6 ms·

> Lidden pleaded guilty to offences under Australia's nuclear non-proliferation act that carry a possible 10-year jail sentence. The bureaucratic apparatus, es

by rdtsc 2y ago

> Lidden pleaded guilty to offences under Australia's nuclear non-proliferation act that carry a possible 10-year jail sentence. The bureaucratic apparatus, especially dealing with law enforcement always concentrates people who enjoy punishing others. Is Australia particularly bad about it perhaps? It seems they get some kind of sadistic enjoyment out of it. It's scary that everyone in the chain here: judge Leonie Flannery, Australian Border Force officials, police, even his employer just had a grand 'ol time punishing this guy. Everyone could have stopped, realizing it's obvious what's happening, give him a warning have him turn in this sample. And the best part for them, there is no repercussion for it. Everyone can turn around and publicly proclaim they just "did their job".

logicchains 2y ago
>Is Australia particularly bad about it perhaps I'm an Australian, and Australia is absolutely terrible in this regard. There's a saying: the problem with Australia isn't that it was founded by prisoners, it's that it was founded by prison guards. I've lived in quite a few countries and never found anywhere with as many smug and self-righteous people as back home. There used to be two kinds of Australia: the larrikin (fun loving, prankster) Australia, and the wowser (fun hating) Australia, but in recent years the wowsers have thoroughly won.
- Larrikin 2y ago
  Hopefully they make a come back
- alabastervlog 2y ago
  > larrikin This has become a kind of stock character (or, at least, a stock archetype for characters) in Australian media, and can be seen in lots of e.g. Australian or heavily Australian-influenced films, often portrayed in a basically-positive, if imperfect, light. This sort of attitude toward life and behavior is on display among several characters in the Peter Weir film Gallipoli, for instance, including and especially Mel Gibson's. In that film, the wowser-est folks are mostly British, because national myth-making :-)
- mvdtnz 2y ago
  I lived in Australia for five years and this is exactly the reason I left. Everyone is a stickler, NIMBYs own the cities and the police are always out to get you. Australians have an undeserved reputation for being "laid back" but they are absolutely the opposite. Any chance for a new rule or regulation is embraced by the population.
  - smelendez 2y ago
    A laidback reputation can be a sign of an entrenched elite with a lot of leisure time. This is the case in a lot of the US South.
    - Slava_Propanei 2y ago
      [dead]
    - hilbert42 2y ago
      "This is the case in a lot of the US South." I understand your reasoning re US South but 'laid-back' in the Australian context refers more to a 'laxadaisical' or 'couldn't-care-less' attitude—or that's what it used to mean. Class doesn't much enter the picture. :-(
      - smelendez 2y ago
        Every race and class in Australia expresses this attitude equally?
  - kelseydh 2y ago
    Funny enough I'm experiencing the opposite: I moved to Western Australia and find the police presence much lighter than Canada or America. Traffic stops by police are virtually nonexistent because speed cameras already do the work of traffic enforcement for the police. Unlike North America, it is very rare to drive and actually see somebody pulled over by the police. The cameras are strict through. Demerits double on holidays and no amount of fine payment can get out of a license suspension.
- hilbert42 2y ago
  "I've lived in quite a few countries and never found anywhere with as many smug and self-righteous people as back home." This is pretty much my experience too although the UK would come close. "…the larrikin (fun loving, prankster), …and the wowser (fun hating) …but in recent years the wowsers have thoroughly won." Any Australian who's not aware of this hasn't been around long enough to notice it. Frankly it's horrible, I now feel as if I'm an alien and no longer belong here. I've my own thoughts as to why this cultural shift has occurred in such a comparatively short time but there'd be little point me posting them here. I wonder if there's any proper research on this, if not then I'd suggest it'd be deemed politically incorrect/too hot to handle.
- caycep 2y ago
  Is this basically the source of a lot of Rhys Dharby jokes?
bell-cot 2y ago
Never been there...but my impression (mostly from articles on British news web sites) is that Australia has long had a reputation for systematized legal sadism.
- grumpy-de-sre 2y ago
  Particularly the Australian border security industrial complex. Ostensibly a great idea to protect Australian agri-business (don't kind yourself it's not about the environment). But in practice hasn't been particularly effective in achieving its stated goals [1][2][3]. Extremely effective at bullying autistic kids interested in chemistry though. There's a lot of stories. 1. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-26/white-spot-prawn-disease-endemic-queensland-moreton-bay/13197902 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-26/white-spot-prawn-dise... 2. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/sep/05/its-inevitable-australian-beekeepers-brace-for-national-spread-of-varroa-mite https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/sep/... 3. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-03/black-market-tobacco-manchester-cigarettes-four-corners/104978592 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-03/black-market-tobacco-...
randomNumber7 2y ago
> It seems they get some kind of sadistic enjoyment out of it. > Everyone could have stopped, realizing it's obvious what's happening, give him a warning have him turn in this sample. I think the sad truth is that they are probably ignorant enough to not even think about it.
mrkeen 2y ago
> Is Australia particularly bad about it perhaps? We may need to gather more data. He's literally the first person to be sentenced for a law which has been on the books for decades. In the meantime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera... > Judge Leonie Flannery, Australian Border Force officials, police, even his employer just had a grand 'ol time punishing this guy. Maybe? I'm gonna wait until after the sentence has been imposed to decide whether it's excessive or not.
jayrot 2y ago
The best is when they use flimsy arguments about needing to "make an example" or "discourage this behavior" or "create a deterrent", as if people in these situations are even aware they're doing anything wrong.
- potato3732842 2y ago
  The message being sent is "even if we can't prove intent we still can completely ruin your life"
  - motorest 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - HelloMcFly 2y ago
      > For those arguing the guy is just massively dumb and naive, are you aware this depicts the character as even more dangerous to himself and society? No, because he hasn't done anything actually dangerous to society, it's not like he bought anything that can be weaponized. Is he a danger to himself? Only insomuch as his actions have put him at risk of going to jail. I'm not saying there should be no consequences, but the idea he is a danger to himself or society is totally absurd.
      - ty6853 2y ago
        It's a problem because if every single Australian imported one of these samples and put them in a potluck they would achieve enough mass for one or two nuclear weapons. Then Australia would become a nuclear power and finally conquer their arch enemy, the annoying island sidekick of New Zealand.
- SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
  Awareness that you're doing something wrong is a spectrum. Obviously this guy wasn't intending to build a nuclear bomb, but I'm extremely skeptical that a science nerd could get to the point of building a periodic table collection without learning that plutonium is dangerous and heavily restricted. (The source article doesn't cover this, so just to make sure we're on the same page: plutonium is _not_ any more legal to export from the US than it is to import into Australia, and whoever sold it to this guy was almost surely breaking the law too.)
potato3732842 2y ago
It does this because "the purpose of the system is what it does" It ain't no different than the king's men occasionally cutting down a peasant that didn't remove his hat quickly enough when the king rode by. By screwing people on a whim the system sends a "don't cross me, I hold complete power" message which acts as a force multiplier (until it doesn't but Aus isn't there yet).
- intrasight 2y ago
  [flagged]
- pjc50 2y ago
  No, Australia has a very rigid import control system for biosecurity purposes, because the country is currently free of various animal and plant diseases which are endemic in other countries. One infected piece of fruit could, they believe, destroy an industry. If they fine someone $3k for a chicken sandwich, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/fined-3300-for-chicken-sandwich-australia-border-control-say-import-permit-needed-fine-could-have-been-higher/ZOFZOY2O2JGT3J77CZQIBZFG44/ https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/fined-3300-for-chicken-sandwic... , what are they going to do with plutonium? Arguably plutonium guy is being hit with the book precisely to remind everyone who wants to come to Australia that they take import control very, very seriously. (as well as, you know, the xenophobia that gets involved in any discussion of borders)
  - franga2000 2y ago
    A chickend sandwich is probably more dangerous to Australia than a tiny vial of plutonium. Not that I'm saying the 3k fine for what clearly seems like a mistake is reasonable, just that this is even more unreasonable.
- GistNoesis 2y ago
  What's the recommended way to handle being in such a Kafkaesque situation?
- red-iron-pine 2y ago
  you wrote a lot of words to mean "they want to send a message" and that's what's happening to plutonium joe over there: a not so gentle reminder to the rest of the country not to import shit you shouldn't. and often in cases like these they do a quite "good behavior" release a year later or something. sometimes, anyway.
bawolff 2y ago
I don't think he should go to jail, and it could have been handled better, but i still think laws against purchasing/importing dangerous substances are reasonable, and a fine is reasonable in such a circumstance.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
m463 2y ago
I seem to recall drug laws in mexico having carveouts to decriminalize small quantities to prevent abuse by law enforcement anywhere in the chain. Also, speed limits in some states can't be enforced from 0 to 5mph over the limit.
- msm_ 2y ago
  >Also, speed limits in some states can't be enforced from 0 to 5mph over the limit. In my country that's also true (with marigin larger than 5mph), but my understanding is that that's because the measurements instruments (laser-based speed meters) are not perfect and it may be a mistake and not actual speed limit breach. Some methods of measuring car speed don't have this limitation, like range-based measurements (check time when car enters road segment, when it leaves road segment, and make sure the average is under the speed limit).
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    And less so now, but also speedometers. As I was growing up in Australia, there was a legislated margin of error of 10% for speedo inaccuracy. And I want to say some time in the late 90s, early aughts, that margin was changed to 3km/h across the board. I don't know how that interacted with speed camera tolerances.
- roenxi 2y ago
  The attitude of all boundaries being fuzzy is probably more harmful than anything else. You end up with a bunch of laws that aren't laws but just overdone public guidelines. A speed limit should be the limit. If we're agreeing on a Speed Recommended then it should be called that instead. Those are states with a speed limit and then they've encoded the limit in the law as (limit - 5). It doesn't change much except to annoy the pedants and make it harder to figure out what is actually legal.
  - Brian_K_White 2y ago
    The attitude that ignores the reality that there is no such thing as a perfect measuring instrument... If you make the law that simplistic, then any good lawyer can void any ticket because no one can actually prove the charge. That will surely be better. But if the limit is N and the claim is that you did N+10, then it doesn't matter how accurate the measurement is, you definitely did something over N. They don't have to prove something unprovable, they only have to prove that their measurments have always been consistently within a range of error that is nowhere near 10. Removing some utility for abuse (which could also be targeted/prejudicial/discrimination abuse) is a net positive. The real world is not as neat as ideals. The real world IS fuzzy, and can not be wished or ignored away.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
cjbgkagh 2y ago
Bureaucracies generally busy themselves by going after soft targets as they represent easy wins, an extra line item for the yearly review. There is a popular Australian TV show called Utopia that satirizes modern Australian government bureaucracies, I am lead to believe that it is quite accurate. That said I would expect clemency in the sentencing.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  > That said I would expect clemency in the sentencing. I feel the same. Intent and impact matters. Intent: It is up to the judge to decide if the defendant's intent was pure/non-violent -- I believe it is. Impact: From the news, we can see the material never reached the defendant, and it was safely captured. So the actual impact is zero. (To be clear: I am not apologizing for him breaking the law!) This is a great opportunity for the attorney general office to recommend a special punishment: A long suspended sentence (5 years is reasonable) with no jail time and a X-year (X=1?) commitment from the defendant to participate in a public education campaign.
motorest 2y ago
[flagged]
arresin 2y ago
Damn are you sure you’ve never been to Australia? I can confirm that your instincts are absolutely spot on about this country in general.
pessimizer 2y ago
> And the best part for them, there is no repercussion for it. Everyone can turn around and publicly proclaim they just "did their job". More than no repercussions; they all make a very good living from this. When Australia decides that they are going to ask to put him away for 10 years, they're saying that they're going to spend at least a million dollars on this incident. They know what happened, they know that it's a pointless expenditure, but they're still going to make it. They're going to pay lawyers, use courtrooms and the time of judges, investigators and regular officers, all in the service of hopefully housing and feeding an unwilling adult for a decade. Triggered by a nerd importing an infinitesimal amount of plutonium for his nerd collection. It will somehow be even more shameful when they go through all of this, and then the prosecutor drops the charges, or asks him to plead guilty for no time, no fine, and no record if not arrested for a similar thing outside of some time period. That will mean all of this was just makework. My only conclusion is that either they don't have enough to do, or they are refusing to do things that are difficult. But either way this nonsense should be taken as an opportunity by management and the public which is currently highlighting government employees that it would be good to fire or replace. They don't have a problem with procedure, they have a problem with personnel.
SideburnsOfDoom 2y ago
> Is Australia particularly bad about it perhaps? Australian border security is notoriously strict. So in this specific case, yes, and everyone knows it.

by rdtsc 2y ago

logicchains 2y ago

>Is Australia particularly bad about it perhaps I'm an Australian, and Australia is absolutely terrible in this regard. There's a saying: the problem with Australia isn't that it was founded by prisoners, it's that it was founded by prison guards. I've lived in quite a few countries and never found anywhere with as many smug and self-righteous people as back home. There used to be two kinds of Australia: the larrikin (fun loving, prankster) Australia, and the wowser (fun hating) Australia, but in recent years the wowsers have thoroughly won.

Larrikin 2y ago
Hopefully they make a come back
alabastervlog 2y ago
> larrikin This has become a kind of stock character (or, at least, a stock archetype for characters) in Australian media, and can be seen in lots of e.g. Australian or heavily Australian-influenced films, often portrayed in a basically-positive, if imperfect, light. This sort of attitude toward life and behavior is on display among several characters in the Peter Weir film Gallipoli, for instance, including and especially Mel Gibson's. In that film, the wowser-est folks are mostly British, because national myth-making :-)
mvdtnz 2y ago
I lived in Australia for five years and this is exactly the reason I left. Everyone is a stickler, NIMBYs own the cities and the police are always out to get you. Australians have an undeserved reputation for being "laid back" but they are absolutely the opposite. Any chance for a new rule or regulation is embraced by the population.
- smelendez 2y ago
  A laidback reputation can be a sign of an entrenched elite with a lot of leisure time. This is the case in a lot of the US South.
  - Slava_Propanei 2y ago
    [dead]
  - hilbert42 2y ago
    "This is the case in a lot of the US South." I understand your reasoning re US South but 'laid-back' in the Australian context refers more to a 'laxadaisical' or 'couldn't-care-less' attitude—or that's what it used to mean. Class doesn't much enter the picture. :-(
    - smelendez 2y ago
      Every race and class in Australia expresses this attitude equally?
- kelseydh 2y ago
  Funny enough I'm experiencing the opposite: I moved to Western Australia and find the police presence much lighter than Canada or America. Traffic stops by police are virtually nonexistent because speed cameras already do the work of traffic enforcement for the police. Unlike North America, it is very rare to drive and actually see somebody pulled over by the police. The cameras are strict through. Demerits double on holidays and no amount of fine payment can get out of a license suspension.
hilbert42 2y ago
"I've lived in quite a few countries and never found anywhere with as many smug and self-righteous people as back home." This is pretty much my experience too although the UK would come close. "…the larrikin (fun loving, prankster), …and the wowser (fun hating) …but in recent years the wowsers have thoroughly won." Any Australian who's not aware of this hasn't been around long enough to notice it. Frankly it's horrible, I now feel as if I'm an alien and no longer belong here. I've my own thoughts as to why this cultural shift has occurred in such a comparatively short time but there'd be little point me posting them here. I wonder if there's any proper research on this, if not then I'd suggest it'd be deemed politically incorrect/too hot to handle.
caycep 2y ago
Is this basically the source of a lot of Rhys Dharby jokes?

bell-cot 2y ago

Never been there...but my impression (mostly from articles on British news web sites) is that Australia has long had a reputation for systematized legal sadism.

grumpy-de-sre 2y ago
Particularly the Australian border security industrial complex. Ostensibly a great idea to protect Australian agri-business (don't kind yourself it's not about the environment). But in practice hasn't been particularly effective in achieving its stated goals [1][2][3]. Extremely effective at bullying autistic kids interested in chemistry though. There's a lot of stories. 1. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-26/white-spot-prawn-disease-endemic-queensland-moreton-bay/13197902 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-26/white-spot-prawn-dise... 2. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/sep/05/its-inevitable-australian-beekeepers-brace-for-national-spread-of-varroa-mite https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/sep/... 3. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-03/black-market-tobacco-manchester-cigarettes-four-corners/104978592 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-03/black-market-tobacco-...

randomNumber7 2y ago

> It seems they get some kind of sadistic enjoyment out of it. > Everyone could have stopped, realizing it's obvious what's happening, give him a warning have him turn in this sample. I think the sad truth is that they are probably ignorant enough to not even think about it.

mrkeen 2y ago

> Is Australia particularly bad about it perhaps? We may need to gather more data. He's literally the first person to be sentenced for a law which has been on the books for decades. In the meantime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera... > Judge Leonie Flannery, Australian Border Force officials, police, even his employer just had a grand 'ol time punishing this guy. Maybe? I'm gonna wait until after the sentence has been imposed to decide whether it's excessive or not.

jayrot 2y ago

The best is when they use flimsy arguments about needing to "make an example" or "discourage this behavior" or "create a deterrent", as if people in these situations are even aware they're doing anything wrong.

potato3732842 2y ago
The message being sent is "even if we can't prove intent we still can completely ruin your life"
- motorest 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - HelloMcFly 2y ago
    > For those arguing the guy is just massively dumb and naive, are you aware this depicts the character as even more dangerous to himself and society? No, because he hasn't done anything actually dangerous to society, it's not like he bought anything that can be weaponized. Is he a danger to himself? Only insomuch as his actions have put him at risk of going to jail. I'm not saying there should be no consequences, but the idea he is a danger to himself or society is totally absurd.
    - ty6853 2y ago
      It's a problem because if every single Australian imported one of these samples and put them in a potluck they would achieve enough mass for one or two nuclear weapons. Then Australia would become a nuclear power and finally conquer their arch enemy, the annoying island sidekick of New Zealand.
SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
Awareness that you're doing something wrong is a spectrum. Obviously this guy wasn't intending to build a nuclear bomb, but I'm extremely skeptical that a science nerd could get to the point of building a periodic table collection without learning that plutonium is dangerous and heavily restricted. (The source article doesn't cover this, so just to make sure we're on the same page: plutonium is _not_ any more legal to export from the US than it is to import into Australia, and whoever sold it to this guy was almost surely breaking the law too.)

potato3732842 2y ago

It does this because "the purpose of the system is what it does" It ain't no different than the king's men occasionally cutting down a peasant that didn't remove his hat quickly enough when the king rode by. By screwing people on a whim the system sends a "don't cross me, I hold complete power" message which acts as a force multiplier (until it doesn't but Aus isn't there yet).

intrasight 2y ago
[flagged]
pjc50 2y ago
No, Australia has a very rigid import control system for biosecurity purposes, because the country is currently free of various animal and plant diseases which are endemic in other countries. One infected piece of fruit could, they believe, destroy an industry. If they fine someone $3k for a chicken sandwich, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/fined-3300-for-chicken-sandwich-australia-border-control-say-import-permit-needed-fine-could-have-been-higher/ZOFZOY2O2JGT3J77CZQIBZFG44/ https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/fined-3300-for-chicken-sandwic... , what are they going to do with plutonium? Arguably plutonium guy is being hit with the book precisely to remind everyone who wants to come to Australia that they take import control very, very seriously. (as well as, you know, the xenophobia that gets involved in any discussion of borders)
- franga2000 2y ago
  A chickend sandwich is probably more dangerous to Australia than a tiny vial of plutonium. Not that I'm saying the 3k fine for what clearly seems like a mistake is reasonable, just that this is even more unreasonable.
GistNoesis 2y ago
What's the recommended way to handle being in such a Kafkaesque situation?
red-iron-pine 2y ago
you wrote a lot of words to mean "they want to send a message" and that's what's happening to plutonium joe over there: a not so gentle reminder to the rest of the country not to import shit you shouldn't. and often in cases like these they do a quite "good behavior" release a year later or something. sometimes, anyway.

bawolff 2y ago

I don't think he should go to jail, and it could have been handled better, but i still think laws against purchasing/importing dangerous substances are reasonable, and a fine is reasonable in such a circumstance.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

m463 2y ago

I seem to recall drug laws in mexico having carveouts to decriminalize small quantities to prevent abuse by law enforcement anywhere in the chain. Also, speed limits in some states can't be enforced from 0 to 5mph over the limit.

msm_ 2y ago
>Also, speed limits in some states can't be enforced from 0 to 5mph over the limit. In my country that's also true (with marigin larger than 5mph), but my understanding is that that's because the measurements instruments (laser-based speed meters) are not perfect and it may be a mistake and not actual speed limit breach. Some methods of measuring car speed don't have this limitation, like range-based measurements (check time when car enters road segment, when it leaves road segment, and make sure the average is under the speed limit).
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  And less so now, but also speedometers. As I was growing up in Australia, there was a legislated margin of error of 10% for speedo inaccuracy. And I want to say some time in the late 90s, early aughts, that margin was changed to 3km/h across the board. I don't know how that interacted with speed camera tolerances.
roenxi 2y ago
The attitude of all boundaries being fuzzy is probably more harmful than anything else. You end up with a bunch of laws that aren't laws but just overdone public guidelines. A speed limit should be the limit. If we're agreeing on a Speed Recommended then it should be called that instead. Those are states with a speed limit and then they've encoded the limit in the law as (limit - 5). It doesn't change much except to annoy the pedants and make it harder to figure out what is actually legal.
- Brian_K_White 2y ago
  The attitude that ignores the reality that there is no such thing as a perfect measuring instrument... If you make the law that simplistic, then any good lawyer can void any ticket because no one can actually prove the charge. That will surely be better. But if the limit is N and the claim is that you did N+10, then it doesn't matter how accurate the measurement is, you definitely did something over N. They don't have to prove something unprovable, they only have to prove that their measurments have always been consistently within a range of error that is nowhere near 10. Removing some utility for abuse (which could also be targeted/prejudicial/discrimination abuse) is a net positive. The real world is not as neat as ideals. The real world IS fuzzy, and can not be wished or ignored away.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

cjbgkagh 2y ago

Bureaucracies generally busy themselves by going after soft targets as they represent easy wins, an extra line item for the yearly review. There is a popular Australian TV show called Utopia that satirizes modern Australian government bureaucracies, I am lead to believe that it is quite accurate. That said I would expect clemency in the sentencing.

throwaway2037 2y ago
> That said I would expect clemency in the sentencing. I feel the same. Intent and impact matters. Intent: It is up to the judge to decide if the defendant's intent was pure/non-violent -- I believe it is. Impact: From the news, we can see the material never reached the defendant, and it was safely captured. So the actual impact is zero. (To be clear: I am not apologizing for him breaking the law!) This is a great opportunity for the attorney general office to recommend a special punishment: A long suspended sentence (5 years is reasonable) with no jail time and a X-year (X=1?) commitment from the defendant to participate in a public education campaign.

motorest 2y ago

[flagged]

arresin 2y ago

Damn are you sure you’ve never been to Australia? I can confirm that your instincts are absolutely spot on about this country in general.

pessimizer 2y ago

> And the best part for them, there is no repercussion for it. Everyone can turn around and publicly proclaim they just "did their job". More than no repercussions; they all make a very good living from this. When Australia decides that they are going to ask to put him away for 10 years, they're saying that they're going to spend at least a million dollars on this incident. They know what happened, they know that it's a pointless expenditure, but they're still going to make it. They're going to pay lawyers, use courtrooms and the time of judges, investigators and regular officers, all in the service of hopefully housing and feeding an unwilling adult for a decade. Triggered by a nerd importing an infinitesimal amount of plutonium for his nerd collection. It will somehow be even more shameful when they go through all of this, and then the prosecutor drops the charges, or asks him to plead guilty for no time, no fine, and no record if not arrested for a similar thing outside of some time period. That will mean all of this was just makework. My only conclusion is that either they don't have enough to do, or they are refusing to do things that are difficult. But either way this nonsense should be taken as an opportunity by management and the public which is currently highlighting government employees that it would be good to fire or replace. They don't have a problem with procedure, they have a problem with personnel.

SideburnsOfDoom 2y ago

> Is Australia particularly bad about it perhaps? Australian border security is notoriously strict. So in this specific case, yes, and everyone knows it.