Review of 'Calling Out the Troops: The Australian Military and Civil Unrest' By Michael Head. Sydney: Federation Press, 2009. 254pp. RRP $49.95 (softcover). ISBN 978 186287 709 2.

Abstract

As of 2006, the Defence Act 1903 now permits Australian warships to fire missiles into civilian aircraft or shipping where they present a 'threat to Commonwealth interests'. There is no need for a declaration of war, nor any actual armed conflict to be taking place. This is not to say that there are no checks and balances. There are, and they include the concurrence in most circumstances of the Prime Minister, Attorney General, Defence Minister and Governor-General. Even so, these are dramatic new statutory powers with little precedent in the English speaking world. Indeed, such powers were too much for the German Constitutional Court, which struck down comparable German legislation. This was essentially on the grounds that a government minister could not decide to take potentially hundreds of innocent lives to prevent another incident like that in the United States of 11 September 2001. The challenge for the reader of 'Calling Out the Troops' is to make their own decision about whether such powers are justified and, if they are, whether they should be prescribed in legislation.