Ray Fulcher
PM John Howard announced on September 8 an "unusual but necessary" increase in the state's repressive armament, supposedly to fight the "war on terror".
Taking his cue from British PM Tony Blair following the terrorist bombings in London, Howard is seizing the opportunity to introduce draconian new "anti-terror" laws, adding to a plethora of existing "anti-terror" legislation. The new laws will, according to many commentators, move Australia decisively towards becoming a police state.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation already has the power to snatch people from the streets and hold them incognito for a week on the basis that they might have some terror-related information. Those "disappeared" by ASIO have no right to a lawyer and no right to silence.
Under the existing National Security Information Act, the government can order secret trials of alleged terrorists. It can also order that witnesses not be cross-examined, that the accused not be in court to respond to their accusers, that the accused's lawyers get "security clearances" from ASIO and that "certificates of evidence" issued by the attorney-general be accepted without question by the courts. Such certificates can prevent the court from seeing relevant evidence, but tell it what that evidence proves in the case.
This act is being used for the first time in the trial against "terror suspect" Jack Thomas. His lawyer, Rob Stary, has had to obtain a security clearance in order to accompany him to court and the prosecution wants the entire trial to be held in secret.
Now the Howard government wants more power to intimidate and hamper those it deems a "threat" to national security. Howard has said that key elements of the new legislation include:
- The Australian Federal Police (AFP) being able to obtain court orders to restrict the movement of people they consider "terrorism risks". This will include being able to "electronically tag" people and restrict who they can meet - in effect a 12-month home detention regime without having committed an offence.
- "Preventive detention" of suspects for up to 14 days. That is, people can be put in jail for two weeks at a time if they are deemed a "terrorism risk". The federal government will need state governments' cooperation to implement this as constitutionally it can only legislate for 48 hours' detention.
- The AFP will be given the power to stop, question and search people in the streets.
- New migrants will have to wait three instead of two years to apply for citizenship. That this change has been included in an "anti-terror law" package speaks volumes about the racist inclinations of our government.
- A new offence of leaving bags unattended at airports.
- Changing sedition laws to make it an offence to "incite violence" in the community or against Australian troops overseas. This will carry a seven-year jail term.
Some state Labor premiers have said they will approach the new laws with "an open mind" and the federal ALP has said that it will support measures that protect Australians from terrorist attack. Yet even Howard has said that there is no guarantee these laws will do that.
Brian Walters, president of Liberty Victoria, says the new laws are being introduced even before the previous "anti-terror" laws have been reviewed. He told Green Left Weekly: "The attorney-general was obliged to conduct a review of the ASIO and anti-terror laws as soon as possible after last July. The fact he has not done so probably puts him in breach of the law."
Walters explained that the new laws could result in people being imprisoned or "tagged" as terrorists even after a court had found them innocent of terrorism charges. This is because the AFP will only need to "consider" people a risk to obtain a warrant.
Mamdouh Habib, for example, who has never been charged with any offence, but has been harassed by ASIO and condemned by the government, could suffer imprisonment or tagging under the new regime. Zak Mallah, found by a court not to be a terrorist but merely "disturbed", could find himself in "preventive detention".
In fact, all those people subjected to the recent ASIO and AFP raids in Melbourne and Sydney could be considered risks and tagged - and not only them, but anyone they associated with, or prayed with, or went to the footy with.
The so-called terrorism threat needs to be put into context, said Walters. "More people die from petrol sniffing, or road rage, or domestic violence than die from terrorism in Australia. It's not terrorism that threatens our 'way of life', but the passage of these laws."
Dr Waleed Kadous from the Australian Muslim Civil Rights Advocacy Network told Green Left Weekly: "The new laws will completely eclipse the original legislation. The civil rights of all Australians will be under threat, particularly our freedom of speech. If these laws go through, it will be illegal to say that the Iraqis should resist the occupation."
Kadous added: "These laws are broad and discriminatory, and the Muslim community will be adversely affected. The announced control orders do things to suspected terrorists that are not done to convicted murderers. There was zero community consultation about these new 'anti-terror' laws, and the PM didn't even consult his own backbenchers."
Margarita Windisch, a spokesperson for Stop the War in Melbourne, says the new laws are a dangerous attack on free speech. "If I say that I oppose the occupation of Iraq and that I think the insurgency is right to resist the occupation, then am I guilty of 'inciting violence against Australian troops overseas'? Probably. Yet even the United Nations says that an occupied people has the right to resist."
Windisch believes the laws will be used by the government to intimidate into silence opponents of its imperialist wars. "They will try to criminalise dissent and criminalise the truth", she said. "The government lied about weapons of mass destruction. It lied about al Qaeda's link to Iraq. It lied about Australian troops' involvement in torture in Iraq. Now it can use the law to silence those who tell the truth about Iraq."
From Green Left Weekly, September 14, 2005.
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