Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) | Hansard source

I want to say at the outset that the Greens will not be supporting the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Police Powers at Airports) Bill 2019. It joins the list of more than 200 pieces of legislation that have passed through state, territory or Commonwealth parliaments in Australia in the last two decades that have eroded fundamental rights and freedoms in this country. If this bill does anything, it mounts a living, breathing argument for Australia to introduce a charter of rights in this country. We are currently the only liberal democracy in the world that does not have some form of either constitutionally embedded or legislatively enshrined charter of rights. And while we continue to lack that fundamental statement of the rights of citizens in our country then major parties—no matter who is in government—in the damaging so-called spirit of bipartisanship, will continue to erode those rights.

Now, I want to make one thing very clear at the start of my contribution here. The 2019 bill, which I'll use as shorthand for this bill, is an improvement on the 2018 bill of the same name. We still retain significant concerns, but I do want to acknowledge that the government has picked up a number of recommendations made by parliamentary committees that make this bill a less bad piece of legislation than it was when it was proposed in 2018, before the last election. The 2018 bill could have compelled people to carry ID at all times while travelling by air or, importantly, when picking up friends and family from an airport. This is despite it not being a legal requirement for people to carry ID at all times when they are in public and despite people not being required by airports or airlines to carry ID to travel by air if only travelling with carry-on luggage.

The 2018 bill could have led to situations like Operation Fortitude, which was a multi-agency operation in 2015 that would have seen Australian Border Force, police and transport officers using racial profiling to do random visa checks on people, despite there being no requirement for visa holders to carry those documents on their person. Operation Fortitude was cancelled after the public outrage which resulted from ABF's announcement of the operation.

As reported by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, the 2018 bill and its identity-checking and/or move-on powers would have infringed on people's rights to privacy, people's rights to freedom of movement, people's right to equality and nondiscrimination, and potentially the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. As I said at the time, there was absolutely no justification for that legislation, which I described as a papers-please legislation, and the government is yet to mount an argument as to why even this watered down version in the 2019 bill is necessary.

It's worth pointing out that the terrorism threat level in this country has not increased for over five years, yet we keep getting pieces of legislation which take away our fundamental rights and freedoms. I also make the point that the departing Director-General of ASIO, Mr Duncan Lewis, has made it very clear that in fact foreign influence and interference in our democracy is a more significant threat to our country than terrorism. And yet we've got a government that continually brings in legislation in the name of counterterrorism that erodes the fundamental rights and freedoms that, in the past, countless Australians have fought and died to protect and enhance.

Senator Duniam interjecting—

I've used the F-word, fascism, in this place in the past—and Senator Duniam can have all the chuckles that he likes, but, Senator Duniam, through you, Madam Acting Deputy President, if you don't think societies that are, on the face of it, based on principles that are espoused, in particular by the LNP, in this place—personal freedoms, for example, is one of the values we hear a lot about from Liberal and National member politicians in this place—

Senator McGrath interjecting—

I can hear Senator McGrath rumbling away in the background again, adding his two bob's worth—but if you don't think societies can transform quite rapidly from places where fundamental rights and freedoms are protected and respected into fascist states, then you are not studying human history. This can happen quickly. It's happened on multiple occasions in human history, and it starts with an erosion of those rights and freedoms and attacks on minorities. We have seen the attacks on minorities who come into this country—the people from countries including South Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sri Lanka and many others, some of whom remain imprisoned in Papua New Guinea or Nauru and have spent over six years there now. We're seeing it in the punitive responses, for example, to people on Newstart, who are going to face the demeaning agenda of this government in requiring them to be drug tested. You attack the minorities, and when people don't fight back hard enough, it empowers those totalitarians, those authoritarians, those fascists in the government to take the next step. Unless we stand up and fight to defend these rights and freedoms, we will continue, unfortunately and devastatingly, on the slow shuffle towards authoritarianism and, ultimately, totalitarianism. That's what this legislation embodies. We're seeing it, for example, in the use of facial recognition technology. We're seeing it in regard to the lack of privacy that 10 or 20 years ago would have seen our country up in arms but now seems to be accepted by so many people because of the actions of the two major parties in this place, which have normalised this loss of fundamental rights and freedoms.

So this bill, the 2019 bill, is unwarranted, and the government has completely failed to make the case. What the improvements in this bill, compared to the 2018 bill, have done is mean that instead of a giant step down the road towards a police state we are today proposing to take a smaller step. But it is a smaller step that follows many steps before it and, no doubt, will be succeeded by many steps after it.

I want to talk about the so-called spirit of bipartisanship that exists in this place between the major parties on matters of national security. I want to say, firstly, that this bipartisanship does the Australian people a great disservice. What happens with this government, led by one of the most authoritarian control freaks in the parliament, the relevant minister, is that the government introduces a whole suite of new police powers and new powers for our intelligence and security agencies. That bill gets referred off to the Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence and Security, which I note again, for the record, contains no-one from the crossbench—it's a stitch-up between the two major parties. It goes into that process and, yes, I agree that that process does at times rasp a few of the roughest edges off legislation like this. But it doesn't change the fundamentals of the legislation and the dirty deals that are done in that process. Then out comes the legislation from that process. The fait accompli is then presented to the Senate, and ultimately the bill is passed with support from the two major parties.

As watchers of this chamber will know, the Greens have continually pushed back against this agenda of eroding rights and freedoms in this country. We're going to push back on it again today by opposing this legislation.

The 2018 bill followed an airport security review in 2017 that was a result of an alleged plot to bring down an Etihad Airways aircraft departing Sydney for Abu Dhabi, which was aborted before the accused reached security. But the report of that review has never been made public. So here we are again, trading off our fundamental rights and freedoms in Australia for vague and unidentified threats because it suits the agenda of the conservatives. I don't expect any better of conservatives, because as a class they're ruled by the amygdala—the lizard brain, which is the fear centre of our mind. The behaviour of conservatives—

Senator Duniam interjecting—

Senator McGrath interjecting—

There is abundant psychological research on this, Senator Duniam. I refer particularly to Senator McGrath, who's one of the obvious people in this place that is ruled by the amygdala.