Terror Bill

The dynamics of the proposed introduction of Australia’s anti terrorist bill is a curious affair.  
A simple legislative change from ‘the’ to ‘a’ in a Federal bill allows recent raids to take place. Apparently by no designating a specific threat, police were able to justify their arrests.
That in itself does not remove the claimed need for a sweeping Anti-Terror act, until it is coupled with the other odd circumstances leading to its introduction.Defending the bill Attorney general, Ruddock, continually claims that various measures being attacked already exist in other legislation. That includes the now deleted ‘shoot to kill’ provision.
Recent raids and arrests appear to testify to this belief. This operation, under existing laws, has proceeded reasonably efficiently.
Why then, is the government so intent on ramming this new legislation through parliament? In their own words, it is all there anyway.
Another fascinating aspect is that the Prime Minister and the investigators would not be able to use the media, cynically in the first instance, perhaps intelligently by the investigators.  
The level of information being offered or leaked to the media, to facilitate the ‘fight against terror’, would be strictly proscribed under the new laws.
The media would have been restricted from revealing Howard’s dubious use of ‘inside’ information. The Prime Minister actually use the ‘serious’ issue of terrorism, announcing the impending raid, to divert from other unpopular legislation being pursued.
The investigators will lose an important crime fighting tool, which is their ability to manipulate of the media to massage their investigations.
Many of the news reports contain obvious ‘inside’ information. That includes the given name of a supposed ‘supergrass’. The sort of leak intended, no doubt, to stir something among the targeted groups still free in the community. It is a normal, and at times valuable, policing technique.
Under the new laws, absolute secrecy is demanded in the face of very stiff penalties. Surely those provisions would severely inhibit the police in using all the tools available to them now.
It seems to me, as events unfold, these new laws only hamper the fight, not to mention the cynical politicking. I have asserted before that this is a bad law. Now I am convinced it is a totally unnecessary bad law.