Robert Ray (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I must say, listening to the previous speaker extol the views of the former Prime Minister Mr Fraser, that I will just take that under advisement, remembering his role in the mid-1970s, with the bombing in Sydney and the total trampling then, when he was in power, on everyone’s human rights without any compunction whatsoever. I am glad the poacher has turned gamekeeper. It does show that people can be reformed and can change, especially when they do not personally have to take responsibility for their actions anymore.

What you are looking at in this report is something you will not see too often again. You will not see this government allow a committee, by way of statutory obligation, report to this parliament—because, now they have the numbers in this chamber, they simply will not put those provisions into legislation. The reason you have the Sheller report and this report of the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security is that the opposition and other parties in this place, including the Greens, insisted that there be these reviews and report-back mechanisms.

If you want to look at the real intent of the government, you will see that the moment they got a majority here the first sunset clause they put in went for 11 years. Even though the committee generously—they almost erred on the side of generosity—recommended 5½ years, we got 11 years. That is an absolute joke.

This is not a report that was put in in anger. For the most part, this is a constructive report—a unanimous report of the committee—and one in which we do not expect the government to adopt every recommendation. But I do expect on this occasion that they have an open mind and consider every one of these recommendations, because they are all quite reasonable, as was the Sheller review.

Today, I want to draw the attention of the Senate to recommendation 2. It outweighs all the other recommendations because it puts in place a recommendation for the future. We have had, in this place, 19 or 23—Senator Bartlett probably knows how many—pieces of antiterrorist and security legislation in the last few years. None of it, of course, dovetails in. Sometimes it is slightly inconsistent. We do not have an overall regime; we have 23 parts of a regime. What we suggest in the report is that rather than have a parliamentary committee review it in a sporadic way, and rather than relying on the cumbersome processes of the Attorney-General’s Department getting to these issues, we set up an independent reviewer.

That independent reviewer, on an annual basis, would review the whole plethora of terrorist legislation and make incremental recommendations. In other words, you would not get a revolutionary change every year, but you would get improvements year by year to impose consistency and to respond to how the legislation is working and to see what problems are thrown up. It will give people with complaints or doubts about the system somewhere to go.

Of course, people have pointed out that the independent reviewer will be appointed by government and have asked what there is to stop the government putting in a stooge. I would say that, generally, reputation suggests that that will not be the case. I do not ever accuse this government of rorting the position of Auditor-General or Ombudsman et cetera. I do accuse them of totally rorting the Electoral Commission in the previous Electoral Commissioner—but that, on the whole, is the exception. I think a sensible government would see this as the perfect way forward. I am not saying we have a sensible government, because they are not really open to these sorts of new ideas. But to have an independent reviewer look at these things annually and report to parliament and the joint intelligence committee would be an excellent thing.

Of course, there is no such thing as an original idea. Where does this exist? How often do we hear, at question time, Senator Minchin get up and say, ‘Look at those people opposite; why don’t they follow the lead of Tony Blair on Iraq?’ I say to this government: why don’t you follow the lead of Tony Blair by setting up an independent review, just like they have in the UK? It worked successfully there—why not here?

It really comes back to whether the government has an open mind and wants to progress these things. It is very hard to explain to a government where its self-interest lies, but in this case its self-interest lies in adopting a proposal like this, rather than circling the wagon trains and saying, ‘We will defend exactly what we’ve got.’ We all know that in rushing 23-odd bills through this chamber there will be faults. To address those faults on an annual basis, in a less than sensational way so that incremental change comes in, is sensible government policy. It is one that assists government and does not erode its position. But it all depends on whether the government has an open enough mind to address it.

The rest of the recommendations are sensible. I know the government will adopt some and not all—I accept that—but we have commented on the various aspects of the Sheller report.

I want to conclude on this note. We have not addressed any issues that Sheller raises in terms of the proscription regime because there is a statutory requirement that next year, in the immediate future, we review that regime by itself. We will be having public hearings in the first half of next year and reporting to this parliament by about May on the proscription regime. That is why we have not addressed that aspect of the Sheller review.

I commend this report to the parliament and recommend that it read be in conjunction with the Sheller review. I think it will advance the cause of civil liberties in this country without impinging in any way on the security aspects.