Premier Beatty of Queensland, Australia, has announced that the state government is putting laws in place now so they can enter private property and sieze property. This was reported on page 3 of a Sunday morning Queensland newspaper earlier today. This is the first indication Australians have that their government may be getting ready to use emergency powers.

-- Davo (nul@Sorryguysngals.iamparanoid.com), August 22, 1999

Answers

What grounds are given for the right of entry or seizure or are they using a blanket justification ?

-- Chris (griffen@globalnet.co.uk), August 22, 1999.

I don't have the paper here. I saw it at a neighbour's house this afternoon, and since I am using the phone line to access the Internet at the moment, I cannot phone her right now. But from memory, it was along the lines of "for the public good"... This is from the same people who took away all our guns. :-( Most of them, anyhow.

-- Davo (nul@paranoid.com), August 22, 1999.

Welcome to the club Davo - Canada and the UK are already quite open about this - the USA in it's infinite wisdome believes the only way to prepare it's citizens is to denounce y2k as a non problem a priori to massive FEMA mobilisation of martial law... done deal. Just a metter of "when"...

-- andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), August 22, 1999.

Too bad for them that they can't legislate any real emergency powers, only legal ones. If things are bad enough to warrant use of such "powers" no government is going to have it's act together sufficiently to do much of much.

Any attempts to seize property in this neighborhood will be quite problematic. I have read, (and agree) that the government doesn't have manpower enough for martial law. They certainly don't have enough tanks. Perhaps they will get around that by "legislating" that national guardsmen will be bullet-proof.

The general population can be dismissed as "sheep" for now, because they are fat and happy. But if things are bad they'll be scared and angry. Groups of men going door-to-door looking for property to confiscate will suffer a great deal of attrition.

-- Gus (y2kk@usa.net), August 22, 1999.