Page 1546 - Week 05 - Thursday, 11 May 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Perhaps the most eminently reasonable part of this entire legislation is the fact that in all Australian jurisdictions you cannot detain someone without charge or trial for a period of longer than 14 days. Those persons have to be detained in humane situations. There are other checks and balances in relation to the nature of their detention, including the ability to talk to lawyers, to members of the family et cetera. Those are the hallmarks of a very civilised society. The fact is that the longest anyone is prepared to go here is a maximum detention of 14 days.
Yes, Mr Corbell, it is quite possible that someone might be wrongfully detained. That is possible if we get a lot of this happening in Australia, but there are checks and balances even there. The other jurisdictions have their remedies and, at the end of the day, people are not going to be detained for the lengthy periods you state in relation to some other examples you were giving, because these laws have those proper restrictions in them. That is where you get your checks and balances, and that is what your Human Rights Act should be about.
I hark back to section 29, which enables sensible laws, I hope, to be made. If it is interpreted that it does not, that backs up my argument that, unfortunately, all we have seen so far is an act that protects the rights of criminals and, in this case, would-be terrorists. But even if you look at your own act, there is ample provision and ample argument to say that what is being proposed here is not necessarily incompatible with that whole act. I recommend you have a look, too, at that fundamental right to life in section 9. It is right up there up front. One of the first rights, the most obvious one, is the right to live. It refers to natural persons. It refers to every man, woman and child in Canberra and their fundamental right to live. And you have to balance that with the rights of would-be terrorists.
In my bill and in these two particular amendments, the test is a proper balance and a very reasonable balance. Other democratic countries detain people for much longer than just 14 days. Other democratic countries have much more stringent provisions than we have here in Australia; in the bill I have before the house, which you are going to vote against; in your own bill; and in the bills interstate. You have to have a proper balance. I again submit to you all here today that you are putting your heads in the sand here. You are going off on a tangent. You might be doing it in a very well-meaning way, but you are going off on a dangerous tangent.
I doubt very much whether the AFP is going to use this legislation, because these tests are so different and so much harder than other states’ tests. That means they have to revert, if they do that, to commonwealth legislation and things like perhaps the ASIO Act. That is not, I do not think, an ideal situation. Why does the ACT have to be so completely different when it comes to something as fundamental as a test in such a fundamental issue as this where there is obviously a real danger—a danger I do not think any of us here could probably completely appreciate because we were not party to the briefings—that could see significant death and destruction in our community if these things ever happen, which we all pray and hope they do not?
But this is very serious stuff and this is an area where it is so crucially important to have at least a threshold issue—and I agree with Mr Corbell there—on the same tests as apply interstate. That is what these two particular amendments do and that is what I am urging
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .