Australian Security Intelligence Organisation ASIO Director General Mike Burgess prepearing for his annual speech at ASIO headquarters in Canberra, on March 17, 2021. AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
A bill that would give the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) increased scope over adult questioning in matters including sabotage, promotion of communal violence and serious threats to Australia’s territorial and border integrity has passed a second reading with Labor and Coalition support.
The bill is now expected to pass the Senate, having already cleared the House of Representatives.
However, the amendment has faced vocal opposition from One Nation, the Greens and independent Senator David Pocock, who have raised concerns about potential threats to personal freedoms.
“I do not believe powers this grotesque and dangerous should be available to any organisation within a democracy,” Pocock told the Senate on Aug. 20.
“The views of Canberrans seem aligned with the Law Council, the Australian Human Rights Commission, and so many experts and advocates raising alarm at this bill.
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“This bill, in its current form, does have does not have a place in our democracy.”
Meanwhile, One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts claimed the government was introducing a sweeping reform in order to avoid discussing Islamic extremism.
“We need to specifically name radical Islam in this bill as a real and existential threat to the security of Australians,” he said.
Greens Senator David Shoebridge claimed the new laws would allow ASIO to “pluck” people off the street before holding them in secret detention for 24 hours and requiring them to answer questions under threat of up to five years’ jail.
“They spit you out after 24 hours. You go home. Your partner comes out. What the hell? Where were you? ‘I can’t tell you’,” he said.
“That’s the law you’re backing in here. Who the hell does that? That is some of the most repressive laws you could do. Who could do that to a citizen?”
Labor Senator Nita Green spoke to condemn the Greens and One Nation, before expressing her support for Labor’s proposed amendment.
“The director general of security stated … that Australia is now facing multifaceted, merging, intersecting, concurrent, and cascading threats, and ASIO needs the powers to ensure that they can protect Australians from the threats to security,” she said.
“And I just want to put on the record that the prime minister [Anthony Albanese] is a man of authority, and he is a person who has spoken and met with people who have been harmed by extremist violence in our country.
“He’s met these victims and he has talked to them personally. And the prime minister is committed above all else to protecting Australians and keeping them safe and ensuring that our national security agencies have the powers that they require to do that exactly.”
The stark warning came after the agency revealed that hostile foreign actors, such as Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, were behind terrorist activities in Australia that involved the recruitment of Australian citizens.
