Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move Greens amendments (3) and (4) on sheet 4816 together:

(3)    Schedule 4, item 1, page 37 (after line 11), after section 51CA, insert:

51CB Parliamentary disallowance of call outs

An order made in accordance with section 51A, 51AA, 51AB, 51B, 51C or 51CA is a disallowable legislative instrument for the purposes of the Legislative Instrument Act 2003.

(4)    Schedule 4, page 37 (after line 11), after section 51CA, insert:

51CC Parliament to sit following making of a call out order

If an order is made in accordance with section 51A, 51AA, 51AB, 51B, 51C or 51CA, each House of the Parliament must sit within 6 days of the order being made.

These amendments effectively mean that, if there is a call-out of troops by the Prime Minister of the day against the Australian people for some reason involving a threat to public order and property, parliament must be recalled within six days, and either house of parliament has the ability to make that prime ministerial call null and void. This is a democratic safeguard being built in against some future abuse of this power by a Prime Minister, a Treasurer or a Minister for Defence. It is an absolutely important safeguard being brought in here. You can only vote against this safeguard if you do not think the parliament has primacy, and if you think the executive and indeed the Prime Minister, who is not even mentioned in the Constitution, should have primacy in our federation, a century after the Constitution was written. It is a very, very important Greens amendment. It is a safeguard against the abuse of power. I cannot see that there could be any reasonable argument that the parliament should not be brought in in such an extraordinary circumstance as a call-out of the troops by a national executive to prevent some domestic threat arising in Australia.