Is it breaking Godwin’s Law when you compare something to Hitler, but in a good way?
There has been fiery debate in State Parliament over the government’s legislation proposing greater stop and search powers for police, with comparisons made to Nazi Germany.
The legislation would allow police to search people for weapons and drugs in areas such as Northbridge without having to prove grounds of suspicion.
Last night Liberal backbencher Peter Abetz spoke in support of the legislation and used the example of Hitler.
He said the dictator gained support because he provided people security in a time of anarchy.
…
“When it comes to the crunch, people prefer to be safe than to have freedom,” he said.
[my emphasis]
When clarifying his comments he managed to make things even worse:
Mr Abetz says he was not citing Hitler as an example of effective security, but was merely repeating his German mother’s explanation of how Hitler gained the support of the German people.
It’s not the law itself that’s Nazi-like, you see. It’s the WA Government. Can I come live with you please?
Jesus bloody Christ!
I’m assuming this guy is related to Eric?
Brothers, yes.
Is he related to Eric? Are they just like one happy crazy family?
Got there first TimT. Christmas at their place must be so much fun.
Ach zey was heppy days, you jest not unnerstending us, never was, und you got yourselfs all mixed up wiz zat Winston – very bed man – und we had troubles wiz zose Rooskies, but who didn’t? even Winston was some troubles after with Rooskies; und zey telling bad stories about Adolf, but he was dead now; show respecting plis
You asking anyone who is knowing that times, Adolf very leadering for us, Fuehrer must be leadering.
And then there’s their great-uncle.
Good to see them admitting it for a change. Most professional political parties have learned an electoral trick or two from Adolf et al. People couldn’t understand how the jackbooted machismo of Nazism played so well with women, but they did ‘run hard on Laura Norder’. Then as now, the “crunch” was mostly invented.
Also, Nazi Germany WAS an example of effective security, then East Germany after it. So personally I’m with Jefferson on that question.
Jesus bloody Christ again, Paul Norton.
Spot the difference:
Shorter Abetz: “I blame my mother for my Nazi ideas.”
Shorter Warnie: “I blame my mother for my drug use.”
As a member of the Liberal Party, this is shameful.
I’d actually like Anna’s Godwin’s question answered – i had a student say in class this semester that Hitler wasn’t all that bad as he’d done a lot of good things for the Germans in terms of making them pull themselves together. Bit of a shock, especially as this student had done a history subject on 20th cnetury genocides.
Heeeeeeeeeey Mr C,
It’s unprecedented!!
I’d like to argue that Godwin’s Law only applies to a discussion on the Internet.
A stricter interpretation would confine it to usenet threads – but who the hell of the younger twitter facebook generation even knows what usenet is or was in these days when myspace is old skool.
Obviously P Abetz meant that nice Mr Hilter and his Boncentration Bamps.
Laura, I wonder if a subject on genocide alone would suffice to rebut that student’s point? Perhaps a course which covered exactly how Germany descended into a fairly dismal state, including the significant role of the NSWP in fermenting violence, would be required.
Well – here we go – I think the analogy he was trying to make was that if the Government is not seen to be looking after the needs of the voters (in this case on reducing violent crime in general and in Northbridge specifically) then someone else will get voted in. Having said that, he used the analogy that one of the reason the Nazis (who turned out to be genocidal monsters) got up was they appealed to the voters on a strong law and order basis. I have not knowledge or opinion on whether this analogy is correct, but the public outcry has certainly highlighted the sentitivity of any historical reference to the Nazis. I think a better analogy would have been the One Nation experience here in Australia or the BNP rise in the UK, which resulted from Governemnts not listening too or understanding the issues surrounding immigration among other issues.
I find it strange that the people can wear clothing with a range of genocidal murders on with impunity, such as pictures of Stalin, Lenin, Mao or Guvera on shirts etc, yet Nazism is absolute taboo. Why the differential treatment?
I note the the White House Communications director who holds Mao in such high esteem hasn’t had her short term contract renewed. At least Obiwan is with the Force there.
Laura, in answer to Anna’s opening question I’d say that there really isn’t a comparison between the conventional Godwin (e.g. “feminazis”, “Zionazis”, “Obama’s a Nazi”, the AMA in 1974 comparing Gough Whitlam’s government to the Nazis because of its introduction of Medibank), and making a positive comparison with some “achievement” of the Nazis (e.g. Berlin Olympics, autobahns, Volkswagens.
Related to this (if I can use some German syntax) is the important issue of whether it may be permissible or even desirable to ever portray the Nazis, historically or artistically, as anything other than simply and absolutely evil. I am of the view that (a) it is not only permissible but necessary for historians and artists alike to make the attempt to understand and explain how ordinary humans could, in a particular historical context, become Nazis and, ultimately, Nazi criminals, how a large part of German society could support or acquiesce in Nazism, and how the Nazis were able at crucial junctures to outmanoeuvre, out-campaign and out-fight their democratic (or less totalitarian) adversaries; and (b) that it should be possible to do this without lapsing into apologetics or mitigation of Nazi crimes.
Geez corker of a post Anna; this topic will of course dominate the mainstream media for weeks however with regard to your question my understanding is that the first person to use a reference to Hitler and/or the Nazi party loses the debate. In this case the original reference is outside of the internet sphere so my take is that Mr Abetz has lost the debate he was engaged in.
It also seems likely that since Peter is notionally in breach of Godwin then this thread degenerates into a complete free for all and all references to Hitler and/or Nazi Germany are up for grabs.
So my question is when will the good government of WA be debating a Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the State?
Yeah but Paul and Razor, he’s pretty clearly saying “this worked for the Nazis, let’s do it”. In the second quote he’s just clarifying that he meant it was politically effective, rather than actually necessary.
The difference between mention of autobahns vs the Nazi security state is that infrastructure projects aren’t so necessarily bound up in the evil of Nazism. The urge to have as much executive control over people as possible, to know what all non-governing class are “up to”, to use every excuse to turn the screws again, and the German people’s acceptance of all that, is deeply bound up in the Holocaust.
Razor: if Abetz was going to choose a “Laura Norder” tactic, he could have chosen someone more benevolent than Hitler – like Thatcher or Reagan.
Anyway, I can’t remember law and order being part of the Nazi’s electoral appeal. Quite the reverse – the SA were violent men who liked to get into street brawls with Communists.
“Yeah but Paul and Razor, he’s pretty clearly saying “this worked for the Nazis, let’s do it”.
No, I don’t think he saying that. I think he’s saying that anarchy is a threat to democracy, and that crime left to spread unchecked could lead people to support a government taking drastic steps to control it. He is not supporting the Nazi approach, he’s warning that if people feel the threat of violence is becoming extreme, they will opt for extreme measures to control it.
Sean, it seems to me he’s also saying that, if not now, at some undefined point in the future society in Western Australia could be comparably dysfunctional and that this might lead to comparable radicalization. Therefore, Western Australia should take these steps now in order to avoid such a future.
It is specious reasoning of the highest order.
bloody hell Paul @6 where do you get these from?
Don’t chuck out your SS schmutter already Razor. It may come back into style very soon on your side of the Nullabor.
A month or two ago I was having a beer and a sandwich on a Friday lunchtime with a friend in a pub in Pitt St in Sydney.
There was this hipster bloke in the bar who had the usual hipster fashion items: tight jeans, blow dried, long hair, sunglasses on inside, and so on. And he was wearing a WWII Luftwaffe officer’s jacket. He’d obviously picked it up secondhand from a costume shop or somewhere similar.
There were no swastikas, obviously, but it did have rank insignia on the sleeves and epaulettes and it was clearly a uniform. I didn’t know where to look—I wondered if he would’ve tried wearing it into an RSL.
Russell, I agree with your analysis of Abetz’s argument, but disagree with your apparent belief that the argument is reasonable.
Indeed, it would appear that Abetz is suggesting that those opposed to laws such as the stop and search powers are in effect making an eventual descent into anarchy and subsequently to fascism more likely.
Not only is any historical comparison between Western Australia and the last years of the Weimar Republic completely flawed, the suggestion that without these laws and more like them crime in Western Australia will become so pervasive as to pose, to use Stephen Smith’s phrase, an ‘existential threat’ to democracy is ludicrous.
Well, Hitler did pull Germany out of the Great Depression – as I recall partly by using forced labour from the concentration camps and making refusal to work a crime punishable by imprisonment. I don’t seem to recall that wages were exactly fair and equitable either. And women were only supposed to produce babies, not work. And that was before he got really bad. Of course, I could be wrong. Its a long time since I’ve read a socio-economic history of Nazi Germany, and research has undoubtedly progressed a good deal further since the early 60s.
I suppose Mr. Abetz would approve of bombing Parliament House if it kept the Libs permanently in government and helped him create a one party state.
You, you, you, Greenies out there, you better watch out or the Abetzes will have you in a labour camp planting trees. Oh, no, we’ve tried that. It was called work-for the-dole. At least now, we really know where Australia’s modern conservatives get there ideology from.
Then again, Eric Abetz might be a Freemason.
Rewi – I don’t necessarily agree with the argument, but I think it’s reasonable to hold it. There seems to be conflicting evidence, or at least, various ways of interpreting complex evidence.
The more usual comparison would be with New York and the Broken Windows theory, but I guess because of his family background, Abetz referred to something familiar.
Just in case we thought this might be a fringe opinion of a lone backbencher, Colin Barnett has come out in support of Abetz.
ABC Online reports that:
Razor said:
Stalin
Clearly a mass-murdering psychopath, some accuse him him of democide, though this is contested. His psychosis and inpetitude played an important part in Hitler’s rise to power in Germany and in establishing the Franco regime in Spain (which lasted 40 years). Murdered his general staff on the eve of Barbarossa for warning him. Large numbers of those 27 million war dead the USSR suffered were down to his utter cluelessness and paranoia. Almost certainly an anti-Semite as the doctors plot stuff showed. Probably did more to subvert socialism than any other single figure.
Would I wear paraphernalia lauding this chap? Clearly not, and I’d be offended if anyone else did, not that in more than 33 years of being around the far left I’ve ever seen anyone where a Stalin T-shirt or Stalin paraphernalia. The old SPA bookshop in the late 1970s used to have a poster up with Marx, Engels Lenin and Stalin on it.
This is probably why there is less fuss. Hardly anyone outside of Russia talks positively of Stalin but plenty repeat the kinds of cant above about Hitler. There are still Nazi-sympathetic parties in Europe with enough support to win office in some parliaments. Xenophobia and racism are not uncommon even in comparatively civilised places like Australia.
Moreover, these days, a person wearing a Stalin T-shirt would probably be nothing more than a really ignorant and naive lefty rather than someone pitching racist bigotry or race war.
Mao
Very similar to Stalin above — he was a Stalinist after all. He too was responsible for many millions of dead and mountains of brutality. The Cultural Revolution period took a horrendous toll.
One sometimes saw caps years ago with pictures of Mao on them or references to China. Once again though what Mao is recalled for is his association with rural resistance to the depredations of western imperialism — resistance in Korea to the southern puppet governments and significantly the invasion/occupation of Indochina by the US-led forces. Liberation movements in Latin America and Africa identified strongly with the Maoists (rather than the more staid Russians) and of course Mao managed to write stuff that sounded “deep” — a kind of left-leaning confucianism which played pretty well.
In this context, and bearing in mind the utterly backward state of China in 1949 and its subsequent development cognitive dissonance was able to position Mao as a friend of the poor who wasn’t intimidated by western capitalism. And while Mao wasn’t squeamish about rubbing out those he didn’t like, he never pitched genocide. In 1974-75, I myself was very sympathetic. the CPA-ML was pro-Australian independence and at the time, I was a patriotic lefty. After the dismissal, I was often at their rallies. I wised up of course.
Should the spin on Mao as friend of the rural labouring masses be allowed to endure? Of course not.
Lenin
If you exclude the short-lived Paris Commune Lenin did lead the first serious assault on capitalism in the history of the world. he also did it in the midst of a brutal and coruscating world war which was taking a terrible toll on your average Russian subject (it was an empire covering more than Russians).
And he did it in way that play well amongst us Marxists — causing mutiny in the conscript army, forming soviets and factory councils and by mobilising the workers he even managed to stare down a military coup that, if successful, would have prolonged the war and not only resulted in the mass murder of Bolshevik sympathisers, but of pretty much anyone opposed to continuing the war and starving the populace. Impressive stuff.
And when the west, aggrieved at Russia’s early exit and the prospect that Tsarist war loans might not be repaid and the signal this sent to working people everywhere, engineered a civil war and likewise invaded in support, Lenin and Trotsky reorganised the shattered army to successfully resist the attempted overturn. The stuff of legend, for any serious leftist.
Lenin himself survived an assassination attempt from one Fanny Kaplan (an SR who wanted to continue the war against the Germans), but ultimately, his failure to get treatment probably precipitated his incapacitation and death. So Lenin dies a martyr to the cause.
Was Lenin a nice chap? Most unlikely. He was also not squeamish about knocking off his enemies. He helped set up Cheka and RabKrin both of which dealt out summary justice. The regime took hostages and some local Bolsheviks hung the bodies of defeated enemies in public places. Civil War is an ugly thing, and Lenin was determined to do whatever was necessary not to be on the losing side, which makes a rough sense.
Did Lenin have better choices available to him than those he made? With the benefit of hindsight, I’d say that he did. This was a guy substantially making it up as he went along and being reactive. He wanted to settle a peace with the Germans as soon as possible at whatever price the Germans demanded, because he knew the army was in no position to fight and he had promised peace so they could return to the land and restart agriculture, but here he faced a serious conflict because his partners — the Left-SRs, and some of the left Bolsheviks wanted to continue. Lenin was regarded with suspicion as he had come to Petrograd in 1917 with German blessing. Insisting on peace would have cost him his bloc with the Left-SRs but anything else meant forcing the army to keep fighting and putting off the “land question”. Tough call. Personally, I’d have insisted and put anyone who objected in jail until they’d cooled off. But he didn’t and the Germans ended up seizing major grain producing areas which the Russian army had abandoned. This provoked a food crisis and serious rationing, and the need to extract more grain from the countryside — and we know where that went.
In this context, with the cities starving, it was damned near impossible to have functioning proletarian democracy, although groups of factory workers began seeing the need to seize the factories immediately. But as these were often idle through lack of inputs and people were satrving, the factories themselves started to be cannibalised with people swapping industrial components for food.
You don’t have to be a genius to work out that allowing the workers to think that the factories belonged to them personally was not going to work out well, nor wonder what exactly you might swap for rural production if the factories were closed or producing nothing of value to rural production. And yet, everyone still had to be fed and the peasantry was demanding land reform …
So Lenin really didn’t have a lot of scope to be a sensitive new age revolutionary. At best, what was on offer, at least until the workers of the west came to Soviet Russia’s aid, as Lenin hoped, was to survive. Not socialism, not proletarian democracy, not even bourgeois democratic society. Just a well managed fort that could stave off collapse.
Lenin made serious errors of judgement at a time when avoiding them was no easy thing. He remains a very significant figure and although I’d not call myself a Leninist, I pay him his due. I’m not into heroes though so no T-Shirt.
As for Guevara, see Mao. The image of the intransigent revolutioanry who falls fighting the good fight is a compelling one, but really, he was just another Stalinist and a wowser to boot.
I wouldn’t have him on a T-Shirt, for fear of being confused with a yuppie.
Guilt.
I agree. Mr Abetz is within his rights to argue that he has been stabbed in the back by the lefties who highlighted his concern for
lebensraumlaw and order.PN @ 28,
Jeez mate, i used to read that kind of stuff in Australian Catholic Truth Society pamphlets when I was a kid in the Catholic Youth Organisation.
OTOH, the Libs are pretty pwerful in the ABC and ABC1 is screening a programme on the Freemasons tonight. But then again, knowing dear old Auntie as I do, that could be an Irish-Catholic plot.
Russell, evidence of what exactly? That Western Australia is so ridden with criminality that democracy might at some stage be at risk? Come off it.
Jesus, Paul @ 28, where’d you pull that from? It could almost come out of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion for sheer nuttiness.
Liam, are you sure that lad was wearing a Luftwaffe jacket? A shitload of East German military tat came onto the market about 15 years ago, including their equivalent of the coats-man-field-olive-drab, and my son still has a Grenzentruppe greatcoat (way too big for him, as he’s only about 5′6″ tall) which looks a bit Wehrmacht.
@22
Yes it’s basically a load of bollocks articulated while having his foot in his mouth. (Descent in to anarchy because of crime in Northbridge = bollocks) and (Reference to Nazi law and order policy = foot in mouth). The net result is … a WA politician.
Katz – If this was 1940 Germany I’d be in one of their camps if caught.
Jam it.
Rewi – I think Abetz is making a ‘broken windows’ argument, one beloved of conservatives, and the article I linked to, by someone on the right, at least acknowledges that the connection between stamping out the first signs of crime, and preventing more serious crime, has not been conclusively proven.
Russell, Peter Abetz and his family appear to have been around politics long enough to be appraised of alternative ways to make the point, such as you have suggested here. He chose the comparison he made and which has been implicitly endorsed by the Premier, a comparison which was clearly intended to paint opponents as opening the door to fascism.
As such, Anna’s question regarding Godwin’s law might be misplaced. Abetz wasn’t talking about Hitler in a good way, but accusing his opponents of giving succour to fascists.
These laws are not about ’stamping out the first signs of crime’, they are about incrementally increasing the powers of the police in ways that ultimately diminish the freedoms of all Western Australians. We’ve had this argument, you and I, elsewhere, and it’s probably fruitless to rehash it here.
That should not, however, be taken as meaning that I think we should ‘agree to disagree’. I think the numerous occasions in which we’ve come very close to agreeing (at least in so far as you’ve expressed doubts about their efficacy) mean that you should abandon your defence of these rights-infringing laws and come on board with those of us defending liberty
Jeez, I’ve heard of “Mussolini at least made the trains run on time”, but trust an Abetz to take it just that step further.
Also, what TWWGUELTPALTSDNLNS above said.
Russell: I know it’s your phrasing – not his – but I really hope that Abetz doesn’t make a ‘broken windows’ argument…
Rewi – I’m not so much defending the laws (because I couldn’t care less) as people like Abetz, who get attacked as being fascists for introducing laws like these. I don’t think we’re in much danger of becoming a police state. I suspect I would have exactly opposite political views to Abetz, but I think he’s probably a good and reasonable man, unlikely to lead us into some authoritarian, undemocratic future.
It was a neat debating point, when accused of being the fascist, of turning it around and saying, no, by allowing society to descend further into out-of-control crime, you are opening the door to people promising to clean up the mess.
The examples people use depend on their experiences, I suppose.
On the proposed stop and search laws, are they to apply to everybody, or just the Jews?
Don’t worry Razor, you may get your chance you can be a guard at one of the Barnett camps for anyone who disagrees with him.
My god the cops here are getting handed power hand over fist,of course say the cops we wont use this power unreasonably(where have I heard that before.
Then next cab of the rank is the CCC with its reported 150 people monitoring phones fixed and mobile,internet and anything else that they deem interesting.
O yes we will all be safe and secure in out beds,just like we were when the Special Branch kept files on all and sundry,have we not learned that the more power you give the Police the more they abuse it,the WA force has a good record of fitting people up will it change I doubt it.
I don’t think the any more than 3 law has be repealed yet either,Abetz is a clod like his brother,remember UTE GATE thanks ERIC
But not 1938, Razor?
As Bonhoffer said, “When they came for the Jews…”
They came for the Jews in 1938, Razor.
David Irving @36: “Jesus, Paul @ 28, where’d you pull that from? It could almost come out of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion for sheer nuttiness.”
The freemasons are seriously nutty. Myself and better half had occasion to spend the weekend at the home of a high ranked freemason, who was a long-term colleague of his. The spare room where we slept was crammed with his books. Being a bookworm and insatiably curious, I spent half the night leafing through the books.
When we got home I got stuck into surfing the net for info, and managed to get into a couple of their sites. They have freemason libraries with masses of books on their nutty ideas, the weirdest getups for their get-togethers (available for purchase online if you can break into their website), and some seriously seriously weird ceremonies.
It is medieval alright. Hard to believe that normal grown men can get sucked into such crap.
Jesus, Katz. There’s stoush and there’s stoush, lay off.
…
DI(nr), it could have been either an East or a West German jacket, now that I do a bit of googling. But he just looked like a junior Colonel Klink with piercings to me.
Have you ever read The Book of Mormon,now there is a fairy story
Oh really?
Are two years too trivial, or too important, to stoush about?
I’m not interested in a stoush about dates. Cheers.
I was thinking I’d at least have tried to evade capture for a while.
Exactly how have I in any way supported the Nazis?
Elise, my late father was a Freemason. While I agree with you about the … err … strangeness of their ideas, I don’t think they’re the quite the menace to civilisation that Paul’s quote seems to be suggesting.
Trouble is, that’s probably what Elise would expect from the son of a Freemason, David, but any organisation sworn to the destruction of Christianity can’t be all bad. Hope they start with Steve Fielding and his mate Danny Nalia.
To point out, patiently, why dates are important to this thread:
I have never been to Perth and I don’t know what or where Northbridge is or represents in the minds of residents of Perth.
But I’m willing to guess. My guess is that residents of Perth perceive that Northbridge is a place where Aboriginals and other undesirables congregate. This proposed legislation encompasses the notion that certain folks, by their nature than than by their behaviour, deserve discriminatory treatment at the hands of the law.
This is precisely the proposition that was put to the citizens of Germany, not in 1940, nor in 1938, but immediately Hitler gained control in 1933.
The first major group to be persecuted in Germany in 1933 were members and supporters of the KPD, the German Communist Party. In the last free elections of Weimar Germany, the KPD received just shy of 30% of the vote. In other words, almost one in three German voters supported the KPD.
This fact scared the crap out of the possessing classes of Germany. Hitler was able to exploit this fear. Germans were prepared to sacrifice the freedom of others for their own security, just like Abetz says the people of Western Australia should do today.
History provides a few clear lessons. When a right wing politician tries to defend a piece of discriminatory legislation by invoking the example of Hitler, alarm bells should ring loud and long.
If only it were true, joe2.
To be a Freemason, you have to believe in some Higher Power (call it god, if you like) and to belong to one of the more esoteric lodges like the Knights Templar (yeah, yeah, I know) you have to be a Christian.
It was a good out for me without having to upset Dad too much with my actual views of the strangeness when he tried to recruit me. “No, Dad, you know I’m an atheist” worked a treat.
It continues:
Police look at walk-through metal detectors
So, now I have to walk through a checkpoint to catch a train, as well as being stopped and searched for no reason in the suburb I call home? I might be looking for a friendly couch over east sometime soon, too. This is getting completely out of control.
Meanwhile, Eric Ripper took a short break from letting Barnett scratch his tummy to gag John Quigley from speaking to the media on this (the guy who knows more about misbehaving policemen than anyone else in parliament). Erm, thanks Eric…
Katz: Northbridge is the main nightclub area in Perth… think Kings Cross or Hindley St. The clubs are ginormous beer barns where a fight is pretty much inevitable, what with over 1000 pissed up yobs either inside or out in the line on weekend nights. There aren’t too many Aboriginals (they tend to be moved on by the police), it’s mainly a whitefella problem.
Funny thing is, Northbridge also has one of the highest Asian concentrations in Perth. There’s about half a km of William St where there’s about 30 different restaurants (Indonesian, Vietnamese, Indian etc – I recommend the Sparrow
) and a whole lot of Asian shops (where I buy half my food) – no western supermarkets anywhere around. The racial mix of the suburb changes ridiculously on weekends.
And another thing.
When Abetz quotes the lessons of history he learned sitting on the knee of his dear old mum, either she or he have forgotten or are actively attempting to cover up the fact that in the final months of the collapse of the Weimar Republic the greatest threat to law and order and the greatest source of anarchy in the country were Hitler’s own Brownshirt thugs. The Sturmabteilung was composed of hundreds of thousands of Hitler’s bovver boys.
Such falsification of the past can only be seen as fascism-enabling.
Katz, Northbridge is the entertainment/restaurant/nightlife district of Perth, about one kilometre north of the city centre.
I expect that that the laws are directed at public drunkeness on Friday and Saturday nights.
I have no objection to laws aimed at suppressing public drunkenness. Parts of downtown Melbourne also play host to violent, drunken yobs. A whole different debate that is only distantly related to the subject of this thread is whether legislation that allows the proliferation of booze barns like those mentioned above is the root cause of this congregation of hoons.
Of more relevant concern to this thread is what citizens should think and do when politicians invoke Hitler as a model of leadership.
I just can’t believe my eyes. Barnett defended him.
Thank God I live in Victoria, where our Opposition Leader is un-affectionately known as “Red Ted”.
David #36, if you follow the link in my comment you’ll find thay you’ve entered the unilaterally proclaimed Central Queensland Free State, a self-described Christian Protectorate whose self-appointed Governor, Brian McDermott, has this year also taken over the editorship and overall management of the Hinterland Voice. As I intend to explain in a forthcoming post, your comparison with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is too close to the mark for comfort.
These guys in WA seem to forget a very important part of Hitler’s security policy: A large number of police walking the beat.
You can make all the crazy laws you like, it won’t stop crime if all your police are too busy manning multanovas or staking out bikie headquarters in case they decide to host a strip show or something.
Katz: Northbridge is the main nightclub area in Perth… think Kings Cross or Hindley St. The clubs are ginormous beer barns where a fight is pretty much inevitable, what with over 1000 pissed up yobs either inside or out in the line on weekend nights. There aren’t too many Aboriginals (they tend to be moved on by the police), it’s mainly a whitefella problem.
This couldn’t be less true, unless you think asians are whitefellas?
Metal detectors are almost certainly destined for the places popular with asian or african patrons (e.g. Metropolis) because that’s where the knife fights happen. White yobs typically use their fists or beer glasses.
And there are still plenty of Aboriginals around Northbridge and the City, even on busy weekends. Take a look in the park opposite Rosie O’Grady’s.
Of course this all ignores the fact that a huge majority of fights happen outside clubs because
A:) For some reason these clubs think it’s funny to make people line up for an hour despite not being full.
B:) when people want to go home they have to stand in line with other drunk people for 2 hours or more to get a taxi. The train stops at 12 and you can’t drive, so your only option is to get a taxi, many of whom won’t take drunk people (which makes you wonder who they expect to be driving around when they take a job as a taxi driver).
Did the Central Queensland Free State grow out of the League of Rights Paul?
Katz @ 55:
Every time a right wing politician opens his (or her) mouth, I get a pricking of my thumbs.
David #64, I don’t know and won’t speculate, but there are certainly some striking similarities and shared obsessions.
“Of more relevant concern to this thread is what citizens should think and do when politicians invoke Hitler as a model of leadership.”
Or, to an almost irrelevant concern of this thread, what citizens should think and do when politicians invoke John Howard as a model of leadership. You know, how he “knew how stop the boats coming”.
Think twice, laugh and point wildly at alchemist Mal who knows how to turn bull into comedy gold.
A very small compensation for Rewi .. Labor eventually voted against the Bill at the Third Reading, so no doubt they’ll ‘reform’ the legislation when they are next in government.
“Of more relevant concern to this thread is what citizens should think and do when politicians invoke Hitler as a model of leadership.” Katz, don’t keep being wrong about this, the guy was not invoking Hitler as a model of leadership at all.
… or when people compare Hitler and John Howard in a comment post on Larvatus Prodeo
The W.A. government are just taking the people back to where they were under the dynasty of Sir Charles Court.Anyone who lived in W.A. in the seventies knows it was a police state then and was so until the election of the crook Brian Burke, Oh the irony!
But the real scary part is our police commissioner,he goes about his work telling the citizens what’s good for them with a missionary zeal.He comes across like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth(the caring soul he is) but is easier to read than a cheap novel.
wasn’t it Ben Franklin who said something like, “a people who are willing to give up some of their freedom for security, deserve neither”?
Laura wrote ” I had a student say in class this semester that Hitler wasn’t all that bad as he’d done a lot of good things for the Germans in terms of making them pull themselves together”
I’ve been wondering since I read that … how did you reply to him Laura?
The official Chinese verdict on Mao was 70% right, 30% wrong; and with the lesser dictators, you can sort of keep the good things and bad things in your head at the same time. But with Hitler, the bad things are so far off the scale of bad, that you’re shocked out of any sense of perspective.
Howard = isolated detention camps = isolated concenration camps in Germany? No?
No.
That’s a no from me too.
To the extent that Labor members voted against the legislation based on principled opposition, they should be congratulated.
Fair enough. Just thought I’d try it on.
No Russell. You are wrong.
Here is the paraphrase of Abetz’ comments about Hitler’s leadership
Abetz says in so many words that Hitler was successful because the “provided security”. Success is the sine qua non of effective leadership.
Note that Abetz did not say that Hitler failed to provide security. Hitler was, according to Abetz, an effective leader.
Yet, it is worth repeating that in fact the key to Hitler’s successful rise to leadership was to promote and provoke anarchy in the streets by means of the SA.
In other words. Hitler rose to power not because he provided security but because he successfully tore down the attempts of the Weimar leaders to provide security against Hitler’s own thugs.
In other words, Abetz is either ignorant about the conditions of Hitler’s rise, or is deliberately lying about them.
Either way, it’s a worry.
Katz – Anna says in her post:
‘Mr Abetz says he was not citing Hitler as an example of effective security, but was merely repeating his German mother’s explanation of how Hitler gained the support of the German people.”
The little story you construct of effective leaders being successful leaders etc has no relationship to what Abetz said. Nowhere does he state or imply any admiration for Hitler, or describe him as successful – he only gives his mother’s explanation as to why Hitler came to power.
1. How do you interpret this sentence Russell?
2. Do agree with Abetz that Hitler “gained support” in the way that Abetz described?
3. If not, how would you explain the methods by which Hitler “gained support”?
Russell: “The official Chinese verdict on Mao was 70% right, 30% wrong;”
Do you mean that the Chinese verdict was ‘Mao was 70/30,’ or that ‘the official Chinese verdict was 70/30′ (and in which case, what exactly was the verdict)?
Because those are two different views that exist on two different planets.
Katz – I take it you know that you’re wrong to imply that Abets thinks Hitler was ‘a model of leadership’, and are just looking for Friday afternoon entertainment?
1. That Abetz thinks that the Germans voted for Hitler because they thought Hitler would restore order to their society.
2. Don’t know enough German history to have an opinion.
3. Not applicable – see 2. above.
People older than 25 might remember that after the great helmsman died there was an official summing up of his achievements and failings: cultural revolution – not so good; establishing law and order and liquidating pesky triads – good. The final verdict was that Mao had been 70% right and 30% wrong.
I’ve listened to a subsequent interview with Abetz, and the sense that he appears to place on his comments are roughly: “It is important for democratic governments to maintain law and order, because if they don’t then undemocratic governments may come to power”.
The Hansard transcript is not yet up so I cannot say whether this is indeed an accurate reflection of what he did actually say, nor do I offer any opinion about the accuracy, historical or analytical, of the argument.
Russell #83, I remember that assessment being offered by Deng Xioaping c.1979 at the time of the Big Character Posters movement (which entailed the posting of posters on a wall in Tiananmen Square proclaiming subversive sentiments in big script characters). I recall a Les Petty cartoon in The Age at that time which depicted someone posting “Mao: 70 per cent good, 30 per cent bad” on the wall and the person behind them asking “But is that 100 per cent reliable?”.
Paul – I’m just checking on my memories and have Googled up an article in the International Journal of Zizek Studies (LOL) which has:
“The exact border lies in what the Chinese Communist Party consider the transition from Good Mao to Bad Mao. In the Sixth Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee of 1981 it was conceded that Mao was probably 70% right and 30% wrong, but that to his credit, he was at least 100% right for the first 70% of his career and 100% wrong for the rest; 1959 being the axis point where the scales suddenly tipped”
Russell, now we have established that you do not feel competent to form an opinion on the accuracy of Abetz’ explanation for the causes of Hitler’s rise to power, let us take another tack.
1. Do you agree that the primary test for successful leadership is the achievement of one’s objectives?
2. If not, what is?
3. Do you agree that Abetz believes that Hitler was successful in achieving his objective — dictatorial power in Germany and the destruction of the Weimar Republic?
4. If not, what do you think that Abetz thinks about the success of Hitler’s achievement of dictatorial power and the destruction of the Weimar Republic?
Katz – it’s tiresome to go on about it – you know you were wrong to imply that Abetz is a fan of Hitler, or that you think that he thinks that Hitler was successful, or whatever.
More usefully, you could, being smart, offer your own answer to Laura’s school student. (Don’t give an aggresive, smartass answer to a school child, it wouldn’t be right).
The facts are:
1. Abetz isn’t advocating Hitler’s policies
2. He is suggesting that promoting security, which is something Hitler did, can be productive for government popularity
3. Anyone who uses Hitler in an argument such as the way Abetz did is an idiot of the highest order
1. Where have I implied that Abetz is “a fan of Hitler”? You have made an incorrect imputation about my attitude to Abetz’ beliefs and motives.
2. What other explanation can there be of Abetz’ statement but that he believes that Hitler was successful? If Hitler had failed, there’d be no reason at all to talk about him.
3. My only beef with Abetz is that he missascribes the reasons for Hitler’s success. And that missascription is itself dangerous when it is asserted by a public figure responsible for the passage of laws.
My answer to Laura’s student?
1. How much of your own liberty would you be prepared to sacrifice for your security?
2. How much of someone else’s liberty would you be prepared to sacrifice for your security?
3. If 2 is greater than 1, how would you justify that to the person who has lost more liberty than you?
4. If you were the person who had lost more liberty than other persons, would you accept that explanation as valid?
3.
My interpretation is that he probably meant it in the sense of if we don’t look after security then people who feel unsafe will be more open to being lured by facist dictators.
But if you’re implementing laws to reduce freedom for no other reason than political expediency – which is, let’s face it what he’s implying the Libs are doing here – then that’s where the idea becomes incredibly troubling. He’s essentially admitting that these laws aren’t for actual public safety, they’re to make the public feel more safe so that the Libs don’t get voted out.
So we have to give up our liberty in order to help the Liberal Party stay in power, because the alternative is another party who will take more liberties away. And I don’t want to break Godwin’s either, so I’m trying to be careful to be clear that I’m not calling the Barnett government Nazis, but how is what Abetz admitting not simply a far lesser example of the same mindset?
David Irving @53 and @56, I don’t hold it against people having crazy parents. Lots of us have ‘em.
What gets me is how people can spend large amounts of their precious spare time on such utter crap. It reads like a cross between a cult and a pagan religion.
So much hocuspocus and ritual, in this day and age…who’s got the time and patience for it other than retired old fossils?
Katz @87: “Do you agree that Abetz believes that Hitler was successful in achieving his objective — dictatorial power in Germany and the destruction of the Weimar Republic?”
That would be a spectacularly limited definition of “success”!!!
It may be limited but it is the most relevant to the question being discussed — that is whether Hitler achieved power in Germany because he was able to exploit a breakdown in law and order.
What he did with that power once he achieved it is of course very interesting but it isn’t germane to this discussion.
“Where have I implied that Abetz is “a fan of Hitler”? You have made an incorrect imputation about my attitude to Abetz’ beliefs and motives.”
Katz, when you wrote, in the context of our discussion of Mr Abetz and his Hitler reference: “Of more relevant concern to this thread is what citizens should think and do when politicians invoke Hitler as a model of leadership” you were clearly referring to Abetz. Nothing in Abetz’s remarks suggest that he thinks that Hitler was a model of leadership. And that would be a bit odd considering how Hitler, and Germany under his leadership ended up.
Abetz doesn’t imply that Hitler was a successful leader.
Anna, I don’t know why you think Abetz is talking about feelings, my impression is that he says the laws are needed to reduce crime and make the area safer.
Liam @ 25 Where have you been for the last fifty years? Or perhaps you haven’t been around that long. Troubled kids have been dressing up in storm trooper gear, brown shirts or black shirts ever since they found out it might be verboten, finding uniforms, hats, insignia and whatever from a never ending and ever growing market place long before the Internet made mail order so easy.
One of my unforgettable students in my 1975 Year 8 German class was Big Jim, six foot plus of notorious shambling rebellion in black shirt, flight boots, sheepskin jacket and SS cap. His opting to join the class had somehow been missed by the Deputy who came bustling in to our first lesson to grab and remove him. Jim had been slouched at his desk bothering no one so far and I indicated I would be happy to keep him.
I’m glad I did. Jim was no great brain but he was keen to learn and to join in the very lively pronunciation exercises required by the ALM (Audio Lingual Method) text we were using. At one point I was having the usual problems with “ie” and “ei” which stumps so many would be German speakers.
“Miss, miss! That’s easy miss!” Jim was on his feet. “Look Miss!” Before I could say anything he was goose-stepping down to the front of the room, right arm raised.
“Zieg Heil!” he roared. “Zieg Heil!” I stood aghast. The Hitler salute! How could I use that as an example?
“It means victory! Hail victory!” said Jim, all enthusiasm. “Shall I write it on the board, Miss, to show ‘em? It’s easy, see?” And so it was, and I had my cue to praise him for his pronunciation and understanding and giving us all an opportunity to talk about German history and how we, being among the allies, won the war.
I don’t know what happened to Jim, nor if he was amongst those to flock to see “Valkyrie” not because Tom Cruise was the star but out of Nazi nostalgia. The stormtrooper approach to achieving social order is ever alive and well amongst our most respectable of citizens. It’s also worth remembering that the SS found its best recruits amongst the less educated, criminals and social misfits. The combination of the two extremes in the National Socialist Party was why it became so toxic, and powerful.
Bringing the discussion back to present day WA I find the lurch to the right here with its unnecessary focus on social order, mandatory sentencing, and expansion of prisons very disturbing. Let’s hope that Barnett continues to mess up big time on the State’s finances. People here will vote him out because of higher taxes and big utility bills before they worry about civil liberties.
As I said to Elise, Russell, what Hitler did with his power once he achieved it might be very interesting. And the story of Hitler’s downfall may well be very interesting as well.
But at the risk of labouring a point that most folks would no doubt grasp, these aspects of Hitler’s leadership aren’t relevant to this discussion.
I repeat, the relevant, and successful, aspect of Hitler’s leadership in this discussion is how he achieved power. Quite evidently, Abetz believes, and correctly believes, that Hitler was a successful leader in the relevant and narrow aspect of achieving power.
Again, my disagreement with Abetz is his explanation of how Hitler attained power (as opposed to exercised power, or eventually lost power).
Katz @97, your fancy verbal footwork aside, I have a problem with the whole idea of comparing modern, prosperous Australia with debt-ridden disfunctional Germany after WW1.
In my limited understanding, people follow murderous thugs when they are feeling really oppressed by their circumstances, and this thug confidently tells them that they have a plan.
Aussies are not really oppressed, in fact not oppressed at all by international standards, and they have limited faith in pollies anyway. Hitler wouldn’t get a hearing in Australia. People would mock him mercilessly, and take delight in imitating his mannerisms and stupid expressions.
It is a rediculous analogy.
It’s not my analogy. It’s Abetz’ analogy.
And I agree. He’s ridiculous.
“Let’s hope that Barnett continues to mess up big time on the State’s finances.”
It would seem likely, given just the extreme expense of State incarceration that this law will only add to. It is very costly to further jail your indigenous population which is likely consequence of this measure. Peter Abetz may be thinking Nazi Germany, for inspiration, but the reality is closer to Apartheid South Africa.
In fact, Western Australia does it better. It jails black males at more than eight times the rate of South Africa during Apartheid.
http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/07/02/we-jail-black-men-five-times-more-than-apartheid-south-africa/
Could a WA resident please tell me if Abetz has received any coverage in the West Australian?
I’ve scanned their website and found no reference, nor any on either watoday or perthnow.
Joe2 @100: “It jails black males at more than eight times the rate of South Africa during Apartheid.”
The question is whether they are being jailed for equivalent reasons.
A genuine question: What percentage of aboriginal men are jailed for a misdemenour while seriously drunk? Is this equivalent to the reason for South African confinement?
I don’t know the answer, but am expecting that for aboriginals “drunk and disorderly” could be a majority of those incarcerated. This is perhaps more a social problem of an unhappy and dysfunctional aboriginal community, rather than a serious criminal problem?
If this is the major problem, then perhaps we need a separate system, which distinguishes a protected environment until they sober up and calm down, to incarceration for serious criminal behaviour?
Perhaps we are putting apples in with oranges, mistakenly treating them as the same fruit?
‘Perhaps we are putting apples in with oranges, mistakenly treating them as the same fruit?’
I’m going bananas. Time for a drink, but have to finish work first.
Rewi – no newspaper coverage in W.A. – just one nasty little article in The Australian today, pg 9. “Mr Abetz, who is related to convicted Nazi war criminal Otto Abetz …..”
Elise, Katz is just being lawyerly. Again.
So was there much coverage of this on radio or TV? Is there any sense that Western Australians more broadly are interested/concerned?
Or is it, Russell, just a storm in a teacup?
Couldn’t have put it better myself, Rewi.
Rewi @101, I think I saw a brief mention on the TV news, but it was treated more as a curiosity piece. A bit like the “fearful cat up a tree and firemen trying to rescue it…” filler pieces. I was making myself a coffee, and it was over before I looked up again.
Rewi – it was a brief news item on all channels – 2,7,9 & 10. Abetz was interviewed on ABC radio and then there were a few callers – maybe 6, with probably 2 pro-Abetz and 4 anti.
Yeah, basically we’re fine with it all. People are more upset that Adele Carles raised the idea that perhaps these new laws may make it easier for police to be racist.
Well she is in a position to know and the last thing you would want is for the truth to come out about who this law will be used against most directly.
“She said her adopted brother was Aboriginal, and she had witnessed him being harassed by police officers in the past.”
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/wa-police-union-appalled-at-racism-claims-20091113-ie5z.html
Time to leave this dreary topic behind and enjoy the weekend.
Still on the German theme … I heard a very entertaining talk on Berlin by David Hare, last night, on Radio National. You can listen to it here
Still, Russell, you think Abetz would have known not to mention the war.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfl6Lu3xQW0
What puzzles me is how any politician of the modern era can think making any kind of favourable allusion to Hitler as a political role model is in any way appropriate. (unless you’re a neo Nazi.)
Rewi @ 106 – the Fremantle Herald, circulation some 20,000, supposedly our local community independent newspaper, did a story on page 3, about the new search laws being ‘draconian’ The inverted commas as part of the heading were quoting Adele Carles who with typical Greens purity refused to support a Labor amendment which would at least have modified the impact of the stop and search laws which she herself described as “draconian and unprecented.”
Last two paras, least likely to be read, said
…….Liberal MP Peter Abetz invoked Adolf Hitler when speaking in support of the new laws. He told Parliament the dictator had won public support because he’d promised to crack down on anarchy in the streets.
Mr Abetz – whose great-uncle Otto was the Nazi’s ambassador to France, and was later convicted of war crimes – said Hitler’s success showed “when it came to the crunch people prefer to be safe than to have freedom”.’
Paul Burns, you said it. Some of these people we have in our state government are as good as neo-Nazis. They fell into government on a fluked mis-call by Alan Carpenter and because of a very shonky “royalties for regions” deal with the Nationals . Now they seem to be hoping to beef up their metropolitian support by heavy law and order measures. Hopefully the financial downturn which has shrunk revenues and means tax hikes and savage utilities increases along with the royalties bribe will bring them undone before revenues pick up with the new mining bonanza.
How one election can change a community! What a shower! After a bit of drunken brawling in Northbridge we are all now potential stop and search targets at any time any where. To say nothing of increased levels of incarceration under our new mandatory sentencing laws of the usual suspects likely to be rounded up at enormous expense and who are unlikely to reform. Police by the way already have the power to stop and search anyone they suspect of carrying drugs or concealed weapons on the streets, but they have asked for the wider laws because they “don’t like having to justify their cause for suspicion to magistrates”!!!!!
I moved back here from Sydney a few years ago. Anything less like anarchy in our streets it would be hard to find. I often walk very late at night with my dog just a few blocks from the Fremantle cappuccino strip where merrymakers congregate in outdoor bars and restaurants. Not as dense as Northbridge in Perth I suppose, but there’s drugs an’ drinkin’ and sin (along with a lot of late night latte sipping) there just the same!
By the way we do have a known drug dealer living just down the street and Tacker and I, with Sheba purring around us, often see cars drawing up briefly and then pulling away late at night. Neighbours who have lived here longer than I say it’s been going on for decades and they’ve reported it often. So of course there are occasional break-ins and petty thefts as desperate addicts seek cash for their fix. We had a neighbourhood letter box drop recently from the police warning us to keep doors locked at all times, even when at home! But no action on the local godmother!
Bugger that! Why should we lose the Fremantle doctor blowing through our homes on hot summer nights because the police won’t respond to information on the known whereabouts of actual dealers? They prefer instead to work in groups in city centres to stop and search at random thereby encouraging those with a propensity to affray to gang together for some biffo. These new laws seem to be a provocation to disorder rather than a solution.
Well, that little rant was fun! Much good will it do!
Freo’s still a great place to live!
“Metal detectors are almost certainly destined for the places popular with asian or african patrons (e.g. Metropolis) because that’s where the knife fights happen. White yobs typically use their fists or beer glasses.”
Er … wasn’t somebody shot by a white yob outside Metropolis? Get you facts straight. Anyway where are all these knife fights happening? It seems ridiculous that we have this kind of stupidity in what is the safest and dullest capital in the country. A work colleague said to me that they thought Perth nightlife was dull except for Northbridge, that was too dangerous. I mean what is this; Compton? Perth is a joke. I advise all visitors to spend as little time as possible here lest they die of boredom.
Amazing how the grubbiest politics does work – and the W.A. ALP are better at it than anyone else. Paul Burns and Patricia, Abetz never made any “favourable allusion to Hitler as a political role model” – he used the example of Hitler’s coming to power as a warning.
It’s an ALP/media beatup – the article in today’s West is headlined “Liberal MP stands by Hitler comments” and goes on about “Opposition calls for a public apology amid an uproar over the offence caused by his opinions …” but only in the final sentence, does it mention Abetz’s statement that his remarks “should not be misread as a show of support for Hitler or the nazi regime”. The only uproar has come from the unprincipled ALP.
No one who listened to his remarks in Parliament or out, would have ever, ever thought that he was approving the nazi regime. He told of his mother’s experience of the relief of being escorted home from the train station, at night time, by the brown shirts, who provided security, in a situation where law and order had broken down. I don’t regard myself as on either the ALP or Liberal side, but I hate to see the kind of dishonest politicking – slander really – that the ALP has stooped to.
(Did you listen to the David Hare talk? What a nice line: “The young fantasize about the future, the old fantasize about the past”)
The Herald is my local paper too Patricia, so I read that article, which like most of the Herald is rubbish – the laws will not “give police the power to stop and search anyone they like” – there’s the whole declared areas thing. Which of course was in the ALP’s Bill. As far as I can tell, the main difference between the Libs and the ALP’s Bills is that with the ALP Bill the declared areas had to be gazetted and therefore possibly disallowed by Parliament, whereas the Libs Bill just has the Police Commissioner getting permission from the Police Minister. (I could be wrong – I didn’t listen to the whole debate).
So the ALP Bill is one we would all prefer – but really it’s still searching anyone in declared areas. So Patricia, I think you’d better support the Greens and Adele Carles – isn’t her position correct, that the whole idea should just be thrown out?
Russell, he supports policy that, at his suggestion, was successful for Hitler.
Nobody forced this “idiot of the highest order” to mention that name and invoke those terrible memories. To repeat, as you seem determined not to acknowledge the bleeding obvious; he dropped himself in it, and his mum, all by himself.
As for a real media beatup and grubby politics look no further than his federal kin on asylum seekers. Turnbull and co have been shameless ever since they desperately remembered, tough on the most defenseless, has been good for votes. W.A. Liberals are just following the lead with this ugly, new, measure.
Peter Abetz is a Dead Parrot and so is his brother.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npjOSLCR2hE
“So the ALP Bill is one we would all prefer”
Actually I’d rather not have either thanks very much. As I said this is completely unnecessary law making. Any problems there may be with violence in Northbridge on the weekend of not of sufficient magnitude as to require this response. If the police can’t do their job within the current legal arrangements then they need to be trained and/or counseled.
One thing that should happen is that only specialist police should carry weapons. Given that most police have limited experience with firearms I find the whole idea of having armed novices walking amongst us rather disconcerting. And of course the infrequency of circumstances when they are called up to use them would indicate that they are surplus to requirements.
Russell, I think we may be all of one mind here – we don’t like this heavy duty law and order policy of the state government. I see no evidence of a media beat-up on the Abetz thing. I was simply giving Rewi feedback she asked for on media coverage here and pointing out how low key was the reference in the Herald to him and his Nazi connection. Even before Abetz made his inept reference, for whatever reason, to Hitler’s success I was bemoaning the lurch to the right on law and order issues, mandatory sentencing etc. As PatrickB says it’s all surplus to requirements.
Even with a known drug dealer living nearby and the consequent petty thefts and break-ins yet with no active police patrols around here I feel safe. Here I am, an old lady with little dog and cat in train, able to walk out around midnight and while the dog wees I stand and watch illicit comings and goings across the road. My only fear is that my cat, street smart as she is might get run over.
I understand that real crime statistics, assault, robbery, murder etc. in WA are not increasing but that convictions for social crime are, littering, drunkenness and affray, speeding etc. are. The prisons are increasingly full of social misfits, addicts and often the homeless. Domestic violence, murders and sexual offences continue at their usual rate of course, and as always mostly in the home, within the family and perpetrated by people well known to the victims. Such crimes are not preventable by tough law and order measures. I hate the way politicians destroy peace of mind for those vulnerable to suggestion by beating up the law and order issue simply for political gain. As they do with the asylum seeker issue, aided and abetted by the MSM baying for a bloody story.
I agree with you about the Herald. It’s a waste of paper and trees, and I’m appalled at how newspapers of any kind, particularly these free so called “community” papers, continue to survive. I usually only glance at headlines as I curse it, unfold it and put it out for re-cycling.
Patricia and PatrickB – we may well be of one mind in relation to this legislation – that is, if we were sitting in the Parliament we would all have voted with Adele Carles and the Greens to throw it out. None of us, I’m sure, would resort to slandering an opponent because we disagreed with his opinion.
Joe2 – it seems there is no hope for you.
“None of us, I’m sure, would resort to slandering an opponent because we disagreed with his opinion.
Joe2 – it seems there is no hope for you.”
Looks like rudeness and failure to address the issues raised, is not included, when you disagree with anothers opinion, though, Russell.
It was a brave attempt to defend the Abetz nastiness but a man who raises the spectre of Adolf to help win a debate on legislation that will likely raise the percentage of the aboriginals in jail, to over 50%, of West Australians, deserves no sympathy.
It just gets worse!
The Brown Shirts were the chief culprits in the breakdown of law and order. They were highly organised, ruthless, violent paramilitary who directly confronted legal authority and the relatively puny leftist paramilitaries that rose in self-defence against the lethal and numerous Sturmabteilung [Brown Shirts].
Abetz must apologise for his denialist lies.
The Liberal Party must explain why they regard Abetz as a member of their party in good standing.
Defending the SA? God! Next thing we know he’ll be defending the SS for trying to preserve the purity of Aryan culture.Somebody should sit this bloke down and give him a very long and detailed lesson in German history c.1931-1945.
Paul Burns – describing the tactics they used to come to power is not defending them. There’s nothing wrong in invoking the nazis and Hitler as a warning. The left does it all the time. Abetz has nothing to apologise for.
Russell, at the very best, Abetz has a poor knowledge of history. It’s less bad than the alternative explanation of his extraordinary statement,but he still has quite a bit to apologise for.
Why do you insist on defending a man who’s either pig-ignorant or a crypto-fascist?
So we have a gentleman waxing lyrical about the good ol days of the Nazi party and how they were really just misunderstood boy scouts, and pulling him up over it is an insult.
We have a few punch ups in Northbridge where anyone going therec knows the place is a whole,then its “Kristallnacht 2″
Let out the dogs of war!
You can read it all here at L.P.
DI – I’m not defending him from being called ignorant – I’m defending him from being called a nazi sympathiser – which I’m sure he isn’t. It’s a particularly nasty smear and about the lowest form of politics.
“Abetz has nothing to apologise for.”
Actually you’re probably right. He is obviously so badly educated that it would be unfair to ridicule him. The Nazis, led by A. Hitler, were basically very successful gangsters. They did not stand for the rule of law (rather they believed in the Fuhrer, the Arny swore allegiance to him) and because of this it is impossible to invoke them as an exemplar of good law and order policy. It is pitiful that a person like Abetz with so little historical knowledge or analytical ability can put in such a position of responsibility.
It is quite a disturbing development. I once thought that using the military to deal with asylum seekers would be a bridge too far, members of my own family used to call for it but I thought it was way out there. Now I’m starting to think that anything is possible. These WA laws are strange and unnecessary and are unthinkable in a place like Perth. But I now I wouldn’t be surprised if they get up. Remember Section 54b anyone?
Huh???
Abetz is quoting with approval his mother’s assertion that the SA were a force FOR law and order, rather than the major force in the BREAKDOWN of law and order!
And you claim that Abetz has nothing to explain, clarify, or apologise for??
PatrickB – I do remember section 54B. It was repealed later on by the ALP and replaced with something less offensive. Which is why we don’t need to worry too much – same thing will happen to this.
Katz – Abetz has nothing to explain or clarify to me – his remarks, warning against leaving the door open to fascism, were perfectly clear to me. If you want to continue with this ‘fascism-enabling’ smear, I think you need to produce some quotes from Abetz that show his approval or admiration or sympathy for the nazi regime. Otherwise you should apologise to him.
Russell, it seems to me that it was Abetz himself making a “‘fascism-enabling’ smear”.
‘Those who oppose these laws are in effect ensuring a descent into anarchy, thereby opening the door to fascists who will prey on the insecurities of the populace at large,’ would appear to be how that argument goes.
He wasn’t making this suggestion in any general sense about law and order, but in the debate and with specific relevance to these laws.
So, who should withdraw that smear, do you think?
Do you agree with Abetz that, by opposing these laws, we are opening the door to anarchy?
Abetz could have said that the SA were FALSELY CLAIMING or PRETENDING to protect folks from anarchy but were in fact doing the opposite.
Is this what he meant?
If so why hasn’t he clarified it with a simple statement like the above?
If he did, I’d accept his original serial statements that have got worse and worse as just some sort of idiotic mistake.
But as far as I know Abetz has not made that simple clarification.
Why not?
Rewi – I think you’re stretching that point much longer than it can be stretched. I don’t believe that argument as much as Abetz seems to (but I recognise that he has a particular family experience), though there may be some truth to it. Populist fear and anger gave us, fairly suddenly, One Nation members of parliament, and pulled the national political agenda sharply to the right. His claim that people would prefer safety to freedom can be debated without anyone being called a nazi sympathiser.
Katz – how can you ask ‘why not’? Because the low-life of the ALP will try and make some twisted political advantage out of anyone (other than themselves) who mentions nazis. Abetz has learnt a lesson about the awfulness of the ALP. As reported in Saturday’s West Australian his remarks “should not be misread as a show of support for Hitler or the nazi regime”. Whether he’s right or wrong, ignorant or deluded about German history is a different matter from whether he’s a nazi sympathiser.
Anarchy is organisation without authority – not chaos. Happens all the time in families.
Russell, earlier you described his statements as a neat debating trick, turning the argument on its head. Well what’s the consequence of following through with that argument? Surely it must be that taking a soft line on crime may lead to such high levels of criminality that the population will turn to radical political parties. Therefore, those who oppose tough laws such as this are placing society at jeopardy. I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch.
From a call to common high standards amongst us to maliciously bucketing a whole group in the space of just a few posts. Well done!
Russell@122
Russell@135
I repeat. I have never accused Abetz of being a Nazi sympathiser. Please desist from misrepresenting my position.
I have accused Abetz of being a fascist enabler. This is a very different thing. The basis for my accusation is that he has willfully falsified representations of the past and that he continues to do so.
Your explanation excusing Abetz from correcting his misrepresentations about the past is absurd. Since when can a person be blamed for telling the truth? Truth is the best defence.
If ALP spokespeople attempt to take advantage of Abetz for telling the truth, then the ALP is blameworthy, not Abetz.
Rewi – yes, I think there may be some truth in that: if enough people think that law and order has been allowed to get out of control then the situation can be exploited by populist politicians. I think that’s related to that ‘broken windows’ theory that you have to create an environment where small crimes aren’t tolerated, or else you’ll get escalating crime levels.
I suppose that’s the thinking behind why a 12 year old aboriginal boy faced a W.A. court today charged with receiving a stolen Freddo frog. Zero tolerance gone mad.
I think there is likely some truth in the idea that seeming to be lax on crime will encourage more crime (Abetz’s point), but that’s not where I would mainly intervene. I can’t see ’stop and search’ laws as being much use in preventing young people from becoming serious criminals.
“The basis for my accusation is that he has willfully falsified representations of the past ”
Prove it. Prove willfully falsified.
Joe2 – the low-life of the ALP doesn’t mean everyone in the ALP and I’m criticing their beneath contempt tactics, not their opinions.
When offered the opportunity to restate the record of the SA in a truthful way, Abetz has not resiled from his untrue statements about the SA.
Abetz’ continued silence on this matter constitutes a willful falsification of the past.
Take a parallel Russell:
Someone accuses you of having his property in your pocket.
You deny it.
You are detained. Your pocket is searched. Lo and behold, the accuser’s property is found in your pocket.
You claim that you are not a thief. You have no idea how it got in your pocket.
Your accuser responds, “Be that as it may, my property was found in your pocket. Do you deny it?”
You say nothing.
You silence is a willful falsification of the situation.
Kats – your parallel is more like a parallel universe, one in which I would hate to come before you as a judge!. If Abetz’s version of history is unacceptable you have not proved whether it was willful or through ignorance.
This isn’t a court of law Russell. This is a court of public opinion.
Abetz has been in the spotlight of controversy over this issue. Doubtless the real facts of the matter have been put to him numerous times.
And yet he remains obstinate.
The defence of ignorance has been removed.
“This is a court of public opinion.” you mean like talk-back radio ?
Why would you draw that conclusion Russell?
Prejudiced assertions, little evidence and … mean spirited.
My head aches, it’s either spinning or it’s my hairs that you guys have been splitting!
Let’s forget that Abetz said anything at all about Hitler! After all it’s barely had a mention in the MSM at large and as one of those “low life in the ALP” I haven’t called one news station nor written to any newspaper or blog apart from LP. Who is name calling now, Russell?
Nothing changes the fact that Abetz and his party with no real crisis in crime rates and no mandate from the public are acting like right wing zealots on law and order, exploiting a non-issue for political gain, trying consolidate their votes in metropolitan areas.
I’d call that a right wing, neo-fascist tactic.
I note that Clive Hamilton, rather foolishly in my opinion, has likened climate sceptics to holocaust deniers. Interesting to see how the MSM treat him in Higgins in comparison with Abetz in Perth.
But Russell, you yourself have indicated that this issue has also been discussed in the public press. Mr Abetz appears to have been interviewed several times by reporters. I know of no talkback discussion on this issue. It certainly hasn’t been discussed on talkback here in Melbourne. Yet we can read the press coverage, which appears quite balanced and which has allowed Mr Abetz to make several statements of substance.
Really, Russell, by virtue of your mysterious crack about talkback radio you appear to be taking a rather flippant and partisan approach to this discussion.
Is it still your assertion that Mr Abetz has not been offered sufficient opportunity to correct his statements about the activities of the Sturmabteilung in the destruction of the Weimar Republic?
Patricia – re the low-life in the ALP: even people in their own party they know who they are!
As to this legislation, unfortunately, it’s mostly bi-partisan – they differ on a few points, with the ALP being slightly better. Remember which party brought in the ‘three-strikes’ legislation? Have a good look at them both Patricia, and you’ll find that you’re on the Greens side.
Katz – no one in Western Australia (with the possible exception of Mr Abetz and ex-German teacher Patricia) can pronounce or spell Sturmabteilung – so unsurprisingly it has not appeared in the news here. It’s not my fault that you missed the Abetz interview on the local ABC 720 radio morning program – perhaps you should tune in each day via the internet?
Come on Russell, does it really matter if anyone knows why Hitler called his brown shirts Sturm Abteilung. Many probably think SA stands for the Nazi Special Army which is fine. Don’t underestimate West Australians though, plenty of them speak German and many of them have long memories of life pre 1940. Few would have been sympathetic to Abetz’s comment, no matter what his intentions.
And I’m not a Green. Too many of them seem to lack a sense of proportion, split hairs, have no sense of humour and are unable to see themselves as others see them. Principles they may have and I would agree with many of them but they are not the sole arbiters of political, moral and environmental truth.
I also want to achieve change. So I’ll go on working with the low life in the ALP, trying to do just that.
But Russell, whether they are called Sturmabteilung or Brownshirts, Mr Abetz did talk about them, was asked about them and was reported in his comments about them in the public press. Almost all of this thread has concerned reportage in newspapers, not on talkback radio.
So again I ask, can you explain why Mr Abetz, given ample opportunity, has not set the record right about the role of the Brown Shirts in destroying the rule of law in the democratic Weimar Republic?
And given Mr Abetz’ failure to do so, does this not indicate a willful falsification of the German past?
“When it comes to the crunch, people prefer to be safe than to have freedom,” he said.
He should fucking know. Anti terror laws, terrorists invading us in leaky boats and all that other shit his mates dumped on us…
Abetz now claims that he was not endorsing Hitler or Fascism, yet his impassioned outburst as televised would suggest otherwise. Whatever Peter Abetz’s motivation in expressing his thoughts about the effectiveness of similar laws in Nazi Germany, it was incredibly offensive.
I find it amazing that this story has not caused more outrage. Hitlers Nazi Germany should not be endorsed on any level, at any time, let alone in support of draconian laws that deplete our own civil liberties.
I can only imagine the moral outrage should a member of parliament endorse legislation by comparing it favorably with admired laws imposed by the Taliban. Is the Second World War now so long ago we have forgotten the horrors of Nazi Fascism? Or are we just now so blase the loss of so many lives has no meaning?
Katz – You have no evidence that Peter Abetz thinks the nazis were anything but evil. As far as I know no commentator but you has gone on about Abetz’s ideas about the brownshirts, and as he probably doesn’t read this blog, he wouldn’t realise that this is a burning issue (for you) that he needs to comment on. Your sophistry about ‘willful falsification of the German past’ is becoming tedious.
I think I’ll close my comments on this by reminding Patricia about the connection between fleas and lying down with dogs – there are plenty of good people in the ALP to work with Patricia, there are also plenty it’s best to avoid.
“You have no evidence that Peter Abetz thinks the nazis were anything but evil.”
Pardon me but that’s bollocks. Abetz plainly said in Parliament that he thought the SA had made people feel safer on the streets. It doesn’t matter how you spin it this a positive view of the SA, who were fundamental to the Nazi disruption of German society in the early 1930s. He doesn’t have to say “I think Nazis are great” to articulate a position that endorses an aspect of their whole operation.
So we have evidence that, at least with regard to law and order, he thought that they weren’t “evil”. His whole twisted argument is that because the Nazis were good at law and order people felt safer and let them take over. Whether he thought the take over was a good or bad thing doesn’t matter, his argument rests on his positive interpretation of Nazi security measures at the local policing level. Is that clear enough?
It’s clear that you make assumptions you can’t prove. To say that the Nazis made people feel safer on the streets is not necessarily a positive view of them. If I had sent a thug to bash you up for the last three nights, and then went around and got you to agree to pay me $10 per week to stop being bashed up, would you have a positive view of me?
Depends if I knew you sent the thug round or not. (Tho you’d probably have to send several thugs,
with guns and stuff.)
Wow, Russell! You certainly know how to upset would-be friends. First I’m associating with low life, and now I’m advised against getting too close to flea ridden curs. I can see now that you didn’t really think I was Green, just green. You think I need protection from all the big bad influences out there in leftie land! What’s the usual response – I’m not so green as cabbage looking. I might be a little white haired old lady but I’ve seen it all when it comes to politics and politicians. Among many other things I’ve learned is that sticklers for truth and altruism often end up on the wrong end of an argument. You’re beginning to protest that black is white.
Russell, that is an arrant misrepresentation of Abetz’ actual position. In no way did Abetz allege that his mother felt threatened by the Brownshirts. On the contrary, he alleged that his mother said that she felt protected by them.
Are you alleging that Abetz’ mother still feels so threatened by the Brownshirts all these decades later that she is still lying about her actual opinion of them? What nonsense!
You should apologise to Abetz for putting false words in his mouth.
@158
Bollocks again, now you’re making things up. The fact of being made to feel safer is self evidently a positive thing. The Nazis made people feel safer, according to Abetz, hence the Nazis did a positive thing. On the other hand I don’t think the Nazis made things safer. They made things more dangerous, that is not a positive thing.
Russell @ 158,
I’d think you were a capitalist.
Russell:
Even in a court of criminal law, Abetz may well be found guilty. In many crimes the “reasonable man test” is employed. The defendant is convicted not on what she thought but on what a “reasonable man” would have thought.
For example, if a person points a gun at the defendant and the defendant shoots that person dead, then the defence of self-defence can be invoked. However, if the person pointing the gun is an infant in a pram, then in certain jurisdictions the defendant cannot claim that she legitimately feared for her life. In those jurisdictions she is unlikely to claim successfully that a reasonable man would have feared for his life in the circumstances described.
In like manner, Mr Abetz can no longer claim that a reasonable man could legitimately believe that the Brown Shirts protected law and order in Weimar Germany as opposed to being the chief agent of the destruction of the rule of law of the Weimar democracy.
There is a close equivalence here with David Irving (the Holocaust denier, not the esteemed commenter on this blog) who commits a criminal offence in certain jurisdictions if he utters his denialist theories. Essentially, those jurisdictions have decided that a reasonable man cannot utter Holocaust denialist statements and is therefore breaking the criminal law.
I would not like to see these principles instituted in Australia. However, it is probably true to say that when Mr Abetz recklessly and unreasonably utters denialist statements about the role of the Brown Shirts he is making the passage of such laws in Australia more likely.
“For example, if a person points a gun …. In like manner …”
This is like your earlier parallel universe where I started out being guilty of theft, then …..
Still waiting for your quotes from Abetz to demonstrate his “denialist statements about the role of the Brown Shirts”
Peter van Onselen has today written in opposition to the laws.
He’s iterated a claim I’ve seen elsewhere that these laws are ‘unprecedented’. Those of you who read the previous thread on LP on this subject would recall that in fact the laws have a precedent in Victoria, at least in so far as they were anticipated to be passed in August.
Russell,
1. Clearly you don’t understand the legal principle behind the criminality in some jurisdictions of denialist David Irving.
2. Do you have a little trouble reading for meaning? I have mentioned several times Mr Abetz’ denialism in regard to the role of the Brown Shirts in destroying the rule of law in the Weimar democracy. To make the point perfectly plain, Mr Abetz has quoted with approval his mother’s alleged statement that Hitler’s Brown Shirts performed a protective role rather than a role that was inimical to the democratic rule of law.
“I have mentioned several times Mr Abetz’ denialism …” but not quoted him once.
I can do better than that Russell.
I can quote you quoting Abetz:
russell…katz is spot on about abetz…why would you be apologising for such obviously atrocious statement?
Eric Sykes – Katz is, disgracefully, making things up. His evidence for smearing Abetz as some sort of nazi apologist is to quote me relaying something I say I heard on the radio – which in any case involves no element of denial. Accepting the protection of thugs does not imply approval of the thugs. Pathetic.
Since I am, much more often, on the side of the left in any debate, I resent having the side let down like this. This sort of undergraduate mud-flinging is in the end self-defeating anyway – people understand that you’re just diverting debate away from the real issues.
Russell, sorry for the pile on and about to be a dibber-dobber, but do I recall correctly that you doggedly defended and/or rather reinterpreted events to mitigate lesser responsibility in respect of Troy Buswell and his chair sniffing behaviour on LP, when it all blew up, or wafted in or whatever..and you were pretty adamant likewise, that it was just dirty ALP politics back then too.
Defending indefensible actions by WA Liberal politicians, isn’t your day job is it, just ftr?
I agree with Katz, although he is being prickly, he is quite correct that ignorance or wilful denialism, and I’m going with the second…does not cut it. As a publicly elected official with a ‘one degree of separation’ from high level Nazism in your family, you have an extra responsibility to acquaint yourself with the facts…..lest you open your gob and just repeat second hand propaganda or denialism straight from your dear old deluded mother’s knee.
the real issues? what jo says @ 172 “you have an extra responsibility to acquaint yourself with the facts”. yes indeed.
So “Lefty” Russ was a “Sniffer” Buswell apologist … Russ is a troll.
Jo is correct. A public official has a special responsibility to avoid egregious errors of the kind Abetz has made.
Yes. Willful denialism best defines Abetz’ dereliction.
“Defending indefensible actions by WA Liberal politicians, isn’t your day job is it, just ftr?”
I must say the same thought had entered my mind though god knows what the value of defending Abetz on this site would be apart from brainstorming defense tactics for use in another arena. The attack on Labor that seemed to come out of the blue may well be a clue.
“…he is quite correct that ignorance or wilful denialism, and I’m going with the second ..”
and what evidence do you have that he has anything but a negative estimation of the nazis? Remember that his speech was to warn against creating a situation where people might opt for some outfit like the nazis, and that he has specifically said that his remarks “should not be misread as a show of support for Hitler or the nazi regime”
I have some advice for the mud-flingers – spend some time reading some of the right-wing blogs: it’s easier to spot the dodgy arguments when you disagree with the writer, and then it becomes easier to see the same tactics when your own side does it.
Russell, I call bullshit.
I recognise what you’re doing, because I’ve done it when I’ve painted myself into a corner. (Not recently, fortunately. Age does bring wisdom, or at least more skill at avoidance.)
Abetz made a remark that was, on the most charitable interpretation, wilfully stupid. He should just man up and admit his blunder, or accept that he’ll be thought of as a crypto-fascist.
DI – Here’s the corner I’m in: Abetz said that if we lose control of crime then people will vote for security rather than freedom. The example he chose, to show how bad that decision could be, was to pick the Nazis. He clearly states that he in no way approves of the nazis.
I don’t know how much Abetz knows about German history, because that’s all he says – it’s an interjection really. As far as I’ve heard no one has quizzed him about security in pre-war Germany, so he’s said nothing further. Perhaps all he knows is what his parents told him, and that might be about as much as most of us know.
So, I’m different to most commenters here because I’d want to be quite a bit surer that Abetz was an apologist for nazism before I claimed that he was. It’s a fairly serious accusation.
“So, I’m different to most commenters here because I’d want to be quite a bit surer that Abetz was an apologist for nazism before I claimed that he was. It’s a fairly serious accusation.” – Russell
Its also an easy one to make and appeals to just about every one of my confirmation bias’.
Well, it looks like the plan to give Hitler style security includes arresting 12 year old aboriginals for receiving stolen Freddo Frogs.
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/boy-12-to-fight-stolen-freddo-charges-20091116-iguq.html
Anna, I can understand why you want to get out of the place.
joe2,
Even the coppers realised they’d gone too far with the Freddo Frog arrest. They dropped the charges – sort of – from what I can gather the kid is still being regarded as some kind of uncontrollable. Probably told the cops to get stuffed.
That case is/was fucking ridiculous. Recieving charge for a stolen frog and a plastic sign wasn’t it? Total value less than 5 bucks.
Abetz’ comments and this incident … they go well together don’t they.
W.A. cannot build jails fast enough to house it’s aboriginal population. When you see how police are treating such trivial matters with kids -a 70 cents Freddo it was, Jules- you can see how dangerous it is to give them the blackshirt powers that Abetz is plugging.
This is disingenuous.
Abetz’ mother, as quoted wasn’t talking about the era after Hitler took over. There was no “anarchy” then. The whole place was tyrannously locked down.
Abetz’ mother was talking about the period leading up to the collapse of the Weimar Republic when “anarchy” did reign, thanks largely to the Brown Shirts.
Russell’s disingenuousness revolves around his conflation of these two very different periods into one era which he sloppily labels “pre-war”.
Moreover, Russell does not seem to understand the legal principle that applies in some jurisdictions where willful denialism of the kind perpetrated by Abetz in relation to the Brown Shirts is construed as a criminal act. These principles don’t come from a parallel universe, Russell. They come from several parallel judicial systems that exist in democratic societies, in this case both France and Germany.
As much you obviously want to, Katz, you can’t put words in his mouth, or his mother’s. He hasn’t denied anything – which is why you can’t quote him denying anything, which we can do for the convicted holocaust deniers. You have a disturbing understanding of what ‘evidence’ means.
He has quoted his mother as saying the nazis offered the only source of security. None of us know what he or his mother thinks were the causes of the insecurity, because he didn’t say. But I’m sure you can make something up.
Yes we do.
Abetz quotes his mother as saying that the Brownshirts augmented her security.
Why do you continue to exist in denial about this inescapable fact?
And I note that you have not denied that in certain jurisdictions denialism like Abetz’ is a criminal offence.
Katz, you’re becoming unhinged. Apart from the fact that the word augmented has only been introduced by you (you didn’t hear the interview, remember?), what has augmented got to do with the causes of the insecurity? Nothing.
“denialism like Abetz’” do you see the mistake in that phrase?
Katz you’re like the roadrunner, who in single-minded pursuit of nazis has run right off the cliff …. a catastrophic fall is the only way for you to go now.
It’s actually Wile E. Coyote that you refer to here, Russell.
Your mistake doesn’t surprise me.
Well done Katz, for once in this discussion, you’re right.
joe 2 its highly sus.
I did hear that the kid who was charged with recieving got a freddo and a small novelty sign, either way the total value was less than 5 bucks.
but really thats just being pedantic, it makes no difference if it was a frog and a silly sign or just a frog.
Its appalling that those police powers are being expanded.
I’m pretty much over giving Abetz any benefit of the doubt.
Fuck him. His grandad was a Nazi war criminal and he comes out with this shit in the process of justifying increased police powers.
Someone should go spray swastikas on his office or something.
sorry granduncle
I live in NSW.
So do I or I might be tempted to do it myself.
There’s no evidence that you have convinced anyone, Russell. In fact, there is evidence on this very thread that you have alienated opinion.
On the other hand, you have provided an opportunity to discuss and dissect for several days the dog whistles and insincerities of a particularly odious member of state parliament.
This has apparently had some minor beneficial results.
Thanks for your contribution.
Careful, Jules, @ 190 you’re bordering on giving strength to Russell’s opinion that Katz and others criticising Abetz are unhinged and encourages him to go on stubbornly pushing his argument beyond reason.
Earlier @ 182 you observed, “Abetz’ comments and this incident … they go well together don’t they?” You’re absolutely right. And the Freddo Frog fracas is doing more to highlight our problems here with increasingly excessive police power than any swastika spraying on public buildings can ever do. Surely too the TV news appearance and foolish comments of the regional Superintendent responsible must have amazed the public at large. Even Karl O’Callaghan the State Commissioner for Police who announced withdrawal of the case foolishly supported the original decision to charge this child. There wouldn’t be a parent with kids whose blood didn’t run cold at the thought of their little or even bigger darlings being hauled up in court for accepting the invitation of the supermarkets to help themselves to a Freddo Frog or Wagon Wheel so generously laid out for them alongside the checkout.
When the likes of Peter van Onselen are writing in the Australian to seriously question the legislation giving increased stop and search powers to WA police then surely Barnet and Christian Porter will understand they are swinging the pendulum too far to the right. Mind you, if Abetz is in any way typical of Liberal party political savvy they could end shooting themselves in the foot here, not because West Australians are care excessively about civil rightsor even racism. However they sure don’t like being depicted as a bunch of knuckleheads who can’t deal with a bit of petty shop lifting by blacks kids and noisy TGIF celebrations in our pubs without armed police intervention.
I was just venting Patricia.
The freddo frog story was just amazing. Seriously, you couldn’t write satire and do a better job than that Maybe if you had a story about some blackfella being charged with recieving stolen property for exercising their native title rights.
That’ll probably happen next week anyway.
I hope you are right about most Western Australians btw. The fear of ridicule/contempt can be a powerful thing. It can inspire half decent behaviour when not much else will.
“There’s no evidence that you have convinced anyone, Russell. In fact, there is evidence on this very thread that you have alienated opinion”
Katz, have you been involved in too many bitter ALP pre-selection battles? This is a discussion, nobody has to convince anyone, nobody has to win. I have allowed you the enjoyment of playing your usual word games, even though, as became apparent, Anna’s post actually didn’t give you enough to do anything with. Instead of your usual clever moves, you had to just keep picking up your precarious pawn and haphazardly placing it wherever you might hope it could live a little longer.
W.A. politics is probably best left to we who live here, Katz. Rewi and I are glued to our monitors viewing the enthralling spectacle of Parliament live. So we have the advantage of being able to place Peter Abetz’ remarks in context. Peter, I think, is one of Parliament’s pleasant, genial lightweights – you find them on both sides. Not spectacularly energetic and entertaining like Troy, who’s bound to attract equally energetic responses. But Peter ? nah, a nice enough bloke, who doesn’t deserve to have stories made up about him being an apologist for the nazis.
Patricia – unusually for me, I can remember exactly the moment I decided I wouldn’t let my preference vote go to Labor at the last state election (I was always a Labor voter ’till I moved to the Greens). That was when Alan Carpenter made his Premier’s Statement on Indigenous Affairs. I was watching the broadcast. And I hadn’t been so angry at politics for years. Indigenous Affairs, ’till then, for me, was a background issue. By the time Alan got to the end of his lousy speech I had reached the “For God’s sake, just go!” stage. No doubt many ALP voters in NSW are at that stage now. Aren’t you glad, thinking of Indigenous Affairs, that Adele Carles is in the parliament?
In WA, does “Nazi apologist” always mean exactly the same thing as “fascist enabler”?
If so, I believe that Russell has understated just how enthralling the state is.
“However they sure don’t like being depicted as a bunch of knuckleheads who can’t deal with a bit of petty shop lifting by blacks kids and noisy TGIF celebrations in our pubs without armed police intervention.”
I fear this may be a vain hope. Over here we consider ourselves a breed apart. WA, to its inhabitants, represents the epitome of nature’s and man’s [deliberate sexism] achievements. If outsiders ridicule us for our supposedly backward ways and lazy attitudes it is because they are jealous of our nirvana. The rank stupidity of the current idea to implement extended trading hours or the lack of interest in extending police powers are testament to the slack-jawedness of the general population. And the local “newspaper” doesn’t help.
That an MP can mention with approval the SD in parliament just added to the embarassment or strengthens the resolve depending on your level of parochialism.
After my recent visit to Perth, I wondered if the sexism was deliberate – thanks for clarifying PatrickB.
Katz! Enthralling it is! You must know that in the last century WA called itself the “State of Excitement!” Sheer embarrassment finally had that taken off our car registration plates.
Russell – why should I be “glad, thinking of Indigenous Affairs, that Adele Carles is in the parliament?” She has shown all the usual green Green incapacity for compromise to achieve practical outcomes in the Legislative Assembly over the stop and search laws. Judging by her stance she is unlikely to be of use in any future legislative stand-offs either. Now young Aboriginal youths are even more likely to end up in jail than before. The two similarly vocal and “principled” Green MLCs are impotent since they don’t hold the balance of power in the Legislative Council as they once did. God help the state if by some weird aberration the Greens get anywhere in Willagee.
Re law and order, stop and search powers etc. Who asked for all this extra regulation and police presence in Northbridge and other night life hubs? I don’t get the impression that pub and restaurant owners are asking for it or even like it. And if they were, what’s wrong with their providing their own security as in the past? Surely licensing laws can be strictly supervised re. the responsibility for keeping orderly houses? All this funding, focus and forcefulness from the police simply enhances those trouble spots for the usual suspects and attracts even more of them looking for the excitement of a punch-up. Even when they did occur in the past such incidents were still not everyday and were attended by police more than adequately armed and with full backing of the law.
What do they say? “Where attention goes, energy flows.” Time perhaps for the City Council to get working on a positive picture of a pleasant and law abiding Perth which doesn’t need undue police presence for its citizens to go out for a pleasant evening’s entertainment. It shouldn’t be difficult because that’s the reality here.
Further to PatriciaWA’s question above about who’s asking for the laws, I don’t usually place much stock in Janet Woollard’s contribution to the Parliament, but here she is referring to official figures in Hansard from last week:
What’s that? No significant increase in the prevalence of weapons or assaults in Northbridge in the past 15 years? An actual drop in the past 3?
Who’s asking for the laws? The WA Police Force.
Patricia – obviously you aren’t tuning in often enough to the broadcast of Parliament – there are 4 Greens MLCs, not two.
Why do you criticise Adele Carles for voting against a Bill you so vehemently oppose? What compromise of ’stop and search’ would you have liked? In the end the ALP voted against it too.
You should be glad (and proud to have Fremantle represented by) Adele, if you care about Indigenous issues, because she will not miss an opportunity to raise those issues at every opportunity. Which will make a nice change. If you remember what happened to Mr Ward you will know that we need more voices like Adele’s in the Parliament.
A party is not necessarily ‘impotent’ because they don’t have the numbers to push legislation through. The Greens have improved many pieces of legislation by having amendments accepted. They help to keep the government on its toes by their questions, especially of the budget estimates; their opinions are heard and taken into account in committee reports; their presence reminds the government that 10% of the community voted specifically for social justice and environmental sustainability; they’re a focus and support for many groups in the community.
“God help the state if by some weird aberration the Greens get anywhere in Willagee.” You don’t think you’re being slightly hysterical here Patricia? I would predict the Greens will do pretty badly in Willagee – but if they won, wouldn’t 2 Green MLAs be just as impotent as one?
Russell, you’re right,they’re up two but still lost the balance of power. By the way, by all means correct me when I’m wrong and disgree with my opinions, but please, please, stop me telling me what I should and should not be glad and proud about!
Rewi, mine was a rhetorical question really. I think my original complaint about the stop and search bill was that it emanated from the Police Commissioner because his men “didn’t like” having to to explain to a judge every time they wanted to use their existing stop and search powers with particular individuals! So inconvenient! They’ll be asking for instant house search warrants in the same way if they get away with this. Do you think they understand “habeas corpus” or will they find that principle inconvenient too?
Thanks for those statistics though, they very much confirm my own sense of how law abiding this community is, compared say with Sydney where I lived until quite recently.
Well known ratbags and malcontents Malcolm McCusker and Fred Chaney have today been reported as having concerns about the stop and search powers: