The biggest blunder yet!

While, of course, it remains to be seen...I suspect we have seen the biggest Opposition blunder yet with Ms Bishop's breaching of the protocol with regard to security information (here).

While she may post factum have tried to put the genie back in the bottle and say that she didn't reveal information that can only have come from confidential briefings as the SMH said

When asked directly if Australian intelligence agencies forge passports, Ms Bishop – a former cabinet minister in the Howard government – replied “yes”.

There was a bit of furious back-peddling but it is pretty clear that she was relying on being privy to security information, about which there is a strong convention hat nothing is ever said.

Can't help but think that this political game-playing to try and embarrass each other has got a bit out of hand.

What will this mean? Well I was surprised to see both Mr Smith in the Parliament and the PM last night both seething ...and indeed quite shaken...that this had happened. Bishop, as I say, seemed to be furiously back peddling, but it's rather too late and exposes that sometimes there are serious misjudgments about what can be used to beat your political opponent over the head.

What price election freedom?

We were struck when we visited the UK earlier this year about he number of security cameras you see [watchers of The Bill will observe that almost every crime can be solved by finding the CCTV (closed circuit TV?) footage which seems to cover 99.9% of the country...even out in rural areas we noticed!]
The security against terrorism issues is a big attention grabber if not necessarily a vote winner (which it may be)
So it was not a surprise to see the re-emergence of the 'dob your neighbour in' adverts last night.I imagine we will see them increasingly between now and election day. The incumbent Government are clearly under the (mis?) apprehension that Australia feels more secure with wee Johnny than with Mandarin speaking Kev.
The Washington Post has a couple of interesting security posts. One which reveals how easily telcoms can 'cooperate' to give access to to the email system...(I really wonder if we would even begin to tolerate interference with snail mail in the same way) (see here)
The other, (here) a perhaps darker story, about the extent of Yahoo's cooperation with the Chinese government with regard to access to internet records.
Eric Blair (here) was perhaps thirty years out with his timing for the absolute intrusion of the State into the very fabric of everyone's lives. But we are well and truly within the era now.

And a reminder that in his literature the plain truth as spoken by our masters is almost the reverse of the real truth. I think we are living in that era now!