Page 727 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 29 March 2006
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evidence; in other words, exactly the same test as an issuing authority has to be satisfied of at the commonwealth level and, indeed, at other state levels as well.
This test is significantly different from that of the draft ACT legislation, whereby the Supreme Court may make a periodic detention order on the basis that it is reasonable and necessary and also is the least restrictive means to prevent a terrorist act or the only effective way to preserve evidence. That, Mr Speaker, is a much harder test for the authorities to satisfy. I envisage that, unless the government is going to introduce legislation tomorrow that is much more in line with interstate legislation, it may well be virtually impossible for the authorities to have a person issued with a periodic detention order by the ACT Supreme Court. I think that it would be an absolute travesty of the intention of COAG if that were to come to pass. Sadly, I think that there is every possibility of this happening if the government is not going to make substantive changes to its draft legislation.
In many other aspects, as one can see from the comparative table that I have tabled, the New South Wales legislation is consistent with other pieces of legislation and gives the authorities fundamentally much greater scope than the ACT bill does. The New South Wales bill is actually tighter and does a number of significant things that the ACT bill does not. For example, periodic detention orders are applicable to children between 16 and 18 years of age, as they are in the rest of the country, but not in relation to the government’s draft bill. It is also different in relation to the sunset clause. Whilst every other state and territory and the commonwealth have a 10-year sunset clause, the draft bill for the ACT has a five-year sunset clause. My bill would bring us into line with the rest of the nation there.
If we are to have such legislation, it is important that it should be as standard as possible across Australia. Terrorism, like any other major crime, knows no boundaries and it is particularly important for the ACT to have legislation that is identical in all material aspects to that of the states and the commonwealth. There is a real need for the tests to be applied to satisfy a court to be consistent across all jurisdictions.
There has been much comment in the media already by persons such as the federal Attorney-General, Mr Ruddock, by the federal Attorney-General’s Department, and by the AFP commissioner, Mick Keelty. I would hope everyone here would recognise that Mick Keelty is a world-renowned expert on terrorism and on policing. He is indeed more knowledgeable and knows more than any of us here, and I believe that his view should be given full weight. He has indicated that the ACT is of particular importance to the AFP because it not only houses the seat of government, 90 different missions and some 1,000 staff attached to those missions across the ACT, but also is policed by the AFP in a community policing role, complementing the role that the AFP plays nationally and internationally. He stated on 31 January 2006 in evidence at the committee inquiry:
In responding to terrorism we are focusing on minimising the risk to the community that comes from the gap between the behaviour criminalised by existing offences and our authority to collect evidence to charge individuals and the methods employed by terrorist groups to plan and execute their attacks. In stark terms, we are trying to narrow the space between when we can intervene to prevent an attack occurring and the opportunity for terrorists to launch such an attack. These are the powers that we will use judiciously and cautiously to protect the community.
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