So here’s what Haneef was formally charged with on 14 July 2007, as revealed by Tony Jones on Lateline on Tuesday night:

“…intentionally providing resources to a terrorist organisation consisting of persons including Sabeel Ahmed and Kafeel Ahmed, his cousins, being reckless as to whether the organisation was a terrorist organisation”.

1.   “intentionally providing resources”
I went to the bank today. They intentionally provided me with resources.
I bought a sandwich at lunchtime and was intentionally provided with that resource.
Some months ago I bought a mobile phone. The mobile shop assistant intentionally provided me with that resource, and with a sim-card.

2.   “a terrorist organisation”
No-one, least of all Haneef, has yet been charged, either here or in Britain, with being a member of a terrorist organisation. Sabeel Ahmed, the second-cousin to whom Haneef gave the sim-card, has not been charged with being a member of a terrorist organisation.
There is no terrorist organisation yet established by British charges. It is an imputation and it is an improper imputation.

3.   “being reckless as to whether the organisation was a terrorist organisation”
This is extraordinary.

Firstly, “whether the organisation” presumes that Haneef’s cousins were –  and that Haneef knew they were – an “organisation”.

I suppose your family is “an organisation” in some sense of the word.

He is not charged that he knew they were a terrorist organisation, which he cannot be accused of since the British have not even charged the “organisation” with being a terrorist organisation and any such “terrorist organisation” would have to be established in a British court.

Haneef is not charged with recklessly providing resources to a terrorist organisation. He is charged with being reckless as to whether  the “organisation” — which has not been established in law — was a terrorist organisation.

How can he be charged with being reckless as to whether or not he was providing resources to a terrorist organisation, if not even the British, let alone Australia, know or have yet shown whether it is one or not?

The whole thing does not make sense.

However, the inference which must unavoidably be drawn is this:

My sandwich shop assistant and bank teller and mobile phone shop assistant were reckless today in providing resources to me without considering whether I might or might not be part of a terrorist organisation.

They asked me no questions in this respect at all.

You probably provided services, resources, to numerous people today and you did this with reckless disregard as to whether or not they were terrorists or constituted part of a terrorist organisation.

If you provided resources of any sort which the AFP might decide to deem to be “resources”, then you, and I, and almost all of us could be charged with exactly the same “offence” as Haneef, remembering that it is not necessary that such an “organisation” need be proved to exist in any jurisdiction. Or to be a proscribed organisation at all. It is enough for Mick Keelty or the AFP generally, or Philip Ruddock, or Kevin Andrews, merely to think it might be or could be. Or want it to be.

Seriously, given the right set of circumstances you could be charged at any time for doing what everyone does every day.

Ruddock, true to form, waffled and sidetracked and failed to answer questions. Asked about the “section 503A protected information” on the basis of which apparently Andrews cancelled Haneef’s visa, Ruddock could not – would not – say that the information which is not available to Haneef or his lawyers is inadmissible in court.

So Haneef has no rights to challenge the secret information on which he is detained and accused.

And neither do we Australians have the right to make our own judgment on that information.

We can on these grounds have little doubt that the game in play is a coalition re-election exercise.

Well, “this dog don’t hunt”.

So please save us from the Howards and Ruddocks and Andrewses saying one more time, “Trust me, I’m a politician”.

And for christs sake, when will the Labor Party stand up for what’s right for once?