Senator BROWN (6:00 PM) —The minister has not answered Senator Nettle's question and he has certainly made no satisfactory contribution to the debate. The minister is saying that every matter is urgent—that it is an imminent terrorist threat that we are dealing with here—and he knows that is not true. He knows that this is about a long process of surveilling people who are under suspicion and includes allowing friends, associates, people who might innocently have come into some piece of knowledge about the people under suspicion, to be hauled in for questioning. In the main, that is not going to be an urgent situation. The minister is quite wrong to use the urgency as a matter for refusing Senator Greig's amendment to allow people to get legal aid which is appropriate for the circumstances.

If indeed a terrorist event is imminent, I think we would agree that the situation differs. Under those circumstances, it may be that you have to obviate some of the usual processes, ensuring that the person's own legal assistance is there. I hear the minister say, `If you are going to make sure that people get the legal assistance they want, that could be used to take up time.' But we are talking here about the majority of cases, where there is time. We are talking about the ongoing watch and vigilance and gathering of information against potential terrorists in Australia. The urgent situation is the exception.

If that is not the case then, as Senator Nettle says, point out in the legislation where it says that this is only to be used in matters of urgency. Of course it is not there. Our whole worry in this situation is that it is not the citizens involved in urgent situations of terrorism that are going to be caught up by this legislation—quite the reverse. This is giving powers to the secret surveillance authorities to haul in citizens when they want to get information to find out if there is anything doing—not on the basis that they know what is doing, but on the basis that they do not know what is doing and they want to get information. The government's argument here fails and this is the problem. We are going to see legislation supported by the opposition which deprives people, on a spurious argument, of proper access to legal assistance. That is why the Greens will be supporting the amendment that Senator Greig has brought forward.