Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It took some time, but there we have it. Senator Hanson-Young is right. What we are dealing with here is a parliament—at the behest of the government, which is prosecuting individuals held in Australian jails—passing a law so that that case can be altered in favour of the government and against the people who are under charges. As Senator Hanson-Young put it so clearly during the second reading debate, this is outrageous. It is appalling. We are a country that believes in the rule of law. But here we effectively have the government saying: 'Our case before the courts is not strong enough. We want to go to the parliament and get it strengthened to have retrospective application.' When you are dealing with the rights of people to be treated properly before the law, that is outrageous. I am surprised that we have people on both sides of this parliament with legal training who are supporting this legislation and that it was not stopped in the House of Representatives. Sure, let the government, in the wake of a High Court decision, have an amendment to the law which applies in future cases so that people tempted to break a law of the Commonwealth of Australia know there is a new law there. But to retrospectively apply a law like this, which effectively is going to mean that people who are unjailable under existing law may be jailed is very close to a perversion of justice. It certainly goes against natural fairness and it breaches the principle that people should be treated as the law stands. What would happen, might we ask, if defendants were able to come into this place and persuade the parliament that the law should be changed so that they had a better go? There would be pandemonium. But because it is the government doing it the opposition thinks that is okay. I join Senator Hanson-Young in saying to the opposition that there is a very, very important prudential matter being subverted here; that is, you do not have one side or the other of a series of court matters being able to alter the rules after the prosecution gets underway and the defence gets underway. It is, at best, very poor behaviour but, at worst—because it is a serious matter—it breaches the principle of a fair go and natural justice.