Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

One Nation has called out foreign governments and their agents who act against Australian citizens and even against our country right here in Australia. These include China, some Islamic nations and some members of the former Soviet Union.

The Criminal Code Amendment (State Sponsors of Terrorism) Bill 2025 would amend the Criminal Code to enable listing of certain foreign states or foreign state entities as terrorist organisations. Currently, this is not possible with the law, because foreign states or foreign state entities are not able to be listed as terrorist organisations. Two lawyers, including a barrister, and their staff have scrutinised this bill for One Nation, and our senators have considered and discussed the bill. The bill would authorise the Governor-General to list in a regulation foreign state entities as state sponsors of terrorism. That's wonderful. The precondition to this occurring is that the minister for the Australian Federal Police, who is the home affairs minister, must believe on reasonable grounds that the foreign state or entity has engaged in, prepared or planned, assisted or fostered the doing of a terrorist act targeted against Australia or, in addition, if the entity has advocated doing a terrorist act that was targeted at Australia. The minister can only act with the agreement of the foreign affairs minister.

Secondly, the bill creates new offences which would criminalise conduct in which these entities engage and criminalise the conduct of persons who would seek to assist or support these activities. Additionally, it provides for appropriate defences for people who the law requires, for example, to engage with a listed entity or engage with an entity for a legitimate purpose. One aspect that has raised some concerns, though, is the reversal of the onus of proof that will apply when some defendants raise certain defences, where the defendant must establish the defence on the balance of probabilities. For example, a defendant may have the onus of establishing that they took all reasonable steps to disassociate themselves from a particular terrorist entity. The reversal of the onus of proof is a major event in legislation and should not be done lightly. Nonetheless, it appears justified here because of the nature of the offending behaviour.

We in One Nation have noticed this increasing trend in Labor-sponsored legislation over the last few years, and that sounds alarm bells to those who are responsible for scrutinising good policy. We're very concerned about this trend. At times, this is a precursor to control and may reflect today's Labor's propensity to control. This reversal of the onus of proof must be carefully scrutinised on each occasion on which it's raised. On this occasion, the government has justified this approach because of the preventive nature of measures that are being enabled to protect the Australian community from targeted acts of terrorism and the high risks of death or injury associated with such acts of terrorism. This bill's additional protections are reasonable in the overall circumstances, given that radicalised Islamic extremists perpetrate relatively frequent terror attacks and Chinese Communist Party agents intimidate and bully law-abiding Australian citizens of Chinese dissent here in Australia. One Nation believes that Australian citizens of all backgrounds must be protected. We support this bill.