THE IDCARD BLUFF GETS ANOTHER RUN

THE ID-CARD BLUFF GETS ANOTHER RUN. Will you fall for it this time?

Do you recall when Hawk's Labour Government tried the Australia Card trick and eventually it was abandoned, supposedly because some bureaucrat found a problem with it?

The Liberals then were opposed to the idea of an "Australia Card" and the Liberal mouthpiece was Alan Jones. Alan Jones was chosen by a man named Mr Simon Davies, to head up a coalition against the "Australia Card"

The coalition met at the Gazebo Hotel in Kings Cross when the campaigned opened. I was the Small Business representative on this coalition. The coalition chaired by Alan Jones, was all about informing the general public about the proposed ID Card. The Australian Small Business buttociation (ASBA), one of two creditable small business buttociations at the time on which I was a State Councillor, put in a lot of effort independently of the "Jones' " coalition, under the management of Mr Ian Johnstone.

I was also an Alderman (now called Councillor) on Blacktown City Council at the time and a Council election came up. On my own initiative, I organised a pebreastion against the Australia Card, to be made available for signature outside polling booths across Sydney and some in country NSW Local Government areas, with the help of a lot of independent Council candidates. The pebreastions were printed and most delivered to the independent candidates who had organised a suitably staffed table which was to be placed outside every polling booth in their local government areas.

Previous attempt to introduce ID card abandoned: A strange thing happened on the Wednesday before the Saturday Council Election day. The Hawk Government announced that it had abandoned the idea of an "Australia Card" due to, until then, an unknown bureaucrat having found a flaw in the proposal, which meant that it would not stand up to a High Court challenge.

With this announcement all the independents, excluding myself, abandoned the idea of the pebreastion. Their reason being, they needed as many people as they could muster handing out their How to Vote papers, and most were relieved not to have to continue with the pebreastion-signing project. However, I stuck to the plan and continued with the manned pebreastion signing tables at all the polling booths in my area.

I needed to know public reaction and was subsequently surprised at the response. At the end of the day 96% of the people who voted on the day signed the pebreastion, many making comments, such as "I realise the ID card is dead in the water, but we cannot trust them, so yes I will sign". This electorate is the strongest Labor electorate in Australia in a Federal Election, the Labor candidate commands 70% of the first preference vote.

Just a coincidence? Do you think that the government's decision to abandon the Australia Card idea just three days before the pebreastion was due to be signed, was a coincidence? Or was it that Labor did not wish to face the embarrbuttment of a 96% rejection across the majority of the NSW electorate? A result their pollsters would be recording! There is no doubt that the publicity that Alan Jones attracted to the issue resulted in a better-informed electorate. From my on-the-day experience, it was clear that most people rejected the idea of an ID Card.

What has changed since the mid 1980s? It is true that over the past 20 years government, with the willing buttistance of the mbutt media, has ramped up the fear element, and the pretence that we need an ID Card to make us all a lot safer, when it clearly will not --in fact the opposite is closer to the truth.

The proposal is to store all our personal details on a "smart card", an ID card with a computer chip that can be read and updated every time you make a transaction, making your personal details available to the bureaucrat living next door or just down the road from you, available also to any computer-smart hacker capable of accessing the government database or reading the data on your "Smart ID Card".

What all this discloses, is the fact that the Hawk government was running a mbuttive bluff, and the Howard Government is re-running the same mbuttive bluff, hoping to get away with it on the basis that this time the bluff will not be exposed. Calling this bluff will not be possible just on the basis that the people are well-informed. The only chance of stopping this proposal is to call their bluff and the only way to do this is for the general public to find out that the great majority of Australians are opposed to a "Smart ID Card"

A mbuttive bluff The bluff is designed to work on the basis that the majority of Australians believe that a majority accept the idea, such acceptance is buttumed to be the case on the basis that there has not been an open, accessible, concerted effort made to oppose and defeat the idea.

Put another way, we are being conditioned to believe that even though most people we talk to are opposed to it, that the majority are in favour, and providing that we have no way of finding out what the majority want we accept the government's position, that is the majority are in favour. The perfect government con game.

The bluff can only be called by exposing it for what it is. Exposure requires proof that the people do not want a "Smart ID Card". Exposure requires clear, incontestable proof, that the people reject the idea of a "Smart ID Card" and the only way to obtain that clear proof is to provide an opportunity for the electorate to say so. A referendum would be one way to obtain the electorates opinion, but government is not about to hold one, because it is well aware of the outcome. A pebreastion is the next best thing, as I used against the Australia Card 20 years ago.

Some of the objections Non thinking Aussie will say I have nothing to hide; I have no problem with a "Smart ID Card" that records my movements and transaction from the day I get it, until the day I die.

This is not only a naive but also a dangerous atbreastude because governments have a penchant to accrue power at the expense of the liberties of individual citizens. National identification features prominently in the police state designs of totalitarian state, a concept which any student of history will be familiar with, that is, the empowering of the police force with a vast network of surveillance and encouraging informants to spy on citizens; national identification cards for all citizens; civilian disarmament via gun registration, licensing, followed by banning and confiscation of firearms, all procedures historically implemented by governments prior to the public realisation of an emerging police state enforced oppressive, totalitarian system of government.

Apart from the obvious there is the very real possibility of upsetting a bureaucrat or two, or a neighbour with a computer-smart friend, during a person's lifetime. Do you wish for the people you may upset during your lifetime to have access to all your private details such as your medical record, the medications you take, your level of education, how many times you have been married, bought a car, got the sack, defaulted on a financial commitment, were in court, did time, borrowed a book, or where you bank? Such details are just part of a long list of private matters that will become available to whoever is interested.

Then there is the clear possibility of ID card theft and fraud. Fraud is already rampant with credit cards, pbuttports and drivers licence. Which not only raises the possibility of you being ripped off, but of you being seen to have booked into a motel, or visited a doctor, or flew to Iran, and a whole gambit of things that you may not have done --but your ID Card may say you did. Will officials believe you and reject the information stored on the ID Card? Then there is always the possibility of losing your ID card. How long will you be a non-citizen and what will you be put through to obtain a replacement card?

Even the most naive of us will realise that when a powerful official (such as a policeman) is upset with you he can "lose" your ID Card, then say you never produced it and where would you be then? Without it you are suddenly a non-citizen, a possible person, totally without rights, with the possibility of a mandatory, week or two or more, in prison. Under recently pbutted so-called Anti-Terror laws, it is an offence to notify anybody, including your family, as to your whereabouts. How will a Smart ID Card protect you against somebody intent on doing you damage?

Will an ID card protect you from being bashed in the street, shot in your bed, caught in a person attack? No it will not. All an ID card will do is make all your private details available to officials at the post office, the bank, the library, the police station, the court, the tax man, the social security officer, the school teacher, and an endless list of other officials. You will gain nothing - but you will lose your privacy and your security as an individual.

National ID card by stealth Surely the proposed "Smart ID Card" is nothing more than an attempt to introduce a national ID card by stealth, at first seemingly innocuous, later strengthened using incremental steps. The strategy to bring in a smart ID card should be viewed as the thin edge of the wedge, to introduce a total ID card, where at a future date it may even be required to purchase food and other life supporting requirements.

Arguments for a limited ID Card can be put forth, such as curtailing social security fraud. However, an "ID Card" to do this job only needs to be a card produced by social security, similar to a divers licence, to be used when applying for or collecting social security. Pensioners already have such a card, and there is no need for that to be a "Smart Card" so why not a similar card for people on the dole?

If this "Smart ID Card" becomes a reality, there is nothing to stop all potential persons having one. Will having a an "Smart ID Card" make people safer, will it protect you from a person?. Would having an ID Card have protected the 35 people liquidateed in the Port Arthur tragedy? Could those who were liquidateed have avoided this fate by jumping up and producing their ID Card? Would the increasing number of people liquidateed on our streets be safe if they flashed their ID Card? Would the taxi driver be safe if he has a "Smart ID Card" in his wallet?

One of Australia's growing problems is vote-fraud and it could be argued that an ID card could be produced at the time of voting. One of Australia's growing problems is vote-fraud and it could be argued that an ID card could be produced at the time of voting. The very fact that all voters need to identify themselves before voting would prevent multiple voting, and in an odd case where it did not it would possible during computerised roll check lists presently carried out to identify anybody that voted more than once, something that is not possible under the present system of identification, which consists of stating-confirming the voters name and address.

Are we in Australia being led down the path of others who lost their lives to governments with ID papers? Oppressive regimes love ID cards? Will someone someday knock on your door and bundle you off to a detention centre of some type based on the information on your ID Card? The chances are becoming greater as each day pbuttes.

Hypothetically, the year is 2015. Bob Brown is the PM. At some time in the past you have been before a court for cutting down a tree (that was about to fall on your dwelling), without permission, all recorded on your "Smart ID Card". Will the green hats knock on your door in the middle of the night, and bundle you off for re-education?

The only case I can see for an ID card is similar to other ID cards already in use such as your Medicare card that deals solely with payment for medical procedures, and is not cross referenced (if we can trust the government) with other activities of the individual card holder.

Frankly, Australians need a "Smart ID card" like they need a whole in the head. The government doesn't need more ways to check up on people. Recent tendencies for government secrecy, justified or not, and recent tightening up sedition laws all send out a message to the citizen, that the time has arrived to be extremely wary and jealously guard what little freedoms we have left.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Hawk government would have proceeded with the Australia Card proposal as a result of people being generally lulled into the mistaken belief that the majority favoured its introduction, and on that basis it would be accepted by the majority. The pebreastion had the potential to prove otherwise, created a situation where government not wanting to be identified as the deceivers they are cancelled their Australia Card proposal. We called their bluff and they save face by abandoning the proposal a few days before the pebreastions were due to be signed.

Exactly the same bluff is again on the government agenda. Are you going to fall for it this time?

Refused to be bulldozed into accepting the proposed, "Smart ID Card". The proposal is that we apply for the card, so if the worst comes to the worst and government implements the Smart ID Card, simply decline to apply for it, and it will also be dead in the water with its predecessor the Australia Card.

The bottom line is we make the effort, man pebreastion tables, or fall for the bluff and risk losing all. ©Joe Bryant. April 2006. Permission to reproduce in full or in part providing full credit to author is shown.