Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Open democratic societies like Australia have their faults and commit abuses, but through vigorous public debate, adversarial press, parliamentary elections and courts we can encourage reform. I recently made some criticisms of public policy from which I resile not an inch, but it is very important to understand and defend the freedoms that we have in Australia—unlike other societies. I particularly want to commend Dr Gerard Henderson in his column in the Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday for laying out the successful defence of Australian society with the extraordinary series of arrests and convictions in Australian courts under our democratic system, under the law as established by the parliament of Australia, of various people who would use violent means to attack our societies.

He laid out the two cases that took place in Sydney—on 25 September with the conviction of Bilal Khazal and Justice Latham’s remarks and the conviction that was on the front page just the other day of a number of men in Parramatta—and on 3 February and 2 September in the Victorian Supreme Court, where Mr Justice Bongiorno convicted first seven men and then sentenced Shane Kent, who pleaded guilty to being a member of a terrorist organisation.

In these cases the judges went out of their way to see that these people received a fair trial, and in a couple of cases they made sure that the circumstances under which they were being incarcerated were changed to make sure they were in more comfortable circumstances before they came to sentencing. Dr Henderson says:

The fact is that guilty verdicts have been reached, and relatively tough sentences handed out, on account of evidence which led to convictions beyond reasonable doubt. ASIO, the Australian Federal Police and state police forces tend to receive criticism. However, the convictions in the terrorism-related cases in both NSW and Victoria demonstrate that Australia’s intelligence and police services have done a first-rate job in protecting the liberties of all of us.

The same can be said for our politicians. The present terrorism legislation is the product of agreement between the Coalition and Labor—

and it is legislation that I want to pointedly argue has been the responsibility of elected MPs, not suggested by some arcane group of elite lawyers who, via a human rights charter, will decide what is in the national security interests of this country. It is commendable that the human right of all Australians to personal safety has been guaranteed by our police forces, our courts and our elected parliamentary system.

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