Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Canning is to be congratulated for moving this motion. One of the primary duties of members of this House is to protect the right to life of all Australian citizens. Only last Thursday we saw Daesh call on jihadis to target my city of Melbourne. The pictures of Tullamarine Airport, Qantas aircraft and St Paul's Cathedral were among the graphic images of bomb blasts and beheadings that Daesh put in with their propaganda videos. This, of course, primarily affects the people of the Middle East, particularly the minorities, who have been brutalised by this terrible political movement that misuses one of the world's great monotheisms and speaks in its name without its authority and without any spirituality. It has devastated that part of the world. In Syria we have seen nearly half a million people die—not solely as a result of the Islamists but also as a result of the Russians and Assad. They are facing increasing casualties as Western troops, the Syrian defence forces and the Iraqi army, in particular, and local people move to fight back against them in that part of the world. Director of National Intelligence Clapper, in testimony to the US Congress, said there were 36,000 Daesh fighters in eastern Syria and western Iraq.

Amongst those, at least 61 Australians—possibly up to 68—have been killed in the conflict as a result of their involvement through their support of Daesh. ASIO assesses that 110 Australians are still fighting or engaged with those groups there. And some of these individual Australian characters have been involved in the despicable slavery of women and minorities et cetera. Some of them have taken their children to this conflict and, of course, we now face the very difficult task of dealing with people who are coming back from there. Of course, Australians are very afraid, quite naturally, that some of these people will bring their so-called skills back to this country.

Apart from the 190 Australian jihadis who are actively supporting these extremist groups, 40 have allegedly returned from the conflict zone. There are up to 70 children of Australians who have been exposed to extremist groups there. We saw the terrible sight that we all remember of two Australian children holding up the heads of citizens of Syria who had been killed by members of Daesh, including the father of the two children.

In the four years since 2012, about 200 Australians have travelled to Syria and Iraq and joined in the conflict. About 110 are currently fighting. We also now have the problem of people languishing in prisons who are unrepentant jihadists. What do we do with them? Can we let people like Mr Benbrika, who promised to blow up the MCG and injure and kill people in Australia on behalf of his jihadist beliefs, out of prison once he has finished his sentence? Australians respect the rule of law; we believe that people, when they finish their sentences, should be allowed to be newly judged. But, at the same time, the Labor Party supports the government in saying that we cannot let Australian citizens be at risk from people who have these unrepentant demands for a war against Australia which we have done nothing to deserve.

We support the toughening of the laws for 14- to 18-year-olds too as, very unfortunately, in Endeavour Hills a 17-year-old was involved and in Parramatta a 15-year-old was involved. Who can believe that some wicked ideology would influence young people to commit crimes against a man such as Mr Curtis Cheng, who was the innocent accountant for the police in Parramatta. We must be vigilant about these kinds of things. We must maintain our civil liberties at the same time, and we must also not lose sight of the fact that these people want to damage Australia.

I am very pleased that Senator Xenophon is claiming credit for the data breach legislation, which I first mentioned at the intelligence committee, to match the privacy considerations of the metadata legislation which deals with the terrorist— (Time expired)

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