I’m alert and alarmed by the fact that I hadn’t noticed that Australia is in a state of emergency. No, it’s nothing to do with terror alerts. Apparently it’s the government’s legal justification for spending $20 million of taxpayers’ money on political propaganda:
The Solicitor-General, David Bennett, QC, spoke for the Government, and, as he does so well, he challenged a number of comfortable wisdoms. This was now an “emergency” situation, he said. The ACTU ads “are on their face likely to foment, if unanswered, industrial action. One sees that again and again. One clause which appears repeatedly in these advertisements is, ‘your rights at work are worth fighting for’.”
It’s difficult to imagine a more inspiring clarion call for citizens to rise up against established authority. Bennett saw the danger posed to the stability of society if the Government couldn’t spend $20 million of your money on its message: “The task of resisting that [the ACTU ads] and preserving industrial peace is squarely, we would submit, within the words ‘higher productivity’. That is the beginning and end of the case, your Honour. I can sit down now, really.”
It’s no doubt a tribute to the judicial character and mien of Justice Dyson Heydon that he presumably kept a straight face during all of this.
