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

The opposition opposes these amendments because we regard them in each case as an undesirable weakening of the scope of the existing terrorism laws. Amendment (17) would repeal from the existing provisions of the Criminal Code and from the definition of advocacy of a terrorist act in each case the word ‘indirectly’. We are of the view that either the direct or indirect counselling or urging of the doing of a terrorist act or providing instruction on the doing of terrorist act respectively as the provision currently provides for is appropriate. Not all invidious conduct is direct and for that reason indirect conduct should in our view continue to be caught.

Amendment (18) would repeal from the Criminal Code the offence of praising the doing of a terrorist act where there is a risk that such praise might have the effect of leading a person to engage in a terrorist act. We know—and this is a decision that the legislature made when these provisions were inserted, I think, in 2005—that one of the most insidious ways in which terrorism may be promoted and almost glorified is for the conduct of terrorists to be characterised as martyrdom or some other glamorous form of activity when in fact terrorism is nothing but murder, murder for political motivation but murder nevertheless. In these circumstances the existing act, in order to try in every possible way to stop at the source the spread of, in certain communities or populations, an attitude of tolerance or acceptability to terrorism, was in my view quite right to include praising terrorism as within the category of advocacy offences.

In relation to amendment (19) the proposed insertion of guidance for the reasonable grounds for the minister to be satisfied that an organisation advocates doing a terrorist act I must say with respect, Senator Ludlum, I do not think any of those five criteria the amendment proposes are of themselves bad. I think those are the kinds of matters the minister would be bound to have regard to as well—and indeed other criteria which are not listed in your proposed amendment. I think where there is a ministerial discretion vested by an act of parliament and the minister is required to be satisfied of certain statutory criteria on reasonable grounds, it is often bad practice to be too prescriptive in directing the minister’s mind as to what is or is not to be had regard to in forming his conclusion. The two issues that matter are whether the minister addresses his mind to the object of his statutory power and whether his process of decision making is reasonable. Having a prescriptive but by no means exhaustive list of those matters is often more unhelpful than helpful in allowing the minister to come to an appropriate decision.