Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014, which enacts amendments to the Criminal Code Act 1995 and the Intelligence Services Act. With respect to the latter act, the bill makes explicit the statutory duty of ASIS to assist the ADF in overseas military operations and it also addresses some limitations in emergency ministerial authorisations which apply variously to ASIS, ASD and AGO.

The contribution I wish to make today will deliver some observations regarding the amendments in this bill to the Commonwealth Criminal Code. Essentially, the bill amends the control order provisions of the Commonwealth Criminal Code to allow them to be obtained in a new set of circumstances. I want to make three observations in the time available. First of all, I want to note what this bill effects in terms of changes to the present control order regime. Secondly, I want to provide some consideration of what the control order system in the Commonwealth Criminal Code is—that is, provide a brief examination of the mechanics of what the control order system does. Thirdly, I want to provide a brief assessment on who in this parliament and in a civic society are opposed to these changes and why. To anticipate the conclusion of this third observation, in a time when bipartisanship is rare—this does have bipartisanship support—the opposition that is presently provided in and outside of this parliament to these changes, and indeed to the control order system per se, I would describe as representing a fringe element of Australian society. I also want to make some comments about why it is that the reasons they offer for opposing these changes to the control order system are wrongheaded, completely ill informed and represent a laziness that should not be delivered to the level that it has been in this parliament.

Firstly, with respect to the changes to the control order system, control orders can be sought in a number of circumstances and, to receive one, certain things have to be shown to a certain standard. What this bill does in essence is slightly but importantly broaden the bases upon which you can seek and eventually receive a control order, should you be able to prove to the requisite standard certain things. The extension is with respect to two possible scenarios. Firstly, the AFP member can seek the Attorney-General's consent, or indeed a court can issue a control order, in circumstances where it can be shown that the order would substantially assist in preventing the provision of support or the facilitation of a terrorist act. The second broadening is that the AFP can seek, and a court can issue, a control order if it can be shown to the relevant standard that the control order would assist in preventing the provision of support or facilitation of a terrorist act or engagement in a hostile activity. So there are two extensions—showing that it can assist in preventing the provision of support or facilitation, or showing that it can prevent engagement in a hostile activity in a foreign country. The reason that has become necessary is clear to bipartisan members of the coalition and the Labor Party, and it is simply that those two things are now occurring with greater frequency than they did in the past. So there has become a need to add to the list of things that form the basis of a control order those two phenomena that we are now encountering.

Those are relatively modest changes to the extent that they expand the control order regime, but they are very important for the fact that they represent the ability of the government to adapt and improvise and overcome new phenomena in the execution of terrorism and terrorist acts. That brings me to my second point, which is a description of what control orders do. Perhaps there is no better simple description of what they do than in the 2008 publication by the Australian Human Rights Commission A Human Rights Guide To Australia's Counter-Terrorism Laws. It says:

A control order can allow a variety or obligations, prohibitions and restrictions to be imposed on a person for the purpose of protecting the public from a terrorist act. For example, a control order can require a person to stay in a certain place at certain times, prevent a person from going to certain places or talking to certain people, or compel the person to wear a tracking device. These restrictions can impact on fundamental rights and freedoms, including the rights to liberty, privacy, freedom of association, freedom of expression and freedom of movement.

That is a relatively simple, crisp and fair description provided by the Human Rights Commission. Control orders place obligations or restrictions on a person—most often attaching to that person's freedom of movement and, obviously, their liberty—based on something that has been shown to a civil standard of proof. That something is set out in the act, and what we are debating here today is whether that something should be extended to those two things I mentioned—that is, showing that the order would substantially assist in preventing the provision of support or facilitation of a terrorist act or engagement in a hostile activity.

It is worth noting that being able to go before a court as a law enforcement officer on behalf of a law enforcement organisation and convince a court to some civil standard that something has happened or that something is likely to happen and thereby you need an order to prevent that thing from happening is an often used mechanism across all jurisdictions in Australia and all Common Law jurisdictions. There is nothing radical, novel or new about that type of provision. I would also make the point that there are a whole range of things that fall into this category, this type of mechanism. Bail is one of those things. Restraining orders in domestic violence circumstances are another example. It also includes prohibited behaviour orders, which exist in the Western Australian jurisdiction; anti-social behaviour orders, which exist in the UK; control orders in a range of legislation aimed at outlaw motorcycle groups throughout Australia; and dangerous sex offender legislation that exists in a range of jurisdictions throughout Australia. These all engage this fundamental mechanism that is also engaged in in the control order provisions of the Commonwealth Criminal Code, which is to require a law enforcement authority to show to a civil standard that something may happen. If they can do that, certain consequences will flow—orders issued by the court which, if breached, have penalties attached.

The standards for all of those things I have mentioned—bail, VROs, PBOs, ASBOs, bikie legislation and dangerous sex offender legislation—often vary but they are all civil standards. So, in the most serious of circumstances—for instance, the continuing detention of a dangerous sex offender—you will likely find that the civil standard will be a high probability, or more likely than not. In the case of control orders, it is a balance of probabilities—so, if you like, crudely, a 50 per cent prospect of the thing argued to be likely to happen actually happening. But there are also lower standards that are often used in things like bail and so forth, which are reasonable belief or reasonable suspicion. All of the standards that apply to these types of civil orders fall significantly beneath the criminal standard, which is the highest standard known to the law: beyond reasonable doubt.

Thereby, in summary, they are civil orders; they are decided by a court on a civil standard and, in the case of control orders, balance of probabilities. They have been held by a succession of High Court decisions to be protective, not punitive orders in terms of their legal definition. That is to say that they protect the public and indeed in many instances protect the interests of the subject, often protecting them from themselves and their own proclivities. Finally, they have been found on a number of occasions to breach no principle of our Constitution. They do not confound the role of the executive with that of the judiciary; they do not breach the Kable principle, as has been shown in cases like Thomas and Mowbray; nor do they breach any constitutional principle applying in Australia to the procedural fundamentals of a fair trial. They are used very often; they are constitutional in every given respect. What they do is provide a system which assesses a person's future risk of doing a certain thing which society views as incredibly dangerous, unwarranted or unwelcome and then make certain restrictions on a person's liberty based on that assessment of risk—the prospective assessment of risk.

The point that I would then go on to make, which is the second point of this contribution, is that those people in this parliament and outside it who are opposed to these changes to control orders are also opposed consistently to the control order regime itself and in many instances explicitly show their opposition to all of those other types of civil based orders that I have described or indeed, by logical inference, have to be opposed to those types of things.

I will give one example from Senator Leyonhjelm in the other place. He said:

… something, in and of itself, obnoxious because it confounds the basic principle that people should not be deprived of their liberty without a finding of guilt..

This is in reference to this very bill. He goes on to say:

Finally, control orders are civil orders—the grounds for one need only be made out on the balance of probabilities—yet to breach one attracts a penalty of five years' imprisonment. The idea of sending someone to jail for five years for something he says, on a balance of probabilities, should not be entertained in a liberal democracy.

I must say that is wrong, inconsistent, confused and a gross misapprehension of the actual situation that exists in criminal and civil law.

With regard to arguing that this confounds some basic principle that people should not be deprived of their liberty without a finding of guilt: if what is being proposed is that such a principle should exist, that is one thing. If what is being proposed is that such a principle does exist, it is completely and utterly wrong. The real fact is that, in a whole range of circumstances, people in Australia are jailed for breaching civil orders which are given on balances of proof well beneath the criminal standard. The mistake that is being made here is to confuse the jailing with the breach of the order, with the standard that is required for the delivery of the order itself. And, again, what it misunderstands is the fact that these types of orders exist everywhere in Australia in a whole range of circumstances.

The reality is—I will provide this example—that, if you oppose a control order on the types of bases that Senator Leyonhjelm does, you must also by necessary inference oppose a violence restraining order as a matter of system and principle. A violence restraining order is applied for, often by local police on the basis that they say there is a balance of probabilities risk that certain behaviour will occur in future based on patterns of behaviour in the past, and the person is given a civil order which restricts their liberty—they should not go to certain residences or addresses, notably that of the partner, at certain times. If breached, that carries a criminal penalty, but the order itself is civil. If you find that obnoxious then you cannot equally support that in the context of domestic violence.

Again, there is a whole range of opposition to this which is absolutely and completely inconsistent. We had Senator Wright say:

Control orders can be applied to people who have not been charged with a criminal offence and even to people suspected of harbouring a criminal intent.

First of all, that is not entirely correct. What has to be shown is that there is a balance of probabilities likelihood that something in the future will happen—in this case there could be material support for terrorism or engaging in support for hostile activities abroad. Further, the person has in fact provided support for or otherwise facilitated a terrorist act or hostile activity in a foreign country. It is said by Senator Wright:

As drafted, the bill allows control orders to be sought if reasonably suspected to be necessary to prevent the provision of support for, or the facilitation of, the engagement in a hostile activity in a foreign country and preventing the provision of support for, or the facilitation of, a terrorist act. This is a very slippery slope.

It is not. These things exist right across Australia in every jurisdiction that we have. The reality remains that in a whole range of circumstances we allow for civil orders which if breached carry penalties of imprisonment. Perhaps the best example of this is in dangerous sex offender legislation. As I have said, there have been many cases—Fardon in Queensland is a case. At the level of the United Nations Human Rights Committee there was an assessment that Mr Fardon should not have been detained or indeed placed on prohibitive orders after he was detained in prison because of the risk. The High Court of Australia said that he could and that the parliament was well within its rights to issue legislation which said that the person could be detained. So, if you do not support it here, it is inconsistent to support it elsewhere. It should be supported in all of the places in Australia where it exists.

I go back to that initial document that I read from, which is the Human Rights Guide to Counter-Terrorism Laws, the major difficulty with the Australian Human Rights Commission's view on these matters, if I might gently say so, is that that report commences with a bold statement that human rights may be infringed by counter-terrorism laws but neglects also at any point to note that human rights might also be protected by counter-terrorism laws. They note that the right to a fair trial, the right to freedom from arbitrary detention and arrest and the right not to be subject to torture might be abridged—and I will take some measure of difficulty with that based on High Court decisions. But, in any event, other ICCPR rights, which are seen as non-derogative, such as the right to life and the right to freedom of expression, will be protected by these orders, and that is why they should be supported.

Mal Brough (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not intend to canvass in detail the specific measures within the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014. They have been more than adequately covered by the numerous speakers who have come before me, and none more eloquently than the member for Pearce. I want to reflect a little bit about why we are at this point, how we have got here and what has changed since we, as a parliament, started to canvass these issues back in 2001.

I entered this parliament back in 1996 for the first time. Just to take people's minds back, the forecourt of this parliament was considerably different then. In those days, the traffic flowed two ways around the parliament. The road itself had to be amended at the front of the parliament to push the traffic further away from the forecourt and the front of the building. My understanding is that that extension was not for some good traffic purpose. It was actually so that if a bomb was blown up in front of the parliament the pressure from the explosion would not penetrate the front of the building. I recall in my early days in this place there were no bollards. You went and parked out the back of the House of Representatives. You left your car, without gates, underneath the parliament. In other words, there were great freedoms that were just taken for granted in this, the people's palace, the Parliament of Australia.

We took it for granted because we are a very lucky country. But the reality is that, since 2001, our world has changed. Today, to have men—and perhaps some women—with rifles in front of our parliament is something that I would not possibly have considered. It would have been a figment of someone's wild imagination. I take us on this journey for us to reflect, as a people and as a parliament, as to why we have got here.

Terrorism is not new. Terrorism is thousands of years old. Modern terrorism began with, from my limited research, a hijacking of an aircraft in Brazil, I think it was, in the 1930s. My understanding was that it too was to do with politics—constitutional revolution. There was the Munich Olympics massacre of the Jewish team in 1972, which brought this into stark relief for the public, and, of course, September 11.

I recall precisely, as I am sure many people do in this place, where I was on September 11. I was in Sydney in a hotel room and I remember I was watching Muhammad Ali in Rumble in the Jungle, and along the bottom of the screen came this little ticker tape saying a plane had hit the Twin Towers. Initially I just thought, 'What a fool! How the hell could you miss those!' or, 'Why didn't you miss them?' Of course, sometime thereafter, when the enormity of the situation dawned on me, I recall ringing my wife, getting her out of bed and just saying—and I remember the words precisely—'Turn on the TV. The world's gone mad. The world has gone mad.' And it really has in many respects because the things that we have taken for granted—the freedoms that we have enjoyed in this country and that we just take as our birthright—have actually been impinged in many ways by this parliament reacting to an ever-changing world of terrorism.

I asked the Parliamentary Library today to list for me the number of legislative changes since 2001. Today we hit No. 54. There have been 54 changes, and almost every one of those will be in some way impinging the rights of an Australian who means no-one any harm, who goes about their business in a law-abiding, free manner. We had the proceeds of crime bills, the border security legislation, the suppression of finance of terrorism bill, the security legislation amendment, the criminal code amendment—and, of course, we are amending the criminal code again today—all the way through to maritime transport security and aviation transport security bills. On it goes, all the way through. There were 48 in the time that I was last in parliament, a further two changes in the Gillard-Rudd years and then another four changes now.

There are two things about them. One is that they do restrict Australians' liberties—things that many Australians have fought and died for. But, as the member for Pearce said, there are those who will champion your rights to maintain your freedoms, and I, like many members here, would, no doubt, have had correspondence from members of the public about the metadata retention legislation and the intercept laws, and I do not want to see those things in place. But I recognise, as a former soldier, that when your enemy continues to change, when your enemy continues to innovate, when your enemy continues to want to destroy you, for you to stand still and not to react means that you will fail the people that we are here to support: the general public.

All of these measures, introduced by Liberal and Labor, have had one purpose: to strengthen our intelligence and our capacity to gather intelligence, to be able to detain people who may be of risk to our fellow Australians, to support our Defence forces and out police forces and to protect people when they are flying or in their normal work. They not only come at a cost to our liberties, they come at a financial cost. Over that period of time, these measures, which have been foisted upon us because others want their ideologies jammed down our throats and want us to pay the penalty—that penalty being the loss of our liberty—have also cost, it is estimated, something in the order, in today's money, of $16 thousand million to $17 thousand million. So the next time you walk through an airport and you go through a scanner or you see the bollards out the front here and the extra security guards that are in so many places, it does not actually add to productivity. It does not add to the wealth of our nation and to who we are and what we want to be. It does not put another teacher at a school or at a desk. What it does is give us some level of protection from those who seek to destroy who we are and what we are.

I would just like to make some comments about my philosophy on this. I have said it in the Federation Chamber and I would like to repeat it today. We have made mistakes in the past in the Middle East where we declare full-time, we declare that the game is over when the game is not over, because most people living in the Western world wish to live free. They do not want their sons and their daughters going to war. They do not want to spend money and they do not want to see the carnage that is caused by war. However, if we decide when the game is over, there are those with extremist views who do not hold to those rules. They will, like a flickering flame, die down and become hard to identify, but be assured that with the right oxygen—money, opportunity—they will rise again, they will burn brightly and they will attract to them moths from around the world.

At the time of the second reading speech by the Attorney-General, Senator Brandis—and I commend the job that he has been doing—it was estimated that there were some 50 Australians fighting overseas. That number has not lessened; it has grown since that time. The threat to Australia has grown since that time. Hence, we have to continue not only to remain vigilant but—and it is a word that we like to bandy around—to achieve containment. This is not something that can be contained. This is a scourge on the world that must, with every effort, be eliminated. The Islamic population of Australia is and will play an important role in ensuring that occurs.

I have a message to some in my own electorate. There is in Maroochydore at the moment an Islamic church wishing to purchase a spot to worship in. I support their right to do so. I am sure my uncle, who fought with the 2/25th Battalion in both New Guinea and the Middle East, would also have fought for their right. He may not have been a Muslim and he may have disagreed with many of the more extreme positions of that church, but he would have supported their right to be able to worship how, when and whom they wish. And I support that right. I think that once we allow fear to overcome our freedoms and our belief in the freedoms of speech, association and worship then we are lesser persons, and the terrorists of this world win.

There are 54 pieces of legislation, including today's. We are aiming to help our Defence Force personnel by ensuring they have the best intelligence available in the most timely fashion. We are removing obstacles—which could be unforeseen—where time is of the essence and where a minister may be not be available and there is no second party who can give that authority. These are simple things, but they are actually important. They are important for ensuring that we give the men and women of Australia who seek to defend us the weaponry, the intelligence, the command structure and the resources they need.

It is not Senator Brandis or the Prime Minister who have come up with these ideas. It is the professionals, the people we entrust with our freedoms. They are the people who put their lives on the line and send others into harm's way. This is the best advice they can give to us about how to help them fight terrorism. We should stand steadfast with them at all times. We should not be second-guessing these things, because none of them seek to remove, withdraw or limit their own freedoms or their families' freedoms. They do it because they believe it is in the best interests of us as a nation and of each individual within our nation.

To that handful of people who seek to destroy our way of life: be under no illusion. Every Australian, bar just a handful, stands against you and we stand as one—despite our religions, despite our political views, despite our cultural backgrounds—because that is what has made us great for our entire existence and will continue to do so into the future. I dream of the day when we do not need men out the front with rifles, when we can again have the freedoms that we had, those days of innocence which seem not that long ago. Maybe I live in a fantasyland, but we have to dream. We have to have a vision of a safer, freer world, and Australia stands ready to play its part.

To our Defence Force personnel, as they serve overseas today and in the weeks to come over Christmas: on behalf of the people of Fisher and Australia, I thank you for what you are doing. I pray you godspeed. May you return to your families and the bosom of Australia.

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today on behalf of my constituents in the electorate of Petrie in support of the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014. I want to associate myself with the remarks of the member for Fisher. I thought that was an excellent speech and that he hit the nail right on the head with what he had to say. I certainly agree with what the member for Fisher had to say.

It would be ignorant to doubt that Australia faces a serious and ongoing terrorist threat. This legislation seeks to address the urgent operational needs that have been identified by our intelligence, defence and law enforcement agencies. The terrorist situation in Iraq and Syria is only worsening. This has in turn posed serious security issues, even here on the other side of the world. We have seen the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria over the last few months, and it is appalling to see what has been happening there: people being murdered daily, women being raped regularly and people being shot through the back of the head. This is unacceptable. It is out of control.

In Australia, we sit back. We live in a great country with lots of freedom and a great democracy. But what is happening over there is unbelievable. It is relevant here because of who is involved with ISIS. We know that there are over 100 Australians that have been over there, fighting and training and involved with ISIS. We know, as the foreign minister has said, that about 25 per cent of those people were born overseas and have dual passports. The Australian government, where possible, is cancelling their Australian passports so those people cannot return to this country. But 75 per cent of those people were actually born here in Australia. They are Australians. The majority of them are young men under the age of 25 and they are training with ISIS in Iraq and Syria, witnessing these atrocities—murder, rape and crucifixion. If they do not convert to their so-called religion, people are murdered on the spot, including children. Let us not forget that: children from Christian families are being murdered there as well. For the 75 per cent who were born in Australia and are over in Iraq and Syria, we cannot cancel their passports. They are Australians; they were born here. So the bill addresses how to deal with these people when they return, because they are going to come back even more radicalised.

We saw what happened in Britain recently with the UK serviceman who last year was run down and decapitated. We saw what happened in Canada's parliament just a few weeks ago, with a radicalised lunatic over there murdering a guard. We saw a young man in Victoria, just a few weeks ago, attack and try to murder two police officers. This is why this is relevant here in Australia.

The federal government's primary responsibility, of course, is not just to build a strong, prosperous economy but to build a safe and secure Australia. We need to look after our people. As a first-term MP, I have spent much of this past year talking to people from many parts of my electorate, and many views are expressed to me daily. My inbox is constantly blitzed by lobby groups and those with a particular idea about what they believe would make Australia better. Many of those writing to me are concerned by the images they see in the daily newspapers or on the evening news broadcasts. They are concerned for their safety and for the safety of our community. This bill seeks to address some of those concerns.

This bill is part of the government's comprehensive response to the current situation we find ourselves in—in particular, the challenges we will have dealing with those Australians participating in and supporting foreign conflicts. Here in Australia, our intelligence agencies have identified issues. Our law enforcement agencies and defence personal need the legislative framework to be able to deal with the threats posed by those wanting to harm Australia and Australians' way of life. This legislation is not the result of any ideologically driven aims; it is simply the result of instances of operational needs identified by law enforcement agencies. The bill was subjected to review and scrutiny by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security in its 20 November 2014 report. I note that the government has accepted, or accepted in principle, all of the committee's recommendations.

I want to also acknowledge some of the comments in newspapers about these amendments. Firstly, the fact that we can debate issues should be celebrated. We live, as I said earlier, in a strong democracy where we have freedom. I assure those who have some concerns that this legislation gives excess powers to the ASIO and ASIS chiefs in respect of 'emergency authorisations' that I believe these concerns have been fully alleviated by the Attorney-General's second reading speech. However, this government takes its responsibility very seriously, and the powers contained in these amendments are vital to address the threat of terrorism. Our laws cannot be static. We live in a changing environment, but these amendments have been drafted with the appropriate checks and balances. We cannot be a reactive government, acting only after a serious act of terrorism occurs on our soil. We must be a proactive government—and we are. We are strengthening existing pieces of legislation that do not adequately address current domestic security threats.

As I noted, the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill has been introduced to address urgent operational needs identified by our intelligence, defence and law enforcement agencies. The amendments address three key areas: (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) better facilitating the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, which supports and cooperates with the Australian Defence Force on military operations, and (3) making it easier for intelligence agencies to gain emergency ministerial authorisations to undertake activities in the performance of their statutory functions.

To look closely at enhancing the control order regime, the existing control order regime is already subject to significant safeguard and oversight mechanisms, including through the need to obtain both the Attorney-General's consent and a court order, which will continue to apply. But the current capacity of law enforcement agencies to protect the public from terrorist acts can and should be enhanced. This bill provides these enhancements to the control order regime through amendments to the Criminal Code. This includes expanding the ground upon which a senior AFP member can, with the Attorney-General's consent, request an interim control order to circumstances where the order would substantially assist in preventing support for or the facilitation of a terrorist act, or an individual's engagement in a hostile activity in a foreign country. In short, enhancements like this will enable our security forces to function faster and more effectively, which is fantastic news.

On facilitating the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, a key role of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service is to provide intelligence support to our Australian Defence Force, which is currently providing military support to Iraq in the fight against terrorist organisations. In using any intelligence provided by the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, the Australian Defence Force is bound by its rules of engagement.

I must say that the Australian Defence Force is doing a fantastic job. Earlier this year, I had the chance to travel to Afghanistan as part of the parliamentary military exchange program with three of my parliamentary colleagues.

It was fantastic to see the men and women in the Australian Defence Force, and experience their confidence and professionalism and the passion with which they carry out their work. They really are doing a wonderful job. We had the chance to sit in on some of the briefings for the rules of engagement in Afghanistan.

The government will continue to invest in the Australian Defence Force. Recently we have seen more of our budget committed to military hardware and equipment that is cutting edge, which the ADF need in order to carry out the work. This is in stark contrast to Labor, who cut $16 billion from the ADF in their six years of government.

These rules of engagement are developed in consultation with the Office of International Law in the Attorney-General's Department to ensure compliance with Australia's international law obligations. Without information like the intelligence that ASIS provides, the ADF is not only hindered, but also potentially put in danger. There is no point in having a defence force if the defence force is not in the best position to defend its nation and its personnel. By allowing ASIS to better support and cooperate with the ADF, we can ensure our defence force is adequately informed and fully understanding of new developments.

I stress again that all of the existing safeguards and oversight mechanisms in the Intelligence Services Act 2001 will continue to apply. 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. Likewise, strong oversight mechanisms will apply to the provision of emergency ministerial authorisations.

At this point in time, when we know that terrorism is a threat to Australians; it is paramount that we act, because typically in these kinds of situations, governments have only two options: acting early or too late. I am all for freedom. As many of my colleagues will agree, we simply cannot let terrorist threats change our lives or scare us out of being ourselves. If we do so, terrorism has won us over.

But we cannot turn away from the fact that terrorism is a very real threat. My constituents know that. I know that. The government of Australia knows that. Even when I am in Canberra participating in the debates in this place I am very conscious of how this legislation is viewed by those meeting at the coffee shop in North Lakes, by the mums and dads taking their children to school in Bracken Ridge, or at the pensioners' meetings in Redcliffe. This is all about the safety of Australians. These amendments give those mums and dads, grandmothers, grandfathers and pensioners comfort knowing that their security agencies, law enforcement agencies and our Australian Defence Forces are looking after their community and knowing that the safety of their children and grandchildren are paramount. They can plan their future in the knowledge that the hard decisions are being made by their government.

Importantly, I stress again that the appropriate checks and balances are in place. Members of parliament representing communities all across Australia know that there is a threat and that we have to do something to address it. As the Prime Minister the Hon. Tony Abbott said, 'We can't guarantee that there will never be a terrorist attack. All we can guarantee is we are as well prepared as possible.'

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

I would like to thank members of parliament for their contributions in this debate on what is a critically important piece of counterterrorism legislation. In particular, I would like to thank the members of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, who have made such important contributions that have resulted in recommendations that the government has been pleased to implement through the government amendments that have been moved in the Senate. These amendments are now reflected in this bill, which the House is dealing with today.

As you would be aware, and as noted in the media, we are living in a heightened security threat environment as a result of the continued conflict in Iraq and Syria, and in particular, the threat posed by Australians participating in and supporting these foreign conflicts and Australians who go to these war zones and undertake training with extremist groups.

Sadly, we are also aware that this is not just an Australian problem. It is one shared by many of our partners. We have certainly been very alive, as we have created and crafted our response to this issue in Australia, to what has been happening overseas.

Currently, Australia's domestic counterterrorism legislation has concentrated on those intent on committing acts of terrorism but this bill, very importantly, expands the preventative purposes of the control-order regime to counter this threat 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.

These amendments respond to law enforcement advice that there are individuals of very serious security concern who are not covered by the existing grounds for making a control order. Some of these people are not directly carrying out acts of terrorism in Australia or hostile activities overseas, but they are providing the necessary support for terrorists and foreign fighters, and their activities facilitate others to engage in terrorism or to fight with these extremist organisations overseas.

I will just turn to some of the specific points that have been made in this debate that I would like to counter—in particular some of the comments that have been made by the member for Melbourne, who noted that this bill will allow controls to be placed on individuals without going through long-standing processes in criminal law. But the control-order regime has actually been in place for 10 years, and this regime responds to extraordinary circumstances of threat to Australia's national security interests.

The expansion of the grounds for obtaining a control order responds to advice from law enforcement that some Australians have taken on roles of supporting and facilitating others to engage terrorism offences or to travel to conflict zones and then to return to Australia with the capabilities acquired from fighting or training with these evil terrorist groups.

From a public safety perspective, the threat posed by these individuals is just as great as the risk posed by those who would directly engage in terrorist acts or foreign incursions. To counter this particular threat, it is therefore rightly appropriate that we expand the preventative purposes of the control order regime.

In his misrepresentation of the control order regime the member for Melbourne linked control orders and the bill to Australia authorising detention of a person, without that person committing an offence. Firstly, control orders do not authorise detention. Secondly, it is astounding that the member for Melbourne and the Greens, if they had their way, would only allow action to be taken after a terrorist act had taken place. It is the first priority of any government to keep its people safe, and this means providing our law enforcement and security agencies with the tools they need to prevent terrorist acts. Control orders, which have only been used twice since 2005, provide the government with such a mechanism.

The bill also amends the Intelligence Services Act 2001, to streamline procedural authorisation requirements for agencies governed by that act to collect intelligence on Australians overseas. This will ensure that our agencies are as agile as they need to be within the contemporary security environment, particularly in emergency circumstances.

A key amendment will be to enhance the ability of ASIS to provide timely assistance to the Australian Defence Force, in support of military operations. After introducing this bill into the Senate, on 29 October, the Attorney-General referred it to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, under the very able chairmanship of the member for Wannon, Mr Dan Tehan. They tabled their report on 20 November, and the committee made 16 recommendations, including—and I think very importantly—that this bill be passed. The government has accepted in principle all of the recommendations that were made by the parliamentary joint committee. We recognise the valuable bipartisan work that this committee does. It is a committee that works very well. Again, I acknowledge the very able chairmanship of the member for Wannon, and I thank all of those members on the committee who participated in that inquiry.

I wanted to respond to a couple of other comments that have been made in the course of this debate. I welcome the Labor Party's support for it, but I was disappointed to hear in the debate some inaccurate and misleading comments, particularly in relation to the fact that we had failed to engage the community on some of this legislation. This is simply not true. There has been a very extensive amount of community consultation that has been undertaken by the Prime Minister, by the Attorney-General, by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Services, Senator Fierravanti-Wells. They have engaged with senior leaders of the Muslim community in Australia. It has also happened on a more informal level when members of our party room were encouraged to go out and talk directly to Muslim communities in their electorates. That is something I certainly did. I know that many other members also took advantage of that opportunity. So I completely reject the idea that we have not effectively consulted with the community. As the Attorney-General has previously said, the purpose of these meetings was specifically to engage the community on the government's intention—to engage with them in a way that makes them partners with the government in seeking to protect their youngsters from being enticed into the snares of terrorist organisations that are engaged in war-fighting in the Middle East. We have certainly been pleased to partner with the community to do all we can to explain the government's intentions here. I think that engagement has been very effective.

This is actually probably a greater level of engagement than would be usual when it comes to government legislation. But of course this is not an ordinary issue. We cannot possibly be effective in our fight against terrorist organisations in snaring our youngsters to go to the Middle East and fight without working in partnership with the community. So we have been very mindful that we need to do that. I think those meetings have been very productive. I am very pleased that the community leaders we met with in Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra actually expressed to the government their appreciation for that level of consultation. They let us know that they wanted to work effectively with us on these difficult issues, and they shared with us their belief that they want the government to keep Australia safe.

I was also disappointed to hear opposition comments about our Countering Violent Extremism program and some allegations that there has been a delay in the rollout of this program. Again, that simply is not true. We do not want to rush the design of this program. It is important that we get it right. The focus of the new CVE program is the $13.4 million investment. We are designing it to intervene to stop young Australians from being radicalised to violent extremism. This is a new program. It builds on research we have undertaken. It has used our experience. Also, very importantly, it has used experience gained overseas, because these are not issues that are unique to Australia. The radicalisation to violence process is unique to each person that undergoes it. This is why we need to design a program that is flexible as well as being effective. It is important that the interventions we undertake through this program actually respond to the individual's needs, and we need to identify the best way to help them.

The Attorney-General's Department has been engaged with world-leading experts and practitioners at both the federal and state level. We have worked very effectively with our partners in this important work. Considerable effort has been undertaken, including extensive consultation with key community stakeholders, state and territory governments and the professional and community sectors.

The next phase of our engagement will be with key communities in the coming weeks. Further information will be made available on the web site livingsafertogether.gov.au, and via an email to those who advise us of their interest.

Other core elements of the government's program include addressing online radicalisation and reducing the impact of terrorists' use of social media, by helping people to develop the digital skills needed to critically assess terrorists' claims and promote alternative and then positive messages online.

I thank all of my colleagues who have participated in this debate and recognise the need for these important reforms. The Abbott government is undertaking a comprehensive review and reform of our national security architecture to ensure that our counterterrorism framework is effective and targeted to our current national security threat, and to make sure that our agencies are supported by the legislative framework we have that enables them to respond to emerging and future security threats. This bill has a direct impact on the ability of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to support our defence force in particular, so that they can continue to protect Australia and Australians. I therefore commend the bill to the House as another part of the arsenal we are providing our agencies with to keep our community safe.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.