Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Hansard source

The government will not be supporting these amendments. If we were to do so, it would essentially render what we are trying to do completely useless. The purpose of these parts of the legislation, where we would proscribe a particular area within a conflict zone, is to act as a deterrent for people to go to those areas and also to make sure that, if you were to go into a proscribed area, you would be committing an offence unless you could provide a legitimate defence, of which several have been listed.

The purpose of this bill is not, as the member for Melbourne has suggested, to somehow restrict people from travelling. Proscribed areas will be limited in scope. They will be declared by the foreign minister and they would be presumed to be declared for areas within a conflict zone that would be under the control of a terrorist organisation. If you were going to those areas, firstly, you would be doing so at great personal risk; secondly, I think it is legitimate for us to ask why you would be going to areas which are under the control of a vicious terrorist organisation.

Of course, this is not going to be something that is going to be used extensively; we would expect it would be used in very limited circumstances, subject to the discretion of the foreign minister, over parts of the world that are under the control of these sorts of organisations. There are already plenty of safeguards within the legislation to make sure that, if, for a legitimate purpose, you did go to an area that had been proscribed, that is an appropriate defence. Other safeguards are the fact that any prosecution would need to be agreed by the Attorney-General. And of course it is still at the discretion of the prosecutor, who would need to make a judgement that that prosecution would be in the public interest.

We do not seek to restrict the rights of Australians to travel anywhere in the world that they would like to travel to. If the foreign minister deems it appropriate, she will proscribe certain areas within a conflict zone that would be, for example, controlled by a terrorist organisation. If you were going to these areas—if you were going somewhere in Syria or northern Iraq that were under the control of ISIL, for example, I think it is perfectly legitimate that we would question your motives in going there. There are significant safeguards to make sure that, if somebody were in these areas doing something legitimate, they would not be subject to prosecution. Clearly we do not seek to restrict the ability of Australians to travel overseas. I can assure the member and the Australian people that this bill will not do that.

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