Like its less-than-effective salesmanship of the federal budget, the Abbott government has run into heavy weather as it seeks support from Australia’s Muslim community for amended counter-terrorism laws. These will give security authorities expanded powers of arrest, and make it a crime for an Australian to travel to a war zone where terrorists are operating, like Iraq or Syria. ASIO director-general David Irvine was pressed into service last week to reassure the Muslim community that the proposed new laws are not aimed specifically at them, and this week Prime Minister Tony Abbott is meeting with community leaders in Sydney and Melbourne spruiking much the same message along with exhortations for everyone to “join Team Australia’’. But with the government having already cancelled the passports of radicals who’ve gone to the Middle East and now keen to legislate to make such crusading journeys a crime, some Muslim leaders are questioning the efficacy of the proposed measures. The latest proposal – to strip those people deemed a national security risk of their welfare payments – has received a similarly cool reception.
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The government’s concerns about the dangers posed by “militarised and brutalised’’ Muslims returning from the battlefields of Syria and Iraq are not misplaced, though as Mr Irvine admitted, “violent Islamist extremism [has only] a very small level of support among the fringe of the Muslim community in Australia’’. With laws already in place that allow security agencies to closely monitor individuals and groups, the question arises as to whether greater powers to encircle and isolate fringe-dwellers will work as intended and not simply instil in them a greater sense of victimhood and grievance.
Some Muslim leaders believe there is a good chance certain individuals will not be deterred at all, particularly if they driven by a burning sense of injustice about the fate of other Muslims in the Middle East.
Common sense suggests the government should be involved in the efforts of mainstream Muslim community groups to shield impressionable young minds from radical influences. Inexplicably, however, funding from the Attorney-General’s Department for community-run programs targeting youths at risk of radicalisation dried up in the last budget, though there are reports the Australian Federal Police may get more funding for its community outreach programs. That said, the propaganda videos of groups like ISIL are slickly produced, and not easily quarantined on the internet. All the more reason for the Abbott government not to add to the mood of anxiety by platitudes and specific threats.
Yellow Torana a reminder
The sight of a yellow Holden Torana adorning the National Museum this week was a reminder that the past is a different country – for which perhaps we should be grateful. In August 1980, the yellow two-door hatchback owned by Michael Chamberlain entered popular folklore after it was alleged his wife, Lindy, had cut the throat of their baby daughter, Azaria, in the footwell of the front seat of the vehicle and then disposed of the body. Mrs Chamberlain maintained at the outset that a dingo had dragged the baby from a tent at Ayers Rock (now Uluru) where the family was holidaying. But despite the lack of a body and a motive (and an initial coronial inquest that supported the Chamberlains’ account that two-month-old infant had been taken by a dingo) Mrs Chamberlain was convicted of her murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Mr Chamberlain was convicted of being an accessory.
The largely circumstantial nature of the prosecution’s case – and evidence that dingoes were known marauders at the campsite – ensured that appeals and further inquiries followed. In 1988, the Northern Territory Supreme Court acquitted the Chamberlains after finding that the substance in the Torana identified by forensic analysis as “baby blood’’ was in fact a sound-deadening compound applied during the manufacturing process. Another inquest in 2012 ruled that Azaria had been taken by a dingo, with Coroner Elizabeth Morris concluding matters by apologising to the family.
The Torana, which Mr Chamberlain has generously bequeathed to the museum, is a lasting reminder that despite scientific advances, particularly in the field of DNA analysis, forensic experts are as fallible as anyone else.
