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

I am pleased to support the recommendations of this report. Even though I am not a member of the committee, I think that, as the member for Isaacs said, the process of the committee evaluating these organisations is a worthwhile process that this parliament should be involved in, partially because it gives the Australian public a feeling of transparency which they duly deserve and an ability to have input into how the Australian government makes decisions about these particular organisations. Originally, it was proposed that the Attorney-General alone have the right to list these organisations and that at some later period that would be sunsetted and reconsidered. This is a better process where both the Attorney-General and the parliament are involved.

I find strange some of the submissions that, according to the report, were made, but I will return to that in a moment. I first of all want to support the relisting of not just Hamas but also Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, particularly because of that organisation’s disgraceful role in trying to engender terrorist incidents against Australians and because of their murder of two of our countrymen in Mumbai in the attacks on that very fine Indian city last year. I must report my own countersuggestibility. After Lashkar-e-Tayyiba attacked the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel amongst the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, my daughter and I stayed there some months later, perhaps in a minor act of solidarity with the people of India.

I will first say something about Hamas and then will return to Lashkar-e-Taiba. The argument being made by many people is that Hamas is a legitimate political organisation. Indeed, there is an attempt in 2.26 of the committee’s listings to say that there is a difference between its legitimate political and social activities and its terrorist activities. I think that is a convenient argument that our security services put. Unfortunately for those who make that argument, Hamas does not make that argument. Sheikh Yasin and Mr Rantisi, the previous leaders of Hamas, were clearly the people giving orders for various terrorist attacks, and they made no distinction between the civilian and military wings of that organisation.

As the member for Isaacs rightly said, this is an organisation that took power by force in Gaza and its rule of brutality there is something that is clearly alien to Australians. Very interestingly, since the conflict in Gaza in January this year the support for that organisation has, not surprisingly, dropped. The Ramallah based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research said that Hamas would receive only 28 per cent of the votes if there were to be elections now whereas the rival Fatah organisation had increased to 44 per cent. That might be the reason why Hamas, so earnestly promoted by a gentleman from the Sydney Morning Herald, Mr Paul McGeough, has absolutely ruled out the possibility of further elections in Gaza.

If we look at the political issues beyond the prescription issues in this report for peace in the Middle East—the unification of the Palestinian side in negotiations is seen as impossible because of the differences between Hamas and Fatah—we would come to the conclusion that we must earnestly support elections in Gaza as soon as possible because the Palestinian people themselves would then be able to elect representative and more moderate organisations that would be able to include negotiations with the other side. Statements like those recently made by Hamas that the Interior Ministry will hold accountable anyone involved in elections is an ominous threat that I think says something about the nature of that organisation. Mr McGeough and other people who are apologists for Hamas have said that it is a political organisation that will morph into an organisation that can be negotiated with. Its foreign based leader, Khaled Meshaal, in Damascus in October this year, talking about negotiations for a proposed two state solution peace settlement, said:

We must say: Palestine from the sea to the river, from the west to the occupied east, and it must be liberated. As long as there is occupation, there will be resistance to occupation.

Let me decode for this house what that means. That means there are not, as Australia originally voted for in the United Nations in 1948, two states—a Palestinian state next to an Israeli state. This is an Islamic state like Gaza from the Mediterranean to the Jordan. You can understand how the bikini-clad women of Tel Aviv on the beaches, the people who participate in gay rights demonstrations in Jerusalem, the normal people of the Israeli Jewish state—middle-class, small ‘l’ liberal, just like us in Australia—would fiercely resist living under a sixth century Islamist fanatic state. They have my entire support and I think they have the support of most of the democratic world for resisting that. Until these people can be brought to some kind of reality then they and their apologists, in my view, are out of the negotiating game. That is no reason for stopping negotiating with entirely reasonable Palestinian Arab political organisations. As the member for Oxley knows, I recently had the pleasure of participating, under the auspices of the Australian Workers Union, in a TULIP function at the ALP national conference with Mr Issa, the Palestinian representative in Canberra. He is a very engaging and moderate gentleman who, to misquote Margaret Thatcher talking about Mr Gorbachev, is ‘a man who we can do with business with’.

Let me turn my remarks to the organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba, which the committee has proscribed. As the committee’s report says, a number of members of Lashkar-e-Taiba have been arrested in Australia. People from this organisation, who have been jailed in other countries, have come to Australia, including Willie Brigitte. I note that a number of people who have subsequently been let out of jail, such as Mr Hicks and others, were involved in training at Lashkar-e-Taiba camps. This seems to be the favourite part of the international al-Qaeda franchise, which is concentrating on Australia. People who have been arrested and charged in Sydney, such as Mr Brigitte, have been trained and organised by this particular arm of al-Qaeda.

As the Calcutta Telegraph noted on Monday, a Pakistani-American mapped out all the Mumbai target sites, including the Jewish centre, Chabad House, by sinisterly posing as an American Jew. His name is Dawood Jilani. He changed his name. He is a US national. He was arrested by the FBI in February. He went to India and scoped all of these sites that were attacked. We have to be very alive to the possibility of precisely this kind of person coming to Australia. On 3 October 2009, he was arrested on federal charges of plotting to commit terrorist acts on overseas targets, including facilities and employees at a Danish newspaper, for the cartoons that they had published. So Lashkar-e-Taiba remains an active concern to this country. We have had a number of people who have been arrested, charged with working with Lashkar-e-Taiba and convicted.

I commend the parliament for continuing to list these organisations and for the laws under which these people have been convicted. I commend the security services—the Federal Police, ASIO and others—who have been able to bring evidence. I commend the courts, which, despite their many small ‘l’ liberal inclinations, have convicted people who have rightly been brought to them under these kinds of charges. The parliament performs an important process for the Australian people in making sure that we go through all of these organisations systematically, carefully and rationally. We have to do that as long as these people are targeting this country and other organisations and democratic countries around the world. I was very pleased to hear the member for Berowra say that the Attorney-General had written to all state attorneys-general and had their support for the continued listing of these organisations.

I was astonished to see that the Federation of Community Legal Centres (Victoria) made a submission to this inquiry. I hope the submission was duly discussed by that organisation. Community legal centres, in my understanding, look after people in Australia who are the oppressed of the earth and do not necessarily have the ability to find legal defences for themselves. They look after people on pensions, who do not have the resources to find solicitors. They represent them on matters that we in a civilised society have determined everyone should be represented on. For them to be making representations to the parliament on terrorist organisations and saying that they should have the listings lifted is something far beyond their brief. It would be an outrage to most Victorian taxpayers who rightly fund legal centres for the 99 per cent of good work they do. I urge the organisations involved to make sure they know what they are doing before they come to the federal parliament and start getting involved in national and international politics which is far beyond their purview.

I end by making the regrettable point that I was with the Minister for Home Affairs in my electorate of Melbourne Ports when he announced special security funding for various schools in my electorate. The security funding was a direct result of reports like this. In January, the leader of the Hamas organisation in Gaza, Mahmoud Zahar, made the threat that, because of the killing of children in Palestine, they had legitimised their people’s killing of our people all over the world. This was considered by many people in Australia, the United States and Europe to be a threat by Hamas to carry out terrorist action in Australia. Through this report, the parliament and the Australian government, by other measures, is taking every necessary step to protect the security of the Australian people. (Time expired)

Debate (on motion by Mr Ripoll) adjourned.

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