Kerry Nettle (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to conclude my remarks from last night on the Crimes Legislation Amendment (National Investigative Powers and Witness Protection) Bill 2006 [2007] . This legislation, with its ‘sneak and peek’ powers for the Australian Federal Police, enables the Federal Police to enter people’s premises, confiscate property and documents and access their computer equipment—and to do all of those things without any obligation to let the people know. This is quite an extraordinary power to be given to the Federal Police, particularly in light of all the mistakes that we have seen in the case of Dr Haneef.

This is the first choice of the government for the legislation that we as a parliament should deal with. This legislation means that people will end up in court, with evidence that has been collected against them, and will have no capacity to challenge whether or not that evidence was collected legally. As the current legislation operates, if a search warrant is issued on your home, you are there and you are able to have a lawyer there to check that the search is carried out properly. For people who have evidence collected against them and brought against them in a court, this legislation removes the protection for them to be able to challenge that evidence, because they do not know that a search has occurred. Under this legislation, they do not need to be told for six months, 12 months or maybe 18 months—indeed, if the minister approves, they may never know that the search has been carried out.

There is no other comparable country around the world that has that kind of legislation. In the United States, there is a system for covert warrants where there are ‘sneak and peek’ powers for their police, but the police are not given anywhere near this length of time not to tell people. The USA PATRIOT Act is not as strong as this piece of legislation. We heard last night that it is a piece of legislation that is not only put forward by the government but supported by the opposition. As we see time and time again when it comes to security legislation—anything related to terrorism—it is a ‘me too’ loud and clear from the opposition, and we see that in relation to this legislation as well.

What the Greens say is that our civil liberties are important. The Greens say that the rule of law is important. The Greens say that we should not be removing people’s right to know what is going on in their homes and to be able to challenge evidence against them in a court. This is pretty fundamental and pretty straightforward. It is the way our legal system has operated forever in this country and in the countries on which our legal system is based. We are asking for the rule of law to be abided by, for our legal system to be upheld, for justice to exist, for civil liberties to be defended and for people’s rights to be defended. This piece of legislation says no to that, from both the government and the opposition. The Greens disagree. We do not agree with holding up people’s civil liberties, the rule of law or people’s right to know what is going on in their homes, that they are being investigated and that evidence might have been collected against them illegally. This legislation allows that to happen. It is not on, it is not acceptable and the Greens will play no part in this whatsoever.