David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to indicate the Greens won't be supporting this extension of the sunset clause for the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Declared Areas) Bill 2024. We've seen—I can't remember how many—occasions where the parliament was rushed to push through counterterrorism legislation and additional security provisions, often in a moment of heightened political anxiety, and then the parliament, often to salve the conscience of rushing through legislation that hadn't properly been considered, attached a sunset clause to it. The problem is that the sun never sets. Again, we have more legislation where the sunset clause was put on and, again, the sun is not setting. In fact, I can't think of a piece of legislation where the sun has ever set. It's a mock restraint on this parliament.

This is legislation that has gone through quite a process. It has gone to, on repeated occasions, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, and that committee repeatedly raises very extensive concerns about the human rights implications of legislation such as this. In its most recent report, it said, amongst other things, this:

The committee has previously found that while the provisions likely pursue a legitimate objective (namely, that of seeking to prevent terrorist acts), there were questions whether the provisions were necessary, and, in particular, the measures did not appear to be proportionate, and therefore were likely to be incompatible with a range of human rights …

It goes further to say:

As such, the committee considers that it has not been demonstrated that the extension of these provisions is compatible with human rights …

That's from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security completed its review, I think, in 2021, when the sun was about to set, but then, of course, the extension happened. It expressly said there should be an expansion of the exemptions to travel to a declared area for reasons that aren't currently listed in the Criminal Code and there should be as well an ability for a citizen to seek a request to travel and an exemption from the code if they have a legitimate reason to do so. The government ignored that recommendation. They ignored the recommendation of the PJCIS in 2021. The PJCIS, in its most recent review, reiterated that recommendation—recommendation 1, again, called for the government to review the list of legitimate purpose exemptions for entering or remaining in a declared area. Indeed, the review suggested that there should be a regulation-making power to increase the number of legitimate purposes.

At the moment, the legitimate purposes are found in section 119.2(3) of the Criminal Code. They include: providing aid of a humanitarian nature; legal obligations; official duty of an Australian government; official duty for the government of a foreign country, where that duty would not be in violation of the law of the Commonwealth, a state or a territory; official duty for the United Nations or the International Committee of the Red Cross; news reporting; and a bona fide visit to a family member. That's the list. There are, of course, other reasons. The world is complex. Human relationships are complex, and family dynamics are complex. There could be any other reason—a large number of other legitimate reasons—why individuals may want to travel to areas even if there is conflict there.

We've just had the opposition say that they would like a declaration in relation to Lebanon while pointing out in the same contribution that there are Australian citizens who are permanent residents in Lebanon—across Lebanon; in the south of Lebanon, in the middle of Lebanon and in the north of Lebanon. Yet the coalition is urging for a declaration to make it a crime to reside in Lebanon. Has there been any consultation between the coalition and the Lebanese diaspora, the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Australians who have family connections and often work connections—they might have family who are Australian citizens residing there—in Lebanon? Was there any effort at all to talk to the Lebanese diaspora before these kinds of statements were made by the coalition? I don't think so. It seems to be an ideological attack on Lebanese Australians and the Lebanese-Australian diaspora. It wouldn't be the first time. What we just heard from the coalition then is an echo of what Mr Dutton has said previously about Lebanese-Australian migration to this country. We got another echo of it just then from the coalition.

This legislation seriously impacts some pretty fundamental human rights, including a series of rights recognised by international law under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights—the right to freedom of movement; the right to equality; the right to non-discrimination; the right to a fair trial; the right to liberty; and the right to life. All of those rights are impacted by this. Yet the government and the coalition together just want to give this discretionary power to the minister. It's been used on only two occasions, and its ongoing utility is seriously in question, and there's the ability for it to be abused.

We just heard the coalition talking about wanting to use it again, without any consultation, to criminalise the Lebanese Australian diaspora, consistent with the previous attack from Mr Dutton on that same community, and wanting these powers to criminalise parts of multicultural Australia. This is why we have human rights. This is why we're meant to be respectful of human rights. This is why the pretence of this parliament to be mindful of human rights, in putting in sunset clauses, is nothing more than pretence. The sun should set on this legislation.