{"id":346477,"date":"2018-02-02T09:33:29","date_gmt":"2018-02-02T08:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/australian-government-unveils-sweeping-anti-democratic-foreign-interference-bills-2\/"},"modified":"2018-02-02T09:33:29","modified_gmt":"2018-02-02T08:33:29","slug":"australian-government-unveils-sweeping-anti-democratic-foreign-interference-bills-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/australian-government-unveils-sweeping-anti-democratic-foreign-interference-bills-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian government unveils sweeping anti-democratic \u201cforeign interference\u201d bills"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>Australian government unveils sweeping anti-democratic \u201cforeign interference\u201d bills<\/h2>\n<h4>Part 3: Far-reaching measures against political dissent<\/h4>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    Mike Head<br \/>\n    <br \/>2 February 2018<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p><em>This is the third part in a three-part series examining the wide-ranging implications for basic democratic rights of five bills, tabled in the Australian parliament<\/em> <em>in December<\/em><em>, which outlaw involvement in alleged<\/em> <em>\u201c<\/em><em>foreign interference<\/em><em>\u201d<\/em> <em>in Australian political and economic affairs.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Despite its title, the National Security Legislation Amendment (Espionage and Foreign Interference) Bill extends far beyond \u201cespionage and foreign interference.\u201d The anti-China campaign goes hand-in-hand with far-reaching measures to crack down on political dissent.<\/p>\n<p>The bill contains a range of new or expanded offences, involving up to life imprisonment, for activity regarded as a threat to the existing Australian political and economic order, particularly under wartime conditions.<\/p>\n<p>Many old offences, not used since World War II, are being \u201cmodernised\u201d for a new period of war and political convulsions. Alongside these redefined offences\u2014such as \u201ctreachery,\u201d \u201cadvocating mutiny\u201d and \u201csabotage\u201d\u2014are vague new ones that provide broad scope for jailing anti-war opponents.<\/p>\n<p>According to the bill\u2019s explanatory memorandum, it \u201ccomprehensively criminalises activities that could prejudice Australia\u2019s national security\u201d and broadens offences \u201cthat have not evolved to deal with the modern threat environment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNational security\u201d is defined in wide-ranging terms to include \u201cthe country\u2019s political, military or economic relations with another country or other countries.\u201d In other words, it means protecting the profit interests, and predatory activities of the Australian capitalist class&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2018\/02\/02\/secu-f02.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Australian government unveils sweeping anti-democratic \u201cforeign interference\u201d bills Part 3: Far-reaching measures against political dissent By Mike Head 2 February 2018 This is the third part in a three-part series examining the wide-ranging implications for basic democratic rights of five bills, tabled in the Australian parliament in December, which outlaw involvement in alleged \u201cforeign [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-346477","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}