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Post by milspec on Oct 23, 2019 19:45:54 GMT 10
I was reading the book 'One second after' and it got me thinking about what provisions exist for declaring martial law in Australia. I subsequently found a research paper which discusses the ability of the Commonwealth to use the ADF in various cases of aid to the (state) civil community.the paper discussed the Defence act and Defence Instructions General.
From this I got a headache but it seems that limited provisions exist to enable the ADF to perform general/broad law enforcement ops across the civil community.
However, the paper was dated and I'm wondering if someone on the forum with a legal background can shed any light on the subject of provisions (or lack of) for martial law in Australia?
My gut feeling is that the various state & federal legislation has not been updated with meaningful/modern legal provisions to enact martial law.
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Post by WolfDen on Oct 23, 2019 19:54:09 GMT 10
Sorry cant help you milspec. But thats a great book.
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Post by milspec on Oct 23, 2019 21:05:16 GMT 10
Sorry cant help you milspec. But thats a great book. Yes I'm finding it interesting so far.
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frostbite
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Post by frostbite on Oct 24, 2019 4:09:35 GMT 10
The ADF were called out to perform security on a CHOGM many years ago. I remember seeing pics of temp gun emplacennents with m60's on street corners of a NSW country town. The real deal, not a training exercise.
Can't remember if the ADF were called out to prevent looting in Darwin after Cyclone Tracy, but quite possible.
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Post by milspec on Oct 24, 2019 6:16:28 GMT 10
The ADF were called out to perform security on a CHOGM many years ago. I remember seeing pics of temp gun emplacennents with m60's on street corners of a NSW country town. The real deal, not a training exercise. Can't remember if the ADF were called out to prevent looting in Darwin after Cyclone Tracy, but quite possible. That was one of the case studies in the paper I read. In short they got the legal basis for the call out wrong. The powers of the ADF were limited to protecting Commonwealth interests (which is a relatively restricted set of interests compared to state run interests like law and order, infrastructure etc.). It was a case considered in a review of laws around calling out the ADF, the review made a number of recommendations about changing the law to support legally making provisions to engage the ADF to provide civil aid to the community however none were implemented at the time the paper was written. Hence why I'm interested to hear from anyone with some legal insight on the matter.
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Post by SA Hunter on Oct 24, 2019 11:55:16 GMT 10
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Post by SA Hunter on Oct 24, 2019 11:57:55 GMT 10
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Post by SA Hunter on Oct 24, 2019 12:00:25 GMT 10
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Post by SA Hunter on Oct 24, 2019 12:02:19 GMT 10
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Post by SA Hunter on Oct 24, 2019 12:02:25 GMT 10
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Post by milspec on Oct 24, 2019 12:22:35 GMT 10
Good work! I'll read up on those this eve.
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Post by milspec on Oct 24, 2019 15:30:26 GMT 10
This was the paper I referred to in my original post. It looks like the 2018 amendments are specifically linked to terrorism threats, and based on the things I read in the research paper it is likely to be the case that the new call out powers can't be used where the incident isn't linked to terrorism and thus presumably could not be used in response to widespread civil disturbances arising from something like a state sponsored cyber attack or EMP causing SHTF. In that scenario defence could respond to the foreign state aggressor but presumably not to the resultant civil breakdown issues around law enforcement and keeping the peace. A question that comes to mind is: can the government at a local level declare martial law and have the authority to take possession of your supplies in the public interest? This is just thinking aloud but personally I'd kind of like to know my rights in that period of time when things are in the midst of breaking down.
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frostbite
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Post by frostbite on Oct 24, 2019 16:07:56 GMT 10
I think your rights in that situation is you can keep whatever you can defend.
One of tne first things I will do if I ever bugout is cache a large part of my stores, underground in sealed containers, in the forest around my retreat.
If raiders come for my stuff I won't discriminate if they are wearing flano, auscam, or some foreign pattern.
They will all get the same welcome.
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Post by spinifex on Oct 24, 2019 19:04:35 GMT 10
A question that comes to mind is: can the government at a local level declare martial law and have the authority to take possession of your supplies in the public interest? This is just thinking aloud but personally I'd kind of like to know my rights in that period of time when things are in the midst of breaking down. How will you know if the 'official' people coming to take your stuff will even use it for the 'public interest'? By the time that kind of thing starts happening those requisitioning your stuff will most likely be doing it entirely for their own benefit. It will likely be looting masquerading as an official act. Probably the good little sheep will even rationalise their losses as 'the right thing'.
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Post by milspec on Oct 24, 2019 19:49:11 GMT 10
A question that comes to mind is: can the government at a local level declare martial law and have the authority to take possession of your supplies in the public interest? This is just thinking aloud but personally I'd kind of like to know my rights in that period of time when things are in the midst of breaking down. How will you know if the 'official' people coming to take your stuff will even use it for the 'public interest'? By the time that kind of thing starts happening those requisitioning your stuff will most likely be doing it entirely for their own benefit. It will likely be looting masquerading as an official act. Probably the good little sheep will even rationalise their losses as 'the right thing'. Ever had one of those days when you carefully type out a reply and then redo it a few times and then think about it and delete the entire reply and type uh huh ?
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Post by milspec on Oct 24, 2019 20:00:47 GMT 10
Still reading this one but it does have some interesting points of legal argument relating to martial law such as:
"If the military take life or engage in any other act that would ordinarily be unlawful in the process of restoring order, it must be shown to be necessary under the common law. If it is not necessary to take life, or any other step purportedly authorised under martial law, then the act is unlawful and punishable as a crime."
and
"He stated that there was no such thing as martial law but did concede that the term was sometimes ‘employed as a name for the common-law right of the Crown and its servants to repel force by force in the case of invasion, insurrection, riot or generally of any violent resistance to the law’.40
Importantly, every subject, whether uniformed or not, is a servant of the Crown for this purpose and has not only a right but a duty to put down breaches of the peace.41 There is no distinction between a soldier and a citizen in this regard. Each is authorised and bound to use force, up to and including lethal force, as may be necessary to put down the riot or disturbance.42 Both soldier and citizen are equally liable to account before a jury for the use of unnecessary force as well as a failure to act."
Note these are just some selective quotations from the paper and should be treated as such rather than treated as facts of law.
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spatial
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Post by spatial on Oct 24, 2019 20:55:36 GMT 10
Over the years I have written quiet a bit on this topic.
First off all gov can declare emergency and change laws as required, there will be no recourse to getting a court injunction. They could also embed 10 ADF with every local police officer, they - act- under their command in paper. Just my thinking and what I have seen other gov do.
Second my home bottled and long term stored food would be deemed unsafe for human consumption and simply discarded.
Third gov does not have resource's to deal with multiple Riots breaking out all over. I have looked at policing ratios etc. There will also be large number of deserters.
Fourth gov would go for wholesale food distribution centres, feed lots, grain silos to secure food. The effort of going door to door would be a big waste of time. Might rely on community members to rat people out, but that is very far into any disaster. People when hearing security come, will take what food they have and become very mobile till the security have moved to a new area. Will give one plenty of time to burry supplies in multiple locations.
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Post by SA Hunter on Oct 24, 2019 23:25:15 GMT 10
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Post by SA Hunter on Oct 24, 2019 23:27:34 GMT 10
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Post by milspec on Oct 25, 2019 6:50:58 GMT 10
Those executive orders are probably aimed at commercial rather than private holdings but that wouldn't stop an opportunistic 'official' interpreting the orders as applying to an individuals holdings. Not real good. With laws like that in existence there is another good reason you'd want to be discrete about your survival supplies.
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