Page 324 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 7 March 2006
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The committee made a number of recommendations and I will deal with some of the major ones. My colleagues will obviously talk on issues which are of interest to them. I will then deal with some of the dissenting and additional comments I have made. The committee’s main recommendations basically include in-principle support for the draft bill, although Dr Foskey dissented on that. Other recommendations were that the main threshold tests in the legislation be the same as those in other jurisdictions; that the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General be asked to develop uniform best practice counterterror laws; that the legislation apply to 16 to 18-year-olds, with extra safeguards such as separation from adult detainees and special contact provisions. Ms MacDonald dissented on that one. Further recommendations were that the proposed public interest monitor panel be replaced by the ACT Human Rights Commissioner and the ACT Ombudsman; that the ACT develop specific strategies to engage with people who may potentially be marginalised by these laws; that some of the new special police powers be included in the Emergencies Act 2004; and that the preamble to the bill better explain the need for the legislation.
There are other recommendations which I encourage the government to take up; specifically recommendation 7—that parliamentary counsel redraft clauses 12 to 14 of the draft bill so the meaning is clearer. That recommendation was made by the Law Society and by a number of other groups. It seemed to be finding favour with the government officials and also with the attorney when he gave evidence. Recommendations 9 to 11 are very important too. Recommendation 9 says:
The Committee recommends that the ‘reasonable and necessary’ element in clauses 17, 19, 21, 25 and 29 of the proposed bill be replaced with ‘reasonably necessary’, so that the test is not so onerous and consistent with other jurisdictions’ legislation.
Further to that, recommendation 10 is that the words “is the least restrictive way of preventing the terrorist act” in paragraphs 17 (3) (b) (ii) and 19 (4) (c) of the proposed legislation be replaced with “substantially assists in preventing the terrorist act”. Further, we supported recommendation 11. I am not sure whether or not Dr Foskey accepted those two recommendations but the majority of the committee did. There was unanimous support by the committee for uniform best practice national security legislation. The recommendation was that the ACT government requests that the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General develop model legislation. My colleagues recommended a five-year sunset clause for this bill but I went for 10 years for national consistency. I think we would all agree it is best that legislation like this is uniform across the commonwealth and there is ample time for that. As I said earlier, one point of contention was that this legislation did not seem to apply to anyone under 18. The majority of the committee recommended that it should apply to persons aged 16 years or older but that safeguards such as separation from adult detainees and special contact provisions for family members and oversight agencies be included in the legislation. I certainly commend that.
I draw a number of other things to the government’s attention. One matter still up in the air as to how this legislation is proposed to work is in respect of the Supreme Court being the body that does the initial consideration of an application and issues an order. There are some questions as to whether that is in fact constitutional because separation of powers issues come into play in that regard. Issues around several High Court cases indicate that there might be a problem in that regard. I do not think we received a
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