Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of Senator Crossin, I present the report of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee on the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Laws Bill 2008 [No. 2], together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.

Ordered that the report be printed.

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

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

On behalf of the whole committee, I would like to thank the secretariat, who worked very hard to get this report in on time. We were on a very short deadline for this report. I also want to recognise and thank the very dedicated people who gave up a lot of their time to provide their expertise to the committee in giving evidence. In particular, I would like to acknowledge Petro Georgiou MP for getting this whole process started and Senator Troeth for moving it along through the Senate process and carrying it forward.

We heard very wide support for the introduction of an independent reviewer into the terror laws into the up to 40 pieces of legislation that were passed and amended in response to the terror attacks in 2001 and events subsequent to that. Almost unanimously the people who appeared before the committee indicated very strong support for an independent reviewer. I suppose this should not be too surprising. It follows the recommendations that were made by the Sheller review into the operation of the laws in 2006 and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security in 2006, who recommended that the terror laws that had been passed and were continuing to be passed, the legislative response to terror, had omitted a vital precaution: some kind of review to assess whether the laws were operating as they should and whether our response as a nation had been proportional and appropriate.

The committee has heard the urgent need to review these terror laws, and that comes through very strongly in this report. On page 9 the Law Council of Australia has perhaps put it best, noting that:

... [t]he exceptional nature of these anti-terrorism measures and the often disproportionate impact they have on the enjoyment of individual rights should not become normalised within the Australian criminal justice system and must be subject to regular and comprehensive review.

Within the context of this near unanimous agreement on the need for a reviewer of terror laws came a note of caution about reviewing put quite succinctly by the Federation of Community Legal Centres of Victoria:

In our view, the appointment of an Independent Reviewer is not a substitute for repeal of undemocratic and excessively harsh laws. When these laws were introduced, they were recognized as an extraordinary response to particular global circumstances, as departing from fundamental principles and as impinging on civil liberties.

So that body in particular saw the risk in instituting a reviewer who would in fact normalise the operation of these quite extraordinary laws in Australia. The committee also heard quite a degree of evidence about the importance of benchmarking the terror laws and the operation of the terror laws against the international human rights obligations that Australia is already a party to and subject to. That came through very strongly. In fact, the committee found that it may well be very useful to ensure, in the process of reviewing the terror laws, that the reviewer gives very strong regard to whether we are in breach of our international human rights obligations.

In closing, I thank the Senate for the time in which to make this brief statement. The Greens certainly support the tabling of this report and we look forward to the introduction of laws enabling an independent reviewer of terror laws subject to some of the concerns that have been raised about our needing a better understanding of exactly how the reviewer will operate. We very much look forward to a timely government response to this report so that the laws can be reviewed and in many cases, it is hoped, repealed entirely. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted.