Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I do. I ask the minister about section 34ZO, which limits contact with a lawyer of choice. It says in subsection (1):

(1) The person (the subject) specified in a warrant issued under section 34G may be prevented from contacting a particular lawyer of the subject’s choice if the prescribed authority—

the retired judge—

before whom the subject appears for questioning … so directs.

Section 34ZO goes on to say that the retired judge:

... may so direct only if the authority is satisfied, on the basis of circumstances relating to that lawyer, that, if the subject is permitted to contact the lawyer—

that is, if the person is going to ring up their lawyer—somebody else might be tipped off about a terrorism offence that is being investigated or some record might be destroyed. In other words, the lawyer is a security risk who is going to tip off people who might be terrorists. All that the section says is that the authority must be satisfied ‘on the basis of circumstances relating to the lawyer’ before the lawyer should be effectively struck off for this matter. Could the minister give the Senate, with some definition, an explanation of what the term ‘on the basis of circumstances relating to that lawyer’ means? What is it that disqualifies a lawyer? What did the minister have in mind when he wrote that clause?