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Draconian Aussie Science Censorship Law Takes Effect Next Month (theconversation.com)

Posted by timothy on from the state-vs-man dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The Conversation reports that beginning next month Australian scientists and engineers face 10 years imprisonment for communicating without a government permit on biotech, robotics or manufacturing. Geoffrey Roberston QC says the laws are "sloppily drafted" and threatens research with "no sensible connection to military technology". But the government is barreling ahead, despite warnings from Defence Report it will kill Australia's high-tech economy. The law is opposed by Civil Liberties Australia where scientists are petitioning against it.

20 of 265 comments (clear)

  1. Better for everyone else by Dog-Cow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Keep going, Australia! Committing economic suicide makes it better for everyone else. Thanks for taking one for the team!

    1. Re:Better for everyone else by TapeCutter · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The recent rash of anti-science and pro-military actions of our government are a direct consequence of Abbot stacking the public service with far right loons when he became PM. Tony was Australia's Trump light, he was (and still is) itching for us to go to war with somebody, it doesn't seem to matter who that somebody is. As with Trump, Abbot (aka the mad monk) is a private school bully boy who drove a xenophobic wedge thru his own party to gain and hold onto personal power.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    2. Re: Better for everyone else by TapeCutter · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Mate, I'd seriously consider buying a one way ticket for a wanker like you.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    3. Re:Better for everyone else by cold+fjord · · Score: 5, Funny

      We are fortunate indeed that Trump has come along, otherwise how could we understand Australian politics?

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    4. Re:Better for everyone else by dbIII · · Score: 5, Informative

      They are a party for their own pockets but are "supposedly a party for farmers". They are currently led by an accountant who had a history of giving water rights to a multinational cotton company by taking it away from local food producers.

    5. Re: Better for everyone else by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, the USA is big into "local government" - typically, police, fire department, schools, etc are all managed and funded at the level of very small districts. For example, in Los Angeles, some of the best public schools in the USA are literally only a few miles from some of the worst public schools in the USA. And, of course, if you want to live in one of the best school districts in the USA then you're going to have to either live in a very small apartment or be very rich. So, yes, there are places in Rhode Island and Massachusetts that are very dangerous and there are places in New Mexico and Florida that are very safe.

      But the broader point is that, at this point, the USA as a whole is now very ethnically and racially diverse. So any neighborhood that is good enough that the best and brightest in the USA are actively moving there will be quite ethnically and racially diverse. The only exception is old predominantly white neighborhoods that used to be very good and where all the good people haven't yet got around to moving away yet - typically these neighborhoods have mostly old people.

    6. Re:Better for everyone else by Archtech · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Aldous Huxley nailed this syndrome well over half a century ago. He wrote that:

      "One of the many reasons for the bewildering and tragic character of human existence is the fact that social organization is at once necessary and fatal. Men are forever creating such organizations for their own convenience and forever finding themselves the victims of their home-made monsters".

      So people create governments to keep them safe and provide law and order. Gradually the governments grow, until they become massive cancerous organizations concerned mostly with their own survival - and further growth. Eventually they either kill the host, or have to be overthrown in bloody wars or revolutions.

      --
      I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
    7. Re:Better for everyone else by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 3, Funny

      The recent rash of anti-science and pro-military actions of our government.

      It sounds like you are an Australian . . . did you get a government permit to post your comment . . . ?

      Otherwise, it's off to prison with you, we'll all see you back here in 10 years.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    8. Re:Better for everyone else by drsmithy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Kinda.

      Australia is the country whose leaders have, for the last thirty or so years, looked to the US and UK and decided "the problem these guys have is that they're just not going hard enough".

    9. Re:Better for everyone else by Salgak1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Really ? That would explain the really high violent crime rates in Utah, which is about as ethnically diverse as a loaf of Wonder Bread. Except they're about half the national average. You get high crime with large deltas in income over a small area. . .

    10. Re:Better for everyone else by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 3

      So Australia is in an anti-science race with the US, then?

      With a little more cooperation between the two societies instead, we could both reach the Stone Age faster. The US can contribute a lot of Bible technology and has the world's most powerful set of activist lawyers who are old hands at shutting down science, while Australia can contribute the police-state methods that we have been behind in.

    11. Re:Better for everyone else by fustakrakich · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Did it ever occur to you that maybe people like tyranny? How else could there be so much of it?

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    12. Re:Better for everyone else by doctorfaustus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It doesn't sound life they're leftists. They sound like far right wingnuts.... At least the ones under discussion here, who seem to have a majority

      --

      DAILY ROTATION
  2. What if... by vikingpower · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...this nightmare had unintended and unforeseen positive side-effects, with researchers setting off in entirely new fields ? Granted, this is just a desperate attempt at seeing at least some positivity in something very, very disheartening.

    --
    Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
    1. Re:What if... by Syberz · · Score: 3, Informative

      From what I understood, the law is so poorly written that even "entirely new fields" would fall under it's umbrella and the scientists would still be boned.

      --
      ~Syberz
  3. Clowns in office by hengist · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is just another example of how clueless the current Australian government is. It explains why there are now more New Zealanders moving from Australia to New Zealand, than from New Zealand to Australia. That hasn't been the case for decades!

    I left four years ago, and haven't been back. If I were still there, I could be prosecuted for publishing in any of my research topics. Ridiculous.

  4. Re: Austrailia was doomed by cyber-vandal · · Score: 4, Funny

    Legal gun ownership is why South Africa it's such a safe place to live.

  5. Re:I left Australia more than 6 years ago... by spyfrog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    According to Wikipedia, you have an population of 21 million people. Sweden has 9.5 million and managed to have 100.000 immigrants in 2014 and was overwhelmed with over 170.000 in 2015. So I am quite sure you could manage 30.000 without problem.

  6. This is journalism?? by Sibko · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is one of the most biased headlines I've seen around recently. This isn't journalism, the headline is literally telling you what to think of the law instead of just stating the facts of it.

  7. Re:I left Australia more than 6 years ago... by harlequinn · · Score: 4, Informative

    There are 24 million people in Australia. We take over 200,000 migrants (net) a year.

    http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats...