Senator ALLISON (Leader of the Australian Democrats) (12:45 PM) —I seek leave to make a personal explanation.

Leave granted.

Senator ALLISON —There have been a number of media reports about the timing of the police raids in New South Wales and Victoria that have attributed comments to me which I believe require clarification. My comments regarding those events were widely publicised in the national press. But the comments were not printed or aired in their entirety, which has resulted in an inaccurate portrayal of what I said. I do not accuse the Prime Minister of orchestrating the raids, nor was I speculating that he did. I clearly said that I did not have any information to suggest that this was the case. I made it clear that while some people may speculate that this timing was a little too convenient, I was not. As I told the John Laws program on Wednesday morning, ‘I am very pleased that people have been arrested and that we are not facing a terrible terrorist attack in this country. There is no question of that.’

I am not arguing against the government’s motivation in stopping acts of terror occurring on Australian soil either. The need to stamp out extreme terrorist acts of violence is paramount to safety and security both in Australia and internationally and I congratulate the police on their efforts so far. But I do not resile from questioning the need for the antiterror legislation that the government has introduced or the timing of last week’s extraordinary recall of the Senate. It is arguable that correcting sloppy drafting in which terrorist acts were variously referred to as ‘a’ and ‘the’ throughout the legislation made a difference.

The government also admits being told about the error by its prosecutors at least a year ago and by all accounts those arrested on Monday night had been under surveillance for 16 months. I am not accusing the government of determining the timing of these raids, but I do believe that we have an obligation to continue questioning the motivations of a government that has deceived the Australian public in the past. Taking us to war for weapons of mass destruction that did not exist and falsely claiming that refugees threw their children overboard for their own ends are two examples.

I agree that we must support moves to protect Australia from threats of violence, but we should not be cowed into suspending our critical analysis of antiterror laws that have few safeguards against abuse. If a tangible threat does exist against Australia then the government already has the power to take protective action against that threat. The government already has all the powers that it needs to apprehend, arrest and prosecute terrorists. The Democrats remain opposed to the forthcoming antiterror bills. We say that no case has been made for these new laws and no case has been made that they are necessary or effective in fighting terrorism. However, a compelling case has been made for their danger to ordinary Australians.