George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

all a matter of illusion and, as Senator Coonan said, diversions. It is a bit like TS Eliot’s poem The Waste Land:

We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men

…            …            …

Shape without form ...

Nevertheless, when Senator Ludwig responded to my question, I had to point out to him that Mr McClelland said at his press conference this morning:

... the inquiry would not examine the flow of intelligence from overseas security agencies.

Just consider for a moment what that means. The government has announced this inquiry—it is not a royal commission, it does not have subpoena powers; it is an informal inquiry essentially established on a very limited basis. The need for the inquiry relies entirely upon the government’s own assertion that the public needs to be reassured about the operation of the counterterrorism laws. So what does the government do? The government raises a false issue and says, ‘Well, we have to set up this strange informal inquiry in order to address a concern which we ourselves have raised, and which was not there in the first place.’

Nevertheless, what the inquiry is about, as the Attorney-General announced this morning, is the case of Dr Haneef and, in particular, the role of the Australian Federal Police. This much we know, and I think it is uncontroversial. Not only the Australian Federal Police but the Queensland Police Service were in receipt of certain security information concerning Dr Haneef, and that security information concerned, in particular, international telephone calls made by or to Dr Haneef. We also know—this is also uncontroversial—that the principal source of the information was the British intelligence services and, in particular, MI5. So we know this much, and the Attorney-General must know as well: the Australian Federal Police and the state policing authorities were in possession of foreign intelligence information which identified Dr Haneef as a person of interest and ultimately they made some decisions, in relation to him, that led to his detention. So the government very grandly with great flourish announce: ‘We’re going to have an inquiry into how the AFP handled the Dr Haneef case.’ And what do they withdraw from the terms of reference of the inquiry? What does the Attorney-General specifically say the inquiry cannot look at? It cannot look at the flow of intelligence from overseas security agencies.

You do not need to be a lawyer to work out that, if the whole basis of the AFP forming the appropriate state of mind—the suspicion about Dr Haneef—was information provided by the British intelligence services that was transmitted to the Australian intelligence services and transmitted to the AFP and if you are going to have an inquiry into whether the AFP did the right thing, front and centre in the inquiry ought to be the sources upon which they relied to form the requisite suspicion that Dr Haneef was a person of interest, that Dr Haneef had done nothing wrong. Yet, that is the very thing Mr McClelland announced this morning the inquiry could not look at. (Time expired)