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Stephen Pollard

ByStephen Pollard, Stephen Pollard

Opinion

42 days

June 10, 2008 24:00
1 min read

I've kept shtum about 42 days because - is one allowed to say this on so critical an issue? - I don't have firm views on the matter. My inclination even splits both ways: I instinctively oppose such a drastic extension of the state's right to curtail our liberties without firm evidence that it is needed; but I equally instinctively recognise that we live in terrible times when such measures might be necessary.

One the one hand, when a policeman such as Peter Clarke says how important it is, I wonder who am I to say he is wrong. On the other, why do we need 42 when Australia and the US - hardly soft on terror - consider that 12 and one day are sufficient?

In the end, if I had a vote on the issue I'd vote no, for the simple reason that the government have yet to make the case that it is imperative to have 42 days - a figure which seems to have no real basis. And, worse than that, the checks which they propose seem to be to utterly bizarre. As Rachel Sylvester puts it today: