[LINK] OT: Howards anti-terrorist mailout

[Jan Whitaker]

At 11:40 AM 10/02/03 +1100, Chris Maltby wrote:
>The whole thing is (as mentioned) a political stunt - the
>government is _seen_ to be doing something (anything). My
>guess is that this one has mostly backfired...

Agreed, not only backfired, but certainly ridiculed.  The good ol' Aussie 
fridge magnet is what got 'em.  And will anyone ever forget:  Be alert, not 
alarmed?  It's now gotten into the other areas of public discourse, as I 
heard someone on TV the other day use the same phrase for something 
completely unrelated to terrorist threats, but can't recall what the guy 
was talking about.

And I agree with the better use of the money to support SES personnel.  I'm 
still not convinced there would be available health services if we truly 
had a major event in Melbourne without risking lots of lives of people who 
weren't even party to the disaster.  It could truly be a Bali in if the 
numbers of injured were 10 fold to Bali, e.g. >1000.

Jan


JLWhitaker Associates
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit@melbpc.org.au  --  http://member.melbpc.org.au/~jwhit/whitentr.htm 
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