The absurdist magician waves his magic wand again
On Tuesday, Kevin Andrews stated:
This process has been overseen by the judiciary at every step. The investigation and the timing of it, the amount of time that people could question Dr Haneef was all under the direction of a magistrate. Secondly, there was a bail hearing in which the magistrate made a decision. And thirdly, the director of public prosecutions personally reviews the whole case. There's been a review of this process all the way through.
Having distorted facts (age of baby), contorted facts (prompt departure), the magician is now making facts disappear. The keen observer will note that between his helpfully numbered second and third points Andrews manages to completely elide his exercise of arbitrary executive power that subverted the magistrate's bail decision and truncated Dr Haneef's presumption of innocence.
I now fully expect to see a naked Kevin Andrews conduct a future press conference supremely confident that his masterful cloaking spell will protect his modesty.
posted by Jon Seymour at 10:44
2 Comments:
I find the recent comment by the PM that Dr Haneef should not expect an apology to be yet another absurd statement. Regardless of your reasons for doing so, if you have wronged someone then you should apologise.
Reasons may form the basis for taking a course of action but, if shown to be wrong, then those same reasons do not *excuse* your actions. An apology is the least that can be offered.
It seems the PM believes his Government is above principles of common decency.
In Howard's mind, "Sorry" infers wrongdoing, and wrongdoing infers liability, which means the Government has to pay money for whatever it is.
There was a beaut cartoon recently when the "Aboriginal child abuse" scandal came to a head, showing Howard and somebody (Nelson?) in army gear rolling toward NT in tanks and Howard says "If this doesn't work, an apology may be in order". That cartoon was simple genius.
So - forget decency, that's why Howard won't apologise to the Aborigines and he won't apologise to Haneef either.
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