Fraser Anning (Queensland, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Hansard source

I know that. It's an amendment to an amendment. But, after the division, I won't have a chance to speak on it.

The TEMPORARY CHAIR: Go ahead.

I do not oppose this bill because Katter's Australia Party disagrees with the government seeking to clamp down on the black economy. We fully support the government's right to do this. I oppose this bill because the philosophical approach that it takes to the problem is wrong and runs roughshod over the rights of innocent people. This bill is bad because it removes the assumption of innocence for owners of software by imposing a strict liability associated with mere possession of something which can be used to break a law. Once again, this government shifts the line of criminality away from a criminal act to the capacity for a criminal act. I'm afraid to say that this kind of 'deemed offence' is becoming a hallmark of governments in recent times. Deeming people to be guilty simply because they have the capacity to do something unlawful makes for sloppy policing, because, instead of actually having to prove that an offence has occurred, you can just round up everyone who might do so in the future.

This is presumably the reason that the government has framed the legislation this way. However, this lazy approach to an easy enforcement has a cost, which is to criminalise otherwise innocent people who had no intention of subsequently committing a crime. Apparently unwittingly, just to make lazy law enforcement easy, the government is undermining the rights of the innocent. Like assigning collective guilt, the deeming of guilt of those who have taken no action for which they could be charged was a hallmark of the oppressive Soviet justice system, and its increasing incidence in Australia is alarming. In the Soviet legal system, the subject of deemed offences was central, because once accepted as a principle technically anyone might do anything, and, thus, the arrest of anyone in society is justified. That was, of course, exactly what the Communist government wanted.

Today in Australia, in creating deemed offences, this bill will represent a totally unnecessary, draconian measure that has a whiff of totalitarianism about it. I urge the government to appreciate the insidious nature of deemed offences, such as those created by the bill, and desist from the practice of creating these in future. Instead of this bill, I urge the government to commit more resources to law enforcement and to crack down on those who have actually broken the law and evaded taxes.

In addition to the insidious list of deemed offences and the discarding of the need to establish criminal intent, the cornerstone of our legal system is being undermined. Because of this, the government needs to understand that this bill isn't simply cracking down on the black economy; it is actually following the same oppressive principles as the former Soviet justice system. What this means is, in the words of Joseph Stalin, 'If you only punish the guilty, what will the innocent have to fear?'