Ah Queensland ...

Ah Queensland. Perfect one day, superpluperfect the next.

Where else could you find the right to run a bikini clad delight on the front page, and call it an "exclusive" under the specious excuse that tourism to the deep north is on the rise.

Could it get any better?

Hang on, what's this? In just a short day, peace broken by vicious acrimony?

What a relief ... the Snail empowering Toads to be judges ...

Now with endless stories in New South Wales of endless corruption - don't you even mention Bob Carr without flecking foam on your lips - how sweet it is to take a gander at the deep north.

In recent days, Campbell Newman - whose popularity had been flagging - seized on the moment and some ill-judged bikie mayhem to whip out a law 'n order routine as the way forward to the next election.

Joh Bjelke-Petersen would have been in awe at the manoeuvre. And it's not just bikies. If you happen to disagree with Newman, chances are high that you're a paedophile - yep, the spirit of Stephen Conroy's fabulous internet filter lives on in Queensland.

Remember Conroy's fabulous conflation of critics of his internet filter with paedophile lovers, supporters and facilitators. If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, he thundered in his smearing way, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree (here).

Go on Mr. Newman, try it on for size, you'll find it a tidy fit:

(Newman) .... has labelled critics of the laws as "apologists for paedophiles".

"What the community is saying is you need to listen," he (Newman) said. "You need to come out of your ivory towers. You need to mix with the ordinary men and women across Queensland who've said 'we've had enough of people who are a threat to the community being released'." (here)

Could it be done with any more skill? Ivory towers = paeophile apologists? Game, set and paedophile bikie-loving match:

Mr Newman also said he was concerned by recent court decisions granting bail to alleged outlaw bikies. 
"Queenslanders are sick of these people who get appointed into these jobs who then are totally unaccountable," he said. "Judges and magistrates don't actually have to go for re-election - they're there appointed, they have tenure, they're there until a retiring age and I can't influence them and I don't try to influence them. 
 "The only people saying they're against these laws are people who are apologists for sex offenders and paedophiles."

There's more than a whiff of irony in this in NSW, when we see the work of people elected to power, and then the feeble attempts of the justice system to bring said rorters to justice for their systemic and systematic abuse of their positions of power. Accountable? Now there's an unaccountable laugh ...

But it did make the pond wonder whether Newman had now achieved a new record in low level abuse by saying that anyone against him and his laws were apologists for sex offenders and paeophiles.

It would seem that by his account, constitutional law expert Professor Gerard Carney is one such apologist:

As someone who has invested a career in constitutional law, he (Carney) says he has never heard of a government in Australian modern history accusing members of the judiciary of living in "ivory towers" and being unaccountable to the community. 
"I think this is unprecedented in Australia in modern times and it's incomprehensible," he said. 
"One of the paramount principles that we have enjoyed is the benefit of is public confidence in the integrity of our judges and our courts. 
"That is in fact now a constitutional requirement that nothing be done in a way to impair public confidence in that institutional integrity. 
"To have the Premier come out in those terms is appalling, it damages our constitutional system and the attorney traditionally has had the role to protect the courts from that sort of scandalous comment."

Of course if you're a mexican from the south, you tend to shrug your shoulders and just say "Queensland is a foreign country, they do things differently there", with a tip of the hat to L. P. Hartley for mangling his opening to his novel The Go-Between.

The current frenzy was given a kick along by Tony Fitzgerald turning up to deliver a verdict on the "tough Newman Government law and order crackdown".

Amazingly, after Greg Hunt's experience with wikipedia, Fitzgerald dared to quote wikpedia on the matter of demagogues:

"Demagogues usually oppose deliberation and advocate immediate, violent action to address a national crisis; they accuse moderate and thoughtful opponents of weakness. 
"Demagogues have appeared in democracies since ancient Athens. They exploit a fundamental weakness in majoritarian democracy: because power is held by the most numerous group of people, one who appeals to the lowest common denominator attitudes of a large enough segment of the population can obtain power from them." 
History teaches us that claims that repressive laws will reduce serious crime are usually hollow and that laws which erode individual freedom and expand a state's power over its citizens are fraught with peril.

Fitzgerald seemed to be implying that Newman was a jumped up, petty, slandering demagogue:

 It is extremely arrogant and socially destructive for politicians to slander citizens who disagree with their "political solution" or to denigrate the judicial branch of government and its generally conservative judges who must make sometimes unpopular decisions in accordance with the law and available evidence and their oath of office. 
 And it is incomprehensible that any rational Queenslander who is even remotely aware of the state's recent history could for a moment consider reintroducing political interference into the administration of criminal justice, even to the point of making decisions about incarceration.

Hah, another apologist for sex offenders and paedophiles and drug-crazed bikies ...

(No it's not a breach of Godwin's laws, those are bananas on his arm patch).

And then another of these wretches came out of the woodwork, as you can read in Justice George Fryberg accuses Premier Campbell Newman of bullying judiciary over bikie bail laws (forced video, may be paywall affected).

More fuss and bother, more apologists!

Happily we've learned today that Dr. Ken Levy, head of the CMC, is no bloody apologist for the criminal motorcycle gangs which are taking over the state and making life very hard for bikini-clad beauties, as you can read in Strong anti-gang laws vital to shield the innocent in bikie battle says CMC boss, if you evade the paywall.

And dammit he doesn't have time to read wikpedia entries because they only lead to trouble. No, it's time to stand behind the fearless leader and bleat in support.

So his piece is a stout-hearted apology for Campbell Newman.

Levy certainly doesn't live in an ivory tower, and he's certain other states will be looking to follow Queensland, and the very finest law and order methodologies of the great state of Arizona. Dress them in pink and all will be well ...

And never mind all this idle blather about the separation of powers, the scales of the criminal justice system are not in balance, and what we need is populist polling to rectify the situation:

Approximately 50 per cent of those who responded agree with the Government's stance and a further 25 per cent said that the laws are not tough enough. There is clearly a perception that the criminal justice system has not been effective in the eyes of the majority of people in Queensland.

Because getting the citizenry into a lather and then taking a poll is the right and seemly way forward when it comes to constitutional matters.

Now the pond has valiantly resisted any thought of mentioning that this was the very trick deployed by Adolf Hitler in the early days of his rise to power.

The law and order issues arising from the Reichstag fire (there's now little doubt it was set by the NSDAP) allowed Hitler to take out communists, social democrats and other criminal elements, some of whom were no doubt apologists for paedophiles and bikies...

But back to Levy, who bizarrely tells a story of how in 1994 a Californian woman shot a man in the dock, an alleged paedophile who had allegedly molested her son. She had been "driven to murder this person because she saw the justice system as inadequate".

The wise Levy sees a situation arising where crazed Queenslanders, totally dissatisfied with everything in the Queensland justice system, turn up in Queensland courts and starts popping offenders.

The consequences which followed are instructive. After this woman was sent to jail, the community responded with bumper bar stickers saying 'nice shootin Ellie'. There were also comments in the local press saying that more people should take the law into their own hands because the justice system did not protect them. 

Levy's clearly on to something here.

Queenslanders are, in generality, barking mad, completely crazy, and out of their tree, and damned if they won't pick up the nearest shooting iron, and let the lead fly.

Why they might even start taking the law into their own hands and taking out judges, and surely all that sort of stuff should be left to Campbell Newman and his AG:

A potential problem when these debates become heated is that unless the outcome is seen as being effective, the ultimate risk is that there could be greater social unrest; resulting in people taking the law into their own hands. 
Even more disturbing would be that it could lead to a call for challenging the judicial system and perhaps even the tenure of judges. It would be regrettable if this led to the loss of confidence by the community in our system of justice which has served in Australian jurisdictions exceptionally well since Federation. 

Yes, the very confidence in the legal system we thought we had will be undermined by politicians expressing a lack of confidence in the legal system and this might well lead to people expressing a loss of confidence in the legal system by the community ... and so politicians are right to express concern about a lack of confidence in the legal system ... rr some such thing ...

We already surrender our rights to the Crown to prosecute on our behalf. What some advocates now claim, in effect, is that we should also surrender our rights to have a say about the effectiveness of the criminal justice system. 

No, no, surely not, not when the polls are so clear, and those damned ivory tower elitists won't listen to the will of the people, embodied in the fearless shape of dear leader Campbell Newman. Why it's intolerable, it's patently absurd, it will not be tolerated! Tell us Dr Levy:

Clearly, the community is saying that this is absurd and will not be tolerated, at least as far as the new laws are concerned in relation to CMCGs. 

That last little flurry of jargon refers to criminal motor cycle gangs, itself a nice Orwellian flourish, since it proposes that anyone on motor bikes in a group are a gang, and likely enough, they'll be criminal.

Now the pond has always had a simple solution to motorbike crime - confiscate any bike with a noise rating above 60db and a big muffler.

Yep, we can out Newman being Newman.

But there is an upside. Islamics and people of middle eastern appearance and blacks and the unemployed and single women must be heaving a sigh of relief, unless they happen to have motorbikes. Temporary relief from being responsible for ruining everything ...

There's a new set of demons in town, and they're taking the heat off the old whipping boys, and in the run up to the next election, they might just deliver Campbell Newman a second term.

And if the price for that is a comprehensively fucked justice system, where's the harm in that? Given that Queensland has always been a state where the corrupt and the crony have flourished.

When not writing in support of Newman and his 'law 'n order campaign, the editorials at The Courier-Mail have, of recent days, been worried about Queensland tourism, and the prospect of luring young men to perve on beauties clad in bikinis ...

"Beautiful one day, perfect the next" is a great line, but still not good enough. (editorial here, locked behind the paywall because who cares what the editor of the CM thinks?)

Indeed. How about "fucked one day, and even more fucked by Campbell Newman the next"?

Just a thought. We mexicans are always willing to help, and it does take our minds off Bob Carr, Eddie Obeid, and it turns out today, relatively new Resources Minister Chris Hartcher, who has introduced legislation to kill of a court case, as you can read in Minister's 'outrageous' move over gold mine.

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

(Below: and if you want more visual Queensland content, you can always head off to this Facebook page or Leahy's cartoons)