Hysteria of 2005 terrorism laws, were ‘worst abuses of the Howard governments control of both houses of parliament’

First 9 of 9 paragraphs shown Terrible precedents and terrible things were put on Australian statute book in 2005, when the “Senate was used as a sausage factory to ram this (anti-terrorism) legislation through with consequences that we are still exploring, even to this day”, Senator Ludlam, Greens (Western Australia) said Tuesday, 2 February 2010 in the Senate.
Hysteria, not debate: Ludlam said the main tranche of anti-terrorism legislation was passed through the Senate at the end of 2005....it was not really a debate; it was a guillotine undertaken in a hothouse environment where to speak out against the way that these laws might operate in practice was to be considered pro-terrorist. That, in fact, was one of the worst abuses, to my mind and my recollection, of the Howard governments control of both houses of parliament.
Indendent monitor a good thing: The Greens were very strongly supportive of the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Laws Bill 2008, debated well over a year ago. It has taken this long for the government to bring forward its model, which is described as the National Security Legislation Monitor Bill 2009 [2010].
The independence Howard forgot: “We have no office of the terrorism reviewer precisely because the Howard government did not put one there. So now, five year later, we are beginning to unpick some of the damage that was done to the rule of law and to the fabric of statutes relating to terrorism and criminal activity, and violent crime more generally, in Australia. It should have been established at the time”
Many critcs: The Howard government refused a review mechanism when antiterrorism laws were passed. Since that time, such an office has been recommended by:
- the Security Legislation Review Committee chaired by the Hon. Simon Sheller QC that was a report in June 2006; and
- Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence and Security in December 2006 and again in 2007;
- and in the governments response to various reviews that was issued on 23 December 2008.
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