The ICC's appalling and arbitrary decision to designate October's "supertest" at the SCG an official Test match has led, today, to another premature "breaking" of a world record.

Proof copies are now online for today's Hansard of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council. I haven't read the whole lot, and probably won't bother, but there was a lot of political football being played in the lower house debate, despite the bill having bipartisan support.

"What we've seen in the last 72 hours are more urban terrorists terrorising the community"

- Peter Debnam, New South Wales Leader of the Opposition, 15.12.05

Pete, in the words of another passionate Australian xenophobe: Please explain?

Pollies aside, the community is getting on with the job of resolving the underlying causes of Sunday and Monday's riots. The Lebanese community - Muslim and Christian - have offered curfews this weekend as a means of helping defuse things this weekend. The Sutherland Shire Council's website has a sequence of media releases online outlining their course of action.

From the Murdoch fish-and-wrapper that has no idea when to shut up:
http://www.dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,17558480-5001030,00.html

There can be no doubt that racial hatred is a major element in this week's riots in and around Cronulla. Is Australia an inherently racist society? No - we've come a long long way since the massacre of Aborigines and the proliferation of the White Australia Policy. But there's still a hard core of rednecks in this country who believe that their brand of Australian nationalism - an unwritten White Australia Policy if you will - is the right one. Pauline Hanson, curiously enough, lives at Sylvania Waters, a few kilometres up the George's River from Cronulla.

There's a concept that has been much discussed this week that I'm having a bit of trouble with. "Middle Eastern appearance."

What does a Middle Eastern gentleman look like?

Is he Pakistani? Is he Afghani? Is he Iranian? Is he Iraqi? Is he Kurdish? Is he Yemeni? Is he Omani? Is he Qatari? Is he Kuwaiti? Is he Turkish? Is he Syrian? Is he Lebanese? Is he Jordanian? Is he Palestinian? Is he Israeli? Is he Saudi Arabian? Is he Egyptian? Is he Libyan? Maybe he looks like a Brazilian walking to catch his train.

It's 11pm Tuesday night and all seems quiet in southern Sydney so far this evening. NSW parliament is going to be recalled on Thursday to pass legislation to give police greater emergency powers. Tonight they have roadblocked the Cronulla area, and apparently only residents are being let in. I have vivid memories of the Newcastle CBD being similarly sealed off in the opening days of 1990 following the earthquake, but when (if ever) was the last time a locality of this magnitude in this country was shut down by police for reasons other than natural disaster or Olympiad?

ELLEN FANNING: Prime Minister, part of what was chilling yesterday was seeing a lot of people in between the violence doing things that you'd see at the cricket, singing "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi", wrapping themselves in the Australian flag. What do you say to people who use the Australian flag in that way?
PRIME MINISTER: Look, I would never condemn people for being proud of the Australian flag. I don't care – I would never condemn people for being proud…

Two playlist files here of ABC coverage of the riots of the last few days.

Firstly, click here for a stream of five clips from the ABC television news from Monday and Tuesday. (I have selected the Windows Media Video broadband option for these - other options will be accessible for the next few days at least at the ABC News website.)

MALCOLM KERR, STATE MP FOR CRONULLA: Well, you go back to the core problem and ensure that people can go to the beach and to parks without being subjected to any antisocial behaviour.
JONATHAN HARLEY [7.30 Report, ABC-TV]: And what does that mean? For the people of Cronulla, what does 'antisocial' mean?