DOUBLE STANDARDS: Loud About Hicks // Silent About China

David Hicks' supporters claimed he was practically being starved to death. Then they complained he was being over-fed.

He was being denied his day in court. Then the process had to be delayed for further examination.

Hicks wrote that he was keen to cash in on his story. Then family members said he'd be doing no such thing.

David Hicks was being over-penalised for imaginary offences. Then he pleaded guilty and his reasonably prompt release is a political ploy.

There's been so much inconsistency in this debate that it undermines the credibility of the many people who have been concerned with David Hicks' civil rights. And we should be pleased that they were so vocal. Less pleased that many of them would make it all up as they went along, with scant regard for truth or common sense.

The sad fact is that much of the pro David Hicks campaign was really just an excuse for America bashing.

We can celebrate the fact that so many Australians seemed concern about the treatment of just one of us. But we have nothing to celebrate with the prospect of this self-admitted serious terrorist risk roaming loose in Adelaide, full of his anti-semitic conspiracy theories, para-military training and we can presume a pretty big chip on his shoulder.

Labor has finally got wise about this, with the new Shadow Attorney Joseph Ludwig doing well to take a cautious, non-triumphalist position on the issue of the release of a terrorist. He was right to be cautious and we should all be concerned about whether Hicks is a danger to the Australian community.

And despite the loudness of the voices speaking up for David Hicks, there is still a silence about the continued and outrageous human rights abuses in China.

The ka-ching of the cash register seems to have deafened us to the cries of the people of the PRC.

Unlike David Hicks, the hundreds of millions of Chinese living under tyranny are not guilty of any crime of wanting to harm others. They just want to live in freedom and have a better life.

If David Hicks had been found in China conspiring to blow the place up, he would have executed long ago and his parents sent the bill for the bullet. If he'd been a Chinese citizen chances are his organs would have been harvested and sold to fat German health-tourists wanting a new kidney.

So we're right to be suspicious of the Australian state because it is imperfect and it is too big and it does over-reach. And we're right to be critical of our American friends because they too make mistakes, however well intentioned. But we need to also apply the exact same standards to China, ruled by a gangster regime of kleptocrats. The fact that we don't is to our undying shame.

Game on.