Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014. Every year, this parliament passes many pieces of legislation to improve the lives of every Australian. We achieve this by implementing measures that support our most vulnerable—measures that ensure every person has access to education and medical services, regardless of age, culture or affluence; measures that foster and promote enterprise so that businesses can grow; and measures that ensure that the government of the day can work collaboratively with our international allies on all fronts.

Whilst members in this place may design and implement these measures and many others, we do so as representatives of the Australian people and their values. People expect nothing less of us and nor should they. While the implementation of each of these policy measures may be expected, one expectation from the community will always stand above the rest. It holds no political discrimination based on which political party has formed government at any given time, and that is the protection of every Australian. There may be different ideas about how we can achieve this and how it should be achieved, but the fundamental concept of ensuring that our nation and its people are protected from acts of violence within our own communities and on the international front via threats from abroad remains a unifiable concept. To date we have seen unification in this place between what the Australian people may regard as the unlikeliest of allies, and for that I thank the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. I thank the Leader of the Opposition, but I also take a moment to highlight those who have used the very real threat that Australia currently faces from barbaric acts of terrorism to play politics and put their own personal vanity of seeing their name in media headlines before the protection of this country, its assets and its people. As I have said before in this place, and I will say it again to those people: shame on you for putting your self-interest above that of the nation.

Australia cannot afford to ignore the heinous acts of terrorism that we have seen in Syria and Iraq or the intent of so-called home-grown terrorists to commit those acts on our soil, which thankfully our law enforcement agencies have to date foiled. As representatives of the Australian people, members of this place have the responsibility to ensure that the Australian people are protected, and to achieve this our law enforcement agencies must have the powers they need to investigate, arrest and thwart those who seek to harm us. The government is committed to responding to the threat of terrorism on home soil and abroad and, in the case of the Islamic State, it is the view of the government that there cannot be one response mechanism without the other.

As Australians, we live in a Western country with Western values and, in the eyes of this barbaric terrorist group, that is enough to make them not only hate us but also want to destroy our lives and break our spirit. If they all stop at nothing to kill their own people in their own country, I ask the members who have questioned the government's need to bolster our security messages what they think will stop these people from taking advantage of any opportunity to maim or kill us. The answer is nothing. They will stop at nothing. The only way we can be sure we have done everything in our power as a government to protect our people is to ensure that our law enforcement agencies and relevant ministers have the appropriate and necessary powers they need to respond to these threats. Nobody wants to wake up one day and ask the question: could we have done more? What we risk if we face that day is immeasurable: the loss of people's lives and the security of this nation.

Australia has responded to the threat of terrorism abroad in Iraq and Syria by joining with our international allies to provide humanitarian, advisory and military assistance to the Iraqi government. The goal of the international coalition is clear: to stop the poisonous spread of the Islamic State in its tracks and to stop this evil from being able to continue committing some of the most heinous acts against fellow human beings this world has seen since Nazi Germany. Every day men, women and children across Syria and Iraq are being slaughtered, three western journalists have been beheaded to directly strike at Western countries' values, and plans are being made every minute of every day by the Islamic State to increase the number and depth of atrocities they commit. US aid worker Peter Kassig is the most recent victim of the Islamic State's inhumanity, their evil and their depravity to bring death and destruction to all those who dare oppose them.

To date, the government has committed Australian Defence Force personnel to perform a series of humanitarian airdrops in Iraq and Syria, has provided 600 Australian Defence Force personnel to act in an advisory role to the Iraqi government and their defence forces, and has provided eight super hornets and two heavy support planes to conduct strategic air strikes against Islamic State insurgents. While our Defence Force personnel work with our allies abroad, key national security measures are also being rolled out across Australia as part of the government's additional commitment of $630 million over four years to counter-terrorism measures. This includes biometric screening, an increased number of border force personnel at international airports, and bolstering our national security laws by introducing three tranches of legislation in this place to help protect Australians at our borders and in our communities.

On 30 September, the House took its first step in implementing these important reform measures by passing the government's first tranche of legislation in this place to strengthen Australia's national security by ensuring that our security agencies have the resources and authority they need to investigate suspected terrorist operations and the reasonable means to prevent acts of terrorism on home soil.

The government also introduced its second tranche of legislation, the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fighters) Bill 2014, which was subsequently passed by both houses on 30 October. This bill specifically aimed to strengthen the ability of Australia's intelligence agencies to prevent and disrupt domestic terrorist threats, including creating new offences for 'advocating terrorism' and for entering or remaining in a 'declared zone'.

As I mentioned earlier, in recent months two terrorist plots have already been thwarted by our security agencies, including on 18 September, when Australia's largest ever counter-terrorism operation took place in Sydney and Brisbane to prevent a plot to behead Australians in a public place and post these acts on social media. At the time, 15 people were detained and one person was charged with conspiracy to commit a terrorist attack. Further raids occurred on 30 September as part of a separate counter-terrorism operation in Melbourne, resulting in 23-year-old Hassan El Sabsabi being charged with terrorist financing.

The government's national security bills have been subject to much debate in this place, in the community and in the media. This is a debate the government welcomes to ensure that all views are represented and key stakeholders are consulted. It is because of this debate that we now have the current bill before the House, the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014.

The bill seeks to make a number of amendments to the government's first tranche of legislation, in recognition of a number of recommendations made by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security in its advisory report on the government's original first tranche of legislation, which was tabled in this place on 20 November. The bill also addresses two outstanding recommendations made by the committee in its advisory report on the government's second tranche of legislation—the foreign fighters bill.

Lastly, the bill will make further amendments to the Criminal Code Act 1995 to correct four oversights in the drafting of this original bill and the now legislated foreign fighters act. I also highlight that at the time of the debate the bill endorsed the parliamentary committee's 37 bipartisan recommendations, which were presented to the Attorney-General on 17 October. Each of the proposed amendments directly responds to the committee's 16 recommendations, which, as was the case with the foreign fighters legislation, the government has again accepted, or accepted in principle.

The focus of these recommendations is to respond to the concerns raised about the amount and extent of safeguards that are in place for key provisions, particularly with regard to interim control orders, and to increase the level of independent oversight and reporting requirements for such orders. Specifically, the amendments address three key areas, including: enhancing the control order regime with regard to its application processes and requirements for a control order to be granted to the Australian Federal Police; and interactions between the Australian Secret Intelligence Service and the ADF. As I am sure members are aware, a control order, if imposed, may restrict a person from: being in specified areas or places; associating or communicating with specified individuals; accessing or using specified forms of telecommunications or other technology, including the internet; and remaining at specified premises between specified times each day or on a specified day.

In order to strengthen the legislative safeguards for seeking a control order from the Attorney-General and by a court, the bill before the House proposes to amend the requirements from including a draft of the interim order; information, if any, that the member has about the person's age; and a summary of the grounds on which the order should be made. Further, it proposes to amend the requirements to require the senior AFP members to provide the Attorney-General with a statement of facts relating to why the order should be made; and, if the member is aware of any facts relating to why the order should not be made, a statement of those facts.

This amendment will strengthen safeguards by requiring the AFP to explain, and the Attorney-General and issuing court to consider, each obligation, prohibition or restriction being sought by the control order, rather than the current requirement, which requires consideration of these points as a whole. This provision will also require the explanation to prove that the control order is reasonably necessary and reasonably appropriate.

This bill in its original form also responded to the concerns from our intelligence agencies that, in those instances when an urgent interim control order is granted by an issuing court, the current four-hour time period to gain consent from the Attorney-General is not long enough for those unavoidable instances such as the Attorney-General being in transit at that time. The original bill proposed to extend this time period to 12 hours. However, on the committee's recommendation, the bill before the House will amend this to eight hours to reflect the committee's belief that this time frame is sufficient to seek consent. An additional safeguard is, however, in place for those instances when the Attorney-General may not be available within this timeframe, such as during overseas travel. If this were to occur, the bill proposes that consent may instead be granted by the minister acting in the Attorney-General's position.

The bill before the House also seeks to make a number of amendments to the Intelligence Services Act 2001, as also recommended by the committee. The first proposed amendment to the act will directly implement the committee's 15th recommendation to limit all references to the 'responsible minister' in the bill to only be the relevant senior portfolio minister. The term 'responsible minister' was perceived by the committee to be ambiguous, and that it could potentially be interpreted as including junior portfolio ministers and parliamentary secretaries.

Further amendments are also proposed for the IS Act in relation to emergency authorisations by agency heads. These proposed amendments will implement the government's response to recommendations 9 to 11 of the committee's advisory report to strengthen ministerial control and oversight of emergency authorisations by the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security, or IGIS, and by the parliament. Under the proposed amendments, an agency head who has issued an emergency authorisation will be required to notify the relevant responsible minister in relation to the agency within eight hours of giving that authorisation. This provision will be in addition to current requirements for the agency head to provide all relevant documents to the minister within 48 hours of giving authorisation, and the IGIS be provided with this same documentation within three days. The IGIS will then be required to consider whether the agency head complied with the requirements of the emergency authorisation, and provide the relevant responsible minister for the agency with a report on the IGIS's views of the extent of the compliance, within 30 days. A copy of the conclusions in that report must also then be provided to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. The intention of this government is that the emergency authorisations are only to be used rarely and in exceptional circumstances.

The last key amendment proposed in the bill before the House will complete the implementation of recommendations 13 and 21 of the committee's Advisory report on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fighters) Bill 2014. These provisions propose to amend the IS Act for the committee to review the following provisions by 7 March 2018: the police stop, search and seizure powers in the Crimes Act 1914; the control order regime; the preventive detention order regime; and the declared areas offence and the related provision authorising the making of declarations, which are all outlined in the Criminal Code.

In addition to these key amendments, the government has also circulated an addendum to the explanatory memorandum to respond to recommendations 2 and 7 of the committee's advisory report. Recommendation 2 of this report is in relation to the use of the terms 'supports' and 'facilitates' in the bill, and the committee's concerns that the existing language is not consistent with that of the Criminal Code. To respond to this recommendation, the government has amended the explanatory memorandum to provide additional information about the use of these terms.

As mentioned, the bill before the House also seeks to accept and implement recommendation 7 in relation to ministerial authorisations, ASIS assistance to the ADF and classes of Australian persons.

I commend this bill to the House.

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