Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the members who contributed to this debate: the member for Isaacs, the member for Melbourne Ports, the member for Moreton and, very briefly, the member for Griffith. Clearly, we are living in extraordinary times in Australia when we need to bring legislation to this parliament that seeks to do some of the things that this bill will implement. The reason we are doing this—and it has been noted in this debate—is that the security situation in Australia has deteriorated very significantly as a result of events in Syria and Iraq. The Australian government recognised this very early on and we took proactive action—in fact, we have responded better than anywhere in the world—to make sure that our agencies, the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, ASIO and other agencies involved with a national security, had what they needed to deal with this threat.

The terror threat in Australia 10 years ago was vastly different from what it is today. At that stage we were dealing with people who had returned from the Afghanistan conflict, who had been radicalised, who were much smaller in number but who had a network and an intent to do Australia harm. They planned large, spectacular plots—attacking a military base, attacking large sporting events—and, of course, that involved an enormous amount of planning. You needed to source materials, you needed to talk to a network of people and you needed to coordinate. Clearly, that gave our agencies an opportunity to understand and take action on those plots. What we have now is a situation where somebody—often a young person, often a young man—could be radicalising late at night online. They could be doing it in the basement of their parents' home without their parents even knowing. It is a vastly different security arrangement that we need in Australia to be able to deal with that. We have worked with our operational agencies, who have been providing us with advice about what we need to do to change the laws to address this radically altered environment. We have methodically worked through—and I appreciate that we have done this with the assistance of the opposition—what they need to keep us safe and we have provided them with the powers that they require.

This bill is the latest iteration of that ongoing conversation that we have with our security agencies. It does do things, as has been noted by other speakers, that are relatively difficult, particularly control orders for people as young as 14. But, sadly, events in Australia have shown us that these powers are required. I will not go into the details of the bill again, considering I made an introductory speech about it only about 45 minutes ago, but I do remind the House and the Australian people that these measures are necessary. As some of the speakers noted in the debate, I too hope that they are never used, but if our agencies need them, if the circumstances call for it, if our national security demands it and action is needed to keep us safe, then we do need to make sure that they have the tools at their disposal to do that. I, therefore, commend this bill to the House and I thank the House for the indication that it will be supported.

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