Homeland Stupidity, Oz style

Roger Henry posted some interesting tidbits to a railway-related mailing list, in response to a comment about the difficulties some rail photographers have had lately:

Things are, sometimes, a bit more relaxed here. If someone — or something — is in a public space then it can be photographed. Likewise if it can be seen from a public space. (This is why someone can photograph the front of your house but not climb on a step ladder and look over the fence). [. . .]

Photographing trains, unless you are trespassing, is unlikely to attract any concern here. The general population, apart from those trapped in commuter hell, are barely aware there is a rail network and, with some justification, couldn't imagine why anyone would bother attacking it, or defending it.

What can be seen from the street can be surreptitiously photographed so it seems bizarre that "Authority" would waste time and resources hassling someone openly taking pictures. (I've always thought that it was a bad mistake to allow the population access to cell phones with camera facilities).

Where you will get lynched here is taking a camera/cell phone/artist's easel anywhere near a beach/playground/swimming pool. A leading photographer has found himself being detained (illegally) and generally hassled by lifeguards (lifesavers) when taking his camera to a public beach. His latest confrontation had him being questioned, for 25 minutes, by no less than four, Fascist coppers. The gormless wallopers wanted to dismantle his $8,000 Hasselblad looking for the concealed, digital, display. But, for $160 per hour, the controlling Council will issue him with a 'permit' allowing him to do what he likes on the beach.

When I emailed him (off-list) to ask his permission to quote from his original email, he sent me even more material:

The beach photography episode is lifted from the Weekend Australian for 9 December. The photographer's nane is Rex Dupain. His dad, Max Dupain, in 1937 took a pic of a bronzed lifesaver at Bondi Beach that became an iconic picture worldwide, the Melbourne incidents date back a few months.

The national security slogan here is "Be alert but not alarmed" and has a free call number for people to report "suspicious" activities. This gets some 30 to 100 calls a day! It has not been revealed if any of these calls have made the country safer.

What is slowly coming out is anecdotal evidence of the outcomes of some of these calls. Swarthy, dark haired, people attract the most suspicion. No surprise there. The ineptness of the police and internal security people in dealing with some of these calls is alarming. For example, a woman, Sophie Panapalous, was walking on a beach with her 14-year-old son. Someone called the hot line and reported that a woman with a head scarf was "acting suspiciously". She was detained by two uniformed coppers and a suit who demanded she account for her actions and what she thought she was doing wearing a Christian cross (!) and wearing a head scarf. That she had arrived by train was also suspicious. She explained that her son liked riding the trains and that she was a Greek Orthodox member. "Exactly" replied the suit "Why are you trying to hide behind a cross?" He went on that it was well known that Greeks were Moslem!?! Sigh. They tried to confiscate her cell phone and threatened her with arrest when she refused to take off her scarf. She was then ordered off the beach because "Her behavior was disorderly". (Now, if you were her son, what would your attitude be to Authority and the country in general?)

A second episode, that hit the evening TV, concerned a Lebanese, Moslem, family that was applying a concoction called "Dynamic Lawn Lifter" to their back yard (A brew that does NOT contain go-bang). An hysterical neighbour rang the "hot line" and this drew three police cars and two lots of suits. The family was berated, the Lawn Lifter confiscated along with a spare bag in the garden shed. Protestations that this was the amount required for the lawn area in question were ignored. The family had their house searched — sans search warrant — and were instructed not to put any more chemicals on their lawn or they would be arrested.

There are more. Sadly, much, much more. In no case has "Authority" apologized even though it makes them look incompetent and stupid and it is alarmingly obvious that huge resources are achieving nothing but aggravating a certain ethnic portion of the population.