Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Shoebridge, I do reject your characterisation of what we're doing here. I know the Greens opposed the legislation that we initially introduced and passed here last time we sat. I made the point that, in opposing that legislation, the Greens seemed not to be concerned with community safety. I would have thought that the fact that we have now seen three of these individuals be either arrested or charged with new offences would have underlined the importance of passing this legislation as quickly as possible to keep the community safe. I don't know what other evidence the Greens party requires that would demonstrate the urgent need to introduce this legislation. Whether assessment tools have been finalised or whether they are days away from being finalised, that shouldn't get in the way of this parliament putting in place a legislative regime that is designed to keep the Australian community safe, especially since we are approaching the end of the parliamentary year. In this government's view, there is no time to waste, and that's why we've been keen to get this legislation passed as quickly as possible. But, if the Greens party want to see a situation go on where we don't have a preventive detention regime or community safety orders regime in place and if they're content to see more reoffending by these individuals, then that's something you're going to have to justify to the Australian community.

But your question relates specifically to the VERA-2R tool. Just before I come to that, there are tools that are used by states and territories overseas such as Static 99 and ARMS, and they have been proven to be valid and reliable in supporting professional assessments of reoffending potential. There's significantly more data in relation to violent and sexual offenders, compared with terrorist offenders, and that has supported the further development of these tools. In relation to the VERA-2R tool that you've asked about, as I'm sure you are aware, Senator Shoebridge, that is a structured professional judgement tool used in law enforcement, correctional and intervention program contexts in Australia and internationally to assess the likelihood of a person's risk of engaging in violent extremism. It's one of the tools that have been used and relied on by experts to assess individuals for division 105A proceedings under the existing high-risk terrorist offenders regime.

But VERA-2R is a tool adapted to assessing violent extremism and, whilst relevant in respect of terrorist related violence, it is not adapted to assessing the risk of the offender committing a serious violent or sexual offence. I think that you can read into that that it's not the intention to use that tool for this regime, given that tool is specifically designed for the assessment of risk of committing terrorist related violence. But, as I say, the Commonwealth will review all available tools and identify which are appropriate for use to support the community safety order regime. I really would have thought that recent days would have made the Greens party reconsider its position in saying that we don't need to get moving on this legislation.