Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As a former police officer, and also one who worked in the Victoria Police counter-terrorism unit, this is obvious is something very close to my heart.

First of all, I want to pass on my best wishes to the two police officers, one from Victoria Police and the other from the AFP, who were stabbed in September this year. They would still be recovering from physical injuries, but the emotional trauma will also have a huge impact on them for the rest of their lives, and also on their family members. The police force is a brotherhood and a sisterhood, and I always liked that because it means they look after each other. That incident affected police not only in Victoria Police and the Australian Federal Police, but right across Australia and right across the world. We have seen awful incidents also occur in France and the UK, where police have been deliberately targeted. They target them—they describe them as the 'people in blue'. And you have the military in green.

At the same time, I pass my condolences onto Numan Haider's family and friends. The sad thing about terrorism is young people are manipulated to believe they are fighting a good and just cause, which is sadly not the case at all. And they are prepared to basically waste their own lives in pursuit of committing terrorist acts.

I recently held a function with my local Afghan community, and I thank the ambassador very much for his attendance. The Afghan community is a fantastic community. It is a very peaceful community. Many of them have escaped from awful atrocities in Afghanistan, and they want to leave the Taliban and all the bad things that occurred to them and their families back home. They are really trying to engage with the community. I have let the Afghan community know that they have my full support.

But sadly, too, a number of Australians have travelled overseas to fight in Syria and Iraq. We have had at least 60 Australians travel there and a number have been killed. A number have been involved in suicide bombings and paid the ultimate price for following a cause that results in their death or the deaths of innocent people. We have also had at least seventy passports seized in Australia from people travelling over to Iraq and Syria to get involved in this so-called fight.

The government introduced the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 earlier this year. It is part of the government's comprehensive response to the heightened security threat environment, both internationally and at home. In particular, it is a response to the threat posed by Australians participating in, and supporting, foreign conflicts, or undertaking training with extremist groups. The Abbott government—and I also acknowledge the bipartisan support—is trying to stop people travelling overseas to get involved in conflicts. Some people, even in my own electorate, say, 'Why not just let them go and let them get killed?' There are a few issues. They are Australian citizens, and we need to protect them from themselves. Secondly, the big danger is that if they do go over there, as we saw with Afghanistan previously, when they come back home they will have been trained in military tactics and a lot of them are so badly converted they are prepared to commit terrorist attacks on home soil. I believe, from memory, that at least one quarter of the people who travelled overseas in these circumstances and returned were subsequently charged with terrorism-related offences.

The amendments address three key areas. Firstly, enhancing the control order regime to allow the Australian Federal Police to seek control orders in relation to a broader range of individuals of security concern, and to streamline the application process. That is so important in law enforcement. Quite often, here in parliament, we try to put safeguards in place and they become unworkable. We always want to protect the rights of an individual, but in this case we also must ensure the police have the necessary tools to protect Australians. Secondly, facilitating the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, ASIS, to support and cooperate with the Australian Defence Force, the ADF, on military operations. Thirdly, enhancing the arrangements for the provision of emergency ministerial authorisations to intelligence agencies to undertake activities in the performance of their statutory functions.

Regarding the control orders, the measures in the bills have been included as a result of instances of operational need identified by law enforcement agencies, subject to the introduction of the previous two tranches of this legislation, including from the recent Operation Appleby, which disrupted an alleged terrorist attack in Sydney.

The amendments will allow the Australian Federal Police to request an issuing court to make a control order in relation to those who enable and those who recruit. Although such individuals may not be directly participating in terrorist acts, they are supporting and facilitating terrorism through the provision of funds and equipment or by recruiting vulnerable young people to champion their cause—and again, that is what they do: they go over to Indonesia, where you have Abu Bakar Bashir and those so-called spiritual leaders, and they have one purpose and that is to encourage young people to take up arms against the infidels—westerners; we are the infidels. And they have only one motive, and that is to attack and kill us.

There also have been some false media reports. There is no change to the existing limitation under subsection 6(4) of the IS Act which states that ASIS must not plan for, or undertake, activities that involve paramilitary activities or violence against the person or the use of weapons other than in accordance with the act by staff members or agents of ASIS. The role of ASIS is to provide intelligence support to the ADF in the ADF's role in providing military support to Iraq in the fight against terrorist organisations.

There are a number of safeguards. The existing control order regime is already subject to significant safeguards and oversight mechanisms, including through the need to obtain both the Attorney-General's consent and a court order, which will continue to apply. The bill, including implementation of the PJCIS recommendations, will improve operational and administrative safeguards and require the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor to review the control order regime, with specific reference to safeguards.

So, overall, I very much support the legislation. But I also want to raise my concerns on what is known as preventative detention. For those who do not know, preventative detention orders came in under the Howard government, and they are, in some ways, supposed to be a strong order but, to me, they are actually quite weak. Preventative detention orders can be made, according to the Criminal Code Act 1995, to:

… prevent an imminent terrorist act occurring—

when an attack is about to take place; or to—

preserve evidence of, or relating to, a recent terrorist act.

That does not so much concern me, but the imminent attack does greatly concern me. That means that someone is about to commit a terrorist attack. Further on in the act we read:

The person in relation to whom the preventative detention order is applied for, or made, is the subject for the purposes of this section.

(4)   A person meets the requirements of this subsection if the person—

the person making the order—

is satisfied that:

(a)   there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the subject—

the person who the order is being made against—

(i)   will engage in a terrorist act …

So we are not talking about shoplifting; we are not talking about committing a burglary; we are talking about committing a terrorist attack in Australia.

There are safeguards, too. A preventative detention order cannot be made against a person under the age of 16 years. Also, the issuing authority must be a judge, and I believe must be a judge with more than five years experience.

The great concern I have is: police and law enforcement are not allowed, under this act, to interview the person who is under preventative detention. Subsection 105.26 says:

Note: A person may be released, for example, so that the person may be arrested and otherwise dealt with under the provisions of Division 4 of Part IAA, and Part IC, of the Crimes Act 1914.

That basically means: the person has been taken into preventative detention; police think, 'There is probably enough evidence; interview them now.' Then they release them to be arrested. So you look at the suspect in custody; they have already been held under preventative detention; they get released and they get arrested to be interviewed—a cumbersome process. It is the same again if ASIO want to speak to that person; they have not got that ability. And it says here, under 105.42:

Questioning of person prohibited while person is detained

(1)   A police officer must not question a person while the person is being detained under a preventative detention order except for the purposes of:

(a)   determining whether the person is the person specified in the order—

and there are a few other reasons. But, again, I have great concerns that the police cannot interview that person—in actual fact, they commit an offence.

Why is this so important? The simple reason is: if it is good enough to have the person detained in custody to prevent them or others from committing a terrorist attack on Australian soil, it should be good enough for the police to ask that person some questions. The big potential danger that I see is: when police detain a person and put them under preventative detention believing they may have knowledge about a planned terrorist attack—in police terms, they put them on ice; they just have them sitting there—that person may have knowledge of others who are about to commit a terrorist attack on home soil. If the police speak to the person in preventative detention, he may never mention that. However, as a police officer, I have found that most times people in custody do talk—and that could be the difference between protecting Australian citizens and allowing a terrorist attack on home soil. I have raised these concerns before, under the Howard government.

I also note that, in the AFP's submission to the COAG Review of Counter-Terrorism of October 2012, they also, in their conclusions, in talking about preventative detention, say:

If questioning during detention was permitted, it could elicit important information which could better direct police resources in preventing a terrorist attack, or could assist police to determine whether the continued detention of the person is necessary …

Those are very strong words. Also other submissions, such as the one from Jack Dempsey, then Minister for Police and Community Safety in Queensland, raise the issue that, when they did a practical exercise, when a person was released and rearrested, it was a cumbersome process, and, again, you basically have the situation where police are mucking around releasing people and arresting people without actually getting to the truth of the matter in hand.

At the recent hearing of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, on 3 October 2014, the Assistant Commissioner and National Manager Counter Terrorism, Australian Federal Police, Mr Neil Gaughan, during his evidence, was asked a number of questions about preventive detention. He referred to evidence that he had been given earlier where he was concerned about constitutional reasons why our police could not actually use preventive detention to interview someone. He said:

Obviously as law enforcement officers it would be much more beneficial if we could question people in relation to PDOs or any type of detention. But I get the limitations and the safeguards that currently exist around not just the legislation but the Constitution.

Also, in information received from the Parliamentary Library, I have not found anyone to give me any constitutional reason why.

The good news is, we are still in discussions. The Prime Minister, the Attorney-General, other members and I are concerned about this. I still find it absolutely amazing that you could have a shoplifter in Victoria interviewed by police, not requiring to go before a judge but, if you have a person planning to commit a terrorist act, the police do not have the right interview that person. For me that is something that we need to change as a matter of urgency.

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