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

That was a view initially taken by the government. The mischief, the threat, that this legislation primarily concerns and seeks to address—the threat of foreign fighters—is, I am very sorry to say, not a threat that is likely to disappear any time soon. Senator, you do not have to be privy to the intelligence to understand that. You merely have to look at the assessment in some of the quality commentary on this issue and some of the quality open source media to know that this is a problem that those who profess to be specialists in this field predict will be with us for some years yet. Given that the view was taken that the threat is likely to be with us for some years yet, the government decided that an appropriate thing was to replicate the initial sunset period, to roll it forward, but still leave a sunset mechanism in place. However, as I say, in deference to the views of the PJCIS, we have foreshortened that in the manner I have indicated.