Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aviation and Transport Security) Share this | Hansard source

I will not prolong the debate beyond this brief contribution that I want to make now, but I do think it is important to put into some context what the Attorney-General just said. Of course this is not just about a sunset clause per se; it is also about the review that goes hand in glove with it. In the process of a review, it is right that some demands are placed on the agencies involved. That is how it should be in a democracy. In a democracy, the people are actually entitled to call upon those in government and those in the bureaucracy to explain themselves, especially so in areas where those people are afforded extraordinary powers and, of necessity, have to act in a secret manner.

We are talking here about extraordinary powers and about agencies that are not like normal government departments that are subject to, let us say, Senate estimate reviews a couple of times a year. That can never be the case when you are dealing with government agencies involved in protecting Australians from terrorist threats. We all understand that and support that. But that is precisely why, when these extraordinary powers are made available, people should account for themselves on a reasonable periodic basis and for the need for these laws to continue to be in force.

Is once every five years onerous? I do not think people in Australia would regard that as onerous. I do not think most people involved in the process would regard that as onerous. If you do not have that sort of process then you do run the risk of long-serving governments, in particular, establishing procedures that may be out of kilter with what the community wish. Ten years is a long time. We have an election next year. It may well be that Labor could win the election and be in office for the next 10 years, just as the Liberal Party have been in office for the last 10 years. It is appropriate, irrespective of who happens to be in office, that these sorts of reviews are conducted using a reasonable time line.

A five-year sunset clause is, I repeat, very generous—five years is a generous period for the agencies to operate. Is a review in 4½ years going to stop the agencies in their work of trying to track down and deal with terrorists? No, it is not. If the Attorney-General is genuinely saying that then there is a serious mismanagement issue in his department if a review in 4½ years is somehow going to materially prevent Australian security agencies from doing their job. If that is the testimony on the Hansard transcript the Attorney-General wants to give then so be it, but it is a damning indictment of himself and his department if he wants Australians to believe that asking our security agencies to go before a review in 4½ years is going to somehow stop them from tracking down terrorists. Of course it will not. What it will do is put some better balance into the democratic principles upon which this parliament and this country are founded.

Without it, we will be worse off, the nation will be worse off and our democracy will be worse off. The members of the committee knew that. That is why every single one of them supported a five-year review. That is the proper course to be followed. I think it is a sad reflection on the government that they want to hold firm to this view that that sort of balance between necessary powers and important principles of accountability and democracy should be so easily jettisoned.

Question put:

That the amendments (Mr Bevis’s) be agreed to.

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