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

Yes, it is so rich with irony, Senator Payne, that that it is beyond the wit of the scriptwriters of The Hollowmen. No sooner had he uttered the words ‘on a bipartisan basis’ than the Leader of the House, the member for Grayndler, Mr Albanese, moved that the member no longer be heard. That is how sincere the Australian Labor Party are about their professed concerns for the liberty of the subject! Mr Albanese’s motion, that Mr Georgiou be no longer heard, was then passed on party lines.

That is why it is of concern to those of us who actually do care about civil liberty. I acknowledge you, Mr Acting Deputy President Humphries, as one of the key participants in these discussions in the days when we were both on the government back bench and we were both participants in the backbench law and justice committee of the Howard government. I note that you and I and Senator Payne and Senator Troeth and others whom I see here strove hard to introduce safeguards into the antiterrorism laws. But there are those of us who mean what we say about this and there are those who only pretend to mean what they say.

I regret the refusal of the Rudd government to contemplate a measure which has worked very satisfactorily in the United Kingdom and would add to the Australian parliamentary apparatus of scrutiny to ensure that there is no overreach of the antiterrorism laws. This is consistent with the attitude of a government which refuses to debate this measure in the House of Representatives and is now determined to vote this bill down in the Senate. It will pass in the Senate, I believe, with the support of the Greens. But as the shadow Attorney-General, I call on the government to revise their position and to show, on this important issue of the liberty, rights and immunities of the individual in relation to this difficult issue of national security, that their actions match their rhetoric.