Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Attorney-General. I do not really understand the logic of that. You say that you want to have everything dealt with together and you want to get it right. And I suppose the argument is that in fact you cannot necessarily do both at the same time. They are inconsistent, given that there is significant concern about the speed with which this complex legislation is being rushed through the parliament, where, on my calculation, given the gag order—the guillotine order that has now been passed by this Senate through the agreement of the government and the opposition—we will have less than eight hours to consider what are some of the most significant counter-terrorism law changes that I will witness in my lifetime.

So, the idea that you can do it all nicely and neatly together quickly and get it right is what I would be contesting there. My question is: if Australia's national security environment has changed to such a significant degree, why isn't the remaining 12 months left on the current life span of these regimes being used to evaluate their effectiveness in light of the changed environment? They will still be in place. There would be time to seriously look at the concerns that have been raised previously. And the observation that they have rarely been used is actually an observation that has been made by the INSLM in the past to query the wisdom of keeping extremely extensive and intrusive laws on the books when there does not appear to be a legitimate need for those to be there.