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

All right. Just for clarity: that bill has not been voted on. It is still before this chamber. Again, Labor's policy lock step with the Liberal Party on national security issues—which is directly relevant to this legislation, Acting Deputy President—is responsible for the erosion of fundamental rights, freedoms and liberties in this country. We used to send the ADF overseas to fight wars to protect these fundamental rights and freedoms and liberties, and now, behind the closed doors of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security—which, I might add, are closed doors which are locked to any single member of this crossbench—the dirty deals get stitched up. You could set your clock by it. You could set your clock by Labor colluding with the LNP, the control freaks over there, to erode fundamental rights and freedoms in this country.

One of those erosions of fundamental rights and freedoms that Labor have colluded with the LNP on this week is legislation to make it easier to send the troops onto the streets in Australia. Ben Chifley would be proud of that because of course it was Ben Chifley who sent the Army in to bust up the coalmine strikes, wasn't it, when he was Prime Minister? I'm enjoying giving the Labor Party some of their own history today and reminding them that it was actually Gough Whitlam who said, 'Only the impotent are pure,' when he was attacking the left wing of his own party.

We are, unfortunately, the only liberal democracy in the world without a charter or a bill of rights, and, unfortunately, Labor do not have such a bill of rights or charter of rights in their policy. In fact, federal Labor have previously had a bill of rights as an official policy platform. I refer senators to the ALP National Platform and Constitution 2004, chapter 7, No. 11 and 12. But, of course, then they got into government, as they so often do, and their policy was just left behind and kept in the back pocket, and they did nothing whatsoever to progress a charter or bill of rights. Unfortunately, despite repeated engagement, Labor to date are yet to support our calls for a parliamentary inquiry into the form and scope of a charter of rights in Australia.

So we're on very dangerous territory here in this country: 200 pieces of legislation slowly sleepwalking Australians down the road to a police state; a combined policy lock step between the major parties in this parliament; and no charter or bill of rights to act as a foundation to protect those fundamental rights, freedoms and liberties. Australians need to understand how poorly our laws protect their rights. The Australian Greens would love to see our Constitution amended to enshrine the fundamental rights, freedoms and liberties that so many Australians enjoy but too many Australians take for granted, but we understand that constitutional change is difficult in this country, particularly where there is political disagreement about a constitutional change being put to the people. So on that basis, while we maintain our view that our rights should be enshrined in our Constitution because that would make them much more difficult to take away, in the absence of that being a realistic option in the next decade or so, we want to see a legislated charter of rights in this place so that we can codify what rights Australian people want to see protected and make sure that we protect those rights in law. When people think about rights, they often think about things like civil and political rights, and of course they are extremely important rights, but there are many other rights that we could look at enshrining in a charter or bill of rights: rights to a home, rights to a particular level of income, rights to breathe clean air and drink clean water—broadly speaking, environmental rights—digital rights and privacy rights; the list goes on. But what we get from the policy lock step of the majors in this place is an ongoing erosion of those rights.

In regard to counterterrorism—and remember that that's the name or the badge that is put on all of these joint proposals, effectively, that are put forward by the LNP and the ALP; they're done in the name of counterterrorism—I want to remind people of one thing. Remember the metadata laws—again, a dual policy stitch-up behind closed doors by the LNP and the ALP. That was all about catching terrorists, remember? Remember how our metadata can be accessed without a warrant because the Australian Labor Party did a dirty secret deal with the Liberal and National Parties? I remember, and I'm well aware that my metadata and anyone else's—even senators' metadata—can be accessed by a range of authorities without a warrant. Well, do you know what metadata laws are being used for now? They're being used by local councils to figure out whether people have registered their pets or not. That's what they're being used for. If it weren't so serious, it would be absolutely bloody hilarious. Local councils are using metadata laws to bust people for unregistered pets. Thank you very much to the Australian Labor Party! Nice work! I hope Hansard can pick up sarcasm when it occurs in this chamber.

So, on counterterrorism, what we need is a white paper akin to the white paper we have on defence, because there is no doubt that we need to be wary and there's no doubt that one of the primary aspirations of any reasonable parliament is to ensure to the greatest degree possible, in the most reasonable way, that we do all that we can to keep the people that we represent safe. But what we need is a white paper on counter-terrorism so that we can pull together all of the disparate pieces of legislation, all of the over 200 changes to our laws in state, territory and Commonwealth parliaments, as we've seen over the last couple of decades, that erode fundamental rights, freedoms and liberties, and have a clinical threat assessment and a reasonable discussion, an informed discussion, in our community about whether we need to keep eroding rights, freedoms and liberties in the name of counter-terrorism.

If you want to look, on a dispassionate basis, at the threats to Australians, I'm here to tell you that the threat of violent men towards their partners or former partners is a far, far more serious threat to the safety of Australians than any terrorist act. Women who are either the partners or former partners of violent men are going down at the rate of about one a week, and yet, every time there's a tragic terrorist attack, out come the major party politicians, wrapped in Australian flags and trying to scare Australians, because they know that when people are scared they're more likely to roll over and allow their rights and freedoms to be given away by governments. This is a cynical game played for electoral purposes, driven in the main by the Liberal-National Party—a party that's under the control of the far Right racists and xenophobes and is acquiesced to by a compliant and cowardly Australian Labor Party. That is why you need the Greens in the Senate: to stand up against the kind of rubbish we are seeing delivered to us in policy lockstep between the major parties in this place.

It's well beyond time that we had a counter-terrorism white paper, or a counter-terrorism blue paper, if that's what you want to call it. We need that to investigate and inform a debate on a whole range of counter-terrorism issues. It's worth pointing out that, at the same time that counter-terrorism bodies are awash with new money, the Office of the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor is running on a shoestring budget and continually assesses laws and reviews laws that are already in force. It's not good enough. We don't have enough checks and balances in this area in our country. The Office of the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor needs a significant budget increase so that it can actually assess and review bills that are presented to this parliament before they come on for debate, so that the assessment can be used to inform the debate. I don't think either of the major parties in this place would take much notice of the findings of the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, but I'll tell you what: the Australian Greens certainly would.

There is the incredible volume of legislative change being made behind the badge of counter-terrorism and national security—as I said, over 200 changes. It's worth pointing out that, in that time, while 200 pieces of legislation have passed in this country eroding rights, freedoms and liberties in the last 20 years, such laws have only been softened twice in that time and new oversight has been created just once in that time. These are unprecedented developments in Australian peace-time history, and we owe it to ourselves, our children and our grandchildren to have a serious rethink. We need to create better overall laws in a more planned, informed and strategic way, where security is rightly and properly balanced with our deeply held Australian values of freedom, liberty and a fair go for everyone. In the same way, we have established white paper processes for tax, agriculture, defence and, would you believe, a white paper for northern Australia. I might add there: what about southern Australia? My home state of Tasmania wouldn't mind if the government were to get on board with a white paper for southern Australia, but that's not going to happen, because, of course, this is being driven by the Nationals, the agrarian socialists in this place, who are the pre-eminent pork-barrelers in Australian political history.

So, we're not going to see a white paper in southern Australia, but we are seeing a white paper in northern Australia, and if you can have a white paper into northern Australia you can have a white paper into counterterrorism and national security. Surely that's not a controversial comment. This area of public policy, just like defence policy, calls for deep strategic thinking and planning, rather than kneejerk reactive law-mongering. But that's what we see: stitched up behind closed doors in a process endorsed by Senator McAllister earlier this afternoon, saying, 'This is the way we should be developing national security legislation.' This is actually a blueprint for how not to develop national security legislation: in the absence of a charter of rights, behind closed doors in a secret committee where all the deals are done secretly, and then a fait accompli is presented to the parliament and voted through because the major parties have done a secret deal to agree on it. No matter how many times the Greens or other crossbenchers either here or in the other place stand up and point out that the crossbench is frozen out of this cosy arrangement and that we are seeing an ongoing erosion of rights, freedoms and liberties which constitutes a slow march down the road to a police state in this country, the major parties are determined to carry on on the current trajectory.

So, yes, we need to make sure that our legislation that governs the oversight of the Office of National Intelligence is considered carefully. But I make the point that the process that has led us to this bill today, rather than being exactly how we should do things, as Senator McAllister asserted earlier, is actually a blueprint for how not to do these things. So, the Australian Greens—the reason you need us in the Senate is to point out when Labor stitches up their dirty deals with the LNP, as they've done earlier today. They indicated they're going to support legislation that will throw thousands of recent migrants to our country into poverty, into destitution, into homelessness, by denying them access to basic social services for up to four years, saying to those migrants, 'We expect you to work and we expect you to pay taxes, but, no, you can't have access to the services that your taxes pay for.'

This is why you need the Greens in the Senate. If we're not in here, Labor will stitch up more dirty deals with the LNP that get the endorsement of none other than Senator Hanson, who today said how proud she was of the Labor Party for stitching up this deal with the LNP. I tell you what: a hug and a kiss from Senator Hanson says a lot more about the Australian Labor Party than anything I could say about it. You stand condemned today by the love that is being poured on you by Senator Pauline Hanson, who said in this place how proud she was of the Australian Labor Party for doing over migrants in this country.