Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to support the report of the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security that is entitled the Review of the re-listing of Al-Qa’ida and Jemaah Islamiya, which relates to the relisting of al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah as proscribed organisations, and I endorse the comments made by the chairman. I emphasise to this parliament that it is a bipartisan committee and a bipartisan report.

The power of proscription is a very important one and one that is obviously not used lightly by governments because it has such a profound effect on the community. It is an essential tool in the war on terror. When the committee examined the two organisations that have been brought forward for relisting, it noted that a couple of procedural concerns that it had raised on previous occasions when examining the relisting of 19 organisations have still not been dealt with by the Australian government. It is my contention to this House and to the community that we need public support for the use of such a large and strong power. The three procedural matters that we have raised consistently that have not been addressed include consultation, for example, with the states and territories. We note in this particular relisting that, instead of the premiers being consulted, as in accordance with the agreement, it is just the attorneys-general.

There is also an issue about community consultation. These powers are very broad and strict. In previous reports in March, May, August and September last year, the committee made recommendations on information programs on the effect that these powers have on the community. We were assured by the Attorney-General’s Department that the programs were being developed, but there is no evidence of these programs being implemented in these particular cases.

With respect to relisting in the statements of reasons, in the particular relisting of these two organisations it was the view of the committee that more contemporaneous information should be provided to the committee. Things change, and while it is great to get a historical overview and perspective, the fact is that, when we need to justify the proscription of an organisation or organisations to the community, more contemporary information would be useful, particularly in this environment of increased threat. We have seen, for example, the national intelligence assessment investigation into Iraq and its report which basically said that there is an increased terrorism threat to America and to its allies as a consequence of its involvement in Iraq. Thus, it needs to be very clear that, in restating the reasons why we need to continue to proscribe these organisations, we provide the most contemporary and up-to-date assessment possible, and the committee feels that it was lacking in this particular case.

In addition, to provide continued public support for these particular listings and not for these organisations, ASIO provided the committee with a set of criteria that it uses to determine a proscription. Those criteria were an organisation’s:

Engagement in terrorism;

Ideology and links to other terrorist groups or networks;

Links to Australia;

Threats to Australian interests;

Proscription by the UN or like minded countries; and

Engagement in peace/mediation processes.

We have been discussing the issue of a logical benchmark for proscription with ASIO and the Attorney-General’s Department for some period of time, and these matters have still not been resolved. As deputy chair of the committee, I believe that they should be resolved and that there should be clearly benchmarkable criteria that are used by ASIO and the Attorney-General’s Department when they come before the parliament to seek proscription.

We must acknowledge that we are in a different environment. For example, look at a report by the International Crisis Group which talks about the war on terror and al-Qaeda. It says that, whilst two-thirds of al-Qaeda’s leadership have been killed or captured and:

… this has undoubtedly diminished its organisational capacity, it hasn’t done anything to diminish its global following … If the war on terrorism as it has so far been conducted has been a success, that is a well kept secret. Terrorist attacks classified by the US government as significant more than tripled worldwide to 650 last year from 175 in 2003.

We must be mindful that our threat environment has changed, and that changed threat environment should have been brought to the committee’s attention, in my view. I would suggest to the Attorney-General that he keeps these changed environments— (Time expired)

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