Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Collins for her comments. If I could come back to the comments that were made by the Attorney-General: Attorney-General, you are determined, in a touching way really, to cling to your identity as a champion of human rights in Australia. Your identity as a Liberal is obviously very important for you. But, with any and all your statements to this effect, the talk does not change the fact that you are presiding over some of the most drastic changes and limitations to human rights that we have seen in Australia. To dismiss or characterise the concerns that I have been articulating today, as you did, as being those of a university department or a university academic is just ludicrous and dismissive of the many voices in Australia that are raised about these issues. You seek to reassure the public by saying that there have only been two control orders issued by the Commonwealth thus far, but the very implications of this legislation, if it is passed, are that control orders will be easier to get and there will be fewer safeguards. So it is logical to conclude that we can certainly expect to see more.