Meet Scott Parkin, he is American who was visiting Australia. He is now back in the USA after being expelled from Australia for breaching our national security by briefing locals in the use of street theatre for the purposes of non-violent protest.

It is fair to say that, over time, I have been critical of the abandonment of civil liberties that Americans have embraced through the manipulation of their fear of terrorism by the US authorities. Now it seems that Australia, my homeland which I had mistakenly thought was above such purile manipulation, has embraced the same tactics of fear and bigotry.

Truely terrorism has won in Australia in a bloodless coup. No Australian blood has been spilt but we are abandoning our fundamental principals of justice and vilifying people who, under our justice system, are innocent civilians of an ally and expelling them because they have the potential to cause embarrassment to our government.

We did not have a McCarthy. Australia's pragmatic approach to politics in the past has seen us ridicule polititians who tried to pull the pathetic partisan politics of fear. No more it seems. These days even citizens of our most cherished ally are suitable for vilification if it takes attention away from the fundamental flaws in the sale of Telstra.

Here is the good oil. There is no terrorist threat to Australia any greater than there has been for the last 20 years. We managed in the past to prevent these attacks without utilising their threat to mask other politically inconvenient facts of the time. How sad it is that we have such a small minded Prime Minister that he is reduced to this. He is truely a political prositute willing manipulate the fundamental values that Australians hold dear to pursue his political objectives. Even sadder is that so many Australians are prepared to accept it.