Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Thanks for that response. Attorney, I have always had a view, I am not sure whether it is broadly held or not in parliaments around the country, that although we would always hope that all of our ministers are reasonable people that is not always the case. Therefore, the responsibility of parliaments is actually to design legislation to the greatest degree possible that anticipates a minister potentially acting unreasonably in any circumstance. This legislation does cause me concern here because it is open to a minister, in my opinion, to be satisfied in his or her own mind that conduct has occurred without there being a reasonable standard of proof applied. I understand that there are appeal rights here, as we also discussed yesterday.

I also want to place on the record the concerns that we have, even if the minister were acting on departmental advice. Because there is no standard of proof right the way through this process—and we have invaded Iraq on the basis of weapons of mass destruction, which turned out to be completely wrong—I think we are creating a circumstance here where, for example, an officer of an intelligence agency could form a view or maliciously misreport that someone has done something that contravenes the criteria or that meets the criteria established in section 33AA. We do not know what standard of proof that person will apply or whether they are in fact being mischievous in reporting that up the chain. That advice will travel up through whichever security agency, or the AFP or the ADF. It will make its way through to the department and, finally, it will manifest to the minister in the form of advice that a notice under subsection 10 be issued.

Attorney, why didn't you make this a judicial process, where judicially accepted standards of proof could be applied prior to, firstly, the renunciation of citizenship but, secondly, the issuing of the notice?