News Ltd’s new opinion site, The Punch, has launched and looks set to create some interesting fodder for discussion here at Pure Poison. Among the launch articles is an attack by South Australian Premier Mike Rann on the civil libertarians who have dared to criticise South Australia’s outlaw bikie gang legislation, or the more recent equivalent in New South Wales.

Rann’s argument is straightforward yet malicious - if you’re opposed to these laws, you’re in favour of crime. Indeed, the title of the article suggests that opponents of Rann’s legislation are “Defending the right of bikers to bash, kill, steal, deal”.

But a sensible person taking a reasonable look at the debate would see that Rann’s argument is false and misleading. It appears motivated by a desire to win the political fight rather than win a debate on the issues. The contrary argument would point out that South Australia already had legislation making it a crime to bash, kill, steal or deal. If a person is found to be involved in those crimes, police can charge them, the DPP can prosecute them, and the courts can convict and sentence them. Contrary to Rann’s suggestion that the debate is about opposing or facilitating crime, it’s really about whether association is sufficient to restrict a person’s freedom (and for an example of how that may lead to problems, a relevant example might be Dr Mohamed Haneef).

The approach Rann takes and the rhetoric he uses is not new, and is sadly too common in political argument. Most recently, it has been used with alarming regularity at the federal level by Senator Stephen Conroy as he has tried to introduce mandatory Internet filtering despite technical and civil libertarian objections. But if you don’t support the filtering scheme, Conroy’s rhetoric suggests you’re allowing child pornography to be accessible. Once again, that’s a furphy - the real story is that Australia has existing laws relating to the production, dissemination and possession of child pornography, and opponents of Conroy’s filter think it is either an inappropriate or ineffective approach to addressing the problem.

In addition to depicting opponents of his legislation as facilitators of crime, Rann merges into his article a commentary on the legal professionals who represent the bikie groups:

Defence lawyers around the country are making bucket loads of money from their bikie clients. Lawyers hired by bikies will tell you that my laws won’t work, but crime gangs are desperately worried that other States will follow suit.

…

I am sure that the bikies will employ a gaggle of lawyers and QCs to fight our new laws, as well as individual cases.

There are a couple of issues here. One is that the way he switches between discussing bikie lawyers and civil libertarians manages to conflate what are two separate arguments - it begins to read as if all opponents of this legislation have a vested financial interest in arguing against it. But it also suggests that some people and groups aren’t entitled to use our legal system in the way it has been set up to operate - by employing lawyers to act as advocates in what is, by and large, an adversarial system. Once again, Rann seems to undermine the capacity for fair, free and full debate as a way of winning the political and rhetorical fight.

Rann’s approach, like Conroy’s, attempts to shift the argument from being an examination of the issues to one that is driven by emotion and stigma. The aim appears to be to attach a negative valence to the term “civil libertarian” - so that one of these days it might elicit a similar reaction to “people smuggler” or, as some conservative commentators and politicians seem to think, “Whitlam staffer”. It’s an approach that should have no place in the serious discussion of public policy, but it seems to be far too appealing - and, perhaps, effective - a political tactic for Mike Rann and others to pass up.