In the amount of time it takes to create a new-born baby David Hicks will be walking the streets of Adelaide as a free man.

True, he'll have to re-emerge from the political womb of the Yatala detention centre, and when he does he can't speak about it for a while. He certainly won't be saying anything before the election.

This what was offered to Hicks for agreeing to become a successful result of the test case of the Bush Administration\s retrospective international legislation for imprisoning its enemies. His alternative was to face many, many further years of incarceration.

Would any of us, faced with the same choice, make any other decision to the one that Hicks has made?

Um, is there a sunset clause, or are we stuck with this level of control forever? In the wrong hands (as opposed to Cheney's ?) the likes of many of the writers on this site might be deemed to have seditiously constructed, say, a supportive political environment for an act of terrorism. How many years holdiay in Cuba might we be in for?

On a brighter note, what happens if the US decides that the AWB bribes were used by the terrorist Saddam Hussein to purchase weaponry and ammunition to use against the Coalition, and that Australia's Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Trade Minister were complicit? The Military Tribunals, armed with their now successful retrospective legislation, might have different terms of reference to the Cole Inquiry.

So many things are possible from the decision of one person Hicks has prove that this maxim still holds true.

And now we wait for Hicks, as well as Bush and Howard, to be reborn. A hell of an Easter resurrection, wouldn't you say?