Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Previously, when I was speaking in relation to the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 I was indicating that the second important limb of this legislation is the emergency ministerial authorisations. Presently, there is no legal basis on which agencies can undertake activities in these circumstances—that is, in circumstances where a relevant minister may be temporarily uncontactable and when there is an urgent, previously unforeseen need to collect vital intelligence; meaning, in those circumstances, that critical intelligence collection opportunities may have been missed. The amendments will address this by enabling an agency head to grant a limited emergency authorisation, subject to rigorous and extensive safeguards and oversight mechanisms. These authorisations are strictly limited, as they ought to be, to a 48-hour maximum period and cannot be renewed.

Additional issuing criteria apply to authorisations by agency heads, including express consideration of whether the relevant minister would have been likely to grant the authorisation on the basis of the existing statutory criteria. Further, to ensure it is only available in an extreme emergency, the agency head must also be satisfied that, if the activity was not authorised, security would be seriously prejudiced or there would be a serious risk to a person's safety. The minister must be notified as soon as practicable within the 48-hour period and is under a positive obligation to make a decision about whether it should continue within that 48-hour maximum period, or be cancelled or replaced with a ministerial authorisation. The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security must also be notified as soon as practicable within three days.

The amendments also provide for contingency arrangements in the event that the Attorney-General is not readily available or contactable to provide his or her agreement to the making of an emergency ministerial authorisation, where such agreement is required because the authorisation concerns the undertaking of activities in relation to Australian persons who are or who are likely to be engaged in activities that are or are likely to be a threat to security. The amendments address an unintended limitation in the ability of ministers to issue emergency authorisations. Presently, no provision is made for ministers to issue these authorisations orally, with a written record to be made of that decision. This is incompatible with the circumstances of urgency in which emergency authorisations are designed to operate and with the longstanding approach to other forms of emergency authorisation, including search warrants, telecommunications interception warrants, surveillance devices warrants et cetera. The proposed amendments bring the emergency ministerial authorisation processes within the Intelligence Services Act into line with other approaches.

The amendments to the Criminal Code will further strengthen the control order regime and enhance the capacity of law enforcement agencies to protect the public from terrorist acts. 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 directly participate in terrorist acts, their conduct in supporting and facilitating terrorism through the provision of funds and equipment, or by recruiting vulnerable young people to champion their cause—and even to die for it—is instrumental to carrying out terrorist conduct. The expansion of the control order regime to cover such individuals will help disrupt terrorism at an early stage, keeping Australia and Australians safe and secure. The amendments to the control order regime will also streamline the application process by reducing the volume of material that must be provided to the Attorney-General when seeking consent to request an interim control order and will extend the time for obtaining the Attorney-General's consent when making an urgent request to an issuing court without first obtaining the Attorney-General's consent.

Finally, the implementation of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security's recommendation will require the Attorney-General to advise the committee before amending a regulation that lists a terror organisation by adding an alias or removing a former name and to allow the committee to review any proposed change during the disallowable period. I believe, as do other members of the government, that this legislation is necessary to keep us safe and to provide our troops on the ground with the resources they need to do the job they have been tasked with. As such, I indicate my full support for it and I commend it to the House.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014. This bill makes urgent amendments to the counter-terrorism and intelligence legislation to address limitations that have been identified in the course of the current recent military operations by the ADF. This bill will enhance the ability of Australia's law enforcement and intelligence agencies to take timely action against Australians who are suspected of becoming involved in counter-terrorism and terrorist related activity. On 24 September 2014, the UN Security Council passed a unanimous resolution requiring all 193 United Nations member states to (a) prosecute and penalise people who travel or attempt to travel abroad for terrorism training or who help finance such efforts, (b) deny entry to anyone they have reasonable grounds to believe could be supporting or participating in terror related activities, and (c) share airline passenger information records and other personal details with international databases to help track and prevent movement of suspected foreign fighters.

Where I really suffer with this legislation—and where I suffer in the whole terrorism debate where we get radicalised Australians going across there—is, basically, getting my head around how this could happen in our country. This is the issue for me, and I do not know what happens to someone who can be just so normal a person—or so apparently normal a person—and then suddenly has the idea to go across to Syria or Iraq or Iran or these places and go around cutting people's heads off and committing these acts of terrorism and blowing themselves up. It is just so strange and so anti-Australian—so completely the opposite of what we think we are as a nation. That is why I think a lot of people in this debate really struggle with where we are. They really struggle to try and get their heads around it, to the point where it becomes a blanket generalisation about an entire religion. I think that is where we have to be very careful in this debate.

I can hear a young child up in the gallery, so I see I have a chorus of people who are interested in this debate up there. Congratulations! My son is now 12 years old. When he was in grade 1 NAPLAN, one of his best friends was Guruji, a young Aboriginal boy. If you put the two boys together, they looked very much alike. When they were filling out their NAPLAN tests, Andrew looked across and Guruji put down that he identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. Andrew did not know what it meant so he ticked it as well. So that is what it is to be a boy in this country.

There is the old joke about the Protestants and Catholics where there is a little Catholic girl on the beach and a little Protestant boy on the beach. Of course, they are naked, and the little Catholic girl says to the Protestant boy, 'I never realised there was that much difference between Protestants and Catholics.' I think when you get it all down to these things, you understand where we are coming from in this country. I am so proud to be Australian because we are such a great multicultural society.

I grew up in a very small country town in south-western Queensland by the name of Texas. We had tobacco growers. We had the Greek guy that owned the fish and chips shop, and we used to say horrible things about him. In the early- and mid-sixties the war was not that long ago, and if you had a German in there you made nasty references to their heritage. But, all the way through, I think we always took the individual as they came.

I was in high school with Hussan Isaac, a mate of mine who was a very dark Indian guy. He had all sorts of trouble fitting in, but we figured out that it was not the colour of his skin, it was his attitude, and once he changed his attitude he was okay. I think that is why we are a great country. That is why I think that this country really struggles with the fact that normal, born and bred Australians—second and third generation—can be radicalised in this space, and that is why this legislation is so important.

We have to be in this space. We have to make sure that we are doing what we can to prevent these people going overseas and participating in these crimes and actions. We know that, of the people who went to Afghanistan, a large number who came back have since been convicted of serious and terrorist related crimes. Those are the sorts of things we have to avoid. We cannot just say that those people are not allowed back into Australia, because they are Australian citizens, and one thing that Australia will never do is tell other people to take care of our problems. Those people have to come back, but we have to make sure that when they do come back we are able to grab hold of them and make sure that they do not affect other people. We have to make sure that you are not sitting down at a game of football one day and find that someone has taken a sword to your throat. These sorts of things can happen in our society.

I also want to make sure that, with these bills, our relationship with trading partners is not affected. We have a lot at stake in the world at the moment. We are opening up our economy. Andrew Robb has done a fantastic job with the three major free trade agreements—with Korea, Japan and China. There is more to come. We export more fresh food today to the UAE than we do to China. We are a services based economy. Eighty per cent to 85 per cent of our economy is services, yet only 15 per cent of our services are exported as tradeable commodities. We have to make sure that we are able to move into these places. But we have to make sure that our attitude as a nation is not so blinded by their predominant religion or by what is happening in their neighbouring countries that it affects our trading reputation.

To say that this is a modern phenomenon is a fallacy. My great-grandfather was plain Tom Jones. He arrived in this country in 1902. He was a qualified civil servant in Wales, but he could not get a job in the Australian civil service because he was a Catholic. He changed his religion to Church of England, and he was able to get a job in the civil service. He ended up having a very successful career as a civil servant in Australia. So, when it comes to these things I think we have to take a broad view. This sort of legislation is necessary.

I do take seriously—I have been approached by a number of people in my electorate about this—the view that we are winding back the freedoms in our society. I do accept that when you bring in regulations like this there is a natural proclivity to believe that we are looking at more things and that the government and its agencies are encroaching on our basic personal liberties, but I always say that if you do not do anything wrong, nothing much is going to happen to you. There will be mistakes made, and I suppose there always have been. We want to make sure that those things are minimised. But, I do not want be the person that has to ring someone up to say that their school has been attacked and that we knew all about it but we did not want to infringe upon civil liberties.

So I understand that there is a line that we have to tread here, that it is very serious that we have to move along that line, and that there are consequences for our actions. Newton's law of physics says that for every action there is an equal reaction. The angle of incidence equals angle of reflection. Those are the sorts of things that we must keep in our minds all the way through.

Law enforcement agencies have advised that there are a number of individuals who are serious security concerns, who are not covered by the current, existing grounds for taking control. We know that some of these people are not directly involved in terrorism, but instead provide support for terrorism and foreign fighters. Placing control orders on these persons will assist the AFP to disrupt their activities. However, there are, of course, some who may need to return to areas the government sees as terrorist danger zones. Those who have family, for example, may need to return. Residents now have to provide a reasonable excuse for travelling to those locations. Religious, study and business purposes may not be good enough reasons to travel to a very dangerous zone.

This bill will enhance the control-order regime in the Criminal Code Act 1995 to allow the Australian Federal Police to seek control orders in relation to a broader range of individuals of security concerns—namely, those who support or facilitate terrorists and foreign fighters. This has to enhance our agencies' ability to track financial records of suspected foreign fighters.

While I have your attention, I just want to say to people signing up against halal certification—all the stuff that goes on about that—that this is not about the halal certification. Halal certification on vegemite, chocolate and dairy is about opening up new markets. If a company like Cadbury—we have 23 million people in Australia and 245 million people and Indonesia—want to open up new markets and get people over there hooked on our chocolate, and it means putting a little label on their chocolate wrappers, then more power to them. I will back them 100 per cent.

This legislation provides for a lower threshold for arrest without warrant for terrorism offences so that we can disrupt terrorist activities earlier. We will cancel social welfare payments to cut off funds used for terrorism. The Intelligence Services Act covers the need to collect intelligence on persons who are fighting with or alongside terrorist organisations. This amendment legislation will enhance the ability of ASIS to assist the ADF in support of military operations.

All the way through this we have to make sure we are trying to do the right thing by the Australian people. With our leadership group—foreign minister Julie Bishop, Scott Morrison and Tony Abbott—involved in these negotiations, and by working with the AFP and all our agencies, we are in that space and we are trying to do the right thing. I think that this is one area where no-one really wants to have the discussion, but it is something that we do have to talk about. It is something that we have to understand as Australians in this space. I stand with the government on this. I understand the threats posed by Daesh and the organisations there. I understand the threats of people going over there to join in this fighting and the glamour they espouse, but I do not want these people coming back and living in my community, not without our agencies knowing exactly who they are and what they are doing at all times. I want to make sure that we are doing whatever we can to limit these things and to stop people going overseas, working in these places, fighting in these places and killing people. To me, that is the abhorrent thing here—that these people are Australians who have benefited from our education system, have benefited from our social infrastructure and are part of our nation and yet they can turn around and do these things. Sometimes I think it is more like a drug addiction or an addiction of some sort that they find themselves weighing into these things.

In conclusion, I support the government. I wish it was not so. I wish we lived in a place where these sorts of things did not happen. But you can wish for whatever you want; the facts remain that we are living in a very, very dangerous world and a very global world—and some of the things that the AFP and our other agencies have uncovered show that we are in a very dangerous part of the world as well. I want to make sure that Australians are very safe and that our personnel are very safe.

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014. There is a very good reason that this bill is before the House. Most Australians are acutely aware of the threat posed on the national landscape and Australia's involvement in that threat. I take the House's mind back to the al-Qaeda Afghanistan-Pakistan period in the 1990s and 2000s, when Australians were involved in terrorism related activities. I commend the Australian Defence Force and the Australian intelligence services, including ASIO, along with all of our law enforcement authorities and border protection authorities, who worked collaboratively to bring this information to light in conjunction with international intelligence-gathering organisations. ASIO discovered that, in that period of 1990 to 2010, no fewer than 30 Australians travelled to Afghanistan and Pakistan and trained in extremist camps and/or fought with extremist organisations. Twenty five of those personnel returned to Australia.

These people were not soldiers when they left; these were just average, everyday Australians who went overseas in that period and fought. Of the 25 who returned, 19 were engaged in activities of security concern after their return to Australia. Eight of those were later convicted of terrorism related offences, with five still serving prison sentences. With these individuals, their behaviour after their return to Australia emerged over an extended period—in some cases, their crimes were not committed until more than five years after their return.

The scale of the Australians' involvement in the current conflict in Syria and Iraq outstrips any of the previous data that I just raised in the House. We are currently concerned that there are up to 70 Australians fighting with terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq. There are over 100 more in Australia who are providing support to those 70, by financing, providing flights or providing travel. That is a large contingent, far larger than we saw before, when you consider the multiplier effect of the potential damage in what we have seen historically. Of those 100 people, more than 20 have returned to Australia from fighting in that conflict. Further, very few Australians who have travelled to previous conflicts were involved in violence on the scale that we have seen in Syria and Iraq.

The amendments before us in the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill seek to strengthen Australia's resolve when it comes to security measures. The bill offers a greater layer of protection for our families. The bill reflects 16 recommendations, which predominantly relate to control measures. I will not laboriously go through each of those with the House, but I would like to make the point that it is imperative that we understand what two or three of the control measures in the bill seek to do, assure the Australian public that there is not overreach and acknowledge the calibre of the personnel who put forward these recommendations for consideration by this parliament and the energy they put into the process.

These recommendations were crafted with the direct intent of keeping all Australians, including those in my electorate of Wright, safe from the evil acts of terrorism that we have witnessed far too often overseas. The previous speaker in the debate spoke of beheadings. It is unheard of—very rarely has this been seen before—but those beheadings have included some involvement by an Australian child, holding severed heads as some type of war trophy. A child well before they have come of age should not be seen in a war zone. We saw the incident where guards outside the Canadian parliament were gunned down and run down. UK servicemen have been massacred in the street, not to mention the endless suicide bombers.

I thank the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security for these proposed amendments. They are part of the government's comprehensive response to the heightened security threat environment, both internationally and here at home. In particular, the recommendations will work to address the threats posed by the Australians participating and supporting foreign conflicts or undertaking training with extremist groups. They will improve the ability of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to respond adequately to these threats. These recommendations will aid the deployment of the ADF to undertake military operations against ISIL terrorist organisations in Iraq and the recent Operation Appleby, which disrupted an illegal terrorist attack in Sydney.

It saddens me that those 400 dawn raids were criticised by the ABC'S Q&A. It somehow brings into question the integrity of our law-enforcement authorities—that those raids were only being conducted for some kind of political gain and that it was political theatre. Those commentators today—with the information I have—should hang their heads in shame for suggesting that our personnel were engaged in political theatre. It is utterly irresponsible.

Amongst the key recommendations proffered by the parliamentary committee is the requirement of Australian Federal Police personnel to provide a statement of facts when seeking the Attorney-General's consent to request an interim control order. This will ensure there are clear and accountable provisions to ensure against wrongful use of these powers. The government is clear that it wants to neutralise threats as they rise against innocent Australians. It also wants to ensure that these matters are dealt with fairly and in accordance with the law. This recommendation will go a long way to doing that.

Also recommended is the Attorney-General's consent for urgent control orders to be obtained within eight hours. This reflects the view of the committee that eight hours is sufficient even if the Attorney-General is travelling and temporarily unavailable for the purpose of the control order, because we must have transparency and oversight of these procedures.

Another important recommendation is that the relevant court must examine and be satisfied that each obligation, prohibition or restriction is reasonably necessary, reasonably appropriate and adapted to achieving one of the purposes of the control-order regime. For the safety of all, these recommendations will enhance the control-order regime to allow AFP personnel to seek control orders in relation to the broader range of individuals of security concerns and to streamline this application process. If we know someone could be a threat to our community, if we know someone could be a threat to our neighbours, our children or our colleagues, the nation's best security professionals should be able to act as swiftly as possible to neutralise that threat.

The recommendation will also facilitate cooperation and support between the Australian Secret Intelligence Service and the Australian Defence Force. Communication is more important than ever to ensure that security threats are apprehended and neutralised as quickly as possible. We would all agree that these amendments are vital to the safety of all Australians. The measures in the bill have been included as a result of instances of operational needs identified by law-enforcement agencies, subsequent to the introduction of the previous two tranches of legislation, following the recent Operation Appleby that disrupted an alleged terrorist attack in Sydney.

The amendments will also allow the Australian federal police to request a control order in relation to those who enable and those who recruit. This is an important part of the legislation. With those startling numbers still fresh in the memories of everyone of this gallery, it is vital that we crack down on the so-called hate preachers, those who incite young Australians, those who muster those young, innocent minds and convert them to a place that they can never return from. This legislation reaches and captures those people who seek to corrupt the children of our nation.

Although such individuals may not necessarily participate in terrorist acts, their conduct in supporting and facilitating terrorism through the provision of funds and equipment or by recruiting vulnerable young people to champion their cause and even to die for it is instrumental in carrying out terrorism. The expansion of the control-order regime to cover such individuals will disrupt terrorism at an earlier stage and help to keep Australia safe.

Contrary to some inaccurate media reporting, the amendments will not enable ASIS to kill Australians or others. 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 a 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. The ADF is providing military support to Iraq in the fight against terrorist organisations. In using any intelligence provided by ASIS, the ADF is bound by its rules of engagement, which are developed in consultation with the Office of International Law and the Attorney-General's Department to ensure compliance with Australia's international law obligations. Clearly, these recommendations are absolutely vital to our intelligence agencies.

Without intelligence, such as that provided by ASIS, the ADF is not only hindered but also potentially put in danger. The government must ensure the ADF is in the best position to protect its personnel, and this measure helps achieve this objective. For those in the public who have concerns of overreach, 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. It means these departments cannot go out on a whim to obtain these.

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. All of the existing safeguards and oversight mechanisms in the Intelligence Services Act 2001 will continue to apply, including in relation to the amendments to better facilitate Australian Secret Intelligence Service assistance to the ADF.

In conclusion, I suggest that both sides of the House support the current legislation before the House and they support it because we are united as a House on the defence of our realm. Neither side of this House wants to see our children leave this country to get engaged in a fight on the other side of the world knowing that they can potentially never return to a normal life. Our law enforcement agencies must have every strength, both legislatively and through a support mechanism from the Australian public, to be able to go about their business in a professional, courteous and accurate manner so that Australians we can put their heads on their pillows each night and know that they live in a safe country. The current security threat created by ISIL in Iraq cannot be defeated just by legislation. This legislation alone will not defeat our enemy, but united, with strong regulation, strong legislation, a committed Defence Force and a strong coalition partner globally, we will be victorious in our fight against terrorism. I commend the bill to the House.

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014. Certainly this is a very important piece of legislation. The Labor opposition acknowledges that; the coalition recognises that; it is a shame that the member for Melbourne does not. Whilst I appreciate the fact that he made some good points as to our need to safeguard Australia and some accurate points in saying that the acts that we have seen recently in Syria and Iraq have been abhorrent, the fact that he continually goes on the public record and says that our actions in the Middle East are making Australia unsafe and the fact that he talks about it being a conflict in the Middle East that is not ours are troubling. I do hope we do not see what we normally see at the end of these sorts of debates: a try-on, a stunt, a series of amendments holding up the parliament in this important last week of 2014, backed by the member for Denison, who is just suffering from relevance deprivation syndrome. So I do hope that they get on board and that they help the coalition—indeed, help the opposition—to pass this important bill.

The measures in this bill will ensure that our intelligence and law enforcement agencies have the capability to operate effectively in the contemporary security environment; in particular, following the rise of IS—call it 'ISIL' or call it 'ISIS'—in the Middle East. The acronym obviously stands for 'Islamic State'; it is not a state, however. A state has a government which looks after its people—governs for the people on behalf of the people by the people. A state does not tear down. A state does not treat some of its citizens to the dreadful acts of barbarism, the death and torture that we have seen all too frequently in recent times coming out of the Middle East. A state builds things. A state looks after infrastructure like hospitals, and health—those sorts of things that are important and that we acknowledge and know are so crucial to a better future. And we, in this chamber, all want a better future for Australia.

We, in this chamber, all want a better future for the Middle East. I was there in August. I went there with the Liberal South Australian Senator Sean Edwards, as well as the member for McEwen and the member for Batman, the shadow parliamentary secretary. We learned from our wonderful men and women of the Australian Defence Force just how important it was to have not just a presence camped there and in other important strategic places in the Middle East—not least Afghanistan, though, obviously, we are getting our troops out of there—but certainly to have an ongoing presence in the Middle East, because to have a friend you need to be a friend; that is what the head of defence operations there, Craig Orme, continually said. He should know; he has been there on a number of deployments. He is a person who we all admired before he went there, but certainly we respected him even more from having met him and having been there on engagement in that area and having gone to Afghanistan with him on a Hercules; we saw the respect in which he is held by the American generals and the absolute admiration and respect in which he is held by our own people over there—Army, Royal Australian Air Force and Royal Australian Navy. And to see the job that they are doing is truly a great thing.

In relation to the counter-terrorism legislation amendment bill we have before the House, these operational needs have been further identified by our intelligence, defence, border protection and law enforcement agencies following the foreign fighters bill which was passed with support from both sides of the House on 31 October, and amendments to the National Security Legislation Amendment Bill which occurred on 2 October. The bill now before the House will also implement further recommendations made by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security following the parliament passing the foreign fighters bill as referred to previously.

The further amendments proposed through this bill are part of the government's comprehensive response to heightened security threats and hostility, both at home and internationally—in particular, to those posed by Australians participating in and supporting extremist groups and foreign conflicts, as we have seen in the Middle East all too often lately.

This country is proud of its diverse, multicultural heritage, and there is no region as diverse as Griffith in my electorate of Riverina. I actually call it the cradle of multiculturalism. People get on well there.

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hear, hear!

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I hear 'Hear, hear,' from the member opposite. I appreciate that her electorate in the western suburbs of Sydney is very multicultural and I know the work that she does to engage and to enhance that multicultural aspect, as all good members of parliament should. We will stop at nothing to protect the great diversity in cultures, the great multiculturalism and to ensure the safety of Australian people. We will do that at all costs, as we should. The Australian government will not tolerate any conflict or acts of terrorism which threaten this country's future as a free, fair and multicultural society.

The legislative measures provided for within this bill address three key areas which will see amendments made to the Intelligence Services Act 2001 and the Criminal Code 1995. This bill will strengthen the ability of Australia's law enforcement and intelligence agencies to take the necessary and timely actions regarding those Australians who are suspected of being involved in and engaging in terrorism-related activity.

This bill will address current legislative limitations which have been identified in the context of recent operations, both domestically and through the ADF's current engagement and activity against the ISIL terrorist group in Iraq.

Under the Criminal Code Act 1995 this bill will enhance the control order regime to allow the Australian Federal Police—what a fine organisation—to seek control orders in relation to individuals who may pose security concerns, particularly those who are assisting and facilitating terrorists and foreign fighters.

Changes to the Intelligence Services Act 2001 will allow the Australian Secret Intelligence Service to better assist the ADF in support of current and future military operations. Certainly Major General Orme, as he was farewelling one of the contingents who were getting on a Hercules and flying home, told them to recharge, refresh and prepare for the next combat action.

We would all love to live in a peaceful world in which Australians were not required to be constantly at the ready to meet our defence obligations and the expectations of other countries such as the United States of America and the United Kingdom. But we need to be ever vigilant. The price of peace is eternal vigilance. Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, in your former ministerial role, you would absolutely have known the relevance and meaning of that. The government has a fundamental responsibility to ensure the safety of the Australian people and the nation. This is, indeed, our highest core value. Our highest fundamental need is to support the safety of our citizens.

The current conflicts in Syria and Iraq due to terrorism have vastly changed the threat environment for Australia and the region, and we have seen Australians recently being influenced by extreme terrorist ideologies. I cannot understand, as the member for Melbourne quite rightly also cannot understand, why Australians, particularly young Australians, some of whom are teenagers, feel the need to take on board these terrorist ideologies. I appreciate the fact that the member for Melbourne, the only Greens member in the House of Representatives, pointed that out in his speech. I commend him for pointing that out but I do not commend the Greens for their constant chatter which does not support our ADF's efforts to rid the world of this nuisance, this scourge. I feel as though at times it undermines respect for the ADF among the wider public. It is not necessary, and I would encourage him to think beyond the Greens ideology and appreciate the fact that our ADF are playing a very difficult role.

They are, indeed, doing their job because we demand it of them. They are doing their job because we, as members of parliament, send them there to do it. We send them into harm's way. I never fully appreciated that until I became a member of parliament. I always had the absolute highest regard and respect for our military people, because I was born and raised in Wagga Wagga. It is the city of the home of the soldier. There is the Army Recruit Training Centre at the Blamey Barracks at Kapooka. Wagga Wagga is home to the Forest Hill Royal Australian Air Force base, where they do a lot of training—indeed, every Air Force man and woman will always spend part of their career at Wagga Wagga doing important training. And even though Wagga Wagga is a long, long way from the nearest drop of seawater, the Royal Australian Navy has a highly appropriate presence in our city at the Forest Hill RAAF base.

It is deeply concerning, as the member for Melbourne quite rightly pointed out, that we have seen Australians influenced by extreme terrorist ideologies. It is a terrible thing. Because of this it is necessary for the government to respond accordingly to address further radicalisation and potential involvement of Australians committing and supporting terrorist activities. The need to combat the threat posed by foreign fighters, including, unbelievably, some 60 Australians—that is a very high number; one is too a high number but 60 is a terrible, terrible indictment—who have joined ISIL and other terrorist groups to fight in Iraq and Syria, is one of the government's highest national security priorities.

The rise of IS has created a humanitarian crisis for the people of Iraq and Syria, and that is why it is important to respond accordingly—if not for a defence reason or to make the world a better place, then out of the sheer humanitarian need for those people who did not ask for IS to begin tearing down their nation and who obviously did not want many of their loved ones, their relatives, their family members and their friends to be beheaded, crucified, raped and tortured.

The previous foreign fighters bill provided our law enforcement, and security and intelligence agencies, with the ability to disrupt terrorist activities occurring on our own soil, to help prevent the recruitment of individuals to fight overseas and to hamper the ability of terrorist organisations raising revenue, because that is something they need to keep their dreadful acts going.

This bill and associated urgent amendments—and they are urgent—go further, to provide greater enhancement for agencies to respond to posed threats and to address the limitations identified in recent operations. These operations include not only the recent deployment of the Defence Force to Iraq to undertake military operations against the IS but also following the disruption of the alleged terrorist attack in Sydney.

Thousands of misguided people from around the world are joining terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq. We have heard how many are coming from Canada to do just that. I have just said that up to 60, if not more, Australians are involved because they claim Islam is under threat and because they are excited by the prospect of battle. What a terrible shame that is. This is not about a religion; it is about a death cult, as the Prime Minister has pointed out on any number of occasions.

The Australian government is determined to prevent the rise of radicalisation in Australian society. It is important for Australia and for the world that IS is defeated and, with that, I commend the bill to the House.

Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014, which I regard as being particularly important and timely. It is a bill that contains a series of amendments to the Criminal Code and the Intelligence Services Act.

In his second reading speech, the Attorney advised us that these amendments would address three key areas:

… facilitating the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) supporting and cooperating with the Australian

Defence Force (ADF) on military operations;

enhancing the arrangements for the provision of emergency Ministerial authorisations to IS Act agencies to undertake activities in the performance of their statutory functions; and

enhancing the control order regime to allow the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to seek control orders in relation to a broader range of individuals of security concern and to streamline the application process.

This legislation has been the subject of consideration by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. It reported in the report entitled Advisory report on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014. It made 16 unanimous recommendations including, importantly, that this bill be passed.

The government has accepted the 16 recommendations. Thirteen of them will result in minor amendments to the bill and the explanatory memorandum. Two other recommendations will result in small changes to administrative arrangements and the final recommendation was that the bill be passed and the government has supported that. That is why we are discussing the bill at this time. It is, in my view, urgent legislation. It is, in my view, one of a number of measures that are urgent and we await a package of further amendments. But I stress the difficulty in drafting them and that readying them for us ought not to delay the further passage of them. I think the legislation in relation to metadata, which we are yet to see, is absolutely important to conclude the range of measures that are very necessary to deal with the difficult circumstances that we face.

Let me just take the opportunity, if I may, Mr Deputy Speaker, to put these matters in perspective. I well remember 9/11, when planes were flown into those buildings in New York. They were terrorist acts, planned by people who had gone to the United States to deliberately hijack planes and to fly them into those buildings. I remember the tragic events in Bali, in which so many young Australians died. I do not think these are matters that we can ignore. I find it extraordinary that I have to come into this parliament and hear legislation like this questioned in the way in which it has been by the member for Melbourne. Fortunately, he is alone in those criticisms. But he seems to suggest that all we have to do is to sit back, leave all these tragic events that have been occurring abroad, focus on young people here in Australia and deal with counter-radicalisation. I think counter-radicalisation has a role. I note that the government is pursuing that in the work that it is undertaking with a variety of organisations in the Australian community to identify people of potential concern. But I tell you: there is no way that governments in Australia would walk away from the criminal law and the responsibility to identify people who may have committed criminal offences, to investigate them and charge them and, if guilty, convict and sentence them. They would not walk away from it and say, 'All we need to have is a program of countercriminalisation.' That was the most ridiculous argument that I have ever heard, that you should ignore the fundamental problem and simply focus on this idea that you can convince people that this is something terrible and that you should not be involved in it—and that he would have us believe that!

I heard a second argument today, which absolutely appalled me. I have just come back from the Middle East and I have seen something of the tragedy that is occurring there. I have seen the loss of life, I have seen young children left without parents and without any education or any future because of what is happening in Syria today. The member for Melbourne had the audacity to say that because of our involvement we are, in some way, responsible for the tragedy that is occurring in Syria today. Look, it may have just been an extension, that because we were involved in Afghanistan at some other point in time then maybe people in Syria should have felt that for that reason we should be to blame. But really, to argue that we were in some way responsible for the conflict in Syria was absolutely appalling. He seems to have a view that if you put your head down and hope that nothing will happen then it may all go away, or perhaps if we leave it to others they may be able to deal with it. I have never heard such irresponsible comments from any member of parliament when I hear those sorts of observations.

I want to deal with a couple of other points that the honourable member made before I lose all my time. The member made some observations about whether or not there should be a monitor in relation to security issues and drew the inference that because there is nobody in that role at the moment then we should be feeling that this legislation should not proceed. Let me make it very clear: the relevant parliamentary committee has been of a view that there should be a parliamentary monitor. The committee in fact, in its earlier reports, recommended to the government that it should finalise the appointment of an independent national security legislation monitor, and the government has made it clear that it will do so. The committee said it should happen reasonably quickly, and the minister responding to the committee's report has said:

The government firmly supports independent oversight of national security and counter-terrorism legislation. The Government has decided to retain the office of the Independent National Security Monitor and will announce a new Monitor shortly.

So, this suggestion that there will be no monitor and that that should be a serious reason for not proceeding with this legislation has no substance at all.

I must say, as a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence and Security, and having had previous ministerial oversight of it, that it has been I think one of the most thorough-going reviewing committees of this parliament. It is one of great credibility. It is led by my colleague the member for Wannon with great distinction. The member for Holt has previously had that role and is the deputy chair of it. The committee includes senior members from both sides of the parliament, and I think it has had an outstanding role. It has made recommendations, which the government has accepted, that have improved the legislation. And that is always the way in which this committee has worked. I congratulate the government on the way in which it has responded so positively. But I might say that it is not a committee that can always work as openly as other parliamentary committees might. When you are dealing with security issues and intelligence questions there are times at which the committees are taken into a degree of confidence in consideration of matters that have to be dealt with. And the committee has to absolutely handle with discretion how that sort of evidence is received and dealt with, because, quite frankly, you cannot afford to put people's lives at risk or to undermine the credibility of the work that is being done by intelligence agencies to deal with some of the risks we face.

But I want to take the opportunity in this debate to put into context why we are dealing with these issues at this time. And I want to use some observations made by people outside of Australia. I read recently the comments of Theresa May, the Home Secretary of the United Kingdom. She took up her post in 2010 and she said at the time that the threat to the West from al-Qaeda appeared to be waning and that they thought national security was coming under control. But, 4½ years later, the challenge of terrorism has become more acute .It was only a few days ago that she set out the scale of the ISIS challenge in a speech she made. In the United Kingdom the numbers involved are far greater than they are here. I think we have had some 70 young Australians who it is believed may have gone to Syria and Iraq. In the United Kingdom, more than 500 have done so. And she makes the point that they are engaging in a brutality that they may one day inflict at home. She revealed that some 40 different terror plots had been foiled by UK security services. Most strikingly, she declared that the terror threat to the United Kingdom was greater than ever.

I just want to read to the House some of the other observations she made:

But in the case of ISIL the danger is clear. They have already murdered British and American citizens in the most brutal and cowardly manner possible. They have attracted tens of thousands of foreign fighters, including thousands of Europeans, Americans, Australians and British nationals. One of their terrorists has already struck in Europe, when he murdered four innocent civilians outside the Jewish Museum in Brussels earlier this year. And they have made clear that they want to go on attacking Western targets …

If ISIL succeed in firmly consolidating their grip on the land they occupy in Syria and Iraq, we will see the world’s first truly terrorist state established … We will see terrorists given the space to plot attacks against us, train their men and women, and devise new methods to kill indiscriminately … And the lesson of history tells us that when our enemies say they want to attack us, they mean it.

She also said:

The threat we face from ISIL is made even greater by the fact that there are at least 500 British nationals who have gone to Syria and Iraq, many of them to fight. Where they have dual nationality, I have the power to deprive them of their British citizenship and keep them out of our country.

She said that the first thing they had to do was stop young Britons travelling to Syria. She made the further point that they are working with other European countries to disrupt and prevent travel and, when they know that people are planning to travel, to strip them of their passports.

I make these points because it is not an Australian minister saying this. This is what is being said elsewhere by those who are well-informed and have the background and experience to be able to understand it. The risks they face are the risks we face. This legislation is to ensure that our law and intelligence agencies are in a position to act in a timely way to protect Australia's interests when we believe people may be involved in terrorism related activity. Giving our agencies the capacity to deal with these questions ought to be urgent, ought to be progressed as quickly as possible. I strongly support the legislation. I commend the government for bringing it forward and I commend the opposition for supporting it. But let me also say that I condemn the Greens for the way in which they have criticised these measures that are so widely supported and so essential to protecting this nation and its people.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a privilege to follow the member for Berowra, who has previously served as minister responsible for this area. I think it is very salient that the member for Berowra, with all his years of service, has stated that he has never heard a more ridiculous argument pertaining to intelligence and security than that made by the member for Melbourne. I heard the member for Melbourne's contribution. Given the subject matter of the bill before us today, I think it is unwise for the member for Melbourne to prattle on incessantly about freedoms and rights. Government has an exclusive monopoly on the right to use force, specifically to protect us from terrorists and criminals. That exclusive monopoly is something that we voluntarily grant to our police, our intelligence agencies and our defence forces for the specific purpose of keeping our society safe. So it is fundamental misunderstanding by the member for Melbourne to question the whole purpose of having such legislation and the whole purpose of having frameworks around that exclusive monopoly on the right to use force. We have to have a framework. All the government is doing—supported by the opposition in a unanimous and bipartisan way—is framing, recasting and updating the legislation to ensure that our intelligence services can keep pace, in a fast-moving world, with people who do not respect the rule of law, with organisations who have no regard for our rights and liberties. The member for Melbourne might pause and reflect on the fact that these organisations and these people have no regard for the rule of law, or the rights and liberties of other human beings, regardless of their description. If the member for Melbourne really thought about it, he might understand that this legislation is not just necessary; it is a vital to protecting Australia and its people, our rule of law, our human rights and our right to liberty. His argument is completely false, completely negative and completely destructive of the whole framework of our society. It could be that he is signing up to become an anarchist as well as a Green!

The government, with this bill, is making some minor amendments, in a package of amendments, to the Intelligence Services Act and to the Criminal Code. They are amendments I strongly support. They are sensible. They have been the subject of a review by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and have received unanimous endorsement by the committee. The committee has made 16 recommendations, including, importantly, that the whole bill be passed. The reason we have members of the calibre of the member for Wannon and the member for Holt, who are from different political parties and have different points of view on matters of national debate, as Chair and Deputy Chair of a committee of this importance is that we need a constructive working relationship with a view to improving the quality of the legislation—and that is exactly what has happened; the government has adopted all of the 16 unanimous recommendations of the committee.

This legislation has the support of all representatives of the Australian people—149 out of 150—except for the member for Melbourne. Given that the member for Melbourne represents a major metropolitan area which could one day be the subject of an attempted attack, he should seriously revisit his view on this bill. He should read each of the recommendations carefully, think about the purpose of this legislation and come back in here and reconsider his view—which I am sure he will not do.

There are some concerns out there more generally about counter-terrorism legislation, although broadly speaking this bill has the endorsement of almost all of us in Australia. Having recently seen Operation Appleby in Sydney—I come from Sydney myself—we understand from the experience of disrupting that alleged terrorist attack in Sydney that further measures are needed that will allow the Federal Police to request, and the court to issue, a control order in relation to those who enable and those who recruit. Specifically, we would be moving with the experience of these operational requirements identified by the law enforcement agencies themselves as they pursue these people on our behalf.

It is important to ensure that everybody who examines these matters understands that the existing safeguards and oversights will remain in these bills. In my view, and in the view of the bipartisan and unanimous committee, these mechanisms are very strong. The strong oversight mechanisms are also going to apply to the arrangements for emergency ministerial authorisations—calming, I think, many of the fears and unwarranted criticisms that have been received in relation to this legislation. We know that ministers have to be notified within eight hours where an agency head has granted an emergency authorisation. Where a minister has provided an oral emergency authorisation, a written record of this decision must be made within 48 hours. The Inspector-General, of course, will provide close oversight of all the emergency authorisations. It is important that members of this House understand that the parliamentary joint committee will be notified of all emergency authorisations. Given that it is a bipartisan committee and has serious-calibre members of parliament on it, you can be absolutely confident that these safeguards and oversights are completely appropriate and current.

Given the circumstances that have been highlighted by so many members—the development of terrorism; the emergence of the evil movement ISIS, or Daesh; the absolutely disturbing reports that have come from our law enforcement agencies, including the successful prosecution of people for terrorism offences; and more alleged terrorism offences by people in our own community—it is completely appropriate that these amendments come before us today. It is good they have the support of 149 members of the House of Representatives, and hopefully on reflection the member for Melbourne and the Greens can understand that it is the role of parliament and the function of the government to provide security as its absolute core in the protection of our rights and liberties, and these amendment bills enhance and strengthen the government's role in protecting our community.

Karen McNamara (Dobell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014, which contains a suite of amendments to the Criminal Code Act 1995 and the Intelligence Services Act 2001. I am of the belief that the most important role of government is to maintain its nation's sovereignty and protect its people. Measures contained within this bill address the urgent operational needs that have been identified by our intelligence, defence and law enforcement agencies. Recently, I had the opportunity to speak in the House about the importance of Australian citizenship and the necessary role we must play in enhancing and enshrining its significance in the face of a rapidly changing global environment.

This bill forms another part of the government's comprehensive response to security threats both at home and abroad. In particular, it responds to the threat posed by Australians participating in and supporting foreign conflicts or undertaking training with extremist groups. The terrifying new reality of home-grown terrorism strikes at the heart of government's most solemn duty. We as a parliament and as a proud nation must be prepared. During my recent contribution to the Australian Citizenship and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2014, I stated:

We are now facing challenges from those who wish to do us harm and from the terrifying concept of home-grown terror. The enemy within—who was born and raised in this great nation, who benefited from our education system, who may have been part of a local sporting team, who has now turned their back on the freedoms and privileges afforded to citizens of this great nation—is now prepared to promote extremism and bring harm to their fellow countrymen and countrywomen, probably the same men and women who they grew up with and went to school with.

This bill will assist the government to improve the ability of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to respond to threats through necessary and urgent amendments to national security legislation, which will address limitations identified in the course of recent operations.

In the decade following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the Western world, we have seen terrorism undergo rapid evolution. When faced with the threat of terrorism, governments must act swiftly and with purpose. As a government, we are steadfast in our resolution to uphold and defend democracy and the rights and freedoms of the democratic world. Australia faces serious and ongoing terrorist threats as evidenced by the amount of Australians who are currently participating in foreign conflicts and undertaking training with overseas extremist groups. This is why the government are playing its role in the global fight against terrorism, including the deployment of Australian Defence Force personnel to undertake military operations against the ISIS terrorist organisation in Iraq.

We must remember that more than a million Iraqis have been driven from their homes by an extremist death cult, determined to commit genocide to eradicate a particular group of people from the world. The shocking images of beheadings, including innocent Westerners, crucifixions and mass executions will scar our memories for the remainder of time, and our thoughts are with the families of victims of these barbaric acts of atrocity. Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said of this enemy:

I refuse to call this hideous movement an 'Islamic state' because it is not a state; it is a death cult. In good conscience, Australia cannot leave the Iraqi people to face this horror, this pure evil, alone—or ask others to do in the name of human decency what we won't do ourselves.

For many Australians, this threat may seem a world away; however, we must not forget the recent success of Operation Appleby that prevented planned terrorist attacks in Sydney. Australia is certainly a lucky country and our democracy was not born from bloodshed, civil uprising or war. To this end, the concept of people wanting to do harm to our people remains a foreign one; however, those who hate our freedoms and our way of life cannot be reasoned with, and they fail to respect the defence of democracy around the world.

The Bali bombings were an attack against Australians, Australia, democracy and the Free World. Eighty eight innocent Australians needlessly lost their lives in this atrocious act of terrorism. In the aftermath, the then Prime Minister the Hon. John Howard MP said:

What happened was barbaric, brutal mass murder without justification … It is a terrible reminder that terrorism can strike anyone anywhere at any time. Nobody anywhere in the world is immune from terrorism. It is a reminder that, in this time of a borderless world, with a particularly mobile young population, Australia can scarcely imagine that it can be in any way immune from such horrible attacks.

Twelve years on, we must never forget this face of evil and continue to sharpen and strengthen our resolve.

The amendments within this bill address three key areas. They enhance the control order regime to allow the Australian Federal Police to seek control orders in relation to a broader range of individuals who present security concerns and to streamline the application process. This bill facilitates the Australian Secret Intelligence Service supporting and cooperating with the Australian Defence Force on military operations. There is an urgent need to make amendments to the Intelligence Services Act 2001 to ensure that intelligence agencies can undertake relevant activities in support of the Australian Defence Force's operation in Iraq against the Islamic death cult terrorist organisation. And this bill enhances the arrangements for the provision of emergency ministerial authorisations to intelligence agencies to undertake activities in the performance of their statutory function.

Matters of national security should rise above the political divide. As such, the government has accepted or accepted in principle all of the recommendations from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. The committee tabled its advisory report on this bill on 20 November 2014. Furthermore, the committee recommended that parliament pass the bill subject to the implementation of 15 recommendations, which focus on improvements to operational and administrative safeguards to the proposed measures. These include the independent oversight by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. The measures in this bill have been proposed as a result of instances of operational requirements identified by law enforcement agencies subsequent to the introduction of previous legislation. These changes are a result of actual activities, including Operation Appleby, which successfully intercepted and prevented a planned terrorist attack in Sydney. These are necessary reforms that must be supported by this parliament.

Amendments proposed within this bill will allow the Australian Federal Police to request, and an issuing court to make, a control order in relation to those who 'enable' and those who 'recruit'. Such powers are absolutely necessary if we are to defeat home-grown terrorism. This bill, if passed, will enhance the control order regime provisions under the Criminal Code Act 1995, to allow the Australian Federal Police to seek control orders in relation to a broader range of individuals of security concern. Not all sympathisers of the ISIL death cult will leave our shores to physically lift a gun and fire a bullet. Some will have a terrifying role to conduct from the comfort of the Australian suburbs. This includes supporting and facilitating terrorism through the provision of funds and equipment, or by recruiting vulnerable young people to champion their cause—and even to die for it—and, more alarmingly, to conduct acts of barbaric terrorism here on Australia shores. This bill provides our law enforcement agencies with the appropriate powers to identify and prevent such threats. The extension of the control order regime to cover individuals supporting terrorist activities will disrupt terrorism at an earlier stage, and will help to keep Australia safe.

The role of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service is to provide intelligence support to the Australian Defence Force. Currently we have members of the Australian Defence Force deployed overseas in Iraq, fighting against a ruthless, destructive and inhumane terrorist organisation. They are doing so to prevent the spread of people throughout the Western world, and to protect Australia and its people. I would like to take this opportunity to again commend to the House the men and women in our Australian Defence Force for their unwavering commitment and for their service to our nation. On behalf of all Australians, I thank them. Without intelligence such as that provided by the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, the Australian Defence Force is not only hindered but could potentially be placed in danger. The government must ensure the Australian Defence Force is in the best position to protect its personnel. Measures proposed within this bill will help achieve this objective.

I opened my contribution to this debate by stating that the most important role of government is to maintain its nation's sovereignty and to protect its people. In doing so, we must ensure that we operate within an adequate framework, which enforces relevant safeguards and oversights. The existing control order regime is already subject to significant safeguards and oversight mechanisms, including the need to obtain both the Attorney-General's consent and a court order, and this will continue to apply. This bill, including implementation of recommendations of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, will improve operational and administrative safeguards, and will require the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor to review the control order regime with specific references to safeguards. All of the existing safeguards and oversight mechanisms in the Intelligence Services Act 2001 will continue to apply, including in relation to the amendments to better facilitate the Australian Secret Intelligence Service assistance to the Australian Defence Force. Included are the statutory thresholds for the granting of authorisations; ministerial reporting requirements; and the independent oversight of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security.

Furthermore, oversight mechanisms will also apply to the arrangements for emergency ministerial authorisations. These amendments make provision for the contingency that 'relevant ministers be temporarily contactable when there is an urgent, previously unforeseen, need to collect vital intelligence'. As it stands, there is no legal basis on which agencies can undertake activities in these circumstances. As a result, critical intelligence collection opportunities may be missed. The amendments contained in this bill will enable an agency head to grant a limited emergency authorisation. These authorisations are strictly limited to 48 hours maximum and cannot be renewed. It is important to note such measures, as they demonstrate the diligent and necessary approach taken by this government in order to address terrorism threats and to protect our nation. In his second reading speech on this bill, the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014, Senator the Hon. George Brandis summarised by saying that the measures in the bill 'will be of particular utility in circumstances of urgency presented by the activities of Australians who participate in foreign conflicts, including fighting with, or otherwise supporting the violent activities of, terrorist organisations.'

As a government and as a nation, failure is simply not an option. We must continue to demonstrate our resolve and to defend our freedom. This legislation continues this government's determination to defeat the evils that wish to do us harm. We owe it to our Defence Force personnel who are currently abroad, resolutely carrying out their duties to keep us safe; we owe it to the Australians who have lost their lives as a result of the senseless and barbaric acts of terrorist organisations; and we owe it to current and future Australians who deserve to enjoy a safe and prosperous Australia, free from the threat and danger of ideological extremists. Simply put, this is the greatest challenge a government can face. History will remember how we rose to the challenge. This bill will ensure that we are as prepared as possible to defend our freedoms and our great nation.

I commend this bill to the House.

Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014. This bill has been brought forward as a result one of the more unsavoury but absolutely imperative tasks of the government—and that is to protect Australia and Australians from those who would seek to do us harm. Recent images of brutal killings in Syria have shocked us all. Almost as unsettling has been the revelation that Australian citizens are among the foreign fighters being marshalled by forces of evil intent. Hundreds of Westerners are fighting with extremist groups such as ISIL, including dozens of Australians in Syria and Iraq and possibly more than 100 organisers and facilitators on the ground here in Australia. The reality is that, at this very moment, the threat of home-grown terrorism has become even starker. So there is a clear and present need for action to counter radicalisation. This bill is part of the government's comprehensive response. It especially addresses the threat posed by Australians participating in, and supporting, foreign conflicts or undertaking training with extremist groups.

This legislation will enhance the ability of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to respond to these threats through amendments to the national security legislation that will remove limitations that have hampered the course of recent operations. These operations include the deployment of the Australian Defence Force on military operations against the ISIL terrorist organisation in Iraq and Operation Appleby, which recently disrupted an alleged terrorist attack in Sydney. The amendments address three key areas. Firstly, they bolster 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. Secondly, they create the facility for the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, ASIS, to support and cooperate with the Australian Defence Force on military operations. Thirdly, they improve arrangements for the provision of emergency ministerial authorisation to intelligence agencies in order to undertake activities in the performance of their statutory functions.

The government has responded to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security advisory report on this important bill. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the chair of the committee, Dan Tehan, the member for Wannon. He has been an excellent chair of a committee in incredibly difficult times and has provided very substantial and useful recommendations to both the government and the opposition. The PJCIS recommended that the parliament pass the bill subject to the implementation of 15 other recommendations, with focus on improvements to operational and administrative safeguards to the proposed measures, including independent oversight by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. The government accepts, or accepts in principle, all of these recommendations, and I reiterate that the PJCIS's final recommendation is that the bill be passed.

As I have mentioned, behind the measures in this bill are operational needs identified by law enforcement agencies, including factors that arose out of the recent Operation Appleby. The amendments will allow the Australian Federal Police to request, and an issuing court to make, a control order in relation to those who enable and those who recruit. Although these individuals may not directly participate in terrorist acts, their support or facilitation of terrorism by providing funds and equipment or by recruiting vulnerable young people to promote their cause—and even to go so far as to die for it—is tantamount to terrorist conduct. Expanding the control order regime to cover such individuals will help to disrupt terrorism at an earlier juncture and to keep Australians safe. The amendments to the control order regime will also streamline the application process.

I would like to take this opportunity to assure the House that these amendments, despite some commentary to the contrary, will not enable ASIS to kill Australians or others. There is to be absolutely no change to existing legislation restrictions under the Intelligence Services Act, which means that ASIS:

… must not plan for, or undertake, activities that involve:

(a) paramilitary activities; or

(b) violence against the person; or

(c) the use of weapons;—

other than in accordance with the act—

by staff members or agents of ASIS.

ASIS provides intelligence support to the ADF, and the ADF is providing military support to Iraq in the fight against terrorist organisations. In the utilisation of any intelligence from ASIS the ADF is bound by its rules of engagement, which are developed in consultation with the Office of International Law in the Attorney-General's Department to ensure Australia's international law obligations are fully satisfied. Without the support of intelligence from ASIS the ADF is potentially compromised and endangered. The government has a responsibility to ensure that the ADF and its personnel are always operating from the utmost position of strength.

The government takes seriously its obligation towards oversight on matters of national security. The current control order regime is already subject to significant safeguards and oversight mechanisms, including the necessity to obtain both the Attorney-General's consent and a court order. These steps will continue to apply. This bill, which implements 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. All of the existing safeguards and oversight mechanisms in the Intelligence Services Act 2001 will continue to apply, including those regarding amendments to better facilitate ASIS assistance to the ADF. These include the statutory thresholds for the granting of authorisations, ministerial reporting requirements and the independent oversight of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. Strong oversight mechanisms will also apply to the arrangements for emergency ministerial authorisations. In the event that no relevant minister is readily available or contactable to consider or issue an authorisation, ministers must be notified within eight hours where an agency head has granted an emergency authorisation. Where a minister has provided a verbal emergency authorisation, the decision must be established as a written record within 48 hours. The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security will have close oversight of overall emergency authorisations and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security will also be notified of all emergency authorisations.

The government and the opposition stand together against threats to our nation. As I have stated in this place before, our combined defiance sends the most staunch message that Australians will not cave in to fear. We will continue to go about our lives as a decent, fair and values-laden people. The freedoms that we espouse, including freedom of religion, are a threat only to those who wish to advance their intolerance and retribution for not adhering to their prescriptive ways.

These amended laws will help keep Australians safe and preserve our nation as one of peace, hope and opportunity. They will lower the terrorist threat at home and abroad. And, concurrently, we will develop programs to help us understand and deal with home-grown radicalisation. Young Australians at risk will undoubtedly benefit from youth diversion activities, mentoring, employment opportunities, educational pathways and counselling—and we are working hard to bring them that critical support.

The government acknowledges and welcomes the backing by local religious leaders for action against radicalisation and extremism in all its forms. Our antiterrorism measures are not targeted against any particular community or religion; they are aimed squarely at terrorists and potential terrorists. We will continue to consult with communities throughout this delicate but crucial process to ensure that the government continues to keep Australians safe both here and abroad. I commend the bill to the House.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In an ideal world we would not need the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014. In an ideal world no-one wants this bill, but this bill is vital to the safety of all Australians—innocent Australians, and Australians who are a threat to themselves and others.

The foreign minister recently informed the House that there are about 80 nations around the world who count foreign fighters among their citizens. This is an alarming situation. I know some will say: 'Let them go. Let them fight in a war that is not their own—just don't let them come back.' But, if we allow this, if we allow extremists to gain skills and experience in actual warfare, they will make contacts and connections and pass this on to others, and so the cycle of grooming new recruits will continue. Regardless of this, it is a breach of our international obligations. For the safety of Australians and the rest of the world, we have a duty to control would-be foreign fighters leaving our country.

Australia is home to people of diverse cultural backgrounds. People come to Australia to make a better life for themselves. Whether they are fleeing war or seeking warmer weather, whether they believe in God, Allah or Buddha or no-one at all, whether they cover or bare their skin, they all choose to call Australia home. It does not matter why people choose to come here. As the Prime Minister often says, 'Those who were born in this country have won the lottery of life.' We understand why others choose to come here. This is why it is so troubling that Australians choose to fight in a war that goes against everything Australians believe in. Unfortunately, what we need to do now is have strict procedures in place for those who do not respect our country and do not respect their fellow citizens. We need to have these measures in place so those who decide to fight against the country they were either born in or were perhaps welcomed to realise that we will not tolerate it, that this attitude and behaviour is not welcome.

We know that the horror coming from Daesh is not about religion; it is about power. Along with all of the terror and horror that is IS wrongly comes an unconscious suspicion of all Muslims. This is not fair. We as Australians have a history of accepting people from all walks of life, regardless of their beliefs. We stand up to bullies. We will not be intimidated. We cannot be frightened. We need to stand up for the wider Muslim community also. They do not want any part of this death cult and, indeed, in many cases that is why they travelled half way around the world to come to Australia—to escape what was happening in their own country.

IS is pretending to operate under the guise of religion. This could not be further from the truth. We as a country that is home to so many different cultures, as a country that celebrates so many ways of life, need to be strong in the face of this threat. With at least 70 Australians believed to be on the ground and more than100 suspected of funding or facilitating Daesh, now is the time to stop them in their tracks. This bill will mean Australians are safer. It is that simple. These terrorists operate as a group. Being part of a group is what attracts people to IS. Delayed notification on search warrants means there is no chance to alert the group and allow other members to hide or destroy evidence. If people are involved in activities that will harm Australians, it is important that the Australian Federal Police get information as quickly as possible.

Amending the threshold for arrest is equally important as it means these terrorists will be arrested swiftly, giving police more time to find their accomplices and minimising potential harm to innocent citizens. Now I know there is concern that some people may be wrongly arrested, but if you are indeed innocent you have nothing to worry about. These measures are designed to increase capabilities of Australia's law enforcement, and in times like these there is nothing more important. As the Prime Minister said, we have a duty to protect our citizens. Those people who are concerned about rights of terrorists or people who cause trouble in our community need to think about the consequences if we do not make hard decisions. We have already seen examples of how this death cult operates, how they treat journalists, aid workers, soldiers and police. The actions of a 'lone wolf' in the past couple of months show just how insidious this cult can be.

We are already investing heavily in protecting the safety of Australians. Now we need to pass this bill so that our defences against these terrorists are effective. We need to keep our community safe. Seeing the face of a 17-year-old Australian boy inciting terrorist ideologies is a shock for us all. It shows just how far this death cult will go. IS or Daesh call everyone who does not agree with them their enemy. If we stand by and do nothing, they will not just go away and leave us alone. As Edmund Burke said, 'The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.' They are already infiltrating our country and brainwashing our youth. Daesh want to crush our Western morals and values. It is our duty to play a part in stopping IS before it is too late—too late to defend our values, our democracy and our country. At the end of the day, we need to do all we can to make sure there is no chance of attacks against Australians on Australian soil. While some people may call these amendments harsh or too freedom-limiting, I believe it is better than the alternative in hindsight—wishing we had done more, when it is then all too late. I commend this bill to the House.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014. I would like to start by congratulating the member for Ryan for that wonderful speech and I would like to associate myself with every single syllable of that speech. I would also like to make a few comments on some of the contributions by other members to this debate, and I would like to start with the member for Isaacs. I did notice on the speaking list that he was the only member of the opposition listed to speak on this bill. It really makes me wonder if the opposition's heart is really in this. I do note that the member for Melbourne Ports is in the chamber. I congratulate him for also speaking on this particular bill.

The member for Isaacs complained about the coalition's spending cuts in the area of community work. I do not see how any member of the opposition can walk into this chamber with a straight face and talk about the job this coalition government has done on spending cuts. We did not inherit a blank piece of paper. When we came to the Treasury benches we inherited six years of Labor debt and deficit. For six years they simply ran the country at a loss. Every year they spent more money than they have raised in taxes—not because there was a lack of taxation revenue. The problem was their spending, their waste, their mismanagement, the dysfunction—reckless spending on a wasteful scale. We inherited an obligation to pay the interest on that debt. That interest is $13.5 billion every single year. We simply have to find those savings of $13.5 billion, not because we want to, but because we have to. That is an interest bill which this nation has to pay on those six years of Labor debt.

Secondly, we also have a budget that is at least 10 per cent in deficit. The budget we inherited is spending 10 per cent more money than we raise in taxation. When you hear organisations like the ABC complaining and squealing about a 4.6 per cent cut to the funding, when the budget is 10 per cent in deficit, it defies logic. It is a belief in Magic Pudding economics. If the opposition wants to come in here and complain about our cuts, they should at least be honest with the Australian people and admit there is an obligation we have to make cuts to try to balance the budget. If they object to the cuts, they cannot do so without suggesting an alternative cut.

Another thing I would like to raise from the member for Isaacs' speech is that he impugned the motives of some of the members of the coalition on the basis of free speech. There is an argument in favour of free speech that the best way to free up speech—to get away from some of those restrictive covenants in the antidiscrimination acts—and that is the best way to defeat bigotry and racism. Shine a torch on it; let it come out from under the mat; defeat it with arguments and logic; and ridicule those who make these arguments in favour of bigotry and racism. That is the best way. The alternative way to try to suppress the discussion is through government legislation, which simply drives it underground and lets it fester. That has sown the seeds of division in our community. It is a legitimate argument and it is an argument that we will have in the years to come.

The other member who spoke in this to debate was the member from Melbourne in what must truly be one of the most bizarre contributions seen in this chamber in many a day. The member the Melbourne actually put forward the proposition that we are responsible for the conflicts in Iraq and Syria. If we had just let Saddam Hussein carry on in his own merry way and with his own devices and had not taken the steps the Coalition of the Willing did, then somehow Iraq would be this land of milk and honey. It is all the fault of the West. He also insisted that we were somehow responsible for the conflict in Syria. It is probably one of the most bizarre accusations I think I have ever heard in this parliament. He also went on to criticise our current involvement in Iraq. We need to make it very clear: the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people requested our help in Iraq. The reason is that innocent Iraqis, mainly the minority groups, are being subjected to murder, rape and beheadings. The member for Melbourne comes in here and suggests that we should simply turn our backs and ignore the pleas of the Iraqi people, as though it is not our problem. That is not the Australian way and it has never been the Australian way—and I hope it never is. That is because we have known throughout our history that the best way to guarantee the freedoms and liberties that we enjoy in this country and that we enjoy here is to extend those to people who do not enjoy those same freedoms and liberties. That is why we have troops today serving in Iraq.

Back to the substantive sections of legislation. Firstly, we need to realise that the terror threat that we face is real. In my electorate, one of the railway stations that I get to go to and hand out things in the morning is called Holsworthy railway station. It is one of the busiest railway stations in south-west Sydney. I must admit, I find one of the enjoyable jobs, as member of parliament, to go to a railway station, wish people good morning on their way to work and hand them a piece of literature, whether it is about a community event or one of the coalition's policies. That is because several thousand of those commuters head into the city every day, head back at the end of a day's work and head off to their homes in south-west Sydney.

But in 2009, some of the people who travel from Sydney city to get off at Holsworthy railway station actually did so—next door is the Holsworthy Army Barracks—and they were not going back to their homes or their families. They were actually staking out the base to see what the access points were. Their plan was to take automatic weapons onto that base and to kill as many Australian citizens as they possibly could. It would not have necessarily only been soldiers. That base is frequented by many local people; families go there to visit their loved ones and contractors go there. Builders, plumbers, tilers and landscapers are all there. They all would have been subject to this terror attack that was thankfully thwarted by our intelligence agencies.

I think the words of the trial judge were most enlightening. It was Justice Betty King. She said this upon sentencing these people:

The fact that Australia welcomed all of you and nurtured you and your families is something that should cause you all to hang your heads in shame, that this was the way you planned to show your thanks.

This goes sadly to the idea that somehow you can rationalise with these people and that you can somehow talk them out of it. When they become radicalised, there is simply no turning back. It is simply a death sentence for those people and we need to give our anti-terrorism organisations here and our security agencies every single thing that they ask for, because we know this threat is real.

We have seen this threat recently with the attacks on the Canadian parliament and the attacks in the UK. We saw the recent arrests here in south-west Sydney, in parts of the electorate that I represent, where the plan was to kidnap an innocent citizen off the streets at random and behead them. This is what we have to deal with in our society. This is why legislation such as this that we have before us today is so important. When our security agencies and our intelligence agencies come to us and they say they need these extra provisions and they need this extra laws, we as members of parliament—whose first and foremost job is to protect Australian citizens and to protect our country—must listen to them. That is what the coalition government has done and that is why we have this legislation before us today.

To the specifics of the bill, there are three main areas that the amendments address: firstly, enhancing the controlling order regime to allow the Australian Federal Police to seek control orders in relation to a broad range of individuals who are of security concerns and to streamline the application process; secondly, facilitating the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, ASIS, in supporting and cooperating with the Australian Defence Force military operations; and, thirdly, enhancing the arrangements for the provisions of emergency ministerial authorisations to intelligence agencies to undertake activities in the performance of their statutory duties.

This is most important legislation. There are some arguments about what the safeguards are. That is correct; we need to make sure that we are balancing the rights of citizens against their rights for protections. I believe that in this bill we get it right. We keep the existing control regime, which is subject to significant safeguards and oversight mechanisms, including the need to obtain both the Attorney-General's consent and a court order. Those applications will still apply. The bill will improve the operational administrative safeguards and still require the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor to review the control-order regime specific to the reference to safeguards. All the existing safeguards and oversight mechanisms in the Intelligence Services Act 2001 will continue to apply, including in relation to amendments to better facilitate ASIS assistance to the Australian Defence Force.

In conclusion, the measures in this bill will ensure that our intelligence and law enforcement agencies have the necessary capability to operate effectively in the contemporary security environment that we face. We must admit that it is a challenging environment. We wish our security agencies the best and we know they have a difficult job ahead of them in the years to come. We wish them success. I commend this bill to the House.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

From the moment one enters this place, representing 100,000 constituents and their families, a sense of responsibility rests on one's shoulders. It is the gravity that in this place the decisions we make directly affect the security and safety of those who entrusted us to be here. Parliament has a responsibility to do all it can to maintain Australia's record of preventing a successful terrorist attack on mainland Australia and to prevent Australians from, and if necessary punishing Australians for, committing terrorist attacks overseas.

Last month, the Foreign Fighters Bill was referred to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, who subsequently released 15 recommendations on the bill. I must commend many of the people, including the member for Hughes, who just spoke, and the members for Isaacs, Berowra and Holt, who pointed out that the joint committee had suggested the amendment of the bill to require: the AFP to provide the Attorney-General with a summary of the facts when seeking consent to apply to the court for an interim court order, including any facts indicating why such an order should not be made; the retention of the requirement for the AFP to explain to the issuing court the reasons for each condition in a draft control order, as the bill, as introduced, would have effectively reduced judicial oversight by not requiring the AFP to justify the control order as a whole; the shortening of the period for notification of the relevant minister where agencies issue emergency authorisations; and the government urgently to appoint a new Independent National Security Legislation Monitor. These are the sensible recommendations of people on the intelligence committee from all sides of parliament working maturely in the interests of their constituents. They are not those who seek to make political gain against the corporate wellbeing of their fellow Australian citizens.

My colleague Mark Dreyfus, the shadow Attorney-General and member for Isaacs, said earlier today in this chamber:

… the recommendations will improve the accountability and transparency of decision making by national security agencies. The recommendations will also ensure that control order applications are closely and appropriately scrutinised.

Again, these are the mature actions of mainstream political parties—an issue I want to come back to when I refer to the contribution of the member for Melbourne.

It is a sad reality that a handful of Australians born, raised and educated—indeed, shaped—in Australia, as one of our speakers said, have taken it upon themselves to travel to Syria and Iraq to join a group that beheads captured enemies and slaughters men, women and children with any group that does not fit in with its perverse and perverted world view. It enslaves women and children for sexual gratification. It trades these victims with each other. Daesh kills people arrested for smoking or for playing music. They are systematically destroying millennia of Muslim antiquities across the Middle East, including recently blowing up the tomb of Jonah in Mosul—a tomb that has existed for more than 1,000 years. It is truly the march of the barbarians.

Tens of thousands of foreign fighters have gone to Syria to fight and to kill. Deluded, they imagine they are soldiers. They are not. They have none of the professionalism and code of conduct strictly and proudly maintained by the men and women in Australian uniforms. These people think they are fighting war for Islam. They are a disgrace to the names of the great soldiers of Islam, like Saladin and Kemal Ataturk, whose honour and honourable treatment of the enemies was praised even by their opponents. Daesh does not face much resistance when they come up against unarmed Christians, Yazidis and Shi'ites. They are slaughtered. Its shameful conduct and its victims are then boasted about on Facebook. Now, they are coming up against the US and Australian air forces and local fighters like the Kurdish Peshmerga, who are advised by our special forces. Nearly all MPs will wish the men and women of the ADF every success in suppressing these IS fighters, regardless of where they come from, including the cursed figures from this country who hold up the heads of locals they have killed and, even worse, who encourage their poor children to do the same.

The ADF has been the recipient of information from Australian intelligence services for years. This helps it do its job. The law, as currently rendered and which this legislation seeks to change, needlessly forces ASIS to jump through hoops to provide information to the ADF. The signals directorate and the DIO, which fall under the Defence minister's responsibility, do not have to jump through these hoops. But ASIS, which falls under the foreign minister's responsibility, does. All these organisations are on the same side. We in this parliament should be making it easier for them to do their job. As the member for Isaacs pointed out in his address today:

Australia’s counter-terrorism efforts are supported by our open democratic society. There are inherent strengths in our society that make Australia resilient to the divisive worldview of al-Qa’ida—

and Daesh. He also said:

More pages in the statute books will not make ours a more resilient community.

We know from experience that the terrorist narrative may resonate with a small number of Australians. It is incumbent upon all Australians to work together to reject the ideologies that promote violence no matter where they arise or what purpose they aspire to. I praise in particular some courageous members of the Sydney Muslim community who have been at the forefront of this resilience project. Building this sort of resilience in the context of the foreign fighter threat is an even higher priority that when the white paper was written. This is a threat which is clearly increasing, as we have some 250 Australians, according to The Economist magazine, who wanted to participate either from this country or who are already over there. We have seen the damage that these kinds of people can do, as the member for Berowra pointed out, when one of the torturers from Daesh in Lebanon returned to Belgium and murdered four citizens in the capital of that country.

Remember why we are doing this. There were 88 Australians killed in the 2002 Bali bombing; 10 killed in the September 11 attacks; three killed in the 2009 Jakarta bombings; one killed and nine injured in the 2005 London bombings; two murdered by terrorists in the Mumbai terror attack; and one Australian, Malki Roth, killed in Jerusalem in 2001. Let us remember the report of the Council of Australia Governments, released in 2013, that said 35 Australians had been charged for terrorism offences, 26 of whom had been convicted. So we have a real problem overseas and a real problem with Australians who have already been affected by this.

Thank heavens, because of the work of this parliament, our security services and our military, we have not had a successful attack on mainland Australia. It is our responsibility as legislators on both sides of this great parliament to see that that continues, by passing legislation that will enable the ADF, ASIS and other people to work together to prevent that happening. This is not Hollywood. We are not basing our analysis, as the member for Melbourne seems to think, on the series Homeland. The proposed changes do not seek to change the ADF's rules of engagement.

The shadow Attorney-General and opposition have worked diligently to shape this and previous legislation that enhance the ability of our security services to work effectively and efficiently to stop these terrorists before they go there or to gather evidence about their activities while they are there. That way, when people return from the battlefield claiming they were in Syria for humanitarian reasons, they can be punished to the full extent of Australian law, and they ought to be. The necessity for acting on this problem arises from all of the reasons I have just set out. It includes the number of Australians who have already been killed in some of the terrible incidents, the number of people that are going over there to fight and the success of our laws—as the member for Berowra pointed out—in taking so many of those people who would seek to do these kinds of things in this country and under a system of law and arresting, charging and trying them and then having them convicted.

I want to end with this discordant note. It is not surprising to see the Greens political party lead the charge against this proposed legislation. In my view, the Greens seem to have an automatic Pavlovian kind of reaction to undermining the intelligence capabilities of our country. People like the Greens political party's Senator Ludlam have publicly supported self-appointed protectors of privacy and trust—stalwarts of moral standing like Julian Assange. Of course, the Greens' backing of Julian Assange and his ideological stablemate Edward Snowden has not exposed a single piece of evidence of the abuse of privacy or citizens' rights in authoritarian countries like Russia. Mr. Assange, the Greens' hero, used to host a program on the Russian disinformation network RT. To give you a flavour for his content and his policies, his first interview gave an armchair ride to Hezbollah's feared terrorist leader, Sheikh Hussein Nasrallah.

Indeed, it is delicious irony that the Greens' other hero, Edward Snowden, preaches excessive oversight and accountability but chooses to reside in Russia, of all places. He destroyed his credibility when popping up on Russian TV a few months ago to give another soft-serve Dorothy Dixer to the new Russian tsar, Vladimir Putin. Perhaps the Greens believe Russia is actually a bastion of human rights. Certainly, Senator Rhiannon used to believe that. I am honoured with the fact that Senator Ludlum has put a fatwa on the Greens speaking to me because I pointed out Senator Rhiannon's political similarity to the wife of the Romanian dictator, Elena Ceausescu. But the main point I make about her is she has never dissociated herself from her membership and participation in the pro-Soviet Communist political party in Australia. It was a seamless transition to the Greens.

Of course, the serious people in this parliament can smirk about Snowden's choice of patrons and about Assange's presence on RT. But it is hard to believe that here, in this House, we have parliamentarians that oppose legislation and seek to foil the efforts of our Defence forces and cooperation with our security services overseas. It occurs to me that the Greens political party ought to be more concerned about people losing their heads than about the people holding the swords. We had the appeasers in the 1930s. Eighty years later we have the Greens.

I have asked in this parliament a number of times why Mr Snowden and why the Greens support the release of material about how the Five Eyes, the Western intelligence services, intercepted telecommunications in northern Iraq prior to Daesh's conquering of that area. This is completely inimical to the safety of Western civilians. It has nothing to do with privacy. These questions have been raised by reputable publications like The Christian Science Monitor and The Washington Post. I fear that Daesh was able to change the pattern of its telecommunications as a result of the Snowden revelations in order to evade monitoring by security services like Australia's, like the American security services and like the British security services. Therefore, the pattern of murder and mayhem that they have wrought across northern Iraq has, in fact, been facilitated by the Snowden revelations, which were completely unnecessarily made about how we have intercepted telecommunications of terrorist organisations in northern Iraq.

This is a place to have serious debates about serious matters. Matters such as increasing the security services' capability do need scrutiny. They have had scrutiny at the intelligence committee by serious people who have come back to this parliament and made their recommendations. I congratulate the government and the opposition for our practical and judicious approach, including the shadow Attorney-General for his cooperation with the Attorney-General in the framing of these laws and the recommendations of the intelligence committee. These are matters too serious to be left to the mouthpieces of Assange, Snowden and the Greens who, once again, have proven their wish to continue their irresponsible approach to national security. When we use grandiose words like 'national security', what do we mean? We mean the safety of innocent Australian citizens—our constituents who we are duty bound to care for and to seek measures to protect from any incident happening here in Australia, as has happened to them overseas.

These are measured steps to see that the human rights, above all the right to security, of all Australians are enhanced in this additional piece of legislation. I commend it to the House. I commend the government and many of the speakers who have been on this side, as well as the opposition, for considering the safety and security of Australians above all and, in a measured way, taking into consideration matters of civil liberties and privacy which were done by the intelligence committee in a very responsible way.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Counter-terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014, and I would like to thank the member for Melbourne Ports for a fine contribution on what is a quite difficult subject, it must be said. I also thank him for stating his support for the moderate Muslim leaders in Australia who have come out and condemned IS or Daesh and for the opposition's support of these bills. It is to be welcomed.

The bills were introduced by the Attorney-General into the Senate on 24 September and referred to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security for review. The committee unanimously recommended 16 fairly minor amendments, which the government has agreed to. I will come to that in a little while.

It would be fair to say that Australia has been shocked by the rise of Islamic State. Perhaps we thought that, after a number of successes by our security forces, the terrorist threat in Australia had been largely seen off. But it is worth remembering that on 11 September 2001, which is widely known around the world now as 9/11, 11 Australians died and, in total, 2,996 died in the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York. In Bali on 12 October 2002, 202 people died, 88 of them Australians. In Bali in 2005, in the attacks in Jimbaran Beach and Kuta, 20 were killed—four Australians. All of these attacks had many, many more injured. Some people to this day are still trying to deal with those injuries.

Those attacks and others, like the subway bombing in Britain and the railway bombing in Madrid, have led to a complete change in the way the free world does business worldwide. Let me dwell a little while on the subway attacks in Britain as so many Australians spend their time in London. I was so impressed with the way that the British nation stood up to this attack and said, 'We won't be bowed.' The next day, they pretty much got on with business as usual. They upped their security, as they had to do, and as we have all done all the way around the world. In fact, it would be fair to say that these attacks on our western democracies, on the free world, have changed the way that we live and have greatly increased the costs of the way that we live. The security arrangements that we now go through, and that we would not have even dreamed of 15 years ago, are a significant and ongoing cost to us all. But, it does not matter what it costs, we will meet the challenge and we will overcome.

We have been involved since that time in action in Afghanistan, and we have had to give up a lot of freedoms we took as reasonable. At airports we have to deal with scanners, longer queues, slower boarding times and higher costs. The bombings have placed that huge financial burden on us. The considerable ramp up by our security agents who have kept us largely safe for the last 10 years—that is, at least, up until now.

ASIO, the Federal Police and the state bodies apprehended Abdul Nacer Benbrika in 2005 for plotting to blow up a football match. Eleven others were also convicted at that time. Benbrika was jailed for 15 years. In 2009, four were arrested for plans to attack an army base. ASIO, the Federal Police and the state police have all done well, but the world is a changing place and we are forced to change with it.

Australians have been appalled by the rise of the bloodthirsty death cult Islamic State and the atrocities it has committed in Syria and Iraq. That is bad enough, but that conflict now—the recruitment and enactment—has come to our shores here in Australia. There has been the ghastly pictures of Khaled Sharrouf with his children holding up the severed heads of Syrian fighters—or perhaps they were not fighters; perhaps they were Syrian civilians. Mohamed Elomar was recruiting from Syria via the internet and advocating terrorist attacks on Australia. Four brothers from one family, who told their family they were going to Thailand for a holiday have ended up as supporters and fighters, we believe, in Syria. They have left their bewildered parents behind, it would seem. What a shock to that family! It shows that this kind of madness can infiltrate almost anywhere.

There have been at least two Australian suicide bombers who were teenagers, and another teenager used for propaganda purposes. There was an unprovoked attack by a young man on two policemen in Melbourne, resulting in one policeman narrowly avoiding losing his life and the teenager losing his life. This is absolute madness and we must stand prepared to do whatever it takes to protect our Australian public.

It is estimated there are 70 Australians fighting in Syria and Iraq, and probably in excess of 150 people in Australia who would like to either join them or support them. The world has changed and Islamic State and others have named the UK, the US, France, Germany and Australia, in particular, as prime targets. We must change as the world has changed, and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security has recommended 16 amendments. We have seen this legislation before; I will come to the amendments in a moment.

In effect, these bills allow for the creation of new offences of advocating terrorism and of entering or remaining in a declared zone. That has certainly raised some interest in the Australian public. The bill broadens the criteria and streamlines the process for listing terrorist organisations. The legislation extends instances in which control orders may be sought, extending the sun-setting provisions and the prevention detention order and the control-order regimes, and includes a sunset clause for the declared zone offences. It provides certain law enforcement agencies with additional tools needed to investigate, arrest and prosecute those supporting foreign conflicts. It limits the means of travel for foreign fighting and for support for foreign fighters, and it strengthens the protections at Australian borders.

As I said, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security has met and considered this legislation and has come up with 16 different recommendations. I will not go through them all. I had a look, and there are four that stand out to me as making a difference. I congratulate that committee for putting in the elbow grease to get to this point. In particular, recommendation 1, is about the appointment of an independent national security legislation monitor and consideration of additional safeguards. I think this is important because none of us likes to give up any of our freedoms and think that Big Brother may be looking over our shoulder or whatever. We understand that certain things have to be done, but we should have an independent cop on the watch, if you like. This is a good move and probably reassures the Australian public.

Recommendation No. 4 is that the Attorney-General's consent for urgent control orders be obtained within eight hours. That is linked, I think, with recommendation No. 3, the requirement for the Australian Federal Police to provide a statement of facts when seeking the Attorney-General's consent to request an interim control order. These together make sure, once again, that this process does not get out of control. It is very, very important for Australia's long-term future and for our safety that measures such as these do not become anywhere near a political tool but are properly managed for the purpose for which they are designed.

Recommendation No. 6 requires the AFP to explain each of the obligations, prohibitions and restrictions. No. 7 concerns ministerial authorisations and allows for ASIS to more adequately and more easily assist the ADF. Of course, the ADF is at the very pointy end of making a contribution to this issue in Iraq at the moment. It makes sense that our defence forces should be talking most closely with our intelligence services, and that is why these recommendations and the legislation are composed in this way.

On balance, I am absolutely certain that the Australian government is taking the right steps here. We have an absolute obligation to protect our people in Australia and do the best we possibly can to protect them wherever they are in the world. As I said when I opened my remarks, I welcome the support from the opposition and thank them for it.

Peter Hendy (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014. I will restrict my remarks to the reason for the bill in the wider strategic sense of government policy rather than go through the details of the clauses of the bill. I will leave that to the lawyers amongst us and the members of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, such as my friends the member for Bass, the member for Berowra and the member for Wannon. I already raised some issues that I want to address in a short speech in the Federation Chamber last week. As I said then, I want to speak from the wider perspective of someone who has had a career across the public and private sectors, has had a senior job working in the Defence portfolio and has also represented the Australian business community. I also want to simply speak as a person who represents in this place 100,000 New South Wales voters and some 140,000 residents in all, who are alarmed and extremely concerned about recent events here in Australia and overseas in places as diverse as Iraq, Syria, Canada and the United States.

The principal message I wanted to deliver in that previous speech relates to these wider perspectives. We need to boost our counterterrorism effectiveness because of a very specific threat. This issue has been brought home to us because of the actions of Islamic extremists. We now face a continuing threat. As the Prime Minister and senior ministers have informed us, there are at least 70 Australians that we know of currently fighting with terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq and at least 100 Australians who are supporting them. For Great Britain, it is more than 500, and our French ally is immensely concerned that there are over 1,000 French citizens or recent French residents who have joined the Islamic extremists. I will have a bit more to say about that soon.

We are now facing an enemy that calls itself, variously: the Islamic State—IS; the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant—ISIL; and the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham—ISIS. As I have previously noted, many in Arabic countries do not use any of those terms. They instead use the word Daesh, which is an acronym in the Arabic tongue of ISIS but also has a sarcastic negative undertone as it is similar to the Arabic word 'daes', which means 'one who crushes something underfoot'.

As I said in previous speeches, I have lived and worked in the Middle East in the gulf state of Bahrain myself. I was there with my wife, daughter and son. The Bahrainis are warm and hospitable people. I am proud of the fact that Bahrain has joined the coalition to help fight Islamic State. It is a significant development that a number of strongly Islamic countries like Bahrain are joining in the fight.

People should be very careful about how they express themselves so as not to create unnecessary divisions when we need to all work together in facing the current challenges. We need to talk in calm terms. Equally, I think we cannot simply ignore the fact that these extremist events have been done in the name of Islam, even if the mainstream Islamic community opposes what is being done. We need to work with the Islamic community, both here and abroad, to deal with this cancer that is damaging peaceful coexistence. Domestically, the Building Community Resilience grants program is a welcome part of the government's response to terrorism.

As I have previously said, there may be very dark days ahead. Let us hope this conflict with the Islamic terrorists is not protracted. Unfortunately, I think it very well could be. That is a daunting prospect. However, from what we can see now and for the short future over the horizon, we need to stay the course and commit our best effort to this ugly necessity.

Mentioning Bahrain, can I quote from the English language newspaper that I used to read every day when I lived there. It is the Gulf Daily News. It has more information on what Islamic State or ISIL has to say than what I have read in newspapers in this country. The belligerent words of ISIL are breathtaking in their viciousness. For example, the Gulf Daily News dated 17 November, only two weeks ago, reported Islamic State spokesmen making the following statements:

"To Obama, the dog of Rome, today we are slaughtering the soldiers of Bashar and tomorrow we will be slaughtering your soldiers," a masked militant says, predicting Washington would send more troops to the region to fight Islamic State.

"And with Allah's permission … the IS will soon … begin to slaughter your people in your streets."

The article went on to say:

An IS supporter in Syria said: "The message is very clear. This is what the West understands.

"They think they can scare us with their planes and their bombs.

"No, not us. We are out to impose the religion of God and, by his will, we will."

This is what we are dealing with.

As I have said before, what we are facing now, with Islamic extremism, is a new variation of terrorism. It is in some ways new because of who they are fighting and, of course, that 'who' is us—that is to say, the Western world and its civilisation based on human rights: most importantly, freedom of expression, freedom of religion and freedom of association. They are the beautiful children of classical liberalism we should all be proud of.

The new thing compared with past centuries is that the target of terrorism has changed. In the past, it may have been against certain established groups dominating societies, based on previous martial successes. Now it is against basic humanity. I think that there is a difference, and we cannot bow in the face of it. I was reminded recently of a statement by the famous left-wing author Gore Vidal, from 2002, when he stated that we cannot fight 'perpetual war for perpetual peace'. It is a nice-sounding bon mot. However, it is not an acceptable government strategy for the defence and security of the nation.

Instead, the classic phrase by General George Marshall, former US Army Chief of Staff and US Secretary of State, is a much more sensible guide for action. He popularised the phrase, 'The price of peace is eternal vigilance.' That should be our guiding strategy. This is not a case where one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter, as some leftists would have you believe. In this war, we are the fighters for freedom; there can be no doubt about that.

As a Christian I am particularly alarmed at the attacks by Islamic State on Christian targets and other religious minorities in the Iraq and Syrian communities. In fact, you will recall that the event that manifestly brought the issue before the world community was the genocidal attack on the Iraq-Syria border region.

I will quote at length from an email that one of my constituents, Mr Flynn, wrote to me at the time in anguish about what was going on. He wrote:

I am writing to you as my Federal member on an urgent matter.

I write to draw your attention to the unfolding crisis in Iraq, a country where too many of our troops died to defend democracy.

Muslim extremists who make up the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant in Iraq (ISIS) have recently taken over Sinjar, a Kurdish-controlled town with a large population of Yazidi, a Kurdish-speaking group that follows a pre-Islamic religion.

The advancing Muslim militants killed many of the Yazidi who remained in the town, part of a pattern by extremists of stamping out non-Islamic religious observation.

The Yazidi are one of Iraq's oldest minorities and, even as I write, thousands of these people (UN agencies estimate somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000) are stranded on Mount Sinjar as ISIS surround them and cut them off from all food and water.

These people are dying.

Estimates given to the Iraqi parliament are that 500 Yazidi including 40 children have been killed in the past week.

Hundreds more are dying of thirst and starvation.

The brutal fact is that the Yazidi are being slaughtered by the extremist leaders of the ISIS because they don't conform to their Muslim religious beliefs.

A report to the Iraqi parliament says that Yazidi women and girls are being taken as slaves by the ISIS and sold in the slave markets.

This is barbarism—a campaign of genocide against the Yazidi.

To put it bluntly, they are being exterminated off the face of the earth.

As well the ISIS has launched a pogrom against Christians in areas now under its control.

Recently Christians from the town of Qaraqosh fled after it was taken by fighters from the ISIS.

Qaraqosh is a Christian village of 50,000 people and it has been cut off from water and electricity ever since the fighters of the ISIS took Mosul.

The most recent news out of Qaragosh is alarming.

On Wednesday night, overwhelmed Kurdish Peshmerga forces left their posts.

As a result, the town, as well as a string of neighbouring Christian villages, fell to the ISIS.

What is deeply concerning is that under the rule of the ISIS, Christians face a stark choice: convert to Islam or die.

In the last month, every Iraqi Christian has left Mosul, which was once home to a Christian population of 60,000.

Peter, I write today to express my alarm and deep concern about these events and to implore you to please raise your voice, the voice of the good people of the electorate of Eden Monaro, to urge your parliamentary colleagues in the government to take a stand against the pogrom being waged against Christian communities and the slaughter of the Yazidi in that blighted country.

My constituent Mr Flynn went on to write:

Peter I can't accept that the Australian Government should do nothing about these matters.

I don't believe it is morally justifiable for Australia to stand mute on the sidelines while this sickening series of atrocities is being waged against persecuted minorities in Iraq.

After all Iraq is a country where our servicemen died defending the principles of democracy and freedom.

To do nothing now is to say our servicemen died in vain; that their sacrifice is meaningless.

Since Mr Flynn wrote that letter we have acted.

We have joined a coalition of scores of countries to fight this evil. We have sent troops to Iraq, including our very best special forces, and RAAF fighter planes and ancillary crew. The Prime Minister, foreign minister and the entire government have been acting. Unfortunately, we are a long way from resolution. The bill we are discussing today on counter-terrorism matters is part of that response. It is a vital part of that response.

As I said earlier, there are as many as 170 potential Australians fighting for IS and its groups. The French government said that more than 1,000 of their nationals or residents are involved. As the Gulf Daily News reported, on 13 September this year:

The top US intelligence agency has sharply raised its estimate of the number of Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria to between 20,000 and 31,500, from its estimate in June of about 10,000.

A CIA spokesman said the new assessment reflected stronger recruitment by the radical Islamist group since June "following battlefield successes and the declaration of a caliphate".

I will state again: this is a major national security threat.

We cannot take our eye off the ball. If we are to deal with these matters we must have legislation like this. We must put resources into the fight in the Middle East, and we are doing that. However, as a matter of utmost priority, we also need to work with the Islamic community so that these young men and women are not recruited to these causes in the name of Islam. I thank the House and commend this bill.

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On reflecting on my comments on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 before us, I must say I have mixed emotions. In one sense, I applaud the responsible ministers, the Prime Minister, the government and of course everybody in this House who is supporting the bill, because it does something very important. Practically, it helps our counter-terrorism agencies in this country and it also sends a very strong message to those who would do us harm—that we have the resolve to do what we need to do to protect Australian citizens. Mixed with that feeling is also a feeling of sadness—that, in a liberal democracy like Australia, it is incumbent upon the parliament to continually be vigilant to the risks that, quite frankly, are home-grown in this country. So it is with a mix of emotion that I rise today to speak in support of this bill.

Ultimately, in a broader sense, this bill ensures that our counter-terrorism agencies, whether they be ASIS, ASIO or our defence forces, have everything that they need to do their job in protecting the Australian public. We know that those who would do us harm live by no rules, no code, no ethics and no morals whatsoever. It is always very difficult to combat an opponent who acts in the most unpredictable ways. That is why I commend this legislation, because it ensures that our counter-terrorism agencies have the flexibility that they need to evolve with the growing threats as they evolve. That is the practical aspect, in a broad sense, of this bill.

The broader signal it sends to our counter-terrorism agencies, the Australian public and, most importantly, our enemies is that we have the resolve and the spine to do whatever we need to do to stop enemies from hurting Australian citizens. That is a crucially important message to send to the enemies of our liberal democracy in Australia. The people who would do us harm, the home-grown terrorists who unfortunately walk in our midst, only understand one thing and that is strength. You cannot reason with them. They understand strength. That is why I was not surprised but absolutely dismayed with the contribution by the member for Melbourne. In similar terms are the lamentable comments of Senator Whish-Wilson, where he said that we should not call ISIL a terrorist organisation or a death cult but should sit around an open fire, sing Kumbaya and see if we can just work out our differences. That was really what I heard being echoed through the comments by the member for Melbourne. I am very disappointed that only 149 members of this House will support the bill. I think that 149 is a fantastic outcome, but I was dismayed that we have somebody sitting in this parliament who criticised this bill in the way that he did. Ignoring that lamentable contribution by the member for Melbourne, I say again: the message we are sending our counter-terrorism agencies is that we will do whatever we have to do to allow them to protect us. That is a very strong message.

This year has surprised many of us when we thought we probably could not be surprised anymore. I was a relatively young man when September 11 occurred. I suspect that, like many people, that was when my naivety and innocence ended as far as global politics and the fascist movement that shrouds itself in Islam throughout the world are concerned. But we have been surprised. This year—and the member for Eden-Monaro spoke very strongly on this point—we have seen throughout Syria and Iraq the most ancient form of barbarism. Things that we have not seen since probably the Middle Ages have re-emerged in our world and it is shocking. For that reason, I will always support absolutely anything that we need to do to give our counter-terrorism agencies the powers that they need to stop those people.

Moving to the substantive aspects of the bill, the bill seeks to enhance the control order regime to allow the Australian Federal Police to seek control orders in relation to a broader range of individuals and to streamline the application of those orders. The amendments will enable the AFP to request a court to provide a control order for those who have been identified as enabling and recruiting to terrorist organisations. The second dominant aspect of the bill is that it will allow for greater facilitation of cooperation between the Australian Security and Intelligence Service, ASIS, which I referred to earlier, and the Australian Defence Force on military operations. This will allow ASIS to provide greater and more enhanced intelligence support to the ADF. The bill does not seek to change existing limitations on ASIS. That makes complete sense. Given that we have made a contribution to the efforts in the Middle East, certainly as far as training Iraqi soldiers is concerned, we should not have any barriers between our agencies.

Often, other forms of government—less, shall we say, important forms of government—are criticised for being quite siloed in their approach and for not sharing information fully. There is no more important area than our counter-terrorism agencies, and that they share absolutely everything and not try to fight the enemy with one hand tied behind their backs. I think enabling ASIS to share information fully with the ADF is a no-brainer and an absolute step in the right direction.

The bill also enhances the arrangements for the provision of emergency ministerial authorisations to security agencies to undertake necessary intelligence duties. Again, we want to make it possible for our security forces to be right 100 per cent of the time and to be able to conduct the activities necessary to ensure this.

I also want to add that the changes proposed in this bill come from the work undertaken by Dan Tehan and his joint committee. They have done an outstanding job in ensuring that we get the balance right between protecting our citizens and all of the other rights and freedoms that we hold dear. Getting the balance right is always a pertinent question with these forms of legislation. My particular brand of politics is that we should always err on the side of protecting our citizens, because, as the Prime Minister rightly said, the greatest right our citizens have is the right to walk down the street feeling safe. The greatest right—or the most dominant right—that our citizens have is to be able to board a train or a bus and not be at real risk from the danger that somebody who would wish to do them harm is able to do so. Those rights in my view trump some other rights, but it is still very important that where possible we give balance to our objectives of freedom of movement and a right to privacy. But, ultimately, I think they have to be subordinate to the safety of our citizens. As a government, as a parliament, our greatest duty to Australian citizens is ensuring their safety and ensuring their protection.

Given the unprecedented and disgusting things that we are seeing from the Middle East, and the enlivening of Australian citizens, unfortunately, who want to follow that evil ideology, we, as a parliament, have to adapt. This legislation is one in a suite of changes that indicates to the Australian people that we are ever vigilant as a government and we are adapting as the threats emerge. We will ensure that our counter-terrorism agencies have what they need to protect you.

There will always be the raving loonies, like the member for Melbourne, out there on the fringes complaining about counter-terrorism legislation of the kind we are discussing today, but I will always ignore the disgraceful contributions of the member for Melbourne and put the safety of the Australian public and the citizens of my electorate of Deakin ahead of those petty and wildly ideological arguments.

I commend this bill to the House. I commend the Prime Minister, and I also commend Dan Tehan and his committee for doing a great job in ensuring these changes have found their way into this bill.

Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not sure if it is a pleasure or not to rise to speak on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014. I think for many of us in this place it is a real challenge. It is a challenge to understand why we are in a situation where we need to be contemplating changes and measures that allow our security, police and defence forces to be able to take such actions. But, nevertheless, this is a real threat and this is the time and the place that we live in. One must believe that there are better times ahead, because if we do not, you really wonder what it is all about.

This is the third bill to be introduced since the middle of 2014 in a series of reforms to national security and counter-terrorism laws. The scope of this bill is a little narrower than the previous two, but the measures are significant. Amendments come in two specific circumstances: experience with the control order regime in recent domestic counter-terrorism operations; and as a result of the deployment of the Defence Force to Iraq to undertake operations against ISIL—the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

I come from a peaceful state, but I feel compelled to make a contribution to this bill, because I have had many constituents raising their concerns with me. In the main, they have maybe not always been instinctively supportive of the party of which I am a member, but have nevertheless been willing to strongly commend the government on the work they are doing in this space. So I feel it behoves me to make a contribution today. I would also like to associate myself with a number of the contributions that have been made by other members: the member for Ryan, in particular, and the member for Hughes. The member for Eden Monaro brought a different context to this, as did the member for Deakin. And the member for Melbourne Ports, as well—acknowledging the interest that he has in the whole area around human rights and so forth.

In preparing for this contribution, I thought it would be best if I first tried to summarise in my own words, in very much a layperson's terms, the measures that we are trying to address through this legislation. I may go into it in a bit more detail later in my contribution, but those people who read this at a later date should be able to get, in a short time, an understanding and a summary of this as it stands.

This bill gives the Australian Federal Police and other agencies a greater capacity to adapt, based on advice that is received from time to time—in essence, as I saw it, to be agile; to be able to respond in a way that is consistent with the enemy that we are dealing with. It is about cooperation between agencies—in particular, ASIS, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, and the Australian Defence Force. Indeed, as I mentioned in the preamble, this is about, ultimately, protecting our troops through cooperation between the security and intelligence forces and our defence forces. Thirdly, the bill authorises arrangements for the minister to act in cases of emergency, which arrangements apply to, as I mentioned, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, the Signals Directorate, and the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation.

Domestically, this bill is about protecting our national borders. It is about supporting our security agencies to better do their job. These agencies very rarely, if ever, ask for additional support. They have far-reaching powers—make no mistake—but they do not ask for provisions unless those provisions are needed. And this is one such moment in history.

This bill is about identifying early indicators to domestic threats, to improve the capacity to identify networks of those who would do us harm, and, indeed, those lone wolf attacks that understandably are more difficult to identify and so are more difficult to protect against in advance of an action occurring. For the man or woman in the street, it is those sorts of acts that are probably as chilling as any we have seen. They really probably substantiate much of this initiative and much of the justification for these additional powers. The bill allows the capacity to detain, and to constrain the movement of, individuals identified as a threat. It makes sense. It is important because it is a challenge—it is a challenge for me; it is a challenge, I think, for most Australians—to raise public awareness, and also to understand that nobody is immune from such threats, notwithstanding the fact that I hope I come from one of the most peaceful places in the world.

Finally, the bill is about collaboration with other countries, our allies, that are all grappling with the same issues. As other speakers have mentioned and as we have heard, there are over 15,000 foreign nationals now ensconced in Iraq and Syria fighting with Daesh, or the Islamic State, as they prefer to be known—residents of Canada, residents of France, citizens of the United Kingdom and citizens of the United States, as well as of Australia. As I mentioned, I felt compelled to make a contribution—and it will be a brief contribution—because, as I say, many Australians have been shocked by the plans, and plans that have been in many cases quite sophisticated, to attack people in this country who they are living side by side with.

May I also just acknowledge this. I did not get to see Q&A on the Monday night when the Attorney-General was single-handedly tasked with appearing on the program, but I managed to see the Attorney-General's contribution a few days later, and I was moved enough to call the Attorney-General just to acknowledge the way that I thought he handled such terribly sensitive and difficult questions. He was respectful at all times to the audience, but there were questions posed by the audience that, if I had been in his shoes, I would have found difficult. I just want to put on the record the very competent, compassionate and considered way in which the Attorney-General conducted himself in that forum.

I am not going to go through the detail of the bill anymore; I have used up a bit more time than I thought. But I will just say, following on from the member for Deakin, that there are things that, as a federal government, are fundamental for us to contemplate. First of all, it is to keep Australians safe. That is the very first thing that we must contemplate every day that we are in this place. It is the fundamental role that we have.

These measures—and I think the Prime Minister has been very much at pains to point this out—are not an attack on any particular religion. These measures are designed to defend Australians, and our Defence forces operating overseas and domestically, against truly evil people that hide behind a cloak of religion in the form of Islam. We should always remember that. Finally, it is so important that the best way that we can respond as Australians is to absolutely go about our business as normal.

I also commend the work of the member for Wannon, Dan Tehan, and his committee. I also should acknowledge my colleague from Tasmania, the member for Bass, and the experience that he brings to this place in respect of his service within the Defence Force and his knowledge of counter-terrorism and intelligence. I thank him for walking me through and discussing with me some of the aspects of the bill that are before the House today. Thank you very much for the opportunity to contribute.

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to commend the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 to the House, because it is an important part of how the coalition government is helping to keep Australia safe. The Attorney-General, the Hon. George Brandis QC, has been a tireless advocate in this important policy area, and I thank the Attorney sincerely, and also the Prime Minister, for their leadership in this very important area.

One of the central commitments that this coalition government made to the people of Australia in the lead-up to the last election was to deliver a strong, prosperous economy and a safe and secure Australia. This is the commitment that we took to the people of Australia at the last election, and it is certainly what I promised the people of Robertson in my electorate on the Central Coast. I know that they also identified national security and the need to feel safe in their homes and in their community as some of their primary key concerns that they shared with me.

We are determined to keep those commitments that we made. This bill is part of our delivery of those commitments, and I note that even the opposition recognises how crucial this bill is for our country. Sadly, the member for Melbourne in his contribution clearly does not understand this so much, and I join with the member for Berowra and others on this side of the House in rejecting some of his remarks. In saying this, I also wish that the member for Melbourne, the Greens and indeed the Labor opposition would actually recognise how important our national security priorities are. This government is carrying out its responsibility to keep Australia safe but also to make our nation a place with a strong, prosperous economy that enables us to deliver the sort of hope, reward and opportunity that Australians voted for.

These objectives are all part of the coalition's economic action strategy, and we are working to deliver all of our commitments because we know that only a stronger economy will generate more jobs, lift living standards and give our country a better future.

It is worth going briefly through some of the steps that we have taken in this strategy in 2014, because this year has genuinely been one of achievement. To start with, Labor's jobs-destroying carbon tax is gone, saving the average household around $550 a year—particularly the average household on the Central Coast. We have delivered the biggest cut in electricity prices on record. For a family saving for Christmas on the Central Coast, this is good news.

The mining tax is gone, so this vital sector can help create more jobs. We also took on the responsibility of fixing Labor's budget mess and we are getting spending under control. We have passed our Direct Action Plan which will make a practical difference to the environment without slugging families with a carbon tax. Our $12 billion infrastructure program is already underway to save people time and money, including on major projects like NorthConnex, which will benefit people in my electorate on the Central Coast. The M1-M2 missing link will save around 15 minutes each way for the 40,000 commuters who leave early in the morning and return home late at night to their families, because their job opportunities are in Sydney. The missing link will generate around 8,700 full-time equivalent jobs every year during construction, scheduled to start next year.

We are cutting red tape, with $2 billion in red tape savings already identified. We are turbocharging trade with our neighbours by delivering free trade agreements with Japan, Korea and China, which means more exports, more jobs and lower prices for families. And we are working with businesses to ensure we are taking advantage of these opportunities. In fact, just last week—

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the member for Robertson going to start to get towards somewhere near the bill?

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will do so. Crucially, we are keeping Australia safe. More than 50,000 illegal boat people arrived on Labor's watch, creating an $11.6 billion blow-out in border protection costs. Now we have all but stopped the boats, which many claimed was impossible and, as we see in this bill now before the House, we have responded to the threat of extremism with new counter-terrorism measures.

This government will do everything possible to keep people safe; our security measures at home and abroad are directed against terrorism, not religion; and Australians should always live normally, because terrorists' goal is to scare people. These are three important principles that this government has enunciated.

This government is putting these messages into action in a number of ways. This includes providing an additional $630 million to give our police, intelligence and security services the resources they need. There are now stronger measures at international airports and many public buildings to deter extremists, and we are also urgently updating counter-terrorism legislation. The foreign fighters bill, which was assented to by this parliament on 3 November, fills the most pressing gaps and will tailor many of our existing powers and defences to address the new threat of home-grown terrorism.

The terrorists' methods have changed, so our legislation needs to change too. We are facing a new kind of terrorist, different to the 9/11 generation. Of course we will never forget those attacks. It is also 12 years since we were rocked by the tragedy of the Bali bombings, which were a shocking attack on Australians. As a nation we are aware of the long-term damage that this can have.

But we also face a new threat from a new generation of evil. We are battling the threat of home-grown, lone wolf attackers. These terrorists, often teenagers inspired and directed by ISIL and other groups reaching out from afar, are becoming self-radicalised on-line. They are not planning—and often do not have the ability or knowledge—the sorts of attacks that we witnessed in horror on the World Trade Center. We are now faced with the threat of simple, low-technology attacks which require little preparation, training or capability.

So by understanding that terrorists are changing the way they act, it is up to Australia to adapt by updating our counter-terrorism legislation. In short, we must have strong laws to deal with this threat, which the Prime Minister has aptly described as a 'death cult.' And that is what we are doing in this bill. We need to act.

We are seeking to address urgent needs that have been identified by our intelligence, defence and law enforcement agencies. This includes the deployment of the Australian Defence Force to undertake military operations against the ISIL death cult in Iraq. And it includes the recent Operation Appleby, which disrupted an alleged terrorist attack in Sydney.

We have also been working to improve this legislation. These measures are not targeted at any religion or any community. In fact, as the member for Ryan said earlier in this place, 'In an ideal world we would not even need this bill.' But as this government and most Australians know we must be prepared and responsible in these serious matters.

So I take this opportunity to commend the work of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. The committee made 16 unanimous recommendations including, most importantly, that the bill be passed. And I am pleased to confirm, again, to the House that following consultation with all relevant agencies, the government has decided to accept in principle all of the recommendations in the report. Importantly, the final recommendation of the PJCIS is that the bill be passed.

I would like to touch on some of these recommendations today that underline just how important it is that we respond to our rapidly changing global environment. One of the recommendations we are endorsing is the requirement for the Australian Federal Police to provide a statement of facts when seeking an interim control order from the Attorney-General. That is recommendation 3 from the committee, from schedule 1 of the Criminal Code Act 1995 amendments. The bill currently requires the Australian Federal Police to provide the Attorney-General with a draft of the interim control order to be requested, information about the person's age and a summary of the grounds on which the order should be made.

The bill will be amended so that the Australian Federal Police must now also provide a statement of facts about why the order should or should not be made. At this point, I would also like to commend the Australian Federal Police. The arrest of six men in Sydney on the weekend for drug importation was the second largest drug seizure in Australia's history.

The Joint Organised Crime Group, including the Australian Federal Police, the New South Wales Police, the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, the State Crime Commission and the Australian Crime Commission stopped almost 2.8 tonnes of MDMA and methamphetamine, with a street value in excess of $1.5 billion. It has put a major dent in the operations of organised crime in Australia and, importantly, has made sure these drugs do not reach our streets.

Thousands of lives have potentially been saved, including those of people in my electorate, as a result of this excellent work. Only last week, the Salvation Army highlighted the increased use of the drug ice on the Central Coast. And I am pleased to have this opportunity, just for a moment, to thank our law enforcement agencies for their work in getting these drugs out of the hands of dealers and traffickers. When we hear about these seizures, it brings threats close to home.

Importantly, this bill that we are speaking on today enhances and improves the ability of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to respond to threats through necessary and urgent amendments to national security legislation. This bill underlines how we are serious about enhancing the control of the Australian Federal Police and streamlining the application process. Under this bill we are facilitating the Australian Secret Intelligence Service when it is supporting and cooperating with the Australian Defence Force on military operations. And we are enhancing the arrangements for the provision of emergency ministerial authorisations to intelligence agencies to undertake activities.

I would like to touch on another recommendation that will help keep Australia safe, by lowering the terror threat at home and abroad. Recommendation 2 of schedule 1 describes how the terms 'supports' and 'facilitates' should be based on language in the existing Criminal Code. The Criminal Code uses these terms but does not define them. That is, the terms have their ordinary meaning and are appropriately left for the courts to determine. That is exactly how the terms are treated in the bill.

Recommendation 6 will also assist in this package of amendments to help keep Australia safe. As part of this bill, it will allow the Australian Federal Police to request and issue a court to make a control order in relation to those who 'enable' and those who 'recruit'. Although these individuals may not directly participate in terrorist acts, by providing funds and equipment or by recruiting vulnerable young people to champion their cause and, sadly, even to die for it, is instrumental to carrying out acts of terror.

Contrary to some inaccurate reporting, these amendments will not enable ASIS to kill Australians or others. Their role is to provide intelligence support to the ADF. In short, the government must ensure the Australian Federal Police is in the best position to protect its personnel and this measure helps achieve this objective.

I am pleased to be advised that all of the existing safeguards and oversight mechanisms in the Intelligence Services Act 2001 will continue to apply and I understand that strong oversight mechanisms will also apply to the arrangements for emergency ministerial authorisations.

I thank the committee for its exhaustive time in going through each recommendation in such detail. Finally, I would also like to highlight recommendation 1, which is the appointment of the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor. The government will also task the newly appointed monitor to consider whether the additional safeguards recommended in the 2013 Council of Australian Governments review of Counter-Terrorism Legislation should be introduced. The government firmly supports independent oversight of national security and counter-terrorism legislation and accepts the urgency to appoint this monitor.

In conclusion, this is a bill that is part of our commitment to build a safe and secure Australia. It is our obligation and duty to keep Australia as safe as humanly possible and, in times like these, when we need to make tough, important decisions for our future, it is an honour to commend this bill to the House.

Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take no pleasure in the necessity of the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014, but I do have immense pride in the ability of this government to act swiftly and comprehensively. Indeed, the mark of maturity is accepting that one is not always right, and by virtue of this debate the Abbott administration is demonstrating measure and maturity. The Australian people expect no more and accept no less, for the legitimacy of this government or any government flows from parties acknowledging and upholding the modern democratic social contract.

Our coalition government put a simple proposition to the people at the last election: elect the coalition government to office and get safety and security as watchwords of everything we do. This has been the case in every hour of every day since 7 September 2013. Our mandate—an overwhelming win at the polls—was built upon the specific platform of action called Our Plan. Our Plan enshrines and emphasises safety and security in its every promise. The budget repair measures introduced in May are the first part of building that strong, prosperous economy. As an aside, I am pleased to inform the house that WA small businesses are the most optimistic in the country, according to Westpac's Small Business Index with the Melbourne Institute. In WA 95 per cent of firms are small businesses, with 209,000 companies.

A strong, prosperous economy is a fundamental that underpins everything we do with respect to safety and security. Safety and security means stopping the boats. Safety and security means securing the future of Medicare. Safety and security means securing our economic success and standard of living by cutting red tape and building the roads for the 21st century. However, above all the aforementioned is rule No. 1: the prima facie deal maker and breaker of the modern state is to protect all the citizens of the state. When Hobbes wrote of a most basic social contract in Leviathan, his only ask of the ruler was to protect the lives of the ruled—not to improve them but just to keep them alive. Thankfully, our modern concepts of a state's obligations have evolved far beyond just protecting lives that were 'nasty, brutish and short'. From that time in 16th century England and right up through the centuries, every significant thinker has understood that the overriding obligation of government is to protect the citizenry. A government has no right to rule if it cannot do that most basic task.

And so it is with this bill. The swift action of the Abbott government demonstrates to all that national security is the important issue. National security rates above any partisan divide. For, in truth, an attack on one Australian is an attack on all Australians. In this nation of many threads, our rich and colourful patchwork is maintained and sustained by a sense of mutual obligation and mateship. I welcome the constructive comments and amendments to the counter-terrorism bill. In the first instance, I knew instinctively of the importance of sunset clauses in the legislation. At all times, when we legislate we must be cognisant of the legislation's immediate effect on civil liberties. But also we must consider what would happen in the worst-case scenario: what would happen if the new law were to be misused or manipulated? These considerations must be fair and reasonable, not hyperbolic or hysterical.

I would like to acknowledge the industry of the Attorney- General and also the reasonableness and vision of the man. By this I refer to the amendments put up in the other place by the Australian Greens and specifically Senator Penny Wright. Changing the time for detention powers from 12 hours to eight hours may not seem like a big deal, and it is not. The big deal is getting this bill passed and giving our law enforcement and security agencies the powers they have asked for. That is the crux of this debate. The thing pivots on giving the people who protect us the power they need to do just that. The amendments tabled by the Greens and subsequently incorporated into this bill specify Australia's obligations under the convention against torture.

I would remind my colleagues that we are at war with a murderous death cult. War of the kind being waged by non-state actors, such as has been seen in recent times, is not subject to international agreements, rules or protocols. I am not advocating a fire-with-fire or an eye-for-an-eye approach. That is neither moral nor sensible in the short or long term. I am simply invoking a consideration of the changing nature of the threat our nation faces. It is war, but not as we know it. It is asymmetric, it is brutal, and it is everywhere. So, as I welcome and applaud the Team Australia approach adopted by the Labor Party, I would also counsel that others heed what former US President Thomas Jefferson said:

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

When the current media interest dies away, we as legislators must still be vigilant. As I stated earlier, I see the incorporation of the final recommendation of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security as a sign of good and responsive government. This bill is critically important to protecting and supporting the operations of the ADF in current operations against IS in Iraq. This bill enables the intelligence services to collect information on Australians they suspect may be aiding and abetting the enemy. In practical terms, that is persons who are suspected of training with or attempting to travel to areas of conflict to assist IS militants.

This bill is exceptionally useful and urgent—the proposed enactment of a statutory basis for ASIS to provide assistance to the ADF in support of overseas military operations. Support of this nature has previously been provided only in an ad hoc way, without clear parliamentary authority. The amendments make provision for the contingency that the relevant ministers may be temporarily uncontactable when there is an urgent, previously unforeseen need to collect vital intelligence. Opportunities are being missed because agency heads do not have the power to exercise emergency ministerial authorisations, thus limiting control and search capability. The amendments will address this by enabling an agency head to grant a limited emergency authorisation subject to rigorous and extensive safeguards and oversight mechanisms. These authorisations are strictly limited to a maximum of 48 hours maximum and cannot be renewed. This is simply a recognition of the changing nature of the threat, but it is also reflective of our modern world. Things move quickly. A golden opportunity does not come twice. The safeguard is that the IGIS must also be notified as soon as practicable within three days. The amendments to the Criminal Code will further strengthen the control order regime and enhance the capacity of law enforcement agencies to protect the public from terrorist acts. The amendments will allow the AFP to request, and an issuing court to make, a control order in relation to those who enable and those who recruit. The expansion of the control order regime to cover such individuals will help disrupt terrorism at an earlier stage, keeping Australia and Australians safe and secure.

I am disappointed that Senator Leyonhjelm, in the other place, would use this bill to engage in political point-scoring along with Labor and the Greens. It is sad when someone with eminently sensible principles and beliefs can be led along the garden path by economic vandals and hollow, myopic careerists. The good senator engaged in histrionics when he claimed that there is an abrogation of ministerial responsibility in extending emergency ministerial authorisations to heads of intelligence agencies. In truth, the only abrogation of duty would be if the minister did not put in place such a provision. The minister is bound by oath to plan for every situation, and always for a worst-case scenario. The argument coming out of the other place, of the minister looking to pass the buck to the heads of agencies, is superficially a little bit attractive. It is perhaps a bit like a drag queen, or a pig with lipstick—or anything out of Labor. But distance is the thing; when one comes a little bit closer, the truth comes out. Any number or series of serious and unfortunate events could befall the Attorney-General when he is acting in his other role as the Minister for the Arts—think of poor old Lincoln! If the intelligence agencies had a major tip-off, what would the good senator want done then? Wait until the morning? Wait until the next phone call? Keep waiting? I know what I would prefer for myself and my children. I would want to know that, when I go to bed at night, there is always going to be someone watching and ready to act. That is the safety and security the coalition was elected to provide—and I am proud to be a part of that coalition. When Senator Leyonhjelm rises to speak against the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 in the other place and says he is 'sick of it', is he sick of safety and security? Is he sick of peace, prosperity and progress? I know what the Australian people are sick of—do-nothing windbags and their histrionics, hyperventilating about this or that, all the while preventing our security professionals from getting the tools they need. Confected indignation is not a plan.

What we are debating is a tripartite bill that has been requested by our intelligence services to enable them to do the job we have tasked them with. The three parts of the bill are control orders; emergency ministerial authorisations; and sharing and co-operation between ASIS and the ADF on military operations such as against IS in Iraq. Let there be no doubt about it, IS is bringing a new age of darkness. So crawl into the cave or stand up and get out as the blanket of death falls. The coalition will stand up.

It is always concerning and bewildering that so many on the Left are fundamentally suspicious of the motives of the intelligence and security services. Senator Wright, in the other place, invoked the PJCIS to give seeming credibility to outlandish accusations and hyperbole that somehow these technical amendments to facilitate greater active cooperation between ASIS and the ADF on a mission 'may lead to ASIS being involved in the targeted killings of Australian citizens'. This is a sick, dark fantasy that plays into the hands of the terrorist killers. Every decent, upstanding Australian knows this to be a fantasy beneath contempt.

This bill builds a solid foundation for increased hope, reward and opportunity. In the final analysis, our country would be wise to head the words of former US President Ronald Reagan:

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same.

In short, freedom is not free; someone, somewhere, always pays a price.

Fiona Scott (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening in support of the government's Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014. This legislation is about the protection of our nation. The Prime Minister is correct in saying that protecting our people is the first duty of government—and it is for this that I rise in support of the legislation. The people of Australia have been rightly alarmed by the activities of terrorist organisations such as the Islamic State. The visions on our TVs, newspapers, and online have been nothing short of abhorrent and evil—from mass killings to horrific beheadings and crucifixions at the hands of these extremists of hate. Nothing can justify the beheadings, crucifixions, mass executions, ethnic cleansing, rape, sexual slavery and the genocide that have taken place.

It is a responsibility of the government to equip our security agencies to protect our people from those who wish to harm us. As an international community we must work together to stamp out the evil threat of terrorism. We must further stand united to not only see that our own homeland is safe but also see that our youth are no longer corrupted by these toxic and poisonous terrorist organisations.

Therefore, on 24 September, the United Nations Security Council sought, through resolution 2178, to condemn violent extremism and decided that member states shall prevent the recruiting, organising, transporting or equipping of individuals who travel to a state other than their states of residence or nationality for the purpose of the perpetration, planning of or participation in terrorist acts. Further, the Security Council expressed concern over the establishment of international terrorist networks. The council underscored the particular and urgent need to prevent the travel and support of foreign terrorist fighters.

Australia does face a serious and ongoing terrorist threat from Australians who have participated, fought or trained in foreign conflicts. These amendments will further strengthen and enhance the operation of the control order regime in the Criminal Code Act 1995 and will aid the response of our law enforcement agencies in operational issues following these counterterrorism raids that we saw earlier in the year.

On 1 October, I rose in this place to record the sentiment of many residents from Lindsay. Today I will repeat their voices. James Collins from South Penrith said, 'I applaud the government for securing Australia borders and introducing legislation giving the police, national security and ASIO additional powers to cope with the current terrorist situation in Australia.' Tania Cook from Orchard Hills said: 'Why allow anyone who is going overseas to fight with IS back in Australia? Why not let them stay there and live in a place that has no safety or peace?' Barry Sufflingfrom Penrith said, 'People proposing to emigrate to Australia must swear to never bring their home countries' tribal conflicts or wars to this country.' Wendy Johnson of Emu Plains said, '… keeping Australia secure and safe for us, our children and future generations.' Mr and Mrs Richard Last of Oxley Park said simply, 'Stop the terrorists.'

I rise tonight in support of my local community that has asked for increased protections to keep them and their families safe. This is not about an ethnicity or a religious group; this is about the actions of a small minority: a death cult. The foundations of our local community, particularly in Western Sydney, are built on multiculturalism, inclusion, peace and an overwhelming fusion of many cultures.

This legislation contains a package of amendments to the Criminal Code Act 1995 and the Intelligence Services Act 2001. This bill is part of the government's comprehensive response to the heightened security threat both internationally and at home, and in particular to that posed by Australians participating in and supporting foreign conflicts or undertaking training with extremist groups. It will enhance the ability of Australia's law enforcement and intelligence agencies to take timely action in relation to Australian persons who are, or are suspected of being, involved in terrorism related activities. This includes a person who is enabling or supporting terrorist activities or who is suspected of fighting with terrorist organisations or in foreign conflicts.

This bill addresses pressing legislative limitations identified in the context of present or recent operational activities such as domestic and counter-terrorism investigations and Australian Defence Force activity against the ISIL terrorist organisation in Iraq. The bill will enhance the control order regime in the Criminal Code Act 1995 to allow the Australian Federal Police to seek control orders in relation to a broader range of individuals of security concern—namely, those who support or facilitate terrorists and foreign fighters.

Amendments to the Intelligence Services Act 2001 will enhance the ability of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service to assist the Australian Defence Force in support of military operations. Following consultation with relevant agencies, the government has decided to accept or accept in principle all of the recommendations in the report. Thirteen of the recommendations will result in minor amendments to the bill and explanatory memorandum.

These amendments also address practical limitations identified in the arrangements for emergency ministerial authorisations, which apply to all three ISA agencies: ASIS, the Australian Signals Directorate and the Australian Geospatial Intelligence Organisation.

ASIS provided essential support for the Australian Defence Force in Afghanistan. The support ranged from force protection reporting at the tactical level through to strategic level reporting on the Taliban leadership. ASIS reporting was instrumental in saving the lives of Australian soldiers and civilians, including victims of kidnapping, and enabling operations conducted by Australian special forces. However, differences in circumstances in Iraq mean that reliance on existing provisions of the ISA in relation to the functions of ASIS, which are not specific to the provision of assistance to the Australian Defence Force, is likely to limit ASIS's ability to provide such assistance in a timely way.

Experience in responding to urgent requirements for ministerial authorisations has identified that the existing emergency authorisation arrangements under section 9A of the ISA do not sufficiently address the need for ASIS, ASD or AGO to be able to obtain a ministerial authorisation in an extreme emergency. The proposed amendments will address limitations identified in this provision. The bill will amend the way in which senior Australian Federal Police force members can apply for control orders. No longer will the Australian Federal Police be burdened by having to explain, in their application, why each of the obligations and restrictions should be imposed. Instead, senior Australian Federal Police members would only be required to justify these as a whole.

The underlying purposes of a control orders regime will be expanded under the proposed bill, as opposed to previous legislation that merely increased the grounds for an application to be made. The expansion of the rationale and purposes of the control orders regime is being introduced in order to redress operational issues for the Australian Federal Police and security and intelligence personnel, especially when conducting raids. The changes to the regime are being proposed following those previous well documented and publicised raids earlier in the year. By extending the rationale and purposes for the control orders regime, the bill will parallel the extension of the reach of terrorism and foreign incursions offence regimes, previously amended, ensuring continuity and a streamlined process and approach to counter-terrorism. Allowing the departmental heads of ASIO, ASD and the AGO to authorise counter-terrorism activities in place of ministers in emergency circumstances will allow a quicker and more dynamic response to such situations as they may arise.

The bill also provides a situation where ASIS intelligence can be shared with the Australian Defence Force. As noted in the explanatory memorandum, ASIS is currently being severely limited in providing such assistance under current legislation. The introduction of authorisations by ministers in relation to the classes of Australian persons will facilitate a timely performance in the operational security and intelligence gathering by ASIS which, in turn, will support the Australian Defence Force and its military operations. This provision of the bill, therefore, is not just about safety but is also about ensuring that the bill as a whole functions effectively and the process of gathering intelligence and using that intelligence is smooth, particularly in time sensitive situations where such flow of data is necessary.

Australia is a very great nation. Together, the entire parliament must strive to protect and support our local communities for a better future and a better life. The brutality and confronting imagery that we have seen internationally reminds us that this terrorist threat is on our doorstep and of the fragility of the democracy that we enjoy here in Australia. For the terrorists to succeed they must strike at the hearts and the minds of innocent people. The evil that is ISIS must not succeed. We must all stay strong to protect the Australian life that we all so love and cherish. To quote the Prime Minister:

… it's a sign that hope is stronger than fear and that decency can prevail over brute force.

Australia should remain a country where people trust each other, welcome newcomers and are justifiably confident that, in most respects, our future will be even better than our past. Our country must remain a beacon of hope and optimism that shines around the world. We should remain a country where people trust each other. We will fight to protect these values. Together, we should hope to protect Australia's way of life and outlaw extremist behaviour. All in all, this legislation is about keeping all Australians safe. I commend the bill to the House.

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with great pleasure that I rise today to speak on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014. This is the third bill introduced since mid-2014 that is part of a series of reforms that this government has brought to our national security framework and counter-terrorism laws. These have emanated from a number of threats and the things that we have seen overseas in Syria and Iraq with ISIL. A number of other speakers have touched on those well, so I shall not recount those any further. The end result of all of that is that it has ultimately led to a raising of the National Terrorism Public Alert level to high. This level of threat assessment communicates the fact that we now view that it is likely that there could be an attack on Australian soil. I think, in that context, it is the right context to consider these bills, as well as the others that have passed this House.

As I said at the outset, this is largely as a result of the events in the Middle East that have activated people here at home who support the extremism propagated by the ISIL militants in Iraq and Syria. It has been reported that there are at least 70 Australians currently in Iraq and Syria fighting with these terrorist organisations. When this is combined with supporters who assist through activities such as recruitment and funding, this number jumped to about 150 in June, earlier this year, and to about 185 today. The House would be well aware that we have already passed legislation designed to stop Australians fighting in overseas conflicts, to make it easier for the government to cancel passports and to allow authorities to declare some conflicts as no-go zones for Australian travellers. What we now seek to do with this legislation is address the urgent operational needs identified by our intelligence, Defence and law enforcement agencies.

I think it is worthwhile to provide some context to our reforms, so I thought I would recap some of the events that have led us to where we are today.

On the morning of 18 September 2014 police carried out one of the biggest counter-terrorist operations in the nation's history, with over 800 heavily armed officers targeting households in the cities of Sydney and Brisbane. Twenty-five homes were raided after the interception of a phone call, 15 people were detained, and one person was charged with terrorism offences.

One of the homes was located in my electorate of Forde in the suburb of Boronia Heights. I pay due credit to my community, which has some 215 different cultures, for the way it handled this news and, equally, I pay credit for the way the Australian Federal Police and the Queensland Police Service have handled this sensitive matter so professionally. It is instructive to note that a few days later, on 24 September, TheCourier-Mail reported that the gentleman arrested at Boronia Heights had a plan—an alleged plan—to seek to behead a government official. The man has, ultimately, been charged with preparations for incursions into foreign states with the intention of engaging in hostile activities, and with recruiting persons to join organisations engaged in those hostile activities.

We should not forget the attack on the police officers in Victoria. To date our police and intelligence services have been very proactive in ensuring they deal with these threats before any actual harm occurs. As the previous speaker has rightly pointed out, it is incumbent upon governments and upon us as members of parliament to work with our law enforcement agencies to ensure, where possible, this does not occur. Therefore, it is important that we stay vigilant and calm and allow the security agencies and police to do their jobs, and assist them when weaknesses are identified in the system.

We know how random these attacks can be, having witnessed the horrific random attack in Victoria and, equally, in the Canadian parliament and on Canadian soldiers. It certainly felt very close to home when we heard the devastating news of Corporal Nathan Cirillo, the Canadian soldier on ceremonial sentry duty at the Canadian War Memorial, being fatally shot on 22 October this year. There was vision of the gunman running through the parliament of Canada in a shootout whilst members were barricading themselves inside the chamber. Thankfully, any attempts to claim further human life during this attack were unsuccessful. There was another incident outside of the parliament, when a soldier was killed in a hit-and-run accident.

All of this serves to remind us of the necessity to be vigilant and the necessity to ensure that the laws and frameworks we have in this country are adequate for what our law enforcement agencies are required to do to protect the Australian community. The incident in Canada obviously promoted a renewed focus on the security in Parliament House here, and I would like to thank those involved for adopting the appropriate measures to seek to prevent an attack on this Parliament House.

I would like to reflect more broadly in this debate by addressing some of the comments made by Canadian academic, Salim Mansur, who wrote about the issues that we are talking about today in quite a bit of detail. More broadly, he touched on what we are facing globally with the Islamic threat. In an article on the Gatestone Institute website on 29 September, Mr Mansur stated:

Broadly speaking … the struggle within Islam is between Muslims who embrace the values of the modern world in terms of freedom, individual rights, gender equality and democracy on the one side, and Muslims opposing these values and insisting on a Sharia-based legal system on the other … any Muslim who even questions this version of Islam they refer to as a heretic or, worse, an apostate to be killed.

I am sad to say that we have seen that graphically portrayed through the social media avenues that the ISIL terrorists have used. Mansur went on to state:

For Muslims who embrace modernity, Islam is a matter of personal belief, not a political system …a reformed Islam … greatly desired and sought after by swelling numbers of Muslims … cannot succeed without the support of non-Muslims.

That is why we all need to work together to support the Muslims in our community who want to see a brighter, better future for their children.

These counter-terrorism laws, in part, are designed to do that. They are designed, in conjunction with the other bills that have passed this House, to ensure that we have the capacity through our law enforcement agencies to identify those who would seek to radicalise young Muslim men, in particular. This bill forms part of the government's comprehensive response to the heightened security threat, both internationally and at home. It particularly responds to the threat posed by Australians participating in, and supporting, foreign conflicts, or undertaking training with extremist groups. It will improve the ability of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to respond to these threats through necessary amendments to national security legislation to address limitations identified in the course of recent operations.

These operations include the deployment of the Australian Defence Force to undertake military operations against the ISIL terrorist organisation in Iraq and the recent Operation Appleby, which disrupted an alleged terrorist attack in Sydney. The amendments address three key areas by (1) 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; (2) facilitating the Australian Secret Intelligence Service supporting and cooperating with the Australian Defence Force on military operations; and (3) enhancing the arrangements for the provision of emergency ministerial authorisations to intelligence agencies to undertake activities in the performance of their statutory functions.

Contrary to some inaccurate media reporting, the amendments will not—I say again: they will not—enable ASIS to kill Australians or others. There is no change to the existing limitation under section 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. The ADF is providing military support in Iraq at the request and behest of the Iraqi government. Its role is to train the Iraqi military in their fight against terrorist organisations, but the ADF does require the intelligence that can be provided by ASIS to ensure, still bound by its rules of engagement, that it has the intelligence necessary to conduct operations in an efficient and effective manner. This has been developed in consultation with the Office of International Law in the Attorney-General's Department to ensure compliance with Australia's international law obligations.

As I have touched on, it is incumbent on all of us in this House to ensure that we provide a framework in which our law enforcement agencies can carry out their duties of protecting this great country. I think we should be very proud of what we have achieved in Australia and that the multitude of cultures represented in our community today live peacefully and in harmony with each other and add to the rich tapestry that is this great country.

In conclusion, the security and safety of all Australians is paramount. We as a government will continue to work with our intelligence and security agencies to ensure that it continues to be. I commend this bill to the House.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the previous speaker, the member for Forde, mentioned, keeping Australians safe is a priority for this government. There is no more pressing matter of national or international security than reducing the threat of terrorism, and that is what we see with the bill before the House this evening, the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014. We are all aware of the threat from ISIL, or Daesh, al-Nusra Front and other forms of al-Qaeda affiliated groups. We know that they are more dangerous, more global, more organised perhaps and more diversified than previously. We know as well that terrorists are younger. They are more violent and often more interconnected. We have seen the interconnected nature of social media and the internet. They are extremely violent, as we have seen. They are, clearly, very easily recruited and very tech savvy. They also have been subject to incitement by others, and we have seen communication of such propaganda and violence through disaffected young people.

Australia has been working with the Iraqi government, the United States and many other partners to attack and degrade ISIL overseas and to assist in taking back Iraqi territory. We have also taken significant steps at home. This bill is just the next stage of that. The government has cancelled the passports of more than 70 Australians suspected of planning to commit a terrorist act or engage in a form of politically motivated violence overseas. We have seen the Minister for Foreign Affairs freeze the assets of two Australians who were recruiting for ISIL online. We have introduced new foreign terrorist fighter laws to help to disrupt the organisation, the financing and the facilitation of foreign fighters by enhancing our ability to track the financial transactions of suspected foreign terrorist fighters, by lowering the threshold of arrest without warrant for terrorist and terrorism offences, which really helps our agencies to disrupt terrorist activity at an earlier stage, and by cancelling social welfare payments to cut off the diversion of such funds for terrorism. The minister has also taken steps allowing the Australian government to suspend as well as cancel a person's Australian passport. We have enhanced screening and security measures at international airports, including through the collection and matching of biometric data.

Each one of these successive laws that the government has introduced enhances our ability to investigate and prosecute foreign fighters. That has been done by: introducing a new, broader offence for advocating terrorism; introducing a new offence for entering or remaining without a legitimate reason in designated areas overseas where terrorist organisations are fighting; amending the terrorism organisation listing provision to include the promotion and encouragement of terrorist acts; requiring that the prosecution must prove that a person intended to engage in a hostile activity in any foreign country, rather than a particular foreign country; allowing courts greater flexibility in determining whether to admit as evidence material obtained from overseas in terrorism related proceedings—a significant development that will rely on good information sharing; and requiring telecommunications companies to retain metadata, enhancing Australia's capacity to track, to investigate and to prosecute foreign terrorist fighters and supporters of terrorism. The government has introduced law after law to enable our police to more easily seek control orders on returning foreign terrorist fighters and broaden the grounds on which such control orders can be sought.

The government is also working with Interpol to deliver training in our region in the use of technology by terrorists and how electronic evidence is gathered and managed. We are building targeted early intervention and counter-radicalisation programs. The work has been very active, also involving women and girls. The government has worked with the ICT sector to reduce the risk posed by terrorists and extremist groups online through education, by promoting alternative messages and removing extremist content.

When you look at a terrorist act—and they are abhorred both here and around the world—it is an act or threat to act that intends to coerce or influence the public, or any government, by intimidation to advance a political, religious or ideological cause. It can cause death, serious harm or danger to a person, serious damage to property, serious risk to the health and safety of the public, and serious interference with and disruption to or destruction of critical infrastructures, such as telecommunications or electricity networks.

Advocating, protesting, dissenting or taking industrial action are not terrorist acts if the person engaged in the activity does not intend to cause serious harm to a person or serious risk to public safety. Anyone guilty of committing a terrorist act could face up to life imprisonment.

The bill before the House today contains a package of amendments to the Intelligence Services Act 2001 and the Criminal Code 1995. The amendments facilitate Australian Secret Intelligence Service, ASIS, in supporting and cooperating with the Australian Defence Force on military operations, enhance the arrangement for the provision of emergency ministerial authorisations to IS Act agencies, to undertake activities in the performance of their statutory functions, and enhance the control-order regime to allow the Australian Federal Police to seek control orders on a broader range of individuals of security concern and to streamline the application process.

The measures in the bill identified by relevant agencies, subsequent to the introduction of two previous tranches of legislation, have been included as a result of instances of operational need. In the case of the proposed IS Act amendments, the government has authorised the ADF to undertake operations against the Islamic State terrorist organisation in Iraq. As a result, the need for this amendment is urgent.

These operational activities will include the collection of intelligence in relation to Australian persons who are known or suspected participants in the hostilities and particularly in relation to those who are known or suspected of fighting with or alongside the IS terrorist organisation. Such intelligence will assist in protecting ADF personnel, members of other defence forces and civilians from death or serious harm as a result of terrorist or other hostile acts committed in the course of the conflict.

The proposed amendments are directed to two key areas. First, the primary purpose of the amendment is to better facilitate ASIS provide timely assistance to the ADF in support of military operations and its cooperation with the ADF on intelligence matters. Secondly, the proposed amendments make provision for the contingency that the relevant ministers may be temporarily uncontactable when there is an urgent previously unforeseen need to act on vital intelligence.

Presently, there is no legal basis on which agencies can undertake activities in these circumstances, which means that critical intelligence collection opportunities may be missed. The amendments will address this by enabling an agency head to grant a limited emergency authorisation, subject to rigorous and extensive safeguards and oversight mechanisms. The minister must be notified, as soon as is practicable, within 48 hours and is under a positive obligation to make a decision about whether it should continue within the 48-hour maximum or be cancelled or replaced with a ministerial authorisation.

The amendments also provide for contingency arrangements in the event that the Attorney-General is not readily available or contactable to provide his or her agreement to the making of an emergency ministerial authorisation, where such an agreement is required because the authorisation concerns the undertaking of activities in relation to an Australian person who is or is likely to be engaged in activities that are or are likely to be a threat to security. The amendments to the Criminal Code will further strengthen the control-order regime and enhance the capacity of law-enforcement agencies to protect the public from terrorist acts.

The amendments will allow the AFP to request an issuing, and an issuing court to make, a control order in relation to those who 'enable' and those who 'recruit'. The amendments to the control-order regime will also streamline the application process by reducing the volume of material that must be provided to the Attorney-General, when seeking consent to request an interim control order, and extend the time for obtaining the Attorney-General's consent when making an urgent request to an issuing court without first obtaining the Attorney-General's consent.

As we see from this bill, the government is very directly concerned about the issues surrounding terrorism and will do everything it can within its power to protect Australians, both here and overseas. Making sure that Australians are secure and safe is a very important role for this government. The $400,000 to support INTERPOL's foreign fighter initiatives, over and above our ongoing annual membership contribution, is very important. There is $20 million to boost AUSTRAC's ability to stop cash being funnelled to terrorists and to crack down on money laundering. These are very practical ways of assisting management of these issues. The additional resourcing to the Australian Federal Police at airports, the counter-terrorism office in Turkey and the recent passage of crimes legislation dealing with psychoactive substances are all part of a very direct focus on all forms of safety and security of Australians.

I also note the recent and very important drug seizures. I saw that HMAS Toowoomba intercepted and seized 388 kilos of heroin off the coast of Africa. In September, the ship's company seized more than 5.6 tonnes of cannabis resin onboard a dhow off the east coast of Africa. This involved 267 bags of resin, with a street value of around A$280 million.

We recently saw the arrest of six men in Sydney for drug importation. We saw that the Joint Organised Crime Group, comprising the Australian Federal Police, the New South Wales Police, the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, the New South Wales Crime Commission and the Australian Crime Commission seized almost 2.8 tonnes of MDMA and methamphetamine, with a street value in excess of $1.5 billion. Potentially thousands of Australians' lives have been saved as a result of the work done by our police and law enforcement agencies. I commend them for their work. This particular effort would have taken countless hours and commitment by all of those agencies. I commend all of the officers and people engaged in that particular seizure.

We cannot underestimate the effect of drugs in society. I note that the number and weight of amphetamine type stimulants detected at the Australian border increased in 2012-13 to the highest on record. Australia is clearly a market for individuals seeking to import all of these forms of drugs. I also saw that there were a record number of cannabis detections at the Australian border in 2012-13 and an increase in the number and weight of heroin detections as well. It was the highest on record—513.8 kilograms in 2012-13. This tells you that there is a lot of work for our law enforcement agencies, the Australian Federal Police and the Customs service. It is never-ending. We saw that the amount of cocaine detected at the Australian border halved in 2012-13. The number of detections, however, more than doubled and is the highest on record.

The other thing that concerns me greatly is that the number of performance and image enhancing drugs detected at the border increased by 751.6 per cent, the highest number on record. I have said previously that the number of people who pursue this particular source are also often engaged in trying to source drugs online, with no idea of what they are actually buying and what is contained within the drugs. They are taking a major risk with their health, as well as it being illegal.

Matt Williams (Hindmarsh, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We know that the threat from ISIL and other terrorists is more dangerous, more global and more diversified than ever before. We have seen attacks in Canada, England and on our own streets. We have seen attacks on numerous individuals, including the beheading of journalists and welfare workers. We have seen Australia's terrorist alert level being raised to high in recent months. We have seen Australian citizens and dual nationals fighting overseas in Iraq, Syria and other conflicts, committing unspeakable atrocities and honing their terrorist skills. We have seen young Australians leave home to fight with a terrorist group and preach the philosophies of evil. As the Minister for Foreign Affairs told member countries of the UN in an address to the United Nations Security Council in New York, there is no more pressing matter of national and international security for Australia than reducing the threat of terrorism.

The young, modern-day terrorist is a terrifying picture. Terrorists are younger, more violent, more innovative and highly connected. They can strike at short notice with a knife or a gun, with ruthless execution. We have heard these warnings from our security forces and police agencies in recent months. They are masters of social media to terrorise and to recruit, and they are tech-savvy. They incite each other. They communicate their propaganda and violence directly into our homes to recruit disaffected young men and women. This is a challenge our society faces. Many of these violent terrorists will attempt to return home. We must take the necessary steps to keep Australia safe.

This is why we have committed troops and support, including conducting airstrikes against ISIL and providing special forces to help build the capabilities of Iraqi security forces and others fighting ISIL. However, the local threat is still there and growing. To combat terrorism at home and to prevent Australians committing terrorist acts abroad, our counter-terrorism agencies must be properly resourced and have legislative powers to respond to technological change and evolving threats. The government, as we know, is introducing a range of counter-terrorism measures to give security agencies the resources and legislative powers needed to combat home-grown terrorism and Australians who participate in terrorist activities overseas. We are taking the necessary action. We have cancelled the passports of more than 70 Australians suspected of planning to commit a terrorist act or engage in politically motivated violence overseas. Importantly, we have made additional commitments, such as $630 million over four years to counter-terrorism measures, which means more resources for the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and others.

We are introducing legislation to help disrupt the organisation, financing and facilitation of foreign terrorist fighters by enhancing our ability to track the financial transactions of suspected foreign terrorist fighters and by lowering the threshold for arrest without warrant for terrorism offences, which will enable our agencies to disrupt terrorist activity at an earlier stage. This is so important.

Today I would like to especially recognise the importance of the Australian Federal Police and the Customs and Border Protection Service to our antiterrorism measures. In the seat of Hindmarsh, which has Adelaide Airport at its centre, we have close to eight million passenger movements in a 12-month period, so it is vitally important to our state's and the nation's economy and to our tourism sector. Adelaide Airport is also home to the Australian Federal Police and the Customs and Border Protection Service, who play a crucial role. I was pleased to have the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Scott Morrison, join me recently at Adelaide Airport. We visited the Customs and Border Protection facilities at the airport and spoke with a number of staff, including the regional commander who gave us a really interesting briefing on their activities. We also had a chance to talk to many other staff, including those from the Counter-Terrorism Unit. It was great to see their commitment, their interest in what they are doing and their passion. This unit had been recently formed and was given good resources by the government. They were doing what they wanted to do and they were totally committed to their objective of helping to fight terrorism around Australia and internationally. So I must commend them on their commitment and professionalism, and it was great to hear a bit more about what they do in this important role they have.

Importantly, the government will work closely with the states and territories with these legislative measures, and also other measures, in monitoring our national security. We heard earlier from the member for Forde about how a raid had taken place in his electorate. We have seen, in recent months, raids across Australia: in Sydney, Brisbane and also that terrifying act by the young man in Melbourne, where local police agencies needed to work closely with Federal Police and other security forces. Importantly, these powers will, however, be balanced with proper oversight to protect the individual rights of Australians, including the right to privacy. To ensure this, the government will increase the resources of the independent office of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security.

We can only effectively combat the threat posed by terrorists and extremists if we first know who they are and what they are planning. These measures underline our commitment to a safe and secure Australia. Every country has an obligation to prevent terrorism. Every country has an obligation not to export terrorist capabilities. Each one has a responsibility to degrade the resources of terrorist organisations and to prevent the spread of their evil propaganda. We must starve terrorist organisations of fighters, funding and legitimacy. We must act decisively and together. I commend this bill to the House.

Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted to speak after my friend and colleague, the member for La Trobe. I think he makes some very, very strong points that I certainly concur with in his speech. I also rise today to speak in support of the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014. This is an important piece of legislation with bipartisan support, responding to the heightened security threat here in Australia and around the world.

The British Prime Minister, the Right Honourable David Cameron MP, made clear in his recent address to our parliament that this security threat is a global concern. With the proposals he announced here, he highlighted that we are not alone in having to put in place measures to protect our freedoms from those who choose the path of terrorism.

With the growth in the recruitment techniques of terrorist groups such as ISIL, we are seeing many Australian citizens go and fight in both Iraq and Syria. They are fighting for terrorist groups that are virulently opposed to our democratic and free way of life. These people in these groups execute people. They have a policy of torture, rape and murder to achieve their ends, and they present a real and present danger to those of us back home because they prepare to bring this virulent extremism inside our national borders.

Currently, there are approximately 70 Australians who are fighting with terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq, with over 100 more Australians providing support by way of financing operations and facilitating travel. The return of such people represents a threat to our safety.

There is evidence that many Australians who trained with al-Qaeda or affiliates in Afghanistan or Pakistan in the 1990s and 2000s were involved with terrorism-related activities on their return, with ASIO conducting investigations into 30 Australians who travelled to Afghanistan and/or Pakistan between 1990 and 2010 to train at extremist camps and/or fight with extremists. Eight of these Australians were later convicted of terrorism-related offences with five still serving prison sentences.

For these individuals, their behaviour after their return to Australia emerged over an extended period—in some cases it was not seen until more than five years after their return. This demonstrates the need for our security and law enforcement agencies to consider those involved in the Syria-Iraq conflict as a serious and long-term problem.

In this current climate, we cannot rely on existing legislation to be able to tackle the terrorist threat posed by ISIL and its ilk. This bill complements the government's wider response to tackling this heightened security threat. Together with the National Security Legislation Amendment Act and the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fighters) Act, this bill will make Australia safer. It will put the government and its agencies in a stronger position to defeat terrorists.

This bill will enhance the ability of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to take timely action in relation to Australians who are suspected of being involved in terrorist-related activity. This bill takes into consideration the recommendations made in the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security's advisory report, which was tabled last month after the committee held many public and private hearings with evidence presented from a range of key stakeholders, including security agencies, a number of civil liberties groups, members of the legal profession and members of the community. This report included 16 unanimous recommendations, which have all been accepted by the government.

The measures in the bill also respond directly to recommendations made in independent reviews of Australia's national security legislation over the last few years. The amendments included in this bill address three key areas: 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; facilitating the Australian Secret Intelligence Service supporting and cooperating with the Australian Defence Force on military operations; and enhancing the arrangements for the provision of emergency ministerial authorisations to intelligence agencies to undertake activities in performance of their statutory functions.

Schedule 1 will amend the Criminal Code Act 1995 to enable the expansion of the control order regime. Currently, a control order is only able to be made to protect the public from a terrorist act. This will also enable a control order to be issued by the Australian Federal Police to prevent the provision of support for, or facilitation of, a terrorist act This takes into account the recognition that terrorists often do not act alone but are part of a wider team planning an attack. These amendments will allow control orders to more easily be issued to interrupt the chance of terrorist attacks.

This will also allow for a control order to be issued which will prevent the provision of support for or engagement in a hostile activity in a foreign country. In this, we will hopefully be able to reduce the impact of Australian citizens who choose to go and fight in foreign countries.

Schedule 1 will also allow the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security to review and report on amendments to terrorist organisation regulations to add aliases or remove former names of organisations. These important changes were identified as being required following the counter-terrorism operations that occurred across Australia during September and October of this year. While it is right to put in place tighter rules on terrorist activity, we also do not want to lose our wider freedoms and so it is also right to have the Office of the National Security Legislation Monitor act as an independent oversight of national security legislation.

Schedule 2 of the bill will amend the Intelligence Services Act 2001. The amendments will widen the functions of ASIS to explicitly include providing assistance to the Australian Defence Force. The close relationship between ASIS and the ADF has been active for many years. Indeed, Mr Nick Warner, Director-General of ASIS, stated in 2012:

Starting with the Iraq war, support for the Australian Defence Force in military combat operations has become an important task for ASIS.

And further:

ASIS reporting has been instrumental in saving the lives of Australian soldiers and … enabling operations conducted by Australian Special Forces.

The ASIS personnel deployed with the ADF have developed strong bonds, and it’s difficult to see a situation in the future where the ADF would deploy without ASIS alongside.

Formalising this close relationship in legislation therefore makes clear sense to help protect our service men and women, who defend our freedoms.

Schedule 2 will also expand provision for emergency authorisations to ASIS, the Australian Signals Directorate and the Australian Geospatial Intelligence Organisation. In addition, schedule 2 will allow for ministerial authorisation to be given for ASIS to undertake activities in relation to citizens in certain circumstances. This will help to facilitate the timely performance by ASIS to support the fight against terrorism.

I can understand the concerns that some communities may have had about how a 'class of persons' would be defined. However, the amendment, as agreed to in the Senate, has overcome this concern. As the Attorney-General made clear, these amendments will explain that a 'class of person' is defined solely by reference to their involvement or likely involvement in terrorism activities. They would not be defined in terms of religious, political or ideological orientation, ethnicity or mere presence in a particular location.

In conclusion, we are facing an existential threat to our freedoms. This threat from ISL and its supporters is growing, as we have seen in Syria, Iraq and other parts of the Middle East. However, even though we may be geographically isolated in Australia, we are not isolated from this threat. We have citizens who choose to go and fight with ISIL and who may return or, as security operations have shown, actually live in our cities, with a plot and a plan to support this terrorist activity. I therefore welcome this bill for two reasons.

Firstly, the legislative changes are part of the government's comprehensive response to the heightened security threat. The bill provides clear powers to respond to the threat posed by Australians participating in foreign conflicts or training with extremist groups.

Secondly, the bill improves the ability of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to respond to these threats, both overseas and at home.

I therefore urge the House to support this bill as an important element in safeguarding the safety of all Australians, whilst protecting fundamental freedoms that we hold dear, as outlined in the Parliamentary Joint Committee's report. The report is an excellent one. I commend it and this bill to the House.

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I congratulate the member for Higgins on her first-class speech and on her commendation to the House to pass this important bill, the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014, which is another part of the government's suite of measures which will help us keep our citizens safe. In the last six months the government has put through the parliament three important pieces of legislation because the government is determined to keep our citizens safe. As the Prime Minister has said, it is the No. 1 duty of any government and it is the duty of this government in particular, given the heightened security threat that we have seen as a result of Australians travelling to both Iraq and Syria and returning, and the threat that they are presenting to our nation.

It is very important that we continue to do everything we can to keep our country safe. The government is about to bring another important piece of legislation to the vote, which will occur in the first quarter of next year, which will be around the retention of metadata. That will be the fourth component of the measures that the government is putting in place.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security looked at the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 very carefully, as it has with the two previous pieces of legislation. We came up with 16 important recommendations in our report. I might just step through a few of these, because I think it is important to inform the House of how the committee deliberated on this piece of legislation and then, in a bipartisan report, recommended that the legislation be passed by the parliament, with this list of recommendations.

I might just pause before I look at some of the key aspects and just pick up on some of the criticisms that have been levelled at the process by one particular individual in this place, who referred to the committee as some type of club. I find those sorts of references to the committee ill informed, ill advised and obviously it is not the approach that serious members of this House would take. Every member of the committee is appointed by the Prime Minister. I can tell you that everyone who is on that committee takes their role incredibly seriously and it is why, with the first piece of legislation, the National Security Legislation Bill (No. 1) 2014, the committee put forward 17 recommendations, all of which were adopted by the government.

In the second piece of legislation, the foreign fighters bill, 37 recommendations were put forward by the committee, all of which were accepted by the government. And obviously with this bill before us here, another 16 recommendations were put to the government, all of which were accepted. If you look at those recommendations—take the foreign fighters bill, for instance—there were sunset clauses put in on some aspects of that legislation. There were review processes both for the legislation for the independent national security legislation monitor and for the committee itself. These were not the decisions taken by some sort of club; this was a committee, with each individual on it seriously looking at this legislation and deciding what they thought was best when it came to how the parliament should consider this. So, any idea of some sort of club is I think ill informed and ill advised, and I would hope that we would see a better and more informed debate from the Greens in the future when we are considering very important legislation for this nation.

So, that little side matter has now been dealt with. It is unfortunate that those types of things have to be dealt with, because it would be much better if we were here debating the substance of this bill rather than having people trying to make cheap political shots on national security. When it comes to the bill itself, what did the committee recommend, and why? On schedule 1, the committee recommended that the government finalise, to start with, the appointment of the independent national security legislation monitor. Obviously this is an important step and something that the committee has urged the government to do as a priority. We would then like the INSLM to consider whether additional safeguards recommended in the 2013 Council of Australian Governments review of counter-terrorism legislation should be looked at and whether special advocates need to be considered, and that all this take place given new developments in the security situation.

In 2013 a review was done by COAG, but that was in a different security situation. We now have a heightened security situation, so we want that to be a key aspect of when this is now looked at. We have also recommended that the term 'supports and facilitates' in the proposed amendments to the control order regimes be based on language in the existing criminal code. Obviously these are key components of these new aspects of control orders that have been introduced, and we want to make sure that 'supports and facilitates', to the extent possible, reflects the language in the existing criminal code. The committee also recommended that the counter-terrorism legislation bill be amended to require that when seeking the Attorney-General's consent to request an interim control order the Australian Federal Police must provide the Attorney-General with a statement of facts relating to why the order should be made and any known facts as to why it should not be made. Once again, here we are just making sure that there is proper transparency and, in particular, that the AFP, in putting its case to the Attorney-General, makes sure that it takes into account the facts as to why it should be made so that the Attorney is fully aware of the known facts as to why it should not be made—just highlighting once again the committee's desire to see transparency in this aspect.

We also recommended that the bill be amended to require the Attorney-General's consent to an urgent interim control order and that it be obtained within eight hours of a request being made by a senior member of the AFP. Once again, we could understand why there needed to be a time frame here, and we thought that eight hours was the appropriate time frame. Obviously if the Attorney is on a plane flying from one side of the nation to the other then it would be very difficult for the AFP to contact the Attorney. But other than that—and it gives a bit of time on either side to account for him landing et cetera—we saw eight hours as the appropriate time frame here.

The committee also recommended that proposed paragraphs 104.3(d) and 104.23(2)(b) of the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill be amended to retain the current requirement that the AFP explain why each of the obligations, prohibitions and restrictions proposed in a draft control order should or should not be imposed on the person. So, once again, we are looking for the AFP having to state its case very clearly and looking at the pros and cons.

When it came to schedule 2 of the bill—the proposed amendments to the Intelligence Services Act—the committee recommended that the EM to the counter-terrorism legislation be amended to provide further information about how a class of Australian persons will be defined. The member for Kooyong touched on this point. We think it is very important that the public is fully aware of how this class of Australian persons will be defined. We went on to say that it needs to be made clear that any Australian person included in a specified class of Australian persons agreed to by the Attorney-General must be involved in an activity or activities that pose a threat to security as defined by the ASIO Act 1979. Once again, here we are looking for it to be made very clear in the EM how this class of persons will be defined. Obviously we want the community to have confidence in the approach we are taking with regard to expanding how these proposed amendments to schedule 2 will be enacted.

We also recommended that, subject to passage of the bill, the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security, the IGIS, provide close oversight of all ministerial authorisations given orally under this part of the bill and also all agreements provided by the A-G under the proposed amendments to paragraph 9(1A)(b) of the Intelligence Services Act.

In recommendation 9 we asked that the bill be amended to require an agency head to notify the relevant responsible minister of an authorisation given by the agency head under proposed section 9B of the ISA within eight hours. We thought that was a sensible time frame to enable the Attorney-General to be notified. Copies of the authorisation and other documents should then be provided to the minister and to the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, as outlined in the proposed sections 9B(5) and 9B(6) of the IS Act 2001.

We also said the IGIS should be required to oversight within 30 days all emergency authorisations given by agency heads—once again, an important check and balance in this aspect of the bill—and that the IGIS be required to notify the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security within 30 days of all emergency authorisations. So not only is the IGIS acting as a check and balance; the committee itself will now play a role in making sure these emergency authorisations are used only in exceptional circumstances.

Recommendation 12 was that the counter-terrorism legislation bill be amended to require an agency head to notify the Attorney-General within eight hours of an emergency authorisation given with the agreement of the Director-General of Security or without the agreement of either the Attorney-General or the Director-General of Security. This makes sure proper scrutiny is in place. Recommendations 13, 14 and 15 enhance the oversight around schedule 2 of the bill. If time permitted, I would go into a bit more detail on those recommendations; but, as the clock is ticking, I will have to leave that. I would recommend to all members of the House that they have a look at the recommendations because they do provide safeguards and oversight so that we can be confident and comfortable that our intelligence agencies will be acting in an appropriate manner, as they always do, when it comes to keeping our nation safe.

I thank all members of the parliamentary joint committee for the manner in which they went about looking at this bill. I thank the secretariat for their very professional advice and the manner in which they helped the committee in its consideration of this important legislation. These three pieces of legislation to enhance our national security are complex and this has required the committee to spend a great amount of time looking at them. Committee members and the secretariat have been incredibly diligent and professional in the way they have gone about this. To suggest that this is some sort of club is complete and utter nonsense. The committee's work has made this legislation better; and I think it has improved the safety and security of our nation, which should always be the No. 1 consideration of government.

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In speaking after such an informed presentation by the member for Wannon, I feel somewhat like a roadie jumping onstage after the encore! I thank the member for Wannon for his presentation. I am one of a number of coalition MPs who are very passionate about the broadening and additional clarification given to our agencies to perform this most important role. I am somewhat disappointed too that there has been very little contribution from the opposition in this debate.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's just like you to extract the bipartisan moment, Andrew!

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think Australians from Western Australia through to Queensland would hope that there would be some light shone on these reforms and some informed debate. Alas, all we have here is a series of coalition speakers clearly articulating the importance of these changes in further strengthening the ability of our security agencies to respond—and one fairly vocal bloke from the other side who is only here because it is his shift to sit near the dispatch box on the Labor Party side. That is unfortunate because what we really need in here is a clear dissection and elaboration of our reforms. Any reasonable criticism is warmly welcomed. But all we have had is a hysterical and somewhat weird intervention from the Greens. Their comments about these recommendations being the recommendations of a club are plainly preposterous. It really shows how far the Greens as a movement have moved away from the desires of young Australians to see that we remain a free but ultimately law-abiding democracy into the future. It is disappointing that the Greens are not at the table and supporting what are really common-sense reforms. This exposes within the Greens movement a fundamental lack of understanding of exactly how enforcement operates—and that is a challenge for them.

I want to make four points in this speech today. The first one is about the changing environment. Senior security officials have pointed out to us the change that has occurred even in the last couple of years, particularly since the Boston Marathon bombing. There has been a shift from highly planned, elaborate and long time frame based terrorism incidents to spontaneous and almost unpredictable ones. This sets the most painfully difficult and challenging question for our security services. They have to be prepared for one individual, inspired by something they have read online, to grab a knife and in the name of some crazy, despotic movement carry out a crime in this beautiful and peaceful country. That is a challenge that we face as a nation and it is the challenge we are putting to the security forces when we say, 'Protect us from this kind of conduct.' That conduct is obviously performed to create fear and to take away the freedoms that we enjoy. We as an advanced economy are in a constant battle against those who intend to undermine us.

The second point, as British Prime Minister David Cameron pointed out in his recent address to this chamber, is that the internet—and I see that the parliamentary secretary is in the chamber—in many ways remains an ungoverned space. David Cameron put a challenge to us as a developed economy and a member of Five Eyes about the degree to which we can continue to brook such an ungoverned space. We obviously have a challenge in social services to engage every young Australian and give them opportunity. But let us accept that as a multicultural economy and as an immigration based economy, we have large numbers of young people often coming here definitely with hope but not always with the trust they will have opportunity to enjoy what other Australians enjoy. Talking to senior security officials, they tell me that our greatest challenge is actually surprisingly homogenous. They are young people. They are of certain backgrounds. They are easily influenced. But the one thing that draws almost 90 to 95 per cent of them together as a common denominator is their lack of opportunity and their lack of connectedness to the real economy.

It is at this level that we can stop just talking about whoever one case is who perpetrates violence in our community and start thinking of our broader challenge—that we leave 130,000 people in this country every year graduating from school but not even skilled enough to get the most basic of entry-level, minimum wage jobs. As long as you have those sorts of numbers entering the welfare system every year, and around 140,000 people transitioning from income replacement as an under 24-year-old to Newstart, then we have, in many cases, young members of minorities who can hide in areas of zero opportunity surrounded by an Australia that can offer so much. We cannot guarantee that that opportunity is homogenously spread amongst every family group and amongst young males who are ultimately drawn to more romantic and exciting pursuits through online connection with vigilante and terrorist groups overseas.

That will be an unending challenge, and the idea that we can intensively case-manage every family and that we can monitor what every family unit does is completely beyond the means and the capabilities of our normal social service organisations. So we are now trust in the intelligence services to be able to first pick up those signs of risk, those signs of dangerous behaviour and those signs that they are engaging in internet chat groups, peer-to-peer groups and engaging illegal and terrorist groups. It is a challenge of enormous complexity but one which, so far, we have done well on.

It really impressed me that a number of months ago those services were able to detail to me that they had identified up to 60 people overseas who had left effectively to be part of military tourism, with no other reason to travel except the thrill and the excitement of being part of a terrorist organisation fighting in a war in a foreign land. This is of enormous concern and many have mentioned it before.

Secondly, we identified, of even greater concern, up to a hundred Australians right here at home facilitating those people. For the first time these reforms go beyond a strictly defined terrorist act to also identify those who are supporting those who are training with extremist groups. This is a very big and important part of the reforms both in the two tranches that have already passed through this parliament and in the changes that we debate tonight.

Effectively, what we are doing here is enhancing those control order regimes to enable the AFP to seek control orders in relation to an even broader range of individuals who are of a security concern and to streamline that application process. Again, we are in here having a debate about elements of this legislation with not an echo or a peep from the opposition about the merits or otherwise of this legislation. Second, we are facilitating ASIS to support and cooperate with the ADF on military operations. That has been very clearly defined in the legislation—the degree to which that information is vital to the ADF in performing their role but in no way allowing them to encroach upon what are their terms of engagement. Lastly, we are enhancing the arrangements for the provision of an emergency ministerial authorisation—I think this has been adequately detailed by the previous speaker. This is particularly around enabling them to activate a control order in relation to those who are enabling or those who are specifically recruiting for those causes.

These are enormously divisive issues. I am not going to beat around the bush: what has occurred over the last few months is at the heart of even greater tensions between mainstream Australians and some of our ethnic minorities. I am also prepared to say that it lies at the heart of the recent debate brought to this place about the wearing of a burqa in public and—heaving forbid—trying to ban the wearing of a burqa for people who visit this great building. These were completely unnecessary distractions that a mature country should have been able to see right through and not in any way entertain what I think was a frivolous and puerile debate. But we got caught up in it, and I was compelled to write a piece in The Daily Telegraph, saying we have much greater things to worry about than the way a woman chooses to dress and certainly what she chooses to wear when she visits this building.

Above what we wear is what is inside. I completely respect the pre-eminence of a security official to clear everyone who enters this building, as they should every private building according to the security requirements. Anyone who enters any private building can be checked by the relevant security staff who are employed to do that very job. But once you are cleared, by definition, you should be able to go on your way and wear precisely what you chose to wear that day. At any time security officials can elect to again screen you. I have no problem with that. This legislation allows the experts to make those calls. It should not be up to us to make calls about how an individual chooses to dress.

Many of these debates were activated, even animated, by the fear in the mainstream Australian population of fomentation within large minorities in this country, in particular, that young people were being drawn to and ultimately engaged in wars for which Australia should be playing little part and certainly not engaging with a group like IS. Well, it has happened and people have left the country already, and still there are people attempting to leave. That is a measure of the challenge that we face in bringing this to a halt.

In the last few months, the message is absolutely clear, thanks to the previous two tranches and this legislation tonight. You cannot be confused and you cannot be mistaken: if you leave our shores and engage with this group, you are breaking the law and you will face enormous consequences. You will face potential prosecution. There is no reversal of the onus of proof. But if you have been to these regions and you cannot provide adequate reasons to explain why, then you are at risk of prosecution, and I think every Australian would say that is utterly reasonable. If you are going to travel to these particular regions, then you need to be able to give some reasonable explanation for why you are there, and I think Australians would expect that.

The final point that I make is one of youth engagement. In many cases, as a nation of multiple religions proud of our cultural diversity, there will be very little change that we can bring about with religious internecine and sectoral differences from outside. Ultimately, if we are going to fix the greater problem that is racking most of western Asia, these changes must come from within. These changes must come from those community groups themselves. It is not enough for those of us outside of those groups to become increasingly more hysterical or more shrill about it. We cannot change many of these elements in this debate from the outside. We have law enforcement that will identify those that breach our social expectations and our social norms of what is reasonable, peace-loving behaviour, and those laws are there.

But, ultimately, we need to go one step further. We need to support freedom-loving, peace-loving members of those ethnic minority groups to look within themselves and be the early warning system to identify youths going off the tracks. It does not matter what they are facing, whether those challenges be drugs, law-breaking, violence or, as in this case, engaging with terrorist groups, we most rely on those closest to those individuals. We cannot turn those people against us. If those people are communicating with us and are free to report and are confident that they can do so, we have a chance of helping these young people. At the moment, what we have seen are significant changes that the coalition has delivered to allow ASIS, our information services and security services, to do their job better. I am very proud to be part of a government that have an ear listening to those agencies and that are utterly committed to delivering to them the reforms and the legislation that will enable them to do their job into the future as well as they possibly can.

Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do appreciate the opportunity to make a contribution to this debate on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 tonight. It really is a sign of the times that we live in. Recently, the foreign minister said that at no time in the United Nations' history have we had so many peacekeeping police operations taking place in the world. So, although we might think that, of recent times, we are much more civilised and the world is a safer place, through assessments such as that—who is deployed where around the world—you begin to think that maybe things are not exactly going according to plan.

The reality is that there are people around the world that have certain views of the way the world should operate, the way certain countries should operate. Theocracies—countries based upon an interpretation of a religion—do not have a great history. But, nevertheless, there are those people, and when these people rise and try to run countries with a theocratic background, it does not really work out and we start to have problems in the world. In response to the numbers of Australians that have shown interest in IS, al-Nusra and other terrorist organisations, and seeing these sorts of threats to the world and even to our own country, obviously something needed to take place. The government needed to react. Again, like the member for Bowman, I am very proud to be part of a government that has identified what the problem is and has acted swiftly to reduce that threat and to take action against such people.

In the past, in other contributions that I have made here in the parliament, I have looked at the information on the backgrounds of some of these people that have come from Australia. As we know, it is not just confined to people that might be from a lower socioeconomic background. There is a range of different people. They are male mainly, but their ages range from 18 to 40. These are the sorts of people that are ending up going over there. I often consider that what they are trying to do with their lives is find some meaning. Maybe they feel that there has been a lack of success in their lives. Obviously, this is the wrong view and they are wrong to pursue these sorts of ventures such as support for IS. It is a terrible, illegitimate, evil organisation. It is not a culture at all, just the worst in human nature. That is what IS appeals to. I guess if people tell them that they are going to be accomplishing something special or important or religious, then that might drive some people and might encourage some people to be part of such terrible organisations.

But I think it is a little bit worse than that as well. I think that some of what attracts these people is being able to hurt other people. I think that that is one of the things that really attracts some of these people. If anyone wants to cut people's heads off and parade them around or encourage one's children to hold a severed head in their hand, there is something not right about that person. Maybe they are drawn to an interest in actually hurting people. I think there are those that also like the concept of being able to rape others as well. I guess this is another point that these sorts of people are attracted to. I think there are probably also the paedophile natures amongst them as well.

I find nothing to recommend such people. I think that they are pretty much subhuman. Personally, of those that have already left, I say good riddance. If it were up to me, and if it were within my realm of responsibility, I would say that these people are exactly the sort of people we do not want anymore. If they should get in the way of falling ordnance from Australian or other aircraft then I say that that is not too bad a thing either, because the people who are attracted to these sorts of ventures—the people who think there is something good about the Islamic State, Daesh, or al-Nusra—are not the sorts of people who will ever add any great value to this country, or any value at all. If death befalls them there is nothing wrong with that.

But unfortunately, it is not just those who manage to make it overseas that we are concerned with. There are people in this country as well who actively support them, recruit for them and raise money for them. In these sorts of moments it really is right for this government to do as it is doing and pursue these people. Internationally we have an obligation not to let people leave this country to add fuel to the fire. So we should stop them, and we should act against them.

With respect to the control orders that have been part of this debate, there have been some in the community who have expressed some concern. Obviously, through the amendments suggested by the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security some of these issues have been resolved. I welcome that resolution. But, in any case, it is really important that our intelligence agencies—ASIO and ASIS, together with the Australian Federal Police and in their interactions with the Australian Defence Force—are given all the tools to add to their ability to interdict these terrorists, because if someone goes overseas to kill people in the name of religion, or to do other terrible acts to people in the name of religion, then they will see the faults that they have seen in the groups that they oppose in those countries, here in Australia. Once someone has made that decision—that they want to go and hurt people, kill people, decapitate people, rape—they are no longer someone we could ever trust in this country. It is important that our security agencies have the capacity—through this bill and elsewhere—to act against them. I welcome that and I applauded it.

All the best to you, ASIO, ASIS, the AFP and the Australian Defence Force! All power to you to do what needs to be done to keep the people of this country safe! And, ultimately, all power to the ADF and ASIS, to keep other places in the world as safe as they can be, as well—within our legitimate and lawful responsibility.

In every way, I applaud this bill. As I said before, there is nothing good that can be said of these sorts of people, and we must be do everything in our power to act against them; there is no doubt about it. This bill, as we know, contains a series of amendments. This is the not the first bill; the government has acted in two other bills as well. The amendments contained within this bill address three key areas. One of the key areas is to help the Australian Secret Intelligence Service in their support for and cooperation with the Australian Defence Force on military operations. The second is to enhance the arrangements for the provision of emergency ministerial authorisations to the IS Act agencies to undertake activities in the performance of their statutory functions. The third is to enhance 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.

On that last point, I would like to raise a particular issue. Whilst I totally endorse this bill, and the two others before it, it is always right for us to consider these things and to think about whether they could ever be better—whether more could be done. I know there has been some debate and some commentary. I support that. A number of us remain concerned that the ability of the police to question people whilst they are being detained under a control order needs some more work.

Ultimately, the role of ASIO—and, to a degree, the Australian Federal Police—is to keep Australians safe and to keep this country safe. If, for instance, it comes down to whether lives could be lost when the pursuit of evidence is considered more important than the gathering of information, then we need to think carefully about that. I think that even if information obtained from someone who has been detained under a control order is later deemed to be inadmissible as evidence—or is struck out in a trial—if that information then leads to a terrorist attack being undermined or interdicted, then that is a good thing. That is ultimately what it is all about.

It is all very well to make sure all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed to put someone in jail, but ultimately the first responsibility of these agencies is to keep people safe and to stop terrorist attacks. I do not see any problem with agencies being able to ask questions of someone under control orders. After reading someone their rights it should be admissible to question them—or it should be decided by a court whether it is admissible—and it should certainly be undertaken if there is information. On all occasions, it is really important that the police and other agencies have that ability to ask questions of people under control orders, to ensure that they know as much of what is going on or what the threat is as possible. I make that point, and I know that others have already made it in this debate.

In my background, I was in the Federal Police for a couple of years before I joined the Army for 15 years. I joined the Federal Police and then the Army from a sense of patriotism, where you look at the flag and you feel something special about it—but it is about more than just a flag. It is about a nation and the things that make it good: the freedom of speech, the freedom of opportunity, the freedom of religion and the equality of the genders. Being Australian is not about a flag; it is about a state of mind and a view that this country has developed to be the best country in the world because of its background and our intention to keep it safe and to keep all these problems out of the way.

When I look around and I see people betraying our country, taking up arms or supporting organisations like the Islamic State, which is also called Daesh, al-Nusra or any of those organisations—when I see people betraying their country because of some warped understanding of a religion or some other mentality—it reminds me that the freedom that we have and the greatness of our country must be defended. It is precisely through these sorts of bills and these sorts of measures that this country will remain the greatest country in the world and that the Australian people will remain safe.

We cannot ever be certain that we can stop every terrorist attack, but we must make sure that those people entrusted to take action on our behalf and on behalf of the people have all the arms and all the support they absolutely need. So I commend this bill to the House.

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very proud to rise to speak on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014. As we have heard this evening, this bill is an important part of the government's comprehensive plan to combat terrorism. Recent actions in Australia and overseas have heightened the security threat, requiring us to act quickly and strongly to combat that threat. Australia is, of course, participating in air strikes in Iraq as part of the international coalition formed to disrupt and degrade the dreaded ISIL.

Unfortunately it is not just in Iraq or in Syria where the threat is posed. In Australia, we have seen some disturbing developments, particularly an incident in my home state of Victoria. These lone-wolf attacks add a whole new dimension to fighting terrorism and, frankly, are frightening. Other lone-wolf attacks around the world remind us just how easy it is to carry out an act of terrorism. As former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said on 19 March back in 2003, when he opened a debate on the Iraq crisis in the House of Commons:

The purpose of terrorism lies not just in the violent act itself. It is in producing terror. It sets out to inflame, to divide, to produce consequences which they then use to justify further terror.

We cannot let the terrorists achieve their aims. As the honoured representatives of the people of this great country, it is incumbent upon all of us to leave no stone unturned in keeping people safe and ensuring people can go about their lives free of fear.

We have witnessed some truly frightening events unfold in this country and abroad in recent times; hence the need to act decisively and quickly. The hideous reality of terrorism, especially the lone-wolf terrorism, was thrust onto the front pages of the newspapers around the world in May 2013, when UK soldier Lee Rigby was brutally and savagely murdered on the streets of London in broad daylight. We would have to agree that that was one of the most horrific, distressing and shocking incidents that we have seen occur on any street in any city in any part of the world.

As everyone in this House and those watching at home will no doubt vividly recall, there was a terrifying incident in Endeavour Hills in my home state of Victoria just a number of months ago. Eighteen-year-old Numan Haider was shot dead after he stabbed a Victoria Police officer and an Australian Federal Police member. At a time when there was some debate about whether the government was overreacting, that really brought home that we are dealing with a terrorist threat on our own doorstep. My parliamentary colleagues here in Canberra and I feel it every day.

We particularly felt it after seeing what happened in Canada, when 24-year-old soldier Nathan Cirillo was shot dead while standing guard at the nation's war memorial. The gunman, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, then went on a rampage through Canada's parliament before being shot dead himself by a very heroic sergeant-at-arms, Ken Vickers. That brought home to all members and senators in this parliament and the many hundreds of people who work here in Parliament House the need to act quickly and to act decisively. There has been so much bipartisanship in response to the increased terrorism threat. I am very proud of how we as a parliament as a whole have responded to what can only be called an increasing crisis.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott told the parliament on 22 September this year:

All that would be needed to conduct such an attack is a knife, a camera-phone and a victim.

To quote the United States President, Barack Obama, from his 10 December 2009 Nobel lecture address:

Terrorism has long been a tactic, but modern technology allows a few small men with outsized rage to murder innocents on a horrific scale.

These types of incidents both at home and abroad remind us that we need to be vigilant and that the threat of terrorism can never be extinguished altogether. Terrorism strikes at the heart of everything we hold dear as a peace-loving nation. It is so important that we as a government, that we as a parliament, representing this great nation do everything we can to stop this abhorrent threat, as best we can, in its tracks. We are determined to do everything within our power to keep Australians safe.

Much of the recent concerns can be attributed to the rise of ISIL, that dreaded death cult. I addressed the rise of ISIL in this parliament on the day we learned about the horrific murder of American journalist Stephen Sotloff and just weeks after the murder James Foley. Unfortunately, Mr Sotloff lost and Mr Foley were among many who have been killed by ISIL fanatics in Iraq and Syria. As a former journalist myself I cannot begin to express the distress and horror of what those men endured and what so many other men, women and children are enduring in Iraq in Syria. It is beyond comprehension.

These men were just doing their jobs. They were there on the front-line as journalists, telling the world what was going on. It is very hard for me to talk about this. I worked as a journalist from many years not in nearly as dangerous a situation as that, but I cannot rate those journalists highly enough in how they conduct themselves in what they do to share with the world the stories of horror that are going on in that part of the world.

What we are seeing at the moment—and Amnesty International has warned of this—is ethnic cleansing on a historic scale. The situation can only be described as a nightmare. Most of us have Facebook—there are some 10 million Facebook accounts in Australia—and I find it incredibly confronting that even on social media we are seeing these are horrific images that are posted with utter glee and abandon by the perpetrators of the most evil of crimes. It is unspeakable evil. I find it disgusting that these people claim to be an Islamic 'state'. Nothing could be further from the truth. The vast majority of Muslims are peace-loving people who should not even be remotely linked with these murderers, these most evil of men and women.

Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard, on 23 October 2003, in an address in this House said:

… terrorists oppose nations such as the United States and Australia not because of what we have done but because of who we are and because of the values that we hold in common, and that terrorism—and we should remind ourselves of this again and again—is as much the enemy of Islam as it is the enemy of Judaism or Christianity.

It is vital that we remember that. It is vital that we stick together as Australians, regardless of religion or belief.

As we have heard the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and so many others say in this House, this has nothing to do with religion. This has to do with the most horrific extremism by a death cult that has no regard for human life or dignity. The vast majority of us share a desire for peace and freedom, values which are such an intrinsic part of the Australian identity. This bill reflects our absolute determination that we will not let those values that we hold so dear to us be shattered. We will not to be broken by what is going on, both on our own doorstep and in Iraq and Syria.

This bill particularly responds to the threat posed by Australians participating in and supporting foreign conflicts or undertaking training with extremist groups, such as ISIL. It will improve the ability of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to respond to these threats through necessary and urgent amendments to national security legislation to address limitations identified in the course of recent operations. These operations include the deployment of the Australian Defence Force to undertake military operations against ISIL in Iraq and the recent Operation Appleby that disrupted an alleged terrorist an attack in Sydney.

On that note I want to make particular reference to all those men and women who are working so hard behind the scenes to keep us safe. Australians probably only get a glimmer of what they do and how much work that is going on behind the scenes to keep Australians safe. The 24/7 operation of so many of our great security agencies we sadly as Australians do not understand. We do not understand the scope of their work, how difficult it is and perhaps how many times they have averted a horrific situation on our doorstep.

Madam Speaker, I see you have taken the chair. Welcome. We believe that 70 or 80 known Australians have left our country and are fighting in Syria and Iraq. We have seen some images of some of those Australians. Some of them are very young, clearly misguided. It is beyond comprehension that the likes of young children and 16- and 17-year-old boys could end up involved in this. The government does think that there are perhaps another 100 in Australia who are supporting, facilitating and funding this behaviour. Once they leave that become radicalised, and that is a huge threat to our way of life. Returning to our shores poses a huge threat to Australians here. The reality is that the rise of ISIL presents a real threat of terrorist attacks in Australia and we must take the very firm action that we as a government are taking. There is a concern that Australians fighting with ISIL will learn the terrorist trade and come back to Australia. For all those reasons, I commend this bill to the House.