On March 20, the day the US, Britain and Australia launched their war on Iraq, the federal government reintroduced a bill into the House of Representatives to give the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) draconian police powers.
The government had withdrawn the bill last December after the ALP, Greens, Democrats, One Nation and several independents baulked at the sweeping "counter-terrorism" powers the government wanted to give the spy agency. But on June 17, the ALP caucus unanimously decided to support the bill. The Greens and the Democrats say they will vote against it.
There have always been doubts about the ALP's seriousness in opposing "anti-terrorism" laws. The federal ALP always seemed to have a foot in each camp. Under the leadership of Kim Beazley, the ALP gave in-principle agreement to the entire package, whereas under Simon Crean, Labor adopted a more critical posture, but then helped pass a raft of "anti-terrorism" laws last year.
State ALP governments have been quick to support such laws, with many of them having passed or preparing additional "anti-terror" laws. These laws can be even more draconian, because they are not restricted by the federal constitution.
The NSW Carr government, for example, passed a police-powers law in December that stops the courts reviewing certain police actions.
The ASIO bill gives more powers to the "secret state" than exist in the US, Canada, Ireland or Britain. Because, unlike these countries and most of Europe, Australia does not have a Bill of Rights, our civil rights are even more vulnerable.
The federal ALP opposition baulked at the clause in the first draft of the ASIO bill that gave the agency the power to interrogate a person for 48 hours, without charge, with "rolling warrants" able to extend the detention for up to a week. The Coalition's "compromise" proposes a 24-hour cap on interrogations over a period of seven days, with maximum blocks of eight hours each. The ALP has agreed to this.
Under general criminal law, any person suspected of a serious crime can be arrested by the police. The new ASIO law will allow for people who might have information ASIO wants to be arrested and questioned, even if the person is not suspected of a crime. This can include anyone who has been told something by another person, who heard it from someone else. It can include journalists, lawyers and political activists. The penalty for refusing to answer ASIO's questions is five years' imprisonment.
The ALP originally called for children to be exempted from the detention-without-charge clauses. The Coalition has said it will lift the interrogation age limit from 14 to 16. While this still breaches the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the ALP has also agreed to this "compromise".
The ALP also wanted the bill to guarantee detainees' legal right to representation. Detainees will now have the nominal right to choose their own lawyer, however ASIO still has the right to veto that choice. Questioning can start before a lawyer arrives. Labor has also agreed to this.
But the ALP has gone further. It has also agreed to pass laws allowing the attorney-general to nominate organisations to the federal court for "banning". Previously, the ALP had said it would only agree to this measure if such organisations were listed as "terrorist" by the UN Security Council.
ALP apologists say the party was caught in a bind. The government could use a Senate refusal to pass the ASIO bill as a double dissolution trigger. Already deeply unpopular and shaken by Beazley's recent leadership challenge, the last thing Crean wants is an early election.
But if the ALP was prepared to take a strong stand in support of democratic rights, and was prepared to mobilise the forces that put up the strong opposition in the streets to the war on Iraq, it could win a double-dissolution election.
From Green Left Weekly, June 25, 2003.
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