Page 1240 - Week 04 - Thursday, 5 May 2022
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across a range of human services delivered by the ACT government and our community partners. The Bimberi staff have done an incredible job in responding to that. I add my thanks to Minister Davidson’s for the incredible work of those staff.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Terrorism (Extraordinary Temporary Powers) Amendment Bill 2022
Mr Rattenbury, pursuant to notice, presented the bill, its explanatory statement and a Human Rights Act compatibility statement.
Title read by Clerk.
MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong—Attorney-General, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Minister for Gaming and Minister for Water, Energy and Emissions Reduction) (10.48): I move:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
This bill extends the operation of the Terrorism (Extraordinary Temporary Powers) Act 2006 for another five years. This act was introduced in 2006, and every five years it has been extended. The bill was set to expire again last year. However, the Assembly agreed to extend its operation by one year, during which time the government undertook a more detailed review and analysis of the act and its provisions.
Following that analysis, I can inform the Assembly that the bill I am introducing today extends the operation of the act, but also, importantly, makes several amendments to improve the human rights protections in the act and ensure that it achieves a more appropriate balance of community safety, powers of police and individual rights.
The act forms part of Australia’s national counterterrorism scheme, which is underpinned by Australia’s national counterterrorism strategy, and is implemented in part by state and territory legislatures. It has come about from a COAG intergovernmental agreement on counterterrorism.
The act provides law enforcement agencies with extraordinary legal powers to respond where there is evidence that a terrorist act is imminent, or where an act has occurred. These powers have been considered and explained extensively in this Assembly before, and this bill seeks to extend their operation. Members can also see detailed explanations of these powers in the statutory review of the act that I tabled in the Assembly in 2021 and which is available publicly.
I will briefly recap. The first of the powers allows ACT Policing to apply to the Supreme Court for a preventative detention order. A preventative detention order allows a person to be taken into custody if the court is satisfied that a terrorist act is happening, or is expected to happen in the following 14 days, and the authorisation
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