Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move Greens amendments (2) and (3) on sheet 5904 together:

(2)    Clause 6, page 6 (line 19), at the end of paragraph (1)(b), add:

          and (iii)    is consistent with Australia’s international obligations, including human rights obligations;

(3)    Clause 6, page 6 (line 22), at the end of subclause (1), add:

        ; and (d)    if a matter relating to Australia’s counter-terrorism or national security legislation is referred to the Monitor by the Australian Human Rights Commissioner—to report on the reference.

These amendments relate to an issue we have touched on already this morning, going to how the monitor relates to our human rights obligations internationally. I would like to acknowledge that the government has come some way towards meeting the recommendations of the committee. There has been very strong evidence put forward that—as I think the minister put it, to paraphrase—we cannot assess the way these laws are operating in a bubble or in isolation from the obligations that Australia has under international human rights instruments. It is extremely important that these laws are benchmarked against exactly those obligations. One longstanding criticism of the way antiterrorism legislation works in Australia, given the diversity of the different statutes that are involved, is that it is entirely in some form offensive to our human rights obligations. It is inconsistent in many regards. That is part of the reason why people have expressed such longstanding concerns about the operation of the laws.

With due recognition of the fact that the government has come some way towards meeting these concerns, I am moving these amendments to ensure that the bill accords with one of the amendments to Senator Troeth’s bill of 2008 and a principle that was supported very strongly through two committee inquiry processes to date, which is that these laws are not merely in the objects that the government has proposed or in the amendments we have just supported but that the functions of the review contain explicit reference to Australia’s human rights obligations.

Greens amendment (3) provides for the Human Rights Commissioner to be able to make references to the monitor. I think the way the government sees it is that those references are inappropriate and that in fact the monitor is welcome to consult with the Human Rights Commissioner as, I suppose, he or she is welcome to consult with anybody. We think that, as references can come from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security or from the Prime Minister’s office, given the importance of human rights in these matters, the monitor should be able to receive a reference from the Human Rights Commissioner.

So we are not seeking to do anything really outside the existing ambit of the monitor but merely to provide one further avenue of matters to be raised and brought to the monitor’s attention. Given the Human Rights Commissioner’s expertise in these sorts of matters, we felt that they should be utilised to the full. That is the intention of those two amendments.