Protecting Australians from Terrorism
Petro Georgiou has announced that he will introduce a bill in Parliament to establish the position of independent reviewer of Australian terrorism laws, whose reviews will be tabled in Parliament. You can read his arguments for doing so in his article posted here.
Among the points he makes are: “A democracy’s response to the threat of terrorism cannot simply comprise the enactment of more stringent laws and the expansion of police and intelligence agencies,” and, “The challenge of protecting security without undermining people’s fundamental rights requires constant vigilance. But the machinery of vigilance in Australia is deficient.”
I will be interested in your responses to his call for the appointment an independent reviewer.
Articles
As someone who has been concerned for a long time about the steady erosion of human rights in this country, I would like to give my wholehearted support to Mr. Georgiou’s comments. Australia badly needs an independent body to monitor and review the unprecedented powers given to the government and security services. If the price of safety is liberty, the terrorists have won.
If we had a decent constitution which proclaimed our fundamental human rights immutable we would not need such a person to protect us from bad laws as they would not be able to be made in the first place. I found myself unable to vote for either major party in the last election because of the bipartisan support for these terrible laws. (I use the word ‘terrible’ advisedly). We should be pushing for a new constitution meaningful in the 21st century and not just a 19th century trade pact between states.
I fully support Petro Georgio’s call for the creation of an independent reviewer of Australia’s terrorism laws. The incredible powers given to ministers to decide which organisations, or persons, are “terrorists”, often on the basis of political expediency, and the granting of extraordinary powers to police and intelligence organisations, needs careful oversight and scrutiny.
The draconian erosion of human rights under the current laws is evidence enough that Mr Georgiou’s bill is necessary. Terrorism must win if we succumb to bad laws in the vain hope of persuading ourselves that our legal system needs to become our oppressor to fight it.
Our best solution is to give ourselves a relevant Constitution with a Bill of Rights. Then our High Court may be the Reviewer we need. Until this happens, Mr Georgiou’s Bill is one that needs support.
I note with concern that nobody has commented on the fact that Mr. Georgiou’s motion was not only defeated in parliament but that he was silenced by a government motion that ‘he should no longer be heard’
What is this country coming to?