Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It is clear that there are no liberals—with a small 'l'—in the Liberal Party anymore. They come in here and rave about capitalism and freedom and say that they believe in individual rights but then they sign them away the very next day with a piece of legislation that was first passed in this parliament on the basis that it would temporarily suspend people's rights and liberties. But that was done back then when this legislation was tabled in 2002. We now have this legislation, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment (Sunsetting of Special Powers Relating to Terrorism Offences) Bill 2019, that's supposedly temporary, that gives agencies the power to detain people and question people even where they've done nothing wrong. We've now had that renewed and renewed and renewed to the point where this temporary suspension of our rights is now permanent.

This is happening under the watch of people who come in here and tell us how much they care about individual freedoms. But they're the first ones to take them away and to say that all the bleating about individuals' rights to do what they want counts for absolutely nothing as long as you write 'national security' on the front of a bill in crayon. If you do that, then this government says every individual right, every principle of the rule of law, can get trashed. We are witnessing under this government the death of the rule of law and the slow erosion of democracy as some pretty basic principles are taken away day after day.

This legislation gives agencies the power to question someone and remove the right to silence on the basis that they can provide information about something even when they've done nothing wrong, and the power to detain someone even when they've done nothing wrong. At the time that it was introduced, these powers were called 'extraordinary' and there was a sunset clause in it because they were extraordinary. It was meant to expire three years after being introduced. But what we find here is that, with these things that are meant to be temporary, the government just come in and say, 'We still need those powers,' and they give us one line to explain why. They say, 'We need to manage the ever-evolving terrorist threat'—and that's it; that's enough.

The same thing's happening in the United States. After the 11 September terrorist attacks, the President there declared a state of emergency and gave himself huge powers to bypass the law. President Trump has just renewed those powers as well, so the United States is still living in a state of emergency where it has those wide-ranging powers. And we're seeing the same principles applying here. When does the emergency end? When does the exceptional situation end? Apparently, according to this government, never! Never! It never ends. Those rights and liberties that were lost temporarily are now lost permanently.

So I'm sorry, Member for Goldstein, and all those freedom fighters who come in here and say that they believe in the cause of individual liberties: we do not believe you. We don't believe you, because you are the first ones to take them away from people and say it is okay for governments to detain people even when they haven't committed a crime. You've just trashed the rule of law, and so you have no credibility anymore. I say to those who have come before and made contributions here, saying that they believe in liberties, that they have no credibility anymore on this front, because they are the first ones to take away people's liberties.

So this is not a bill that can be supported, because there's no justification that the exceptional circumstances are continuing and there's no indication from the government whatsoever that they're ever going to wind this back. I say to the other members of this place and to the Australian public that this is going to happen time and time again. Time and time again we're going to be forced into giving up some basic principles of the rule of law, told it's temporary and then it becomes permanent.

And why are we here almost a decade afterwards, with one-line justifications for the extensions of these powers? Everyone in this chamber wants Australians to be safe. That is something that we all agree on; we all want Australians to be safe. The question is: do we make people safer by taking away their rights? And if we want to defend ourselves against terrorists and people who want to do us harm, why do we do the very thing—if you listen to the government's rhetoric, we are being attacked by terrorists because they disagree with our way of life and our system of government. That's what the government says. But is the right response to change our system of government to become more like the kinds of countries that we are supposedly opposed to? That's what happens time after time: take away some basic principles of individual liberties and the rule of law.

We'll make further contributions about this matter in the Senate, but I do make one last plea to other members of parliament who aren't on the government side: what is clear from this sitting fortnight is that this government will stop at nothing to try to find a wedge. That is all they're about; they are bereft of an agenda of their own and all they will do is try to find a wedge. There have been so many wedges flying around in this parliament in the last fortnight, the only thing that's missing is the sour cream and chili sauce! They have nothing. They didn't expect to win the election and all they're doing now is bringing in wedge after wedge after wedge. But there is a lesson here, which is that there is nothing they won't do. There is nothing they won't do, and whilst others in this place may want to show some good faith towards the government and believe that we can negotiate sensible amendments and so on, it all counts for nought. It all counts for nought if they think they can wedge people.

They will come in here time and time again, and what we've seen in this sitting fortnight is essentially a rolling over in the face of that. The problem with these people is that if you do that once they'll just keep coming back and back. We're going to have wedge after wedge for the next three years because there sure as heck ain't anything else that the government have on their agenda. So at some point we're going to need to recognise that they don't care about agreements that they breach and they don't care about following good process. This government just cares about finding a wedge, and we've got to stand up to them. We've got to stop them from trashing basic principles of the rule of law and stop them from trashing our democratic institutions.

That means standing up to them in this place and understanding that, yes, they will then go out and hold a press conference and say, 'All of those people who voted against us are responsible for the end of the world'—but they're going to do that anyway. They're going to do that consistently for the next three years, and they'll come up with some other rubbish to spin next election time. It will be something else that they will pull out of a hat, some other low, dredging-at-the-bottom-of-the-barrel piece of work that says, 'We've got to remove more peoples' rights and put some more people in prison and take away some other peoples' dignity because there's someone that we haven't kicked yet.' There's always something that these guys will find.

So let's stand up to them. Let's hold them to account for not having any agenda other than to attack people who can't defend themselves. Let's stop rolling over, because once it becomes clear that they've got no agenda other than wedge after wedge then not only will we be in a position to defend basic principles of the rule of law and of democracy but we'll start to hold this government to account and people will see them for what they are.

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