The mysterious case of the disappearance of www.johnhowardpm.org
After only 36 hours online, and 10,500 hits, the satirical web site, johnhowardpm.org mysteriously disappeared. Richard Neville - columnist, author and futurist - set up the site as a platform for his culture-jamming satirical John Howard speech.
The site was hosted at Yahoo and the domain had been registered with Melbourne IT. Neither organisation could explain what had happened with the web site for three days - it was just gone and they couldn't do anything about it. In the interim, the speech had been mirrored in text and PDF formats on various sites so that people could see the content that had been disappeared. You may be able to find it through any of these links - though there's nothing to guarantee that the same fate won't befall any of these mirrors: OpEdNews - Richard Neville's PDF version - Tim Longhurst's site with the text and some commentary.
Today, it emerges that Melbourne IT perhaps could have explained what had happened to the site because they were the ones responsible for it vanishing. They put the domain name on hold, which means it cannot be accessed and it cannot be transferred to any other internet name registrar. Basically, they've sent the site to a black hole for at least two months.
"But Melbourne IT is a respected, responsible internet name registrar", I hear you cry, "They wouldn't pull the plug on someone's web site without following the due process! At the very least, they'd get in touch with the person who registered the domain." You'd think so, wouldn't you. Apparently not. I guess that's why you pay the annual 368% premium for registering a domain with them. (Seriously folks - Melbourne IT: $140/2yrs - Domain Central: $38/2yrs)
After being contacted by Greg Williams of the People, Resources & Communications Division at the Department of the Prime Minister & Cabinet - along with three Federal Police - Melbourne IT unilaterally killed off the domain with not even a phone call or email to the registrant, let alone any sort of right of reply. It makes one wonder about both sides of that little communique: how willing are Melbourne IT to do anything that screws its customers in order to score some brownie points with the government; and what sort of threats or cajolements were offered by Greg Williams to have the matter attend so promptly and brutally?
Come to think of it, once the anti-terrorism bill becomes law Greg won't need to trouble himself with a call to Melbourne IT - with all the attendant explaination of why they need to shut down a site - he'll simply be able to send in some members of his friendly neighbourhood security service to pick up Richard, lock him up for a couple of weeks for interrogation, get him to take down the site and be done with it. Then we'll be just left to wonder what happened, without any sort of resolution, safe in the knowledge that Richard would never, ever be allowed to speak about what had happened and we'd never, ever know.
If this is the length to which the government will go to over a simple parody, imagine what's going to happen with serious critics once the sedition laws come in.
Update:
For a full chronology of the story, there's a new post at Tim Longhurst's site
It’s official
Evidence belies Govt's kickbacks claims
Reporter: Nick Grimm
KERRY O'BRIEN, 7.30 REPORT PRESENTER: Once an obscure Jordanian-based transport company, Alia is now notorious as the conduit for kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime during the oil-for-food scandal. The Australian Government has maintained the first it heard of Alia was when the United Nations carried out its own inquiry into kickback allegations, which began in 2004. But according to evidence placed before the Cole inquiry, Australian intelligence was aware of kickback allegations surrounding Alia back in 1998.
Where does this leave the Government's version of events? Former intelligence insiders have told the 7.30 Report it would have been 'astonishing' for that sort of intelligence to have been simply ignored. And tonight we can also report new claims about links between Australian intelligence and the monopoly wheat exporter.
KEVIN RUDD, OPPOSITION FOREIGN AFFAIRS SPOKESPERSON: Mr Howard is a liar, and these documents demonstrate that, pure and simple. Of course, lying doesn't stop with the Prime Minister. We have the same now with the Foreign Minister. The Foreign Minister stated last month that no-one in the Government, no minister in the Government, no official in the Government had ever heard of Alia. That was a 100 per cent lie.
The problem has always been that there has never been enough evidence... until now. Elsewhere, Howard has claimed that the "government has been utterly transparent. We established the commission and I think that was the right thing to do and I continue to think that and I think everybody should hold their breath and wait until the commission has brought down its findings." Being caught out by a commission doesn't mean you're being transparent - it just means you mis-judged its diligence and didn't expect that the evidence would be found.
Employers – listen up: Even if you want to be fair to your employees, the government is going to make it illegal for you to spell it out in the contract
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT
LOCATION: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2006/s1596564.htm
Broadcast: 20/03/2006IR laws 'Communist-like controls'
Reporter: Dana Robertson
TONY JONES: The battle lines are again being drawn between the Government and the union movement over changes to industrial relations laws. Over the weekend, the Government released the regulations which detail how its new workplace relations system will operate when it comes into effect in a week's time. Under the new rules, the industrial relations commission will have to supply the Government with weekly reports on industrial disputes, and the Minister will be able to intervene if he believes strikes are threatening the economy. It's a move the unions have compared to communist-style control.
Oh my, what a surprise! A long standing body of review - the Industrial Relations Commission - has had its sovereignty usurped by a Howard government minister through new legislation. Even if an industrial action is considered legal - after going through a barrage of obligatory government requirements, designed to be as obstructive as possible - the minister will be able to force the workers back to work.
Dana Robertson reports from Canberra.
DANA ROBERTSON: The ACTU says it's 400 pages of detail even it didn't expect.
GREG COMBET, ACTU SECRETARY: The extent of the regulation of some of these prohibited matters has surprised us.
DANA ROBERTSON: The regulations outline exactly how the new workplace relations system will work. From next Monday, it'll be illegal for employment agreements to contain a range of outcomes, even if they're negotiated between employers and their staff. The so-called "prohibited content" includes: Payroll deductions of union fees. The right of entry for union officials to work sites. Leave to attend union run training. Protections against unfair dismissal.
STEPHEN SMITH, OPPOSITION INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS SPOKESMAN: The Minister determines that no unfair dismissal rights will apply even is an employer and employee agree as part of their employment arrangements.
KEVIN ANDREWS, WORKPLACE RELATIONS MINISTER: The Government's view is that the employment arrangement should relate to employment conditions and terms and conditions of employment itself - not to a whole range of extraneous matters.
DANA ROBERTSON: Union officials who defy the new laws face fines of up $33,000. Greg Combet says he won't pay.
GREG COMBET: I will ask for people to be treated fairly and I'm not going to pay a fine for doing it.
Right... extraneous matters. The worker has gone, cap in hand, into negotiations for their job. They happen to be blessed with an employer with a social conscience who allows them to be a member of a union and is willing to facilitate that. Nevertheless, the minister dictates that this is illegal.
DANA ROBERTSON: The regulations also reveal that the Workplace Relations Minister, Kevin Andrews, will receive a weekly report on industrial disputes around the country. The union movement says it smacks of Communist-style control.
BILL SHORTEN, AUSTRALIAN WORKERS' UNION: We've got the Minister who's going to become the new commissar, or secret policeman, of workplace relations. I mean, I'd have thought he'd have more important things to do.
KEVIN ANDREWS: What the Minister can do under these provisions is end the bargaining period and get the parties off to the IRC so the matter can be resolved - that's eminently sensible.
DANA ROBERTSON: Kim Beazley's labelled the regulations "400 pages of infamy".
KIM BEAZLEY, OPPOSITION LEADER: It's hitting the most vulnerable workers and making it harder for them.
DANA ROBERTSON: With the new laws set to come into force in a week's time, the Government's been accused of not giving enough notice of the start date. The unions and the opposition say it kept the regulations secret until the middle of the Commonwealth Games and after the South Australia Tasmanian elections.
John Howard's flatly rejected any suggestion the Government's deliberately stalled.
JOHN HOWARD, PRIME MINISTER: If we hadn't released it we'd have been attacked, but it's not the detail, it's the regulations. The detail was contained in legislation that passed the Parliament at the end of last year.
DANA ROBERTSON: Business can't wait for the new laws to take effect.
PETER HENDY, CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY: There'll be more control in the work place where employees and employers together can make their own decisions rather government heavy-handed ... the heavy-handed government telling businesses and employees what to do.
DANA ROBERTSON: But unions are vowing that the fight against the changes has only just begun.
GREG COMBET: This will be, if we're successful in our campaign, a defining point in Australian political history.
DANA ROBERTSON: Kevin Andrews maintains unions will still have a whole range of rights.
Oh... I forgot to mention... when I was talking about the understanding employer with the social conscience... that word picture was from fantasy land where they hang out at the chocolate fountain with Santa and the Easter Bunny. Back here on planet Earth, business can't wait for the new laws to take effect.