Law Banning
Annoying People During Pope's Visit to Australia Criticized
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
SYDNEY, Australia — New regulations
making it a crime to annoy or inconvenience people gathering in Sydney during
Pope Benedict XVI's visit later this month were criticized Tuesday as a
heavy-handed blow to free speech.
The laws will apply in dozens of areas of downtown
Sydney — including the city's landmark opera house, train stations and city
parks — that are designated venues for World Youth Day, a Catholic evangelical
festival at which the pontiff will conduct mass and lead prayer meetings.
The regulations give police and emergency services
workers power to order anyone to stop behavior that "causes annoyance or
inconvenience to participants in a World Youth Day event," according to a
New South Wales state government gazette. Anyone who does not comply faces a
5,500 Australian dollar (US$5,300) fine.
Anna Katzman, the president of the New South Wales
Bar Association, which represents almost 3,000 lawyers in the state, said
making someone's inconvenience the basis of a criminal offense was
"unnecessary and repugnant."
"If I was to wear a T-shirt proclaiming that
'World Youth Day is a waste of public money' and refuse to remove it when an
officer ... asks me to, I would commit a criminal offense," Katzman said.
"How ridiculous is that?"
Lee Rhiannon, a state lawmaker with the
left-leaning Greens party, said the definition of what was annoying was open to
interpretation and the penalties in the new regulations were too severe.
State Premier Morris Iemma, whose government is
paying part of the costs of World Youth Day, defended the regulations, saying
they would not be used to put down dissent.
"People have the right to protest; they can do
so ... peacefully and lawfully," Iemma said.
Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said the powers
were similar to those that police already have at sporting arenas, but were
being extended to World Youth Day sites to boost security among the large
crowds expected.
"These are powers to stop people taking things
in ... like a paint bomb, all of those sort of things that ... certainly you
couldn't take to the football on Saturday," Scipione said.
His deputy, Dave Owens, said officers would act
reasonably when deciding what is offensive, including clothing.
"Police officers do it every day of the
week," Owens told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. "We're not the
fashion police, we're not killjoys."
World Youth Day spokesman Father Mark Podesta said
the church had not sought the increased powers for police during the event.
Almost 200,000 pilgrims have registered to take
part in the July 15-20 World Youth Day festival, and organizers say more are
expected before the event starts.
The pope will arrive July 12 and spend more than a
week in Sydney, first taking a break and then leading a series of prayer
gatherings and meetings with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and other officials at a
cathedral and other venues downtown. He will also take a boat trip on Sydney
Harbor.
The event will be capped by a papal mass at a
racetrack in the city on July 20.
Parts of Sydney will be shut down for World Youth
Day events, including a re-enactment of the 12 stations of the cross in various
parts of the city, a walking pilgrimage by tens of thousands of participants
across the Sydney Harbor Bridge and a papal motorcade through the city.
Paul Keating - 10 December 1992 - Redfern Park, Sydney NSW Australia
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We non-Aboriginal Australians should perhaps remind ourselves that
Australia once reached out for us.
Didn't Australia provide opportunity
and care for the dispossessed Irish? The poor of Britain? The refugees
from war and famine and persecution in the countries of Europe and
Asia? Isn't it reasonable to say that if we can build a prosperous and
remarkably harmonious multicultural society in Australia, surely we can
find just solutions to the problems which beset the first Australians -
the people to whom the most injustice has been done.
And, as I say, the starting point might be to recognise that the problem starts with us non-Aboriginal Australians.
It
begins, I think, with the act of recognition. Recognition that it was
we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed
the traditional way of life. We brought the disasters. The alcohol. We
committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We
practised discrimination and exclusion.
It was our ignorance and
our prejudice. And our failure to imagine these things being done to
us. With some noble exceptions, we failed to make the most basic human
response and enter into their hearts and minds. We failed to ask - how
would I feel if this were done to me?
As a consequence, we failed to see that what we were doing degraded all of us.
If
we needed a reminder of this, we received it this year. The Report of
the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody showed with
devastating clarity that the past lives on in inequality, racism and
injustice in the prejudice and ignorance of non-Aboriginal Australians,
and in the demoralisation and desperation, the fractured identity, of
so many Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.
For all this, I
do not believe that the Report should fill us with guilt. Down the
years, there has been no shortage of guilt, but it has not produced the
responses we need. Guilt is not a very constructive emotion.
I think what we need to do is open our hearts a bit. All of us.
Perhaps when we recognise what we have in common we will see the things which must be done - the practical things.
There
is something of this in the creation of the Council for Aboriginal
Reconciliation. The council's mission is to forge a new partnership
built on justice and equity and an appreciation of the heritage of
Australia's indigenous people. In the abstract those terms are
meaningles. We have to give meaning to 'justice' and 'equity' - and, as
I have said several times this year, we will only give them meaning
when we commit ourselves to achieving concrete results.
If we
improve the living conditions in one town, they will improve in
another. And another. If we raise the standard of health by 20 per cent
one year, it will be raised more the next. if we open one door others
will follow.
When we see improvement, when we see more dignity,
more confidence, more happiness - we will know we are going to win. We
need these practical building blocks of change.
The Mabo
judgment should be seen as one of these. By doing away with the bizarre
conceit that this continent had no owners prior to the settlement of
Europeans, Mabo establishes a fundamental truth and lays the basis for
justice. It will be much easier to work from that basis than has ever
been the case in the past.
For this reason alone we should
ignore the isolated outbreaks of hysteria and hostility of the past few
months. Mabo is an historic decision - we can make it an historic
turning point, the basis of a new relationship between indigenous and
non-Aboriginal Australians.
The message should be that there is
nothing to fear or to lose in the recognition of historical truth, or
the extension of social justice, or the deepening of Australian social
democracy to include indigenous Australians.
There is everything to gain.
Even
the unhappy past speaks for this. Where Aboriginal Australians have
been included in the life of Australia they have made remarkable
contributions. Economic contributions, particularly in the pastoral and
agricultural industry. They are there in the frontier and exploration
history of Australia. They are there in the ways. In sport ot an
extraordinary degree. In literature and art and music.
In all
these things they have shaped our knowledge of this continent and of
ourselves. They have shaped our identity. They are there in the
Australian legend. We should never forget - they helped build this
nation. And if we have a sense of justice, as well as common sense, we
will forge a new partnership.
As I said, it might help us if we
non-Aboriginal Australians imaigined ourselves dispossessed of land we
have lived on for 50 000 years - and then imagined ouselves told that
it had never been ours.
Imagine if ours was the oldest culture
in tehworld and we were told that it was worthless. Imagine if we had
resisted this settlement, suffered and died in the defence of our land,
and then were told in history books that we had given up without a
fight. Imagine if non-Aboriginal Australians had served their country
in peace and war and were then ignored in history books. Imagine if our
feats on sporting fields had inspired admiration and patriotism and yet
did nothing to diminish prejudice. Imagine if our spiritual life was
denied and ridiculed.
Imagine if we had suffed the injustice and then were blamed for it. It seems to me that if we can imagine the injustice then we can imagine its opposite. And we can have justice.
I
say that for two reasons: I say it because I believe that the great
things about Australian social democracy reflect a fundamental belief
in justice. And I say it because in so many other areas we have proved
our capacity over the years to go on extending the realism of
participating, oppotunity and care.
Just as Australian living in
the relatively narrow and insular Australia of the 1960s imagined a
culturally diverse, worldly and open Australia, and in a generation
turned the idea into reality, so we can turn the goals of
reconciliation into reality.
All over Australia, Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander communities are taking charge of their own lives. And
assistance with the problems which chronically beset them is at last
being made available in ways developed by the communities themselves.
If these things offer hope, so does the fact that this generation of
Australians is better informed about Aboriginal culture and ahievement,
and about the injustice that has been done, than any generation before.
We
are beginning to more generally appreciate the depth and the diversity
of Aboriginal and Torrest Strait Islander cultures. From their music
and art and dance we are beginning to recognise how much richer our
national life and identity will be for the participation of Aboriginals
and Torres Strait Islanders. We are beginning to learn what the
indigenous people have known for many thousands of years - how to live
with our physical environment.
Ever so gradually we are learning
how to see Australia through Aboriginal eyes, beginning to recognise
the wisdom contained in their epic story.
I think we are beginning to see how much we owe the indigenous Australians and how much we have lost by living so apart. I said we non-indigenous Australians should try to imagine the Aboriginal view. It can't be too hard. Someone imagined this event today, and it is now a marvellous reality and a great reason for hope.
There
is one thing today we cannot imagine. We cannot imagine that the
descendants of people whose genius and resilience maintained a culture
here through 50 000 years or more, through cataclysmic changes to the
climate and environment, and who then survived two centuries of
dispossession and abuse, will be denied their place in the modern
Australian nation. We cannot imagine that.
We cannot imagine that we will fail.
And with the spirit that is here today I am confident that we won't.
I am confident that we will succeed in this decade.
Gosh, time has truly flown. I've succumbed to my 'perfectionist' curse where I find I have a lot to say but I always try to phrase it perfectly before writing/typing it out, which then usually means that I end up never doing so as the moment and topic passes. Richard Pratt's words ring true -- "too much analysis leads to paralysis".
That I am not - paralysed that is - rather, I am poised, panther like with paws ready to pounce. Nice image, huh, me down on all fours. The year has surprised me -- it's a numbers game, the more you put out, the more you get back, give and you shall receive, be aggressive and go get what you want, trust yourself just be yourself, time heals all, look up and see the blazing-high-UV-sunshine and smell the vegemite toast that gets you through the day, absence makes the heart grow fonder, distance makes the heart want to burst, looking beyond only to realise I had everything in front of me, political correctness, ego stroking, baby boomers refusing to move on or get up-skilled, personal luxury like never before, maturity does not necessarily equal worldly, crazy coincidences and degree of separation that make you laugh/cry/cringe, love the complicated beast that it is, control is an overrated verb, flight is a beautiful sensation, peace that I found in amongst the craze -- with its abundance and variety.
I am home. For the longest in a long time and things have shifted, quite literally. I found all sorts of soft toys scattered all over my room. It's like my mum felt the room was too sparse, after moving into the new house for 2 seconds I was gone, so she put a bunny on the desk, a few bears on the shelf, a spatterring of voodoo dolls on the vanity and a massive pooh bear on the bed and probably though it would 'humanise' things a little. omg. i havent actually seen these toys since 1997.
I have a list of people women to see and places to go. Helen, Jocelin, Phuong, Cynthia, Tori, Teresa, Maria. The NGV, Heide, Toff in Town, Breadwell, Eureka Tower, Miss Marples, Ranges. I have gone into re-arranging mode, so there is lots of IKEA furnishings to be purchased, clothes to be sorted and spices to be straightened. There is so much random stuff everywhere. It truly does reflect the state of mine of the people living in this house. This includes the backyard, where dog poo is littered like autumn leaves.
I already know I will cry when I leave. I have a 6 month contract ready to go and interviews scheduled to roll. But it seems so...empty...withough the one that makes everything comfortable. The one that knows I go through a headscrew almost daily and rant and rave like a freaking madwoman. That I have to be what I say and think what I do and I hope that I know in pursuit of the elusive 'made it' or 'mortgaged it'.
What do you do when your work is in one place and your heart is in another? You can't go back because you've kind of moved on, and not that moving back is that wrong, it's just not right for now, but the faces that you see when you come back makes you ache and laugh and swoon. It's still a not quite the perfect place where you've gone too, but its like bubble wrap for opportunities, step in any direction and you'll pop.
I always thought I could move easily. But it seems like the umbilical cord is replaced by one you can't cut. I can't quite numb the trembles of changes and nerves of unknown, no matter how much ginger-honey-chai-tea I drink. I've begun to replace it with anything vintage 2000 and that's red. That works better but wears off, and my tomato face is not a good look.
Deep breath. Straighten your back, or your pilates will be a waste. Make that phone call, or your talent will be lost. Pack that bag, or you'll forget your notes. Kiss that parent, or you'll regret it in a month. Go to the holiday house, or you'll be making excuses forever.
Wear it, or waste it.
Write it, don't fight it.
Shake it off, or you'll never get it off.
Shake it off.
*
Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love
the questions themselves, as if they were locked rooms or books written
in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could
not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is to live everything. Live the question now. Perhaps
then, some day far in the future, you will gradually without even
noticing it, live your way into the answer.
