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

On the same issue that Senator Patrick was referring to, senators need to be abundantly clear on this. This piece of legislation will add to the more than 200 pieces of legislation passed in the last 20 years in Australia that have eroded fundamental rights and freedoms in this country. I mean, you can have your phone tapped without a warrant. You can have security agencies inside your mobile phone without a warrant right now—right now—deleting data, adding data or manipulating data in your phone. In this country right now people can be imprisoned for something they might do in the future.

The presumption of innocence is out the window in Australia. We are living in an authoritarian regime, where people like witness K and Bernard Collaery can be secretly charged, where witness J can not only be charged but also secretly convicted and secretly imprisoned in this country and no-one gets to find out about it. Take the blindfolds off your eyes, major parties!

The only bit of Senator Patrick's contribution that I would mildly disagree with is the implication that the Labor Party might at some stage be expected to stand up against this erosion of rights and freedoms, this descent into authoritarianism in Australia, because the Labor Party have manifestly failed to do that for so long. The LNP are supposed to stand for individual freedoms, but you take them away, hand over fist, every single chance you get. The Labor Party are supposed to be in opposition to you and they don't oppose you on this stuff. Once again it will be Centre Alliance and the Australian Greens standing up to defend fundamental rights, freedoms and liberties.

The idea that you would pass a bill—which is going to happen, mark my words—later today that would involve such extraordinary coercive powers, that would seek to retrospectively make lawful a clearly unlawful operation of one of our security services, a bill that continues to erode fundamental rights and freedoms without even allowing it to be referred to a committee for an inquiry is, quite frankly, disgraceful. And when the history of this country's descent into authoritarianism, into totalitarianism and, if we're not careful, into fascism is written every single major party politician in this place who's rolling over today will be the villains, and you will be held to account by history, mark my words.