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

Thank you, Attorney-General, and if that is the case, then it is commendable that you were prepared to meet and listen in that way. Certainly, it chills me to think that there was some consideration of removing the sunset clause totally. Going to a 10-year time frame is also a great concern. Making a virtue of bringing it back to four years, I suppose, is certainly better than 10 years or having no sunset clause at all. This very debate, as tiresome as it may be to some who want to get the legislation right through, given the extraordinary and intrusive law-enforcement and intelligence-gathering powers that we are actually talking about here, I think is evidence of the value of constantly being vigilant not only about terrorism but about the very freedoms that make our vibrant democracy such a wonderful place that people want to live in. The idea that we would have sunset clauses is necessary so that we are required, on a regular basis, to keep reassessing the freedoms that we perhaps are giving up, the risks that we are running and whether or not they are necessary, given the particular environment that we are living in.

I am going to seek the guidance of the chair at this stage. The Australian Greens, in this case, are in a difficult position because we certainly do not want to have the sunset clause extended at all. We feel that a year would give sufficient time to seriously evaluate and have proper scrutiny of the regime and then make a thoughtful, considered and methodical decision. However, the bill in its first iteration did propose 10 years and this amendment is going to reduce it to four years. So that is a less undesirable outcome than 10 years.

The Australian Greens amendment would seek to have extension of the sunset clause removed completely. With respect, is it possible to have that amendment put first? If that amendment is not successful—which I envisage it will not be—then I will be in a position to know that I am able to be in favour of what is a better situation: a four-years extension of the sunset clause rather than 10 years?