Back to the future : the war on terror and its impact on civil liberties

This comment looks at the capacity of the Australian Constitution to protect the civil liberties of a small number of citizens and would be citizens whose lives have been forever changed by recent acts of terror and the legislative and executive actions taken by the Commonwealth in response to those terrorist acts. These legal changes have included the creation of specific "terrorism" offences, the legislative proscription of two foreign organisations and, most notably, a significant expansion of ASIO's investigative powers.1
Whilst the Constitution contains a number of provisions and principles protective of civil liberties, in most instances they cannot resist government action expressly aimed at curtailing or infringing individual rights and freedoms. To this end, steps ought to be taken to strengthen existing institutions and mechanisms capable of providing meaningful civil rights scrutiny of government legislation. The comment begins with an examination of the close historical and legal parallels that exist between the present day and the Cold War era and suggests how the High Court might interpret the defence power should a terrorist attack occur on Australian soil. It concludes with a proposed reform. The reform involves vesting Ch III courts with the power to measure Commonwealth laws against the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights when determining a legal controversy. This may operate to secure better legislative outcomes from a civil liberties perspective without compromising the supremacy of Parliament.

Rogue en vogue : North Korea and the war on terror

North Korea occupies a unique place in the thinking of US policymakers insofar as it represents both a direct, physical threat and also a reminder of the limits to American power. In numerous ways, North Korea is anathema to the US: it has fulsomely rejected America’s systems of political–economic organisation, its gradual rapproachment with South Korea threatens to undermine the rationale for America’s military presence in Northeast Asia, and its possession of nuclear weapons threatens the safety of the US and its allies. For these reasons, and despite its lowly standing in the international political system, North Korea continues to severely frustrate the superpower’s interests and thus represents an existential threat to the US.

Alarmed, but not alert in the "war on terror"? The High Court, Thomas V Mowbray and the Defence Power

The article examines the judgment in Thomas v. Mowbray by the High Court in Australia handed down during the so called 'War on Terror'. According to the author, (i) the High Court de-emphasized the importance of the difference between war and peace in fixing the scope of the defence power in the Australian Constitution in a manner which was inconsistent with its earlier celebrated decision in the Communist Party Case in 1950 during the Cold War; and (ii) failed to apply a sufficiently rigorous test of proportionality in characterising the impugned Commonwealth laws. The article discuss the legal background and social implications of the High Court's decision, using the Communist Party Case in 1950 as a point of comparison.

The spectre of grief...visualising ontological terror in performance

This thesis argues that ontological terror is a burgeoning condition ingrained within our collective human psyche which can only be artistically represented through carefully chosen veils, two of which can be made explicit through an analysis of the aesthetic conventions of the liminal uncanny and the traumatic sublime. Artistic depiction of terror is realisable only through the reflections that are cast from it, the sum of which, make up these veils. The experience of terror is intimately aligned with the threat inherent within an experience of trauma or grief and the visual performance outcome of the Masters research Aviary, produced at the Living Museum of the West in 2006 is best understood as a representation of the mournful and desolate reflections that shimmered off a central moment of unspeakable terror.

Unspeakable terrain : visualising ontological terror in performance

This paper presented at the 2010 ADSA Conference held at the Australian National University draws upon my practice based research submitted for a Master of Animateuring (Cross Modal Performance) at the faculty of the Victorian College of the Arts- Melbourne University. Aviary which premiered at the Living Museum of the West in 2006 (a visual space-specific performance during which only one word was uttered) was used as an exemplar of my practice revealing how ontological terror can only be artistically represented through carefully chosen veils, two of which can be made explicit through an analysis of the aesthetic conventions of the liminal uncanny and the traumatic sublime.

Aligning anti-money laundering, combating of financing of terror and financial inclusion : Questions to consider when FATF standards are clarified

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify key questions that should be addressed to enable the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to provide guidance regarding the alignment of anti-money laundering, combating of financing of terror and financial inclusion objectives.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on relevant research and documents of the FATF to identify questions that are relevant to consider when it formulates guidance regarding the alignment between financial integrity and financial inclusion objectives.
Findings – The FATF advises that its risk-based approach enables countries and institutions to further financial inclusion. It is, however, not clear what the FATF means when its uses the terms “risk” and “low risk”. It is also unclear whether current proposals for financial inclusion regulatory models will necessarily limit money laundering (ML) aswell as terror financing risks to levels that can be described as “low”. The FATF will need to clarify its own thinking regarding low money laundering and low terror financing risk before it will be able to provide clear guidance to national regulators and financial institutions.
Originality/value – This paper was drafted to inform current FATF discussions regarding guidance on financial inclusion. The questions are relevant to all stakeholders in financial regulation.

Ship in foggy, stormy weather SFX

A sound effect of a foggy and stormy ambiance at sea with a distant fog horn.

Bioethics, cultural differences and the problem of moral disagreements in end-Of-life care : a terror management theory

Cultural differences in end-of-life care and the moral disagreements these sometimes give rise to have been well documented. Even so, cultural considerations relevant to end-of-life care remain poorly understood, poorly guided, and poorly resourced in health care domains. Although there has been a strong emphasis in recent years on making policy commitments to patient-centred care and respecting patient choices, persons whose minority cultural worldviews do not fit with the worldviews supported by the conventional principles of western bioethics face a perpetual struggle in getting their care needs met in a meaningful, safe, and healing way. In this essay, attention is given to exploring why cultural differences exist, why they matter, and how health care providers should treat them in order to reduce the incidence and impact of otherwise preventable harmful moral outcomes in end-of-life care. In addressing these questions, a novel application of the renowned terror management theory will be made.

There'll be a price to pay for terror listing the Haqqani Network

THE Obama administration's decision to officially designate the Haqqani Network a terrorist organisation and place it on the State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organisations would have been very difficult to make because of its far-reaching implications for US-Pakistan relations.

The volume of water filtered by a Continuous Plankton Recorder sample: the effect of ship speed

The Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) survey is one of the largest plankton-monitoring programmes in the world. Since 1931, the CPR has collected ∼380 000 samples, each representing 10 miles of tow. It has been assumed that the volume of seawater filtered by each sample remained constant and close to 3 m3. In this study, the volume filtered for each CPR sample was measured on two routes (SA and IN), monitored by the CPR survey, between 1995 and 2000. Although the filtered volume was near the theoretical value of 3 m3 on the SA route (3.2 m3), it was significantly higher on the IN route (3.8 m3). A significant negative relationship was found between the volume filtered and the speed of the ships. This relationship indicates that the faster the speed of the ship, the lower the volume filtered. This could have implications for the CPR survey as the speed of the ships has increased continuously since the end of the 1950s. However, no significant correlation was found between the long-term changes in the speed of the ships and two commonly used indicators of plankton variability: the Phytoplankton Colour and the Total Copepods indices. This absence of relationship may indicate that the effect found is small in comparison with the influence of hydroclimatic forcing, although a more extensive study is needed to confirm these findings.