david marr - lucky we all got out alive

From SMH 10/09/07

"MARTIAL law still runs in NSW. The great are gone. The fences are coming down. John Howard is off to Canberra to face his political fate. But the power of the police to decide who goes where in APEC city won't end until midnight on Wednesday."

Saturday's Stop Bush rally was APEC fear central."..
"The scene in the street was so Australian: teachers, Rabbitohs, wharfies, university students, families with strollers and guys from the fire brigade marching in thongs. Kids with fuzzy beards shared the road with ancient aristocrats of the left who have been at this work since the 1960s."

"But surrounding the marchers were scenes from another country: John Howard's Australia of fear. Police in Darth Vader gear stood, batons at the ready. Dogs were waiting in reserve. There were machines for pumping gas. The famous black water cannon crawled behind the demonstrators being funnelled into Hyde Park."

"Certainly the Police Commissioner, Andrew Scipione, wasn't trying for laughs when he warned the Chaser boys their motorcade in Macquarie Street might have provoked gunfire. "We have snipers deployed around the city," he declared. "They weren't there for show; they mean business."

"..by week's end it seemed we didn't need the kilometres of fences, the water cannon and armies of police. They were all a bit of a nuisance. Howard and APEC will be remembered for making Sydney feel grubby."

BBI: Australia, and particularly NSW, has all the signs of being a police state.

 

DENNIS SHANAHAN

The Australian 14/09/07

"The logic is undeniably twisted and contradictory: Howard asked his ministers if they thought he should stay, they told him they didn’t think he should stay, he rejected the advice and has now put forward Costello as the heir apparent and the future. It seems the decision has been accepted, grudgingly and with some embarrassment by most of the Liberals."