A criminal lawyer who has represented a string of clients charged with terrorism offences says comments the Prime Minister made in Parliament this week could poison a jury against two men accused of planning an attack.

On Thursday Tony Abbott read from a transcript of a video, which was seized when two men were arrested in Sydney earlier this week and charged with plotting an imminent terrorist attack.

A spokesman for Mr Abbott said "the Prime Minister quoted the translation with the prior consent of the Commissioner of the AFP, Andrew Colvin".

Criminal lawyer Adam Houda echoed concerns raised by prominent barrister Robert Richter QC about the possibility that Mr Abbott's comments could prejudice a future trial.

"He wants to milk this situation politically for all it's worth," Mr Houda said

read more: 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-13/pms-comments-could-still-prejudice...

Mr Abbott pledged before the 2013 election to repeal section 18C of the act after conservative commentator Andrew Bolt was found to have breached the act for his articles about "fair-skinned" Aboriginal people. But the Prime Minister abandoned his pledge last year after a fierce backlash from religious leaders and many Liberal MPs.

Family First senator Bob Day has now proposed removing the words "insult" and "offend" from the act, meaning it would no longer be possible to prosecute someone for insulting or offending someone based on their race.

Liberal senators Cory Bernardi and Dean Smith have previously pledged their support and have co-sponsored Senator Day's bill. It is also being co-sponsored by Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm.

Supporters for change renewed their push in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in defiance of Mr Abbott's decision.

Liberal senator Linda Reynolds has called for a review of the government's approach to section 18C because current laws have overreached.

Senator Reynolds said the Paris attack and the Lindt cafe siege in Sydney had confirmed the threat the West faces from extremists trying to undermine democratic values, including free speech. 

"I do not believe in Australia we are Charlie," Senator Reynolds said, a reference to the #JeSuisCharlie campaign that went viral in support of free speech.

read more:

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/abbott-government-...

So far the law does not need to be changed... So what is the beef?... 

It has been a trying 24 hours for Mr Abbott. On Thursday he was forced to apologise for misusing the word 'holocaust' in Parliament, a leading barrister accused him of prejudicing the trial of two terrorism suspects and he was labelled the most incompetent leader of any industrialised democracy by a US think tank.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/tony-abbott-on-the-bteam-at-mike-baird-launch-of-chris-obrien-cancer-hospital-20150213-13drc3.html

The Abbott government sought the resignation of the president of the Australian Human Rights Commission Gillian Triggs two weeks before it launched an extraordinary attack on the commission over its report on children in immigration detention.

The request was conveyed orally by an official on behalf of Attorney-General senator George Brandis. It was rejected outright by Professor Triggs, who saw it as an attack on the independence and integrity of the commission and herself.

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/revealed-abbott-government-tried-to-remove-gillian-triggs-as-head-of-the-australian-human-rights-commission-20150213-13du7s.html

Abbott should sack himself if he had any guts left in his budgies... But he won't... He is too close from being an arseholic psycho as defined by Sigmund Freud and, like the likes of them, he sticks on and on and on at being a bully and a sneaky bastard until the media runs out of excuses to validate his lunacy... Then he tries to turn the smooth deprecating signal like the "being on the B team" comment he made... It means nothing to anyone except to his own ego which he values before anything else... 

A blind university student has told of her terror at being pepper sprayed at a demonstration outside a lecture given by Education Minister Christopher Pyne in Sydney's CBD on Friday.

In what caps off a dreadful fortnight for the Abbott government, a seemingly routine speech by Mr Pyne at Sydney's Masonic Centre in Goulburn Street turned into a violent outing as students were sprayed in the face and forcibly removed.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/blind-student-tells-of-terror-at-being-pepper-sprayed-at-sydney-protest-against-christopher-pyne-20150213-13e6u8.html

Former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser has launched a scathing attack on Tony Abbott and his Government over its treatment of the Human Rights Commission (HRC) and, in particular, its president Gillian Triggs.

The Commission's Forgotten Children report, which called for a royal commission into the detention of children under both Labor and Coalition governments, has been labelled a "transparent stitch-up" by Mr Abbott.

The report found that detention had caused significant mental and physical illness to children and was in breach of Australia's international obligations.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-14/malcolm-fraser-attacks-abbott-treatment-human-rights-commission/6098920