statements, so take what I just said with a grain of salt and make sure that you display some independence of thought and search for yourself.

People I'll be targeting in this batch will be:

• Lt. Col. (ret'd) Dave Grossman - Killologist
• Governor-General of Australia Designate Quentin Bryce
• Attorney General of Australia Robert McClelland
• Barnaby Joyce and
• Jack Thompson.

I know it may seem like I'm jumping in the deep end, but as these people variously offer the greatest potential resistance or the half-arsed arguments that are used to justify this resistance, I'm going to find out what they have to say.
I'll post my sendings and their responses for you.

Also, I am fully aware that Barnaby Joyce is a relative nobody, but I've heard him say the most ignorant and inflammatory things of anybody I have heard speak on the topic.
Seriously, the guys a dunce and shits me off - he supports mining of Antarctica... Like it's a good idea...
Idiot.

Relevant Links:
Anthony Larme's Games Censorship Collection
Interactive Entertainments Association of Australia: R18+ Classification Gap Discussion (PDF)

(ANSA) – 11:26 - Sydney, 14 mag -Il governo laburista australiano di Kevin Rudd sta preparando un ricorso presso la Corte internazionale di giustizia contro il presidente dell'Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, per 'istigazione al genocidio' e per aver negato l'olocausto degli ebrei. Lo riferisce oggi in prima pagina il quotidiano The Australian, osservando che l'Australia é finora l'unico paese a voler perseguire il leader iraniano, che ha minacciato di "cancellare Israele dalla mappa".

Il ministro della Giustizia Robert McClelland ha confermato che il governo ha richiesto consulenza legale sulla procedura da seguire presso la Corte internazionale. "Il nostro governo considera che le dichiarazioni del presidente Ahmadinejad, che esorta alla distruzione di Israele e mette in dubbio l'esistenza dell'olocausto, siano ripugnanti e offensive", ha dichiarato.

Secondo McClelland l'azione legale è l'unica strada praticabile. "L'alternativa al ricorso a meccanismi legali internazionali sarebbe la minaccia di un'invasione in larga scala del paese, che ovviamente comporterebbe alti costi di vite umane, oltre che materiali".

Prima di salire al governo lo scorso novembre, ricorda il quotidiano, Kevin Rudd aveva promesso alla comunità ebraica che se avesse vinto le elezioni avrebbe intrapreso un procedimento legale presso la Corte internazionale contro il presidente iraniano. "E' un forte argomento" che la condotta di Ahmadinejad, di invocare l'annullamento di Israele, mettere in dubbio che i sionisti siano esseri umani e convocare una conferenza sulla veridicità dell'Olocausto, si configurano come incitamento al genocidio, che è definito un crimine dalla convenzione del 1948 sul genocidio, ha dichiarato oggi in un'intervista radio.

Robert clearly doesn't understand biology. Children of gay couples don't exist. It is biologically impossible.

Obviously, we understand what McClelland meant, but he could've worded it differently. Even in the 21st century politically correct latte-sipping world, it still takes a male and a female to have a child. As Margaret Thatcher once said, "the facts of life are conservative".

Many people think that other aspects of conduct by the Australian Federal Police should also be the subject of a public inquiry, including its action in causing young Australians to be arrested for drug offences in Indonesia and be sentenced to death despite Australia being a signatory to international treaties prohibiting capital punishment.

There are many precedents for inquiries having their terms of reference expanded where significant public demand existed for such expansion. The famous Fitzgerald Inquiry in Queensland in the late 1980s is an excellent example.

You may therefore like to write to the Attorney-General, Mr. McClelland, and to Mr. Clarke requesting and suggesting that the terms of reference be expanded to allow Mr. Clarke to consider the AFP’s actions in having young Australians sentenced to death despite Australia’s international obligations for offences that would result in less than 20 years imprisonment in Australia.

The Attorney-General’s address is:
The Honourable Robert McClelland MP,The Attorney-General
Attorney-General’s Department
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

By Fax: (02) 6273 4102 

The address for Mr. Clarke’s Inquiry is:
Secretariat to the Clarke Inquiry     
Attorney-General’s Department       
Robert Garran Offices  
National Circuit
Barton  ACT  2600

I actually couldn't imagine a better policy coming out of the alternative government, and when I was contacted by various media (including the Brisbane Times here) as convenor of Australians Against Capital Punishment, I roundly congratulated the ALP on this principled stand.

Within an hour of giving the interview, I heard the news that Kevin Rudd had come down on McClelland, first claiming the timing of speech - so close to the anniversary of the Bali Bombing, was insensitive, then not only reversing McClelland's laudable position that our government would actively oppose capital punishment in all cases, not just when Australians were involved, but actually claimed there was no difference between the Liberal Party and ALP policy (here).

Yes, it was close to the anniversary of that awful tragedy and some of the Bali Bombers' cases were in a crucial point in the appeals process, but it was also a critical point for the appeals of some of the young Australians facing execution in Indonesia over drug smuggling charges.

And that was McClelland's point - that by turning your back on the death penalty for others, you have no credibility on the issue when you're lobbying for your own. He wasn't the first to point this out - another who has done so very thoroughly, is Philip Alston - the UN's spokesperson on the Death Penalty (and brother of former Federal Communications Minister and haranguer-in-chief of the ABC, Richard - there seems to be a Tim Costello/Peter Costello good sibling/very, very, very bad sibling situation going on there, too). Philip Alston has spoken out many times on the Australian Government's deliberate blindness, and even outright hypocrisy on the death penalty many times.

The ABC has a great piece on the McClelland saga, including comments from Professor Alston, and praise (which I still support) for McClelland's stance -

Opponents of capital punishment say a Labor minister's stance against the death penalty could help save Australians from death rows overseas.

Read more...

The other reason the timing was appropriate, was that Wednesday was World Anti-Death Penalty Day. To commemorate it, there was a forum in Brisbane that was co-sponsored by Australians Against Capital Punishment, Amnesty International and Just Peace that I wrote about in this post. The World Coalition Against the Death Penalty has an online petition calling on the total abolition of the death penalty that you can sign here.

As a society we either think that capital punishment is unconscionable or we don't. We can't claim to oppose it, then turn a blind eye to it in cases where it would be inconvenient to make a fuss, or actively cheer it on, as our government did for the execution of Saddam Hussein, or as John Howard did yesterday in the case of the Bali Bombers. Again, in the face of evidence and opinion that doing so would directly harm the chances for Australians facing execution in the same country.

Howard's hypocrisy, and now Rudd's cowardice, are supporting state sponsored murder all over the world. In order to look tough on terrorism, they are condemning Australians, and others, to death. One of them is going to win an election on this kind of idiocy.

Texas reintroduced the death penalty in 1976 - the year I was born. In my lifetime, the state of Texas has killed 400 people in cold blood. As the 400th was being put to death about six weeks ago, the Bush administration was moving to restrict the rights of death row inmates to appeal. Because the death penalty is only a solution if people don't think about it too closely.

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