Shorten’s strategy to lose the battle/win the war has soured my view of him forever. He’s revealed himself to be a man of no principles.
I don't have a strong opinion of Shorten one way or the other, but I've read a lot of people express a similar POV and it strikes me as extremely naive.
If you went into politics with a view to die on your sword rather than compromise any of your values you'd have a very short career. Losing the battle to win the war is the only way to achieve anything.
I mean, be realistic. If the ALP had blocked the bill it would be political suicide for them. For now some nerds (us) are debating the issue on an obscure forum. The alternative would be for every man and his dog having our corrupt media ram the "Labor has made it easier for terrorists to kill you" story down their throat for the next few months.
They opposed the bill over the weekend and then backflipped because if there's an attack over Christmas they'll look like fools. I don't think that risk was worth selling out 25 million people, but maybe that's just me. They get attacked constantly in the media anyway, it's not going to make much difference.
In some ways that would be a good thing, because it would force a public debate about warrantless surveillance at a time when relatively few people trust the LNP government or its law-and-order rhetoric.
Given this, I'd assume the law is here to stay. The question we need to ask is how can we constructively engage politicians to minimise the flaws in the law. On that front Labor has been much more open and were instrumental in addressing some of the deeper flaws in the original legislation.
So to be clear:
1. The law specifically forbids the government requiring weakening of encryption / authentication / authorisation mechanisms.
2. The law specifically forbids the government requiring systemic vulnerabilities be introduced.
3. The law defines a consultation, review and appeal process.
4. The law prevents the government requiring someone commit a crime in a foreign jurisdiction
5. The law allows publishing the number of aggregate TAN/TCN/TAR received in aggregate in a 6 month period.
The question is where should the law be fixed and how do we engage Labor / Liberals to fix those aspects.
Personally I would like to see:
1. Better protection for software exported for use outside Australia
2. Better definition of what defines a 'systemic' vulnerability
3. Greater protection for individuals. For if a TCN/TAN could be otherwise issued to a company, then the law should not allow a notice to be issued to an individual.