Mr SNOWDON (5:15 PM) —It is a great pleasure to be following in this debate my friend and colleague the member for Brand. I want to go to the contribution of another member of the House this afternoon—that is, the member for Mitchell. The reason I want to do that is illustrated well by the contribution made by the member for Brand, because the member for Mitchell today accused members of the opposition of lacking patriotism. In the context of this debate in this place at this time, given the events of the last six months, I find that personally offensive. I have had phone calls from members of the opposition who have indicated to me that they found it most offensive as well and who wanted me to raise it in this debate.

No point of order was taken at the time; the member was not asked to withdraw anything. But it is clearly not a commonsense approach to what we believe to be a very important national and international issue—that of international terrorism—especially when there has been strong bipartisan support on the floor of this chamber from the opposition. As was pointed out earlier this afternoon and most recently by the member for Brand, the opposition outlined its response to the issues of September 11 two days after that very sad event and put forward a 10-point plan to fight terrorism, a plan which was not taken up by the government. As the member for Brand so cogently put, here we sit today debating legislation that could have been debated months ago but for a tardy government out of touch with the priorities of this nation, a tardy government which hosts people like the member for Mitchell, who had the gall to walk into this chamber in this very important public debate on this issue of great public moment in public policy, to ascribe motives to the opposition and to say that members of the opposition somehow or other lack patriotism.

I hope the member for Mitchell heard the member for Brand's speech. I am glad that the member for Brand mentioned the Vietnam War. One of our members in this chamber is a veteran of the Vietnam War. What does the member for Mitchell say to that member? Mr Edwards, a prominent member of the Labor Party in this chamber and a former parliamentary secretary, obviously a veteran—a person who fought for this country—has been accused by the member for Mitchell of lacking patriotism. I suggest that the member for Mitchell come into this chamber and apologise firstly to Mr Edwards and then to the chamber. I suggest he apologise to the chamber for putting these offensive words on the public record and for asserting that members of the opposition lack patriotism because we have the temerity to have concerns about the nature of this legislation and the way it has been put forward in this parliament and because we have concerns about the process which the government has undertaken to ensure that we get no real time for perusal and examination of, and real discussion about, this legislation in this parliament.

The member for Brand pointed to my friend at the table, the shadow minister Mr Melham. Mr Melham has come up with a proposal which the government should take on board. This proposal will assist us by allowing us to have a full debate in this parliament and not affect the date of application of that legislation; indeed, it will guarantee that the legislation will apply from the date it was introduced into this place. I would have thought they would have grabbed it with both hands, but there is no indication at all that the government are hearing this. They are certainly not listening to us, but they do not even appear to be hearing this.

We had the Leader of the House coming to us at eight o'clock last night and introducing this piece of legislation of 100-odd pages, and we are expected to respond on this matter of great national importance in a trice—without the opportunity to peruse it, to properly discuss it or to put it out into the public domain and let people who are concerned or who have an interest express a view about it before it is rushed through this place. That is not an appropriate way to deal with matters in this chamber, and we in the opposition are getting fed up to the back teeth with this House and its members being taken for granted. It is an absolute abuse of power.

Whilst the executive arm of this place clearly dictates the terms under which the House operates, it is very important that the people of Australia understand what is happening here. We are being prevented from undertaking a proper, forensic examination of this legislation prior to it being debated in this parliament—a purposeful exercise—when these issues could have been debated six months ago, when the member for Brand offered the government an opportunity. The member for Brand, as the then Leader of the Opposition, offered the government an opportunity which it refused to accept. Now we are lambasted and insulted by the government and attacked by government members for having the temerity to raise issues which may be of concern to us and to the general public.

I know that there are a number of issues in this legislation which we should be worried about, not because we do not support the intent of the legislation or its direction but because we need to raise some very serious questions. It is important that we do so in this place. I want to refer members to a very good research paper which has been released by the Department of the Parliamentary Library, entitled Terrorism and the law in Australia, which was edited by Nathan Hancock in the Law and Bills Digest Group. I know we do not normally ascribe to these people what they do in this place or give them the credit they are due, but this is a very good document. It canvases a whole range of issues, some of which are relevant to this debate. One of the relevant issues is the whole question of how we define `terrorism' under the Security Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Bill 2002 [No. 2]—remembering, of course, that the `No. 2' had to be written into the legislation, because they had made a mistake in its original introduction—and another is the question relating to the power to proscribe an organisation.

Let me make it very clear that we in the Labor Party regard terrorism as abhorrent. We believe that we should take the strongest possible measures to defeat terrorism. We acknowledge the international leadership which has been taken by the United States in this regard and the United Kingdom in the case of Western Europe. It is very important that we understand the context of our discussion. We are all very concerned about the events of September. Yet that does not lead us to accept ipso facto every piece of legislation which is put into this place on the basis that it happens to deal with terrorism, or to say that every aspect of that legislation ought to be agreed to. We need to examine what the legislation says and how it might impact upon the community. We must ask ourselves whether an appropriate balance has been struck.

We do have to protect the civil liberties of all Australians. We do have to protect those basic principles that underpin our democracy: free speech, freedom of association and freedom of religion. We cannot abrogate our responsibility to uphold those civil liberties. We need to be concerned that, because community awareness of this debate has been limited since the introduction of the bill yesterday evening, there will be some suspicion in the community, whether we like it or not, about the intent of this legislation and its impacts. A spectre of suspicion will hang over our approach to this legislation unless we are allowed to debate it fully and properly, unless we are allowed to examine it clause by clause, as we should be able to do.

The Prime Minister, the Attorney-General and the other government frontbench ministers want us to take it on trust that they would be able to use this legislation responsibly. This legislation allows the Attorney-General, under the declaration of proscribed organisations, to delegate powers and functions under this section to a minister. Just imagine if the Attorney-General, at the request of the previous Minister for Defence, had decided that he would give him the delegation to proscribe an organisation. Of course we need to comprehend that none of us now trust the words of the previous Minister for Defence. This is a person who got on the Australian media and said that anyone who questioned him about the `children overboard' issue was actually questioning the defence department and the Defence Force personnel. We have subsequently learned that he was directly advised prior to that speech, prior to him making his assertion on the media, that the `children overboard' incident did not in fact happen. Yet he had the gall to go on the media and assert that anyone who questioned whether it happened was actually undermining the defence forces. How could we trust the Attorney-General to delegate any powers to that man? And that man was the Minister for Defence.

So I have concerns about some aspects of this legislation, and the issue of proscribed organisations is one such concern. After all, as is cogently put in this document by the library, one person's proscribed organisation is another country's group of freedom fighters. We ought to be a little bit understanding about this. Let us ask this question, as it is put by the library's document. It says:

Was my support for the freedom fighters of the Falintil and Fretilin in East Timor support for a terrorist organisation? Would the government have been able to proscribe me and any organisation I had belonged to which financially supported Fretilin or Falintil as a terrorist organisation?

We need to be very careful about the breadth of this and the proportionality between the proposed measure and the perceived threat to Australian society. We must be conscious of our responsibilities as legislators. It is appropriate that we respond properly to the issue of terrorism, but it is also appropriate that we have due regard to proper processes, to the whole question of how we deal legitimately with the rights of Australian citizens. We need to deal properly with this issue and make sure there is a balance between our national interests, our international obligations under various United Nations treaties and conventions, procedural fairness for Australian citizens and the whole question of natural justice.

It is worth acknowledging, and it is important to acknowledge, that we do have a responsibility under our membership of the United Nations to accept the legitimacy of a number of United Nations resolutions in relation to terrorism. We have a responsibility to do something about it, particularly in relation to regulations which were moved by this government on 8 October pursuant to the Charter of the United Nations Act 1945 and the United Nations Security Council resolutions 1267 and 1373.

These resolutions are important. Under resolution 1373 the Security Council consolidated its previous comments on the need for stronger and more cooperative measures amongst states. It decided that all states should prevent and suppress the financing of terrorist acts, and criminalise the wilful provision or collection of funds by their nationals or in their territories. It also required states to ensure that terrorists, their accomplices and supporters are brought to justice and that terrorist acts are established as serious criminal offences in domestic laws and that the punishment duly reflects the seriousness of such terrorist acts. On 17 November 2001 the International Monetary Fund backed this move by expressing grave concern at the use of the international financial system to finance terrorist acts and to launder the proceeds of illegal activities. It called on all member countries to ratify and implement fully the UN instruments to counter terrorism, particularly resolution 1373.

There is no doubt that the eventual passage of this legislation will put us in a position where we will have acted on resolution 1373 comprehensively through this parliament. But before we finalise this discussion let us have the debate that we must have. Let us have the debate not only in this chamber but also in the public domain to allow those with an interest to examine this legislation and to ensure that our interests are properly served.

Let me conclude my remarks by again referring to this research paper from the Parliamentary Library. It says:

We have an obligation as a parliament to do exactly that. The paper goes on:

Why can't we have that discussion in this chamber? Why can't we have a deliberative debate which allows us, across this chamber, to come to some agreement about the balance to be struck in this legislation? Instead, we have had it foisted upon us in the dead of night and the government asks us to pass it within the space of 16 to 20 hours on the following day without allowing us to deliberate over it properly.

The Labor Party has moved an amendment. I urge the government to support that amendment. I request that the government accept the suggestions made by Mr Melham that the government make the date of application the date that this legislation was introduced in the parliament.

I request you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to think seriously about the role of the member for Mitchell in this chamber in making accusations that an individual on this side of the chamber somehow acted in an unpatriotic way. I ask you to request that he come into this chamber and apologise to the opposition and the Australian community for labelling us in that manner. It is not appropriate, given the importance of this debate, the very important nature of our discussion and the importance for us to come to terms with the threat of international terrorism, for us to have this sort of acrimony thrown across the chamber by the member for Mitchell.

Lastly, let me endorse wholeheartedly the comments which have been made by the member for Brand, who put comprehensively the position as to why the government should have acted earlier and responded to the suggestions of the opposition. (Time expired)