From the ABC...
Shoot-to-kill plans aren't new, PM says
Prime Minister John Howard says he will speak to state leaders about their concerns over shoot-to-kill provisions in the Commonwealth's draft anti-terrorism legislation.
The premiers of five states have said they never agreed to the provisions.
The premiers of Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and South Australia say the draft legislation differs from an agreement they reached with Mr Howard at last month's Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting.
The state leaders are concerned the draft introduces a shoot-to-kill provision against terrorism suspects who flee when arrested under a preventative detention order.

GUS says shove this policy up the fairy hole down the back bush track into the river of flushing effluent... straight down the tank stream..

Yes Gus.

And I wonder who our 1st Jean Charles de Menezes will be?

Odds are it won't be a paleface with a name like Howard or Ruddock.

The 'shoot to kill' clause is central to the program. It is not a distraction. The keys to understanding this include Stanhope's reactions, and the acquiescence of the other seven, to what was a masterful confidence trick.

Of course, without reincarnating Will Shakespeare to write a nine-act play, we'll only be able to guess what went through the minds of the nine central characters, as they were led into the darkened theatrette to watch Mick Keelty's screenplay and fancy footwork with the laser pointer. We should assume they didn't have GHB-spiked tea served up in the Crown porcelain. I reckon, while the hours under Mick's spell may have whizzed by in a continual whir of murky threats, they were all able to recall, with embarrassing surety, the extent of their capitulation. Stanhope was the only one who didn't go in with his underpants down around his ankles, because he had signalled his disquiet beforehand. The responses since then suggest, strongly, that they all knew they were conned, but Stanhope is the only one with enough integrity and strength of ego to reject the overtures. It is typical of victims of a con game that they remain in denial, because admitting the deception is too painful.

The elements of this shell trick were extraordinarily simple, beyond the need to 'trust me on this'. Premiers and Chief Ministers submit to nothing, unless there is a promise of a transfer of funds. None of them needed to be told that extra precautions mean more manpower and resources, and that requires accounting for it in the budget. But, in this exercise, the emphasis is on creating new spies, to infiltrate the subversive networks, in order to root out the malcreants. At an early point, it becomes necessary to cover up the entire activity, so to lessen the risk of exposing what they are up to. So, it all has to go underground, into the bowels of secret police activities. Premiers, being basically simple and straighforward folk, would prefer not to carry that load of systematic deceit. They would be overjoyed to hear the A-G offer to provide the shield of obscurity, and the funds. All they have to do is sign up to the clarifying legislation. The cover is absolutely necessary, because the targets will be brought into the daylight, sooner or later, to face criminal proceedings. That is, unless there has been promise of rendition to secret military commissions.

Let's hang onto it, there, and tease out just what a small army of spies will look like. (Putting aside, for the moment, an inexpensive means to the same end: the transforming impact of the actions of a lone nut with a single bomb in a solitary rubbish bin at a significant location.) Let's assume there are disaffected ethnic youth, who are prepared to take money to inform on their mates. The suggestion is being put around, in a certain weekend newspaper, that ASIO has identified a small number of targets. (Laws will expose 80 Muslims ) Whatever the number, it will take some sophistication to put trained operatives on their tails, and collate the data going back. Successful plants would be expected to remain under cover for as long as possible, in case something really useful becomes accessible. Mick & Paul would have been projecting a vast web of secrecy, able to infiltrate all sorts of groups and organisations, and report back. That's a lot of money to come out of budgets for ongoing programs. Having committed, the Premiers seal their lips, because to talk about any aspect of the operation would compromise all of it. Sucked right in. And when the States are short-changed, down the track, there is no comeback. The books would have to be somewhat massaged, to conceal the extent of the operations, and they are all party to the cover-up. What's more likely, is that they will commit to something that cannot be audited, and someone in Canberra will take advantage of their weakness. The Premiers won't have a clue how much money is changing hands, and they won't be able to appeal to the electorate to help them out of their dilemma.

That's the sorry essence of it - add double agents and paid informants to corruptible coppers, and that's an unholy and unmanageable mess, unless someone is appointed to take personal responsibility for failures and excesses. Name one of Howard's Ministers who'd be prepared to go to jail, to preserve the integrity of public office.

There are difficulties with this scenario, and the one the comes most easily is the (non-existent) record of our police being able to infiltrate the crime networks that import and make billions of dollars worth of illicit drugs every year. Name the last time a media-happy Minister appeared in a pic to celebrate the busting of a mafia-like family of crooks, through the efforts of a Scorpio. Groups with a predominant ethnic component are harder to crack into, than the typical Aussie mobs.

But suppose it can be done. Suppose there are dozens, hundreds of double agents keeping track of ASIO's targets. Are they all incorruptible? Do they all hand over the priceless info they pick up? The problem then becomes, what if one of them goes off the rails, and wants more of the cake? Or gets an attack of the guilts, and wants to talk to the press, or to the honest politician? The whole gig would be at risk. Not if seven or eight slugs to the head can be covered up in the name of national security, though! That's just the way the local crime gangs protect their interests. Dead men don't tell tales.

The 'shoot to kill' rule is there to protect the enterprise - the Premiers - and the dodgy accounting.

The bigger problem, with that scenario, is that Usama bin Laden has considered how his outfit could be infiltrated like this, and has methods to insure against betrayal. Just like the local crime gangs. So, in terms of setting up a program to beat the phantom terrorist army, it's a total figment. But it's my best explanation for how the Premiers were conned and bought. The 'more spies' plan is a joke.  It's more likely the Premiers have been conned, and the money they think they have agreed to commit will appear elsewhere, to make the Budget look better. "An army of spies? Well, of course, that's an operational matter, and I can make no comment."

In the end, no great harm will have been done, apart from that to the integrity of our parliaments, to the personal integrity of those who made fools of themselves, and to the odd nobody who has to take a bullet or seven, to prove the system works. One possible benefit is that the political families will perceive there is risk of death to their own offspring, who will be kept at home and less able to breed, and the species may die out from self-induced catatonia due to fear.

Ps - I tried parking this at Webdiary, but the 'Post' button action returned an error flag, "unable to connect to www.typepad.com'.