SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian lawmaker
smuggled a replica explosive device into
parliament on Monday to highlight security
shortfalls created by budget cuts, in perhaps the
oddest protest yet against the conservative
government's controversial cost-cutting measures.


Senator Bill Heffernan, a member of Prime Minister
Tony Abbott's ruling Liberal Party, unveiled the
long metal tube designed to look like a homemade
"pipe bomb" during hearings attended by the head
of the Australian Federal Police.



He said that new cost-saving security protocols
being trialed, which exempt politicians and their
staff members from searches upon entering
Parliament House, had allowed him to smuggle the
device into the building in a plastic bag.


Members of the public, diplomats and journalists
and are still subject to traditional searches under
the new measures.


"Up until this point, most people working in this
building know that it's safe. I don't think it any
longer is and to demonstrate that this morning I
brought in what could be ... a pipe bomb,"
Heffernan said.



Support for Abbott's conservative government has
taken a plunge following the release of an austerity
budget earlier this month that sent thousands to
the streets in protest and sparked calls for early
elections.


The contentious budget was packed with
deregulation moves, new levies and spending cuts
aimed at overcoming what the government calls
unsustainable deficits totaling A$60 billion ($55.45
billion)over the next four years.


The one-year trial of the new security measures in
Parliament, which only began last week, is part of
a separate drive by the government to wring A
$400,000 in savings from the building's operational
budget.



Heffernan, who had previously said the changes
would have to be introduced "over my dead body",
has a history of trying to highlight perceived
security flaws in government buildings.


In 2009 security officers in the New South Wales
state parliament confiscated a knife from the
senator, who similarly claimed to have been
testing out the building's security, the Sydney
Morning Herald reported. ($1 = 1.0821 Australian
Dollars)

LMAO!


Why is he the only blacksheep in their midst?


Controversial lawmaker should be sanctioned jare, not until he started endangering peoples live.

This is serious o