Senator LUDWIG (12:49 PM) —What we have today is clearly a truncated debate for the committee stage. I have been in the Senate for six years, and this is the most obscene thing I have seen this government do. To truncate an important bill such as the antiterrorism bill in such a way is to allow only a farcical way of dealing with it in the committee stage. It would have been preferable, and within the government’s ability, to ensure that we could deal in seriatim with the various amendments, go through them, put the arguments, have the debate about the issue and not about the people or the party and then move forward. That is what we have always done in this place. That is what the strength of the Senate has always been.

Instead, the government yesterday put a guillotine motion in place, which effectively cut the second reading debate short and truncated the committee stage to ensure that we would have to, on the run, come up with a way of dealing with the hundreds of amendments that are now before us. We have almost half a book from the government to deal with. As well, there are new explanatory memoranda that they have put out. There are new amendments—at the last count I think there were 74. Some of those require reasonable consideration and explanation by this government, but we are not going to get that. We are going to have to rely on the explanatory memoranda to understand what the government’s position is. Or, hopefully, in the short time available to us, Senator Ellison can run through, as quickly as he can, the way those amendments will operate. That would provide us with an opportunity—only an opportunity—to deal with some of the more substantive issues that have come through.

The difficulty is that, by complaining about the process, I am eating into the time available to me to talk about the substantive matters. That is the difficulty we always face, especially with a government that is so arrogant and out of touch. It is bordering on an un-Australian way of dealing with the Senate that the government has chosen to use its numbers to both guillotine and gag its way through an antiterrorism bill. It is not acceptable. It should not be done. The government has the ability to ensure that there is proper debate but has chosen not to.

Let us look at the major issues that came out and see what the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee found. Let us deal with them. We will look at the major issues and some of the minor issues as well. One of the major issues that the committee found was the sunset clause. This government has said that the period is 10 years. Ten years is a lifetime in politics, let me tell you. It is a farce to suggest that 10 years is a position that is going to be acceptable. The Labor Party have said—and we will move amendments to that effect, if we get the opportunity, but I will foreshadow them in any event—that a five-year sunset clause with a five-year review is a better outcome. It provides at least some certainty that (1) the legislation will be reviewed and (2) five years down the track we can look at the legislation and see whether it is still an appropriate, adapted and proportionate response to the security environment we then find ourselves in.

The second issue is in relation to sedition. The Labor Party have said right from day one that we oppose schedule 7. It should not be part of this process. Right from day one we have said that, in terms of the Anti-Terrorism Bill, we do recognise that there is a new security environment. We do think, unlike the Greens, that you have to take the fight to terrorists. You cannot take a backward step. You have to make sure that the people we entrust with our system to protect us and preserve our way of life have the necessary powers to ensure that they can root out these evildoers and put them behind bars and can prevent a terrorist attack so that we can have some measure of security and safety in Australia.

In relation to sedition we say that it was not part of COAG; it was not part of the original agreement. I suspect it is one of those things that Mr Ruddock has been kicking along, like a favourite football, rolling it along the paddock and thinking, ‘This is something that I would like to pick up and run with,’ and he has. He has flicked it up, put it under his arms at the available opportunity and decided to run with it. Well, it is not on. It should not be a part of this system, it should not be a part of this bill and Labor oppose it. We have said that from day one. We are fortified that the committee recommendations equally supported Labor’s position of saying, ‘That should not be here.’ Let us look at some of the comments that were made in the committee report. For example:

I think that sums it up in a very neat passage. The committee took cognisance of that and recommended that. I heard that some backbenchers got a bit divided about this issue, but at the end of the day they stuck with the government; they stuck with the line.

The committee did recommend an alternative, faced with the view that the government may not remove sedition. Let me make it plain: it was not an alternative in an equal sense. The first position recommended that schedule 7—sedition—be removed. The alternative was to ensure that it at least had some measure of support from the government’s own backbench. And that is what that was: a comfort recommendation for the backbench that they could slide back to, and that is in fact where they went. It was not a surprise to me to see the alternative. It is not an equal alternative. It is a backslide for the Liberal backbench who knew they would not be able to stare down Mr Ruddock. Mr Turnbull and Senator George Brandis knew they were not going to be able to stare down Mr Ruddock. They decided that the only way out was to ensure that they had a backslide position to give them a fig leaf of protection. They do not have to do that; they can take the first position. It is a much better position to adopt. Sedition is not necessary as part of this bill and should be removed.

The other areas that Labor has sought to amend and improve upon are not only the review and sunset provisions but also areas that I suspect Senator Bob Brown was talking about in part. He went to the issue of the ICCPR, the international obligations we have. The Labor Party takes those obligations very seriously. They exist as guiding principles to ensure that we act in a decent way. That is what they are there for. I was a participating member of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee and it was very pleased to hear from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, who also take very seriously those principles and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. What they said is instructive. In relation to issues regarding the right to liberty and the requirement of proportionality, they indicated:

that is, preventative detention orders—

I will not go into the quote; most people will be familiar with it. It goes to the issue of arbitrary arrest or detention. They then went on to say:

HREOC said that the best way to deal with that particular issue was in the recommendation they made. They did not recommend in their submission to the committee that we incorporate the UN convention. In recommendation 1 of their submission—and Labor has incorporated it into its amendments because it was a committee recommendation as well—they said:

The Liberal-National coalition have not picked that up. It is something that should be picked up. It is an amendment that we have sought, and I foreshadow that, if we get the opportunity, we will move it. It is one of those areas that provide a test of proportionality. It provides a way of ensuring that, in enacting this legislation and dealing with it, the government’s actions are proportional, appropriate and adapted to the purpose. That is what that clause does. It is one that Labor supports and will move in this committee stage. It is one that the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee adopted and suggested that the Attorney-General, Mr Ruddock, should pick up.

He has not picked it up. He has not seen fit to include it in the legislation. That is a great pity, I must say. Obviously, there would have been an improvement to the legislation if Mr Ruddock had picked up all of the committee recommendations. At the end of the day he would have been able to say that he took on board the committee recommendations, was cognisant of the committee’s work and had ensured that there were safeguards and review and oversight arrangements contained within the bill. That is not something that the Attorney-General has decided to do. However—and sometimes in the heat of these debates we miss pointing this out—he did pick up a substantive number of the amendments that the committee recommended. A significant number of amendments have been incorporated into the legislation.

The legislation started from the Stanhope draft—if I can call it that—where this government took an extreme position. The government then removed the shoot to kill legislation. It provided a better and much improved version than that horrible piece of drafting that we originally saw. We then moved to the position where the committee had an opportunity to hear from submitters about the new draft of the bill. The position now is that there are another 74 amendments which will move the bill further along that continuum to ensure that it is appropriate and proportionate. They will ensure that there are some safeguards.

Right from day one Labor have been in a position to say that we support the antiterrorism laws. We wanted to then find out how we could work to improve them to ensure that they were not going to reduce people’s liberties or impinge upon their freedom of political communication. We wanted to ensure that this type of law would not be used arbitrarily. After the committee hearing, after the government and the backbench of the Liberal Party caved in, we have arrived at a position where we have a bill that is much improved.

There is still more work to be done. Of the issues that Labor has said right from day one still need improvement is that there should be greater scrutiny in this place of how these laws will operate. A fundamental difficulty that always besets us is not that the law may offend but that the way it may operate or be used may offend civil liberties, freedom of political communication and UN conventions. That is why Labor has said that the antiterrorism laws should be subject to greater review in this house. We should be told every three months how they are operating. The Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee recommended a six-monthly report. The government have stuck to a 12-monthly report. They still have an opportunity to accept further Labor amendments, but I doubt that they will. (Time expired)