Water Cannon.

It had to come - and in many ways it was inevitable - but it does illustrate the degree that violence has increased in our community.
Sydney now has a water cannon !
This $ 600,000 armoured truck carries 12,000 litres of water and can hit a target fifty metres away with a blast capable of shifting concrete bollards - and of bowling a demonstrator over backwards.
Acquiring such a monster had it's genesis from the time of the Redfern riots when police holding a line became the target of Molotov cocktails thrown by a drunken mob of rioting Aboriginals.
It has arrived in time for the September APEC meeting in Sydney which promises to be a target by what can only be described as anarchists. On previous history what these urban terrorists insist will be a " peaceful demonstration " will degenerate into life threatening savagery and destruction of property.
Crowd control has been slowly moving into a contest where the patience of the police is increasingly demanded by civil liberty groups whilst the actions of feral rioters becomes increasingly savage and without restraint.
Inevitably these hoons will claim that their demonstration was peaceful until police provocation crossed the line. Television images on such events give the lie to that claim.
Now that we have a water cannon it can not be too big a step for the state to consider investing in a " pepper spray machine ". This armoured tank capable of spitting out a stream of eye and skin irritants is used in many major cities to disperse rioting crowds.
The sad thing is that we once considered ourselves the " peaceful city " far removed from the violence of a distant world.
Welcome to this shrinking planet with it's creeping miasma of evil people !