Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill 2026
Mr LEESER (Berowra) (09:32): I rise to speak on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill 2026. There's no more fundamental responsibility of government than keeping Australians safe, and that's the standard against which the coalition will judge this bill. The coalition will not oppose this bill in the House.
The bill extends key counterterrorism powers, including control orders, preventive detention orders, post-sentence orders and important police powers, from December 2026 to December 2029. It also changes how serious terrorist offenders are managed after release. It strengthens control orders.
It creates new warrant powers. It improves information sharing and it makes other national security amendments. This bill has been referred to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security for inquiry and report by 6 October.
The coalition will examine it closely through that process and pursue any changes that are required to keep Australians safe. The central powers at the heart of this bill were created by the coalition in government. Control orders and preventive detention orders were established by the Howard government in 2005.
Continuing detention orders were established by the coalition in 2016—I think that was the Abbott government. Extended supervision orders were added by the coalition in 2021 under the Morrison government. These powers must not lapse, but their importance makes Labor's delay in bringing them forward for renewal even harder to excuse.
Yet again, this parliament is being compelled to consider vital national security law reform under false urgency generated by nothing more than this government's neglect. Labor knew these powers would expire on 7 December 2026. Labor itself legislated the current sunset date in 2023, and now, in August 2026, with only months remaining, Labor finally brings this legislation to the parliament, only after the coalition called out in June that these powers were set to expire and the parliament was yet to see the bill.
Worse still, the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor had already reviewed the post-sentence order regime. That report was tabled on 30 March 2023. When did Labor finally table its formal response?
It did so on 12 August 2026, the very same day it introduced this bill, more than three years later. Labor had the review, Labor knew the deadline and Labor sat on it. That's not serious national security administration; it's part of a broader pattern.
Australia's national terrorism threat level remains 'probable'. ASIO has warned that more Australians are being radicalised and radicalised more quickly. Under this government, Australia witnessed the horror of the terrorist attack at Bondi on 14 December last year, where 15 innocent men, women and children were murdered at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration.
This threat is real, so Australians are entitled to judge Labor not just by this bill but by its whole national security record. That record includes Labor's handling of the ISIS linked cohort, which has only increased the number of radicalised people in our community. In October 2022 the Albanese government deliberately repatriated four Australian women and 13 children from a camp in Syria.
The government's own announcement said it had repatriated them. At the same time, Labor argued that bringing them back in a planned manner was safer because the Commonwealth could control their re-entry. But by 2025 Labor's position had fundamentally changed.
As we were told by the AFP commissioner at Senate estimates, Labor had adopted a new policy of so-called self-managed returns. In September 2025 two women from the ISIS linked cohort and their four children returned to Australia after making their own way out of Syria. Minister Burke's explanation was that these individuals had got themselves out.
The government was not assisting them and was not involved in bringing them out. That became the model repeated on a much larger scale in 2026. Labor needs to explain this contradiction.
In 2022 Labor argued that a planned government repatriation was safer because the Commonwealth could control and manage the circumstances of the return. By 2025 and 2026, under its new policy of self-managed returns, its position had effectively become: 'We're not helping them. If they make their own way out, we will deal with them once they arrive.' If NGOs or even other states want to facilitate when and how these terrorist sympathisers and foreign fighters enter Australia, this Labor government has said, 'Well, that's fine.' What's worse is that it's a terrible pattern of behaviour for this government.
Remember that this is the government that decided to use tourist visas to allow in thousands upon thousands of people from Gaza while the war with Israel was going on. Home Affairs records show that 2,127 visas were granted to Palestinian citizens between 7 October 2023 and 31 December 2023 alone. And we wonder why we have an antisemitism crisis in this country.
This is Minister Burke's policy. These are tourist visas. Under this government, this minister and this Prime Minister, Labor decided to scrap the usual suite of security checks and allow into this country thousands of people who had just come from a territory that had been under Hamas control for 20 years.
Let that sink in. Hamas is an organisation that we in this country have listed as a terrorist organisation for years, yet Labor decided to let thousands of people into this country from a territory that had been run by listed terrorists. Hamas is an organisation that both Labor and the coalition consider to be terrorists—an organisation that deliberately teaches children in its schools to hate Jews and celebrate their murder; an organisation that had just orchestrated the murder, rape and torture of hundreds and hundreds of Jews in Israel.
This government decided to defy years of experience in managing our borders to, in effect, scrap the usual security checks and let thousands of people into this country on tourist visas. Tourist visas are meant for people who are going to come here, visit the country, see the sights and go home. That's not what these people are.
It's not just me saying that. It's also experts like the former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration, Abul Rizvi. It's an extraordinarily weak idea, it's a weak policy, and it was done for domestic political reasons.
How do we know that? Because the minister went to the airport and met the people from Gaza. This is not a coherent national security policy.
It's not about exercising sovereignty over our borders. It's not helping maintain the social cohesion of this country. It's not governing.
Doing nothing is not a strategy. The Commonwealth should, acting within the law and on national security advice, have the strongest available control over the timing and circumstances in which terrorism-linked people return to this country. Only the Commonwealth should determine when and how these people enter the country, and if third parties want to facilitate that they should do so only with the permission of the Commonwealth.
That was the simple premise of the bill the coalition introduced into parliament in March. What did this government do? Did it support this bill?
Of course not, because it's the pathology of this incompetent government that they cannot admit when they've made a mistake. And mistakes have been made. The recent returns raise serious questions.
The temporary exclusion order regime was created by the coalition in 2019. It gives the Commonwealth the power, where the statutory threshold is met, to temporarily prevent a terrorism-linked Australian from returning and then to control the timing and the manner of their return and impose conditions through a return permit. In February this year, 34 Australians attempted to leave the Al-Roj camp and make their way back to Australia.
Minister Burke issued a temporary exclusion order against one woman in that cohort. He told Australians at that stage that security agencies had not advised him that any other member of the cohort met the required legal thresholds for a temporary exclusion order. Then, in May, four women and nine children returned to Australia.
These women were all arrested on arrival. One was charged with alleged membership of a terrorist organisation and entering or remaining in a declared area. Two were charged with alleged crimes against humanity involving slavery.
So Australians are still entitled to ask some very serious questions. What assessments had been undertaken before these people travelled? Why had the temporary exclusion order threshold been met in only one case?
What other national security powers were considered? What consideration was given to passport powers? And what was Labor's plan for border control?
The answer cannot simply be that they made their own arrangements. That's why the coalition introduced the Criminal Code Amendment (Keeping Australia Safe) Bill 2026. That bill would have created an offence dealing with the unauthorised organisation or facilitation of the entry into Australia of certain people who'd engaged in terrorism related conduct or who were or had been members of a terrorist organisation.
The principle was simple: the Commonwealth, not a third party, should exercise the strongest lawful control available over when and how people in that specified terrorism-linked cohort return. Labor opposed it. Labor voted it down at the second reading.
And now Labor tells Australians that the security environment requires stronger counterterrorism laws. Well, we agree. But there's nothing in this bill that creates that offence, nothing that strengthens the temporary exclusion order framework, nothing that resolves the policy failure exposed by self-managed returns.
There's a pattern here. On the ISIS-linked returns, Labor chose passivity. On counterterrorism powers that it knew were expiring, Labor chose delay.
Now look at Labor's stance on temporary protection visas. In 2023 Labor created a permanent pathway through the 'resolution of status' visa for eligible existing temporary protection visa holders. Labor itself called it the permanent pathway, and that says everything.
Temporary protection visas were designed to do exactly what their name suggests: to provide protection where Australia owed it, without automatically turning temporary protection into permanent settlement. That's the approach that operated under coalition governments—under the government of John Howard, under the government of Tony Abbott, under the government of Malcolm Turnbull and under the government of Scott Morrison.
Labor came to office and dismantled it for the existing cohort, replacing temporary protection with a pathway to permanency. The coalition's principle was different: if Australia owes protection, Australia provides protection. But protection didn't automatically mean permanent settlement.
The same pattern appeared elsewhere. Coalition members of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security were calling for action against Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in 2024 and offered support for legislative change, if it was needed. Indeed, when I was shadow attorney-general, I stood at this very dispatch box and said that we would provide whatever support was needed for the government to list the IRGC back in 2022.
The state sponsored terrorism framework, however, was not enacted until 2025, after ASIO concluded Iran had directed attacks on Australian soil, three years after we first offered our assistance to help Labor list this terrible terrorist organisation, the IRGC. Too often on national security Labor moves after delay, after pressure or after the threat has become so much worse.
Perhaps nowhere is that more concerning than with the radicalisation of Australia's children. Labor was warned early. In November 2022, the then home affairs minister acknowledged that extremist content online meant people could be radicalised in days and weeks and specifically identified the radicalisation of minors as a significant challenge.
In February 2024, Labor held a ministerial summit on youth radicalisation and called it a growing problem. Then, in August 2024, ASIO raised Australia's terrorism threat level back to 'probable' and warned that radicalisation was accelerating and that minors were increasingly embracing violent extremism. But Labor didn't announce a dedicated counterterrorism online centre until May 2026.
Yet again, the Labor Party were playing catch-up. The figures today are deeply, deeply disturbing. The Minister for Home Affairs said in March that, among people currently identified in Australia's countering violent extremism programs, half of the caseload is under the age of 24, 31 per cent is under the age of 18 and eight per cent is aged between 10 and 14.
His conclusion was simple. People are getting radicalised younger—10-year-olds, 11-year-olds and 12-year-olds. That should shake this parliament.
The coalition understand that prevention matters and we invested in it. This bill itself reflects the seriousness of youth radicalisation. At present, confirmed control orders for people aged between 14 and 17 are subject to a special three-month maximum.
This bill removes that special limit so the general 12-month maximum will apply. The prohibition on orders against a child under 14 remains. The court retains its discretion as to duration, and the requirement that the best interests of a young person be treated as a primary consideration is untouched by this bill.
But the policy point is bigger than the legal mechanics. If this parliament is being asked to strengthen control order arrangements for people aged 14 to 17, Labor must also demonstrate that everything being done before a child reaches that point is fit for purpose. Are intervention and deradicalisation programs working?
Are they keeping pace with online radicalisation? A control order is at the back end. National security must also stop a 10-, 12- or 14-year-old reaching that point in the first place.
Then there's one significant issue in the bill requiring rigorous scrutiny through the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. Schedule 2 changes how serious terrorist offenders are managed after their sentence. Put simply, the government proposes to move away from renewable extended supervision orders and make control orders the primary mechanism for managing serious terrorist offenders in the community.
The existing extended supervision regime can operate for up to three years. It can be renewed where the statutory requirements continue to be satisfied and includes mandatory annual review. The government says operational capability will be preserved.
That's fine, but we say, 'Prove it.' The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security must hear directly from our operational agencies. Which agencies support this change? What happens if a serious terrorist offender continues to present the relevant risk as a control order approaches expiry?
What intelligence and surveillance capabilities will be available to support future applications? Schedule 4 creates new warrant powers for exactly that purpose. But, on the face of the new section 6DA of the Surveillance Devices Act and the new section 6UAA of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act, those warrants are available only while the offender is in custody or under a detention order, not once he or she is in the community.
Can the AFP and ASIO tell this parliament unequivocally that the new framework gives them every capability they need? That's what matters—capability and keeping Australians safe. The coalition supports extending the essential sunsetting powers to 7 December 2029.
We support sensible improvements to control orders, we support sensible improvements to information sharing, and we support sensible improvements to warrant powers, but we will scrutinise this bill through the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and its processes. Labor knew these powers were expiring. Labor delayed.
Labor had the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor report for more than three years. Labor delayed. Labor repatriated four women and 13 children from Syria in 2022 on the basis that a controlled return was safer and then retreated to self-managed returns for later cohorts.
Labor voted down the coalition's legislation dealing with the unauthorised facilitation of specified terrorism linked returns. Labor replaced temporary protection with a pathway to permanency for the existing TPV cohort. Labor was warned about youth radicalisation from 2022, yet the dedicated online counterterrorism centre was not announced until 2026.
Too often, Labor has chosen passivity where national security demanded resolve. That's the national security record that the Labor Party has to defend. If we are serious about national security, every relevant power must be fit for purpose.
If we are serious about foreign fighters and terrorism linked returnees, the Commonwealth should have the strongest constitutionally valid powers available to control and manage their return. If we are serious about radicalised Australian children, then prevention, intervention and deradicalisation must be strengthened before we're left to manage the consequences.
If we are serious about convicted terrorist offenders, we should never surrender an existing capability unless the government demonstrates that what replaces it keeps Australians at least as safe. I want to say one additional point about the amendment from the member for Mayo. The coalition supports the amendment of the member for Mayo and the underlying principle.
Someone found guilty of actually engaging in a terrorist act should not be able to avoid having a conviction recorded through section 19B. However, the amendment is narrow and deals only with section 101.1. The PJCIS inquiry should examine the broader operation of section 19B across serious Commonwealth terrorism offences.
Our support today does not prevent the coalition from pursuing further or broader amendments following that process of scrutiny. Again, let me say the coalition will not oppose the bill in this House. We will scrutinise the bill through the processes available to us—through the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.
We will hear from the agencies. We will test the government's claims. Where the evidence shows that changes are needed to make and keep Australians safe, the coalition will pursue them.
There should be one test only: whatever keeps Australians safest. The first responsibility of government and of all of us in this place is the safety and security of the Australian people. The coalition created many of the powers before this House.
We strengthened them as the threat evolved, and we will fight to ensure Australia's counterterrorism laws remain strong enough for the threats we face today. On the safety of Australians, we will never, ever compromise. Debate adjourned.