Page 3737 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 18 October 2005
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under a dictatorship. We are not a dictatorship; we are a democracy. We do have protections—protections are implicit in these laws—and we do not have a police force or a security force that can run rampant over its citizens.
Mr Pratt: You can’t see the point, can you? That was a murderous regime.
Mr Hargreaves: You were still without charge.
MR STEFANIAK: We have a very highly-trained body of men and women in the Australian Federal Police. That brings me to Mr Hargreaves because some of the things he said were quite disturbing. He prattled on about the Baxter detention centre and Hicks being kidnapped or something like that. He was not kidnapped; I think he was captured. He called the Chief Minister a chief lickspittle. How emotive and how ridiculous.
Mr Hargreaves: No, I didn’t; I called the Prime Minister that. Please quote me properly, Bill.
MR STEFANIAK: He said that ordinary Canberrans will be affected and that they could just be pulled off the street—
Mr Hargreaves: Please quote me properly, Bill.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Hargreaves!
MR STEFANIAK: He does not show much support or much faith in the police force that he has a responsibility to. That is a normal extreme, stupid interpretation of how these laws might affect people; it is the usual interpretation put up by some people on the left. They pick the most extreme possible way laws such as this could be used. They have no regard for the authorities that are going to interpret these laws and use them. They have no regard even for the judicial system, which will have the role of oversighting these laws. They have no regard for the parliaments that will also be reviewing these laws. I have great confidence in the Australian security authorities. I have great confidence in the highly trained and efficient men and women of the Australian Federal Police and the way they constantly use their discretion exceptionally well. I trust them to use these laws sensibly. Innocent Australian citizens are not going to be adversely affected by these laws. If these laws are breached in any way, they of course can be changed, and I have confidence in our authorities in interpreting these laws.
Mr Hargreaves then said, “The legislation is a joke.” I do not even think his Chief Minister agrees with him on that score. He went to COAG and came away reasonably comfortable with what occurred there, so I doubt very much if even he is going to agree with that. As to releasing the document, Mr Hargreaves said there have been a lot of letters to the paper in favour of it. This is an emotive issue. There are probably quite a few people in Canberra, and perhaps even Australia, who would take the view that I think a lot of members of the Labor Party have taken—a misinterpreted leftist view, I would call it, a misinterpreted view about civil liberties; being overly concerned about the civil liberties of criminals, people who want to destroy our society, but really minimising the civil liberties of the vast majority of law-abiding Australian citizens who
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