Page 1338 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 9 May 2006
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homegrown representatives in the countries they seek to terrorise. That was one of the lessons of the terrorist bombings in the United Kingdom last year. Those terrorists were educated, middle-class young men from immigrant families.
The government’s bill really fails the people of the ACT. I would submit that, by its very nature, unless it is amended, it puts this community at an increased risk. Again, as I have said before, it is blinkered by the Chief Minister, especially with his preoccupation with human rights. You cannot do that at the expense of everything else. I reiterate that the ultimate human right is to be allowed to live, and to live in peace.
We have some other questions. Will it ever be used? Is it going to be a white elephant? The police already have powers under the commonwealth law and under ASIO laws. Whilst the opposition will support this bill, however weak, because it is necessary to enact legislation, however weak, to increase our ability to take measures to prevent terrorism, we say that it is flawed and that it is an irresponsible bill which is out of sync with the rest of the country. For that I think the government should stand condemned.
MR PRATT (Brindabella) (10.58): I rise to support Mr Stefaniak’s proposed amendments in this cognate debate. I also state at the outset that I will most reluctantly be supporting the Stanhope legislation. That is the opposition’s position. I want to speak now about what I consider to be the weaknesses and the inconsistencies in this legislation.
There is still a very real threat worldwide from terrorism. This threat will be ongoing for quite some time. Experts, more expert than any of us in this place, have stated that the determination to strike Western targets, including Australia and Canberra, is a threat that will be on our radar screen for a very, very long time. Terrorist groups are a very real threat to Australia. We now know that there have been attempts to perhaps set up cells and organisations across the country.
Unfortunately, Mr Stanhope’s proposed laws substantially weaken our ability to crack down on terrorism compared with the rest of the country. The Stanhope legislation puts our police, as well as the AFP national component, in the very invidious position of operating in a cross-border environment where the inconsistencies will make counter-terrorism operations in our region that much more complicated.
I was only half joking when I said to the committee that frustrated police might need to consider a rendition of those that they arrest in the ACT to Queanbeyan in an attempt to avoid having to implement our loopy laws and in a bid to avoid our loopy and unreliable courts. If our courts are unreliable in matters affecting graffiti, how are they going to be when faced with these serious challenges?
In this proposed legislation, Mr Stanhope puts the rights of suspected terrorists above the right of the law-abiding community to be protected from this threat. Mr Stanhope’s first instinct, via comments on radio on 26 July 2005, I remind this place, was to declare Australia-wide government statements about tightening counter-terrorism laws as “draconian” and “knee-jerk reactions”. Indeed, he widely flaunted his opposition to the mooted laws.
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