Page 1540 - Week 05 - Thursday, 11 May 2006
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is, as the terminology is used in the bill, the least restrictive test. Essentially it is the last resort. So it should be.
You stand up in this place and talk about our betraying the liberties fought for by our forefathers and others. But what were those liberties? Those liberties were the right to be free from arbitrary detention, the right to a fair trial, and those same issues that we are now having to address in this legislation. If we simply accept that any course of action is acceptable to prevent a terrorist attack, then we become the thing that we are seeking to prevent; we become the people that we feel so opposed to and, rightly so, who do not operate a society in accordance with the rule of law with regard to human rights and with regard to human liberties. It is not about protecting the rights of criminals; it is about protecting the rights of ordinary citizens.
I have already, in the in-principle stage, talked about the fact that in this county in the past decade, indeed in the past five years, we have already seen instances of innocent people being detained without charge for extended periods of time. We have already seen in this country examples of innocent people being detained without charge and forcibly expelled, deported from this country, because of inadequate safeguards on the protection of their rights and liberties. It has already happened. It is not some hypothetical situation. It has already happened.
It should not have happened. It is not acceptable for it to happen in a democracy, in a society that values the rule of law. That is why the government holds to the least restrictive test. It is a fundamental threshold and goes to the heart of this legislation’s compatibility with not just the ACT’s but Australia’s international human rights obligations.
Mr Stefaniak in this debate seeks to characterise this government’s commitment to human rights as some left-wing, radical notion.
Mr Stefaniak: It is an obsession.
MR CORBELL: An obsession! The rights that are enshrined in the ACT Human Rights Act are not radical notions. In fact, the rights that are enshrined in the Human Rights Act are simply the rights that our nation has agreed to and is a party to under international law. There is nothing radical or unusual about this, and it is certainly not pandering to some radical elite or clique within the community, as those opposite would seek to characterise it. These are the rights enshrined in international law and in national agreements which Australia is a party to—full stop. Australia is a party to these agreements and rights, and our Human Rights Act simply reflects that. I am yet to hear an argument from those opposite about why that is a bad idea.
The government does not accept these amendments. We do not accept the assertion that it would make it more difficult for police to take appropriate action and seek court orders on preventative detention. It proposes, in the government’s view, a proportionate response on these issues. Yes, it places a significant onus on law enforcement authorities to justify the need for a preventative detention order. But so it should, because preventative detention is a measure of last resort. It is detention without charge, it is detention without trial, and it should be a measure of last resort.
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