Pressure Mounts for Sedition Laws to be Delayed--Australia

From the new World Media Watch up now at the URL in the sig below,
tomorrow at Buzzflash.com


1//The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia November 28, 2005

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/pressure-mounts-for-sedition-laws-to-be-delayed/2005/11/27/1133026350290.html



PRESSURE MOUNTS FOR SEDITION LAWS TO BE DELAYED

By Tom Allard

The Government will come under intense pressure to make big changes in the sedition provisions in its counter-terrorism laws, with its senators expected to report today that these are deeply flawed.



Sources close to the Senate committee examining the laws say its much-awaited majority report will urge the Government to delay legislating on sedition, even if it enacts other elements of the counter-terrorism bill.



Sedition laws aim to criminalise the incitement of terrorism, racial violence or attacks on Australian troops but are under fire for being poorly drafted and curbing freedom of expression.



The report says the laws should be redrafted to address concerns about the apparent removal of the requirement for prosecutors to show a person's comments are "intended" to provoke terrorism or acts of violence against Australian troops.



Someone could be jailed for seven years for inadvertently provoking a terrorist act through a speech, broadcast or article if it could be shown they were "reckless" in their remarks.

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suggest (sorry no link) that the Commonwealth (ie Federal) Attorney-General (who is an elected Member of Parliament and part of the governing conservative coalition) is going to ignore the Senate report. That's no surprise as the Commonwealth Government here is continually trampling over Parliamentary democracy with its majority in both houses.