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

I rise today to speak on the importance of what is called pre-arrest legislation in, sadly, our current climate of terrorism. Recently we saw the tragic and awful events in Manchester, where 22 people were killed—mainly young girls—and 116 injured in a horrific suicide bombing. Police in the UK now say that they are holding 11 men, aged between 18 and 44, in custody and have made major progress in their investigation. They can do this mainly because I believe they will be using what is called pre-arrest detention legislation. Currently in the UK, under sections 40 and 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000 UK, a constable may arrest a person he or she reasonably suspects has committed a terrorism related offence or is or has been concerned in the commission, preparation or investigation—I repeat: the investigation—of acts of terrorism, which is so important for police.

A person arrested under section 41 may be detained for an initial period of 48 hours. This may be extended by judicial authority or a senior judge one or more times up to a total of 14 days. Why is this 14 days so important? It is important because it takes a lot of work and investigation when you have a horrific event where so many people are killed or injured or there are potentially multiple attacks. Police would be seizing computers and phones, and to gather that expert data and IT from such devices takes expertise and time. Also, when you are speaking to co-offenders, it takes time to get their story and match it up with other stories, potentially to find other evidence or prevent further acts of terrorism.

Back in the days when John Howard was Prime Minister, when preventative detention at a federal level was introduced, I raised my strong concern—and, to this day, I have raised it so many times in this House, the party room and in the media—that, if a person is being held in Australian preventative detention there has never been the ability to interview the person held in custody. Basically, the police would have them there and, if a person wanted to make a statement about the commission of an offence, co-offenders or the location of evidence, the police would need to release them and arrest them under part 1C of the Criminal Code—which, to me, is a tedious way to go.

I congratulate the New South Wales government, who are now leading the way in having their own pre-arrest detention legislation. It is very disturbing that, in Victoria, the state Labor government have—and I raised this over 12 months ago—still not implemented this legislation which is so vital. We need all of the states and territories—and I believe there is meeting of chief commissioners coming up soon—to agree on legislation. You need uniform legislation in case you get multiple attacks or the police or law enforcement agencies need to go interstate.

In New South Wales they have the Terrorism (Police Powers) Amendment (Investigative Detention) Act 2016. New South Wales inserted new part 2AA into the Terrorism (Police Powers) Act to establish a new investigation detention regime from 16 May 2016. Under section 25B police are allowed to arrest the terrorism suspect without a warrant for the purpose of investigation detention if the terrorist act concerned occurred in the last 28 days or the police believe that there will be a further act committed in the next 14 days. Under section 25, a person is a terrorism suspect if there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the person has committed or will commit a terrorist act; the person is or has been involved in preparing or planning a terrorist act; or the person possesses a thing that is connected with the commission of or the preparation and planning for a terrorist act—again, giving the tools to police. Terrorism suspects aged 14 years of age or older—and, sadly, we have seen a number of terrorist attacks committed by younger people—may be detained for up to 14 days. An initial period of four days applies but may be extended under a warrant from an eligible judge.

I know that some people are worried about the lengths to which questions can go in order to have a person in detention. But I say again: to have pre-arrest detention legislation right across the country is a vital tool for law enforcement. The last thing we want is to have some awful incident take place and then realise that our law enforcement agencies did not have the necessary legislation to help them investigate an horrific terrorist attack. (Time expired)