Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

(1) Schedule 1, item 13, page 15 (after line 14), at the end of section 114A.4, add:

Decision reviewable by ART

(6) A decision by the AFP Minister under this section is reviewable by the Administrative Review Tribunal.

This amendment introduces a provision to ensure that the AFP minister's decision regarding hate groups is reviewable on its merits by the Administrative Review Tribunal. This bill introduces a significant power for the AFP minister which needs safeguards against misuse or mistake. We have to make laws for bad governments, not assuming that we will have good governments, and, when we look overseas, we can see authoritarian figures are rising. Banning organisations is a typical strategy of authoritarian figures, and frequently associated with democratic backsliding, so we need to ensure that a power like this has sufficient safeguards. Some safeguards do exist—the agreement of the Attorney-General and judicial review of the AFP minister's decision about whether the proper process was followed—but it explicitly exempts the application of procedural fairness, so there is no right to be heard. If someone believes that their group has been wrongly designated a hate group, this amendment would give them the ability to seek an ART review of that decision on its merits.

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