The Gillard Government is ramping up another assault on civil liberties and human rights in Australia. No fewer than four – 4 – formal inquiries are under way, with a likely outcome 18 months from now of greater intrusions into our personal lives and data privacy, greater powers for police, less restrictions on spook agencies and generally a few more steps along the path to the type of country we used to look down on. CLA’s CEO Bill Rowlings spells out the inquiries under way…
Quickstep to a police state, four at a time
The Gillard Government has Australian civil society by the throat, and is proposing tightening its grip. Since 9/11, more than 70 pieces of anti-terror laws, financial restrictions and expanded police and spook agency power have passed through the Australian Parliament. Each one of them nibbles away at the traditional rule of law in Australia, reduces your and my rights in one way or another, and intrudes on our privacy.
Now the government has three more hands at our throat, in addition to those it inherited in 2007 from former PM John Howard:
- A National Security Review, by the Parliamentary Joint Committee (PJC) on Intelligence and Security,
- a review of intelligence swapping and data retention by the PJC on Law Enforcement – yes, that’s a separate committee of parliament – and
- a COAG Review of Counter-terrorism legislation.
All of these bodies are reporting in late 2012, and none of them, not one, is likely to take into account the first full-year review of the formal security legislation monitor that the Gillard Government created but seemingly forgot.
Bret Walker SC, the high-flying barrister from the Sydney bar, is the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor appointed in March 2012 for three years, part time. He tabled an interim report (for the period from March through June 2012) on 16 December 2011, and his first full-year report is expected in December 2012. He is calling for submissions as a prelude to it, making the fourth – that’s 4th – current inquiry into matters nefarious. His inquiry is into powers around questioning and detention warrants under ASIO legislation.
CLA has been asked what we think of these inquiries. Well, CLA thinks there should be one inquiry, not four. Any inquiry should await the first full-year report of Monitor Walker. The legislation passed in panic and disarray in the aftermath of 9/11 – from 2002 to 2011 – should be sweated down from its panicked drafting and consolidated into the normal criminal law of Australia.
There should be a new set of laws crafted by taking the exact opposite approach to that adopted after 9/11: that is, without panic and not in haste. The police and spook agencies should return to smaller cages on a tighter leash with fewer numbers, less money and more management of their effectiveness per dollar expended. When was the last time you saw any of these agencies asked to demonstrate or prove its worth?
Learning from our 2012 gold medal olympic sailors, we should take exactly the opposite tack. Australia, with an urgency reminiscent of immediately post-9/11, should define what rights ordinary Australians have to living our customary lives under the traditional rule of law, with privacy respected and protected, whistleblowers encouraged and financially rewarded when proven correct, and government so open and transparent that FOI is no longer needed. Of course, you could possibly achieve a lot of these aims if you created a bill of rights for Australians and Australia.
By the way, as a little bit of icing on the cake, national politics should be re-newed and re-visioned.
What does CLA think will happen to these inquiries? They’ll all produce reports which will be largely ignored by the government in the lead-up to the 2013 election. The police and spook agencies will keep on the boil those bits which say there should be tougher laws, less privacy, police should get more coercive powers, and spooks should operate with fewer restrictions. These new laws will be rolled out by a Coalition Government in 2014, and Australia will advance further down the path of a police state.
That’s precisely what has happened, year after year, since September 2001. Why would a current Gillard or future Coalition Government change their people-dismissive patterns of behaviour in the future?
– Bill Rowlings, CEO, Civil Liberties Australia
http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate_Committees?url=le_ctte/inquiries.htm
http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House_of_Representatives_Committees?url=pjcis/nsl2012/index.htm
http://www.coagctreview.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx
http://www.dpmc.gov.au/inslm/index.cfm