The Anti-Terrorism Bill will allow police to detain terror suspects for up to 14 days without charge, place suspects on control orders for up to 12 months and impose a seven-year jail term for sedition.
"We are in a new period of McCarthyism and we need to know that, and understand it, and worry that this time it won't be turned around, that citizens, using a law like this, will be brought before courts for political reasons, not security reasons." -- Bob Brown, Australian Greens leader.
Labor couldn't have prevented the bill passing without a Coalition floor-crosser, but they didn't have to humiliate themselves.
Despite no amendments being either debated or passed, the Labor Party of Australia helped the Coalition vote into law John Howard's anti-dissent pro-terror legislation late last night.
The Greens and Democrats voted against the laws, the bill passing 53 to seven.
That's only seven senators who stood up for the human rights of Australians. The Labor senators, under Kim Beazley's instruction, opted for followship instead of leadership. They bowed to the polls which show that a vast majority of Australians have been systematically conned into believing the scary phantoms presented in John Howard's Machiavellian shadow play of terror. To protect their jobs and present their cowardice, they joined the wilfully uninformed in preferring a police state to democracy.
Labor caved in just like the opposition parties did when faced with Hitler's rise in the early 1930s. It's almost a carbon copy.
Fasten your seat belts freedom lovers, we are now in uncharted territory. Australia has just entered a full blown dark age.
See also: ABC AM: Law Council hopes High Court will stop new anti-terrorism laws
