BY ALISON DELLIT
The federal government's repressive "anti-terror" bills are moving closer to being passed. On June 4, attorney-general Daryl Williams announced that the government had finalised its amendments to the main package, accepting most of the amendments recommended by the mid-May report from the Senate's legal committee, on which the Coalition has a majority.
The package of six bills will create a new offence: committing a "terrorist act". This is an action or threat of action "made with the intention of advancing a political, religious and ideological cause" and involving "serious harm" to a person or "serious damage to property", or which "endangers [another] person's life", "creates a serious risk to the health and safety of the public or a section of the public" or "seriously disrupts an electronic system" (including transport and postal systems).
Other criminal offences will include: providing or receiving training connected with terrorist acts; directing organisations that are "directly or indirectly" preparing terrorist acts; possessing "things" associated with "preparation, engagement or assistance in" a terrorist act; collecting or making documents connected with terrorist acts; and any other act in preparation for terrorist acts. The bills will also allow the attorney-general to proscribe "terrorist" organisations.
Almost all the submissions to both the Senate committee and the ASIO committee opposed the legislation outright. Despite condemnation from organisations as diverse as the Australian Law Council, the Socialist Alliance and the Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria, the government and the federal ALP continue to insist the bills are needed in some form.
The government's amendments will:
- Amend the definition of a terrorist act to include an element of intended intimidation or coercion. Williams claims this will protect protesters from prosecution, but most protests aim to "intimidate" the government into changing its policies;
- Remove the reversal of the onus of proof from the "secondary offences" of possessing things or documents associated with terrorist acts and lower the penalty for these offences from 25 years' imprisonment to 15 years';
- Redraft the section on proscribing organisations so that a "terrorist" organisation is one that engages "in preparing, planning, assisting in or fostering a terrorist act", or is one that "the [UN] Security Council has decided is an international terrorist organisation", or "is listed by regulation as a terrorist organisation based on the evidence of the organisation's terrorist activities".
The attorney-general can still issue the proscription, but federal parliament can overturn it within 15 days. A non-renewed ban would expire after two years. Someone could be prosecuted for membership of a banned organisation only if the organisation was banned under the first condition. An accused member would be acquitted if s/he could prove they attempted to resign once they realised the organisation was involved in terrorism; and
- Amend the treason offence, which currently includes all assistance to anyone fighting against the Australian Defence Forces, to exempt humanitarian aid agencies (although not personal assistance to soldiers from family members).
The government has rejected the Senate committee's recommendation that telecommunications intercept warrants be required before the police can read email obtained from a physical search of an internet service provider's offices.
The amendments satisfy almost all of the ALP's previous demands. The sticking point is likely to be that Labor wants the proscription power under the control of a judicial, rather than parliamentary, body.
The Greens have reiterated their complete opposition to the bills. While the Democrats have opposed the bills, spokesperson Senator Brian Greig was reported in the June 5 Sydney Morning Herald as saying, "the proposals seem reasonable".
ASIO bill
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) bill is also likely to be amended. The day after Williams' announcement on the rest of the package, the joint-house committee on the secret services, comprised of Coalition and ALP members only, released its unanimous recommendations to increase ASIO's powers.
As currently drafted, the bill will allow ASIO to detain people incommunicado without charge as part of a terrorism investigation. A warrant for such detention could be issued by a senior magistrate or a member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (a government-appointed body).
Those detained could be denied access to anybody the secret services decides — including lawyers and family members. While each warrant would be issued for 48 hours, it could be renewed indefinitely.
The proposed amendments include:
- Ensuring that warrants for detention are granted by a federal magistrate, and extensions by a judge;
- A time limit of seven days on detention, after which the detainee must be charged or released;
- Detainees be provided with access to a pool of lawyers selected by the Law Council of Australia and "security cleared" by ASIO. These lawyers, however, can only represent the detainee during magistrate hearings — not during the detention itself;
- Detainees to be protected from self-incrimination. While it will still be an offence punishable by five years' imprisonment to refuse to answer questions, any answers given by a detainee could not then be used in a criminal prosecution (although they could be used in prosecutions of detainees' family and friends); and
- Limiting detention to people over 18 years old.
Media support
Both sets of proposals have been welcomed by most newspaper columnists. Even Margot Kingston, formerly a critic of the bills, wrote on the June 5 Sydney Morning Herald web site: "It again looks like the government's jack-boot instincts will be held in check by a dedicated group of Australians who made submissions, parliamentary committees whose members have a firm grasp of the need for balance and have listened to the evidence, and a concerned Liberal backbench determined to take Cabinet on."
But while Liberal backbenchers, the ALP "opposition" and the corporate media hacks congratulate themselves on how the bills have been improved, they still allow for protesters to be locked up for life, organisations to be banned and people to be detained incommunicado and forced to answer questions.
Acts of extreme violence are already illegal. These new bills will be used to harass Arab Australians, punish political dissidents and criminalise acts of solidarity with peoples' struggles that the Australian government opposes.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, June 19, 2002.
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