What The F***

[woodublieve12]

Who would actually be his lawyer?

Remember, some of the worst criminals had lawyers. Think they will make there career

[dedja]

Who would actually be his lawyer?

Not that I could ever be one, but defence lawyers are needed to ensure that the defendant is treated fairly (yeah, I know, he doesn’t deserve it but we do live in a civilised society which espouses a fair legal system).

Doesn’t mean that their aim is to get them acquitted, for example, the defence lawyer for Martin Bryant spent considerable time convincing his client to plead guilty to all counts to save everyone from a long and messy trial.

Hopefully, whoever is assigned to defend this one will do something similar.

[CENTURION]

I think banning those huge pro-palestinian marches could be a good step in the right direction,
they create fear, anger & aren't necessary here,
Hamas isn't going to go, "look on the TV, there's a march in Australia,
the Palestinians aren't going to get comfort from them, they don't even know they are happening!
As we have seen at these marches, they also bring in the wrong people, people that are there just to create shit,
marching over the Bridge with ISIS flags, WRONG!
protesting at Sydney Opera House, saying gas the jews & death to the IDF, WRONG!
Aussies just want their old way of life back!
We don't want to have to live in fear & the government needs to step up & show us that THEY ARE ON OUR SIDE!

While I appreciate your frankness, I personally can't agree with much of what you've written at all.

Firstly, what you're proposing would essentially be an end to free speech and assembly in this country. I support these freedoms - which means that I also support them for those with whom I disagree totally.

Australians should be able to protest (safely and peacefully of course) about any issue they believe in. This is what happens in a liberal democracy.

Numbskulls with ISIS flags or who advocate gasing the Jews etc. should be held to account for their actions. Bear in mind however, that this amounts to a tiny portion of people.

For instance, NSW Police estimated 90,000 people were in attendance at the most recent Harbour Bridge protest. Do you propose all those people being thrown in gaol? Most are ordinary people. I'm sure you'll find many on this forum who share their cause. Remember, and this cannot be stressed enough, support for Palestinians does not mean support for Hamas or ISIS.

I'm sure that you would have found a (very small) number of extremists (e.g. neo-Nazis) at some of the recent marches in Adelaide associated with the right-wing.

There are various factual assertions which I question as well, such as Palestinians not being aware of support they have received from the international community.

What you are proposing is totally contrary to Australian values, in my view, is hardly likely to work (and indeed I'm not sure that banning protests changes the minds of any would-be-protestors - quite the opposite I suspect), and is the sort of thing I associate with the Soviet Union or North Korea.

OK, but our government has shown their weakness by not doing anything about the "wrong-doers & extreme antagonists" that attended those marches.

Serious question, what could they have done?

At the time I don't know BUT surely we can make a new law regarding creating civil unrest etc etc by displaying ISIS flags, burning the Aussie flag, I don't know, I'm not a bloody lawyer BUT let's do SOMETHING, instead of talking about it & just shrugging our shoulders & waiting for things to get worse, because they will.

[whufc]

Its great we can protest without fear but agree in one sense it drums up division and hatred and brings issues to the country that really don't affect us or just change outcomes.

Maybe this would have happened anyway but cant help and feel that maybe some of the protest divisions escalated the hatred and fear further.

[Brodlach]

@ Centurian

Cant introduce a law to outlaw ******


Half the country would be empty

[RB]

At the time I don't know BUT surely we can make a new law regarding creating civil unrest etc etc by displaying ISIS flags, burning the Aussie flag, I don't know, I'm not a bloody lawyer BUT let's do SOMETHING, instead of talking about it & just shrugging our shoulders & waiting for things to get worse, because they will.

The federal government did ban ISIS flags:
https://www.ag.gov.au/crime/publication ... s-offences

The flag-burning thing comes up every once in a while. Putting aside the dubious constitutionality of any such law, I agree with John Howard on this point, who said: 'I see that kind of thing as just as expression, however offensive to the majority of the Australian community, an expression of political opinion.'

I also think the link between any Australian flag-burning, and the terrorist attack at Bondi, is tenuous to non-existent.

And I don't think that bringing in such a law would be good tactics. I mean for starters, if burning the Australian flag is banned, then you're going to see a hell of a lot more flag-burning. I think that would apply to most attempts to limit political expression.

[Brodlach]

Easy for people to point fingers when they don’t have their own solutions

[CENTURION]

Easy for people to point fingers when they don’t have their own solutions

Oh I have a solution....................but I'll keep it to myself.

[wenchbarwer]

First nations people have been known to burn the Australian flag in protest at times, are we going to deport them too?

FWIW, our flag is a sorry carry over from colonial times and is way overdue for replacement. Then we have nuffies hijack the red ensign to express their sovereign citizenship, that's pretty offensive, do we piss them off too?


Overreactions to flag burning is such a Seppo thing to get your knickers in a twist over, I really don't want our country to follow their lead.

[Booney]

Easy for people to point fingers when they don’t have their own solutions

The "What could we do?" argument shits me no f*cking end. Nobody is saying we have the answers or the perfect outcome it's the start of the conversation to find the answer.

[CENTURION]

Easy for people to point fingers when they don’t have their own solutions

The "What could we do?" argument shits me no f*cking end. Nobody is saying we have the answers or the perfect outcome it's the start of the conversation to find the answer.

Reminds me of the 3 vultures on the vine in Jungle Book

[Lightning McQueen]

Easy for people to point fingers when they don’t have their own solutions

The "What could we do?" argument shits me no f*cking end. Nobody is saying we have the answers or the perfect outcome it's the start of the conversation to find the answer.

Sorry.

[Brodlach]

Easy for people to point fingers when they don’t have their own solutions

The "What could we do?" argument shits me no f*cking end. Nobody is saying we have the answers or the perfect outcome it's the start of the conversation to find the answer.

Agreed, TBH there will never ever be a solution

[Armchair expert]

Real simple solution use the powers that had the South African nazi cosplayer deported on religious extremists

not a lot but its a start

[dedja]

I haven’t gone out of my way to watch videos of the tragedy but there are so many out there now.

Two in particular stood out, the first is mobile phone footage from across the road from the footbridge with both shooters in clear sight for the entirety (apart from the period the older one went for a wander). A media outlet counted the rounds at just over 100, and it looked like the shooters had 4 rifles.

As posted earlier, the entire siege from the first round to the last was approx 6 mins. with 100 odd rounds fired in 6 mins for 15 deaths and 40 injured.

The second was the dashcam footage of the older couple disarming the older shooter as he got out of his car having just parked adjacent to the bridge. His son was already on the bridge and had hardly started firing. Tragically, the shooter calmly grabbed another rifle from the vehicle and callously murdered the couple, hence becoming the first victims. In fact after the siege had ended, a female police officer could be seen running from the footbridge to retrieve the rifle from the side of the road laying next to the now deceased couple.

Whilst this tragic massacre was unprecedented and horrendous, it could have been much, much worse.

Despite reports that the shooters were well trained and the ambush was well planned, it was amateurish at best. The older shooter was disarmed twice in almost comical scenes, they had high powered rifles which caused immense damage but imagine the carnage if they had semi or fully automatic weapons.

The police did an amazing job in a very short period of time to firstly engage the shooters but also their bravery to engage with just service pistols and no protection, tools which were woefully not up to the job. Some constables had only been in the force for a few months. It was well over before any special tactical group could get to the scene, let alone engage.

The bravery of the lone detective in plain clothes who took down the older shooter is hard to describe. He could have easily been a 16th victim.

Then there was the chaos after the shooters had been neutralised. Some call them heroes but I’ll call them idiots, the civilians who rushed onto the footbridge before police could get there. Yes, understand their emotion, but they interfered with police doing their job to secure the scene and needlessly endangered themselves

The first one, dressed in a black t-shirt, was particularly stupid as he was engaging with the dead and severely injured shooters, and was initially shot at by police who thought he was another terrorist. It was later established that he was an immigrant who had already had a deportation order resulting from criminal activity, and his lawyer subsequently tried to badge him as a hero who should be allowed to stay for his ‘bravery’.

There was also a lot of drone footage of the siege, which begs the question whether drones could and should be part of the arsenal of police and law enforcement to help neutralise future incidents.

There will be a lot of reviews and investigations resulting from this tragedy, from prior intelligence gathering and sharing, to government actions, security on the day, the police response, etc, etc.

Hopefully these will provide some meaningful recommendations to better prepare all and to help prevent something like this happening again.

Remember, whatever was going through the minds of those two poor excuses for humans that perpetuated this attack, the aim is generally to inflict suffering on their targets as well as to disrupt our way of life by creating fear. It also is designed to divide us.

Don’t let them succeed.

[gadj1976]

I love the dopey comments from the Yanks who say if someone was armed, they'd take down the shooters. No, the shooters make themselves more discreet and difficult to find, a la in Las Vegas, when the gunman opened fire from a hotel window.

They just don't get it do they?

Since when has an armed person stopped a massacre anyway?

[Jimmy_041]

Albanese now saying maybe they should have done more / better

He really is a **** trying to please everyone but actually pi$$ing off more