Freedom Slipping Away

The Attorney-General, Robert McLelland, is continuing the process of diminishing civil liberties in Australia.

He said:

While I will not attempt to outline in detail all the measures contained in the Discussion Paper, there are a number of key measures that are proposed, including:

• expanding the definition of a ‘terrorist act’ in the Criminal Code to include psychological, as well as physical harm;
• providing police with new emergency powers to enter and search premises without a warrant where it is suspected, on reasonable grounds, that there is material relevant to a terrorism offence and there is a threat to public health or safety;
• extending the time available for police to re-enter a premises under a search warrant from one hour to 12 hours in emergency circumstances;
• introducing a new ‘terrorism hoax offence’, punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment, for those that seek to create a false belief that a terrorist act is occurring, or will likely occur;
• establishing a maximum seven day limit on the amount of time that can be specified by a magistrate and disregarded from the investigation period in relation to an alleged terrorism offence;
• inserting a right of appeal for both the prosecution and the defendant against bail decisions in terrorism and national security matters, including a power to stay a bail order where an appeal is planned;
• creating an offence of inciting violence against an individual on the basis of race, religion, nationality, national origin or political opinion to supplement the existing Commonwealth offence of inciting violence against a group;
• extending the expiration period of regulations proscribing a terrorist organisation from two to three years;
• amending the National Security Information (Criminal and Civil Proceedings) Act 2004 so that national security and counter-terrorism court proceedings may be expedited;
• establishing a Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement to extend parliamentary oversight to include the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in addition to the Australian Crime Commission (ACC); and
• renaming the offence of sedition to ‘urging violence’ and expanding its provisions to include urging force or violence against an individual, not just a group, and including ‘national origin’, as well as race, religion, nationality or political opinion as a reason for urging violence.

Warrantless searches! Terrorism equals psychological harm!

Unbelievable. Philip Ruddock never dreamed he could get away with this nonsense. This will do lasting damage to freedom in this country. It will be applied first to terrorists, then to bikies then to anyone who looks to be guilty of anything at all.