Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition will not be supporting this amendment. We take the view that the rights of minors subject to control orders must be safeguarded and that is why we insisted that young people subject to control order proceedings had the right to be provided with a lawyer to advise them and to represent them. We have strongly recommended the bill be amended and the government have accepted that in terms of ensuring that persons have access to a lawyer. That, of course, is consistent with the report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.

It was only a short while ago that most people would have expressed the view that having terrorist laws attached to minors would not be necessary, but the events in recent times have demonstrated that and, I think, reflected a change in attitude. We are opposing this amendment, however, because we do not want to water down the safeguard that is provided and we have pushed so hard for. There are, as the Attorney has indicated, suggestions that it is only a very small number of young people that would be subject to the measures in this bill, and they are entitled to refuse legal representation if they choose to. But we do not want to see the control order regime complicated by means that would take up significant amounts of the court's time. As a consequence, we think that the measures of the bill as amended are appropriate and we will not be supporting this amendment.