Now we all know that polls and surveys are the tabloid media’s stock-in-trade; they love them as much as Ant loves his Fleshlight gags. But basing whole stories - or worse, a sweeping coverage of a significant issue - on a single survey is lazy, unimaginative and fundamentally dangerous. Today the Herald Sun is running a spread on the ’findings’ (ie. whatever controversial stuff it can extract) of a recent survey of serving Victorian police officers. A precis of some survey results can be downloaded here (note the filename). In short, the survey expresses a need for greater police numbers (fair enough) a need for more men in the force (the ratio of female officers has soared to 23 per cent!) and a lack of confidence in chief commissioner Christine Nixon (she’s a woman too, you see).

And how many serving police officers responded to this optional survey? A total of 3459, or 30 per cent. That’s right, 30 per cent. This posturing, fulminating attack on the hierarchy, composition and methodology of our police force is based on the views of less than one-third of its members. Out-bloody-standing.

There’s a good portion of police members in Victoria hark back to the days of ‘Squizzy’ Taylor, larrikins and pushes, when policing was more simple and criminals were confronted head-on. Courts were strict, prisons were brutal, the coppers were a paramilitary group who took on villians en masse and knocked ’em all over the heads with truncheons. Policemen were tough because they had to be, so the force was gruff, insular and - because it was ugly business with no place for ladies - it also became strongly misogynistic. Thankfully those days are over and the police force has become far more professional and community-minded, a fact that some police members are yet to come to terms with.  In offering this survey as evidence of the state of our police force, even though it reflects the views of 30 per cent of all police, the Herald Sun is pandering to the views of a dubious minority and inviting panic, paranoia and a loss of confidence in Victoria Police itself.

I now invite the Herald Sun to commission an independent survey of all its employees, where they will be asked questions about their working conditions, processes, application of journalistic ethics and, importantly, confidence in senior editorial staff and Uncle Rupert. And if a disgruntled minority at the Herald Sun - and believe me, there is one - come to dominate the survey, will the organisation report this as representative of a crisis in its own ranks?

A crime was committed just up the road from GrodsHQ in the wee hours of this morning.

A security guard was shot in the shoulder outside an adult entertainment business in Brunswick early today.

Police said a man wearing a balaclava and armed with a small handgun shot the security guard standing outside the premises in Sydney Road at 1.30am (AEDT).

The victim, believed to be in his late 40s, was taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital in a stable condition.

The armed man, who ran off down an alley, was described as 180 centimetres tall and of medium build.

Police have released a photograph of a man wanted for questioning over the crime, standing in front of the strip club in question.

If you see this guy do not approach as he is armed and dangerous

Aussie values are so superior to everyone else’s that we’re soon going to demand people sign up to them in order to get a tourist visa. There are the quintessential Aussie values like mateship, a fair go, low interest rates, relaxedness and comfortableness; but there are some other less obvious Aussie values like a respect for the sanctity of human life and for human rights. Or at least I’d hope that those would make it onto any self-respecting Aussie values checklist.

Some would argue that these represent our Way Of Life™.

You see, here in Australia we don’t sentence criminals to the death penalty no matter how terrible the crime. We don’t believe that the State has the right to take any life in retaliation for any crime. In Australia we don’t believe in torture, no matter how important the information potentially being held. We believe in fundamental human rights, including the right to freedom from State-sanctioned murder and inhuman interrogation.

But our leaders’ resolve crumbles in the face of that faceless threat: terrorism.

Our morally flexible Prime Minister calls for the death of Bali bombers yet appeals for clemency for Australian drug smugglers in Indonesia on the grounds that Australia is opposed to the death penalty.

Our morally flexible Prime Minister calls for the “coercive” use of sleep deprivation as long as it doesn’t cross the invisible and undefinable line into torture. This may or may not be related to the fact that this “coercion” has already been used on Australian citizens in American detention camps with Australia’s knowledge and implied consent.

Our fear of terrorism has created a social environment where our morally flexible Prime Minister (and others) can make statements like these with no discernible public backlash. The arguments of Howard and Amnesty International member Philip Ruddock recently seem to be: torture is okay if it’s used against terrorists, and then it’s “coercion”, not torture.

Oh, and speaking of Amnesty International, Phil:

Is sleep deprivation a form of torture?
Amnesty International calls on the USA and all governments to prohibit the use of sleep deprivation and any other forms of torture, or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment as interrogation techniques.

It’s been noted many times before that if we let the terrorists (citizens of Terroristan, population: unknown) affect our Way Of Life™ they’ve won. If, in order to defend ourselves against the terrorists we begin to allow abuses of human rights that we formerly defended, we are fundamentally changing our Way Of Life™. Join the dots.

People like Andrew Bolt, upon reading this argument, would call me an “apologist” for the terrorists. They would say that my weakness in standing up to the forces of evil is what will let the terrorists win. But seriously, if in order to win we lower ourselves to the level of those we oppose, is our victory worth it?

From time-to-time during Howard’s reign there have been periods when my hatred of John Howard dulls. I mean, who can maintain the rage when the most prominent thing he’s said in two months is “I’ll donate $2000 to every motorist who converts to LPG”? But it’s times like these when the old feelings return. I’m ashamed of my country’s leadership.

People like Andrew Bolt, upon reading the above paragraph, would bemoan the “hate-riddled left and its politics of shame”. Andrew Bolt can fuck off.