Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2025

Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (12:01): Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus—all are victims of radical Islamic ideology and Islamic terrorism. More Muslims die at the hands of Islamic extremists than at the hands of any other ideology. Australia, Britain, America, Africa, Asia, India, Europe and other continents and countries are targets and victims of radical Islamic ideology.

Iran sees tens of thousands of deaths at the hands of radical Islamic ideology, killing the Islamic caliphate's own citizens, yet this bill fails to mention Islam anywhere—and this bill is supposedly about terrorism and security. The Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, set up after the Bondi terrorist attack, recently delivered its interim report, saying on page 8 that there is no time urgency for any reforms in relation to the Bondi massacre: No material or advice from any agency identified any gap in the existing legal and regulatory frameworks that impeded the ability for law enforcement, border control, immigration and security agencies to prevent, or respond to, an attack of the kind that occurred at Bondi on 14 December 2025.

No Commonwealth or state intelligence or law enforcement agency has suggested that it was prevented from taking prohibitive actions before or on 14 December 2025 by the then current legislative and authorising framework. In these respects, no issue requiring urgent or immediate action has been identified. Any attempts to tie this ASIO bill to the two Islamic extremists who perpetrated the Bondi terrorist attack should be dismissed with extreme prejudice.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2025—this bill—originally sought to make extraordinary powers permanent, removing the sunset clause, thereby weakening important safeguards designed to protect civil liberties, accountability and parliamentary oversight. We acknowledge that Labor has agreed to restore the sunset provision as one step to making it less odious.

That's a welcome first step from Labor. We acknowledge many, many constituents across our country—thank you to them—who've pleaded with us to oppose this bill, including its many powers. We hear you loud and clear.

Government has three core roles: protect life, protect property and protect freedom. Everyone agrees on the importance of keeping Australians safe, and our intelligence agencies play a critical role in that. Omitting and ignoring extremist Islamic ideology, though, means the Albanese Labor government is ignoring all three core roles—especially protecting life.

Islam is an ideology, a way of structuring society—just like communism, socialism and Nazism. It's often used to control through being extremely punitive. It uses control of thought, belief and action using fear, violence or threats.

Examples of punishment include the suppression and killing of women, killing non-believers, killing homosexuals, beheading, caning, female genital mutilation and stoning. Radical Islamic ideology goes against Australian values and Western civilisation. It is not compatible with civilised Western society.

Right now, in 2026, Iranians want civilisation. They want progress. They want an end to the Islamic caliphate and its Islamic ideology.

Britain, France and many other countries are experiencing high crime rates, lawlessness, mass rapes, brutality and declining living standards due to Islamic enclaves that do not assimilate and that instead seem determined to change their new country into a British caliphate. Stop calling Islam what it is not. It is not a religion of peace.

In fact, Islam is an ideology of punitive control rooted in fear. Tell the truth. Stop pandering to political correctness.

Call it for what it is and restrict immigration. Protect Australian values, culture, laws and lives. Parts of Britain, France and Europe are now lawless.

We need to be proactive and stop Islamic mass immigration into Australia, and we need to specifically name radical Islam in this bill as a real and existential threat to the security of Australians. I'm reminded of Richard Dawkins's words: Something you can convert to is not a race. A statement of simple fact is not bigotry.

Kicking out the 230 terrorists who are currently in Australia would be better than supporting legislation that impinges on law-abiding Australians' freedoms. Deport those 230. Send them home now.

This is about protecting life, property and freedom, which are all vital for Australians' safety and for human progress. Yet many of this government's members of parliament, including its most senior ministers, actively encourage inhuman, anti-Australian radical Islamic ideology. This shows, clearly, that this bill is not about protecting Australians against the No. 1 terrorism threat to Australia, Australians and the world.

It reveals, clearly, that this bill is about giving government agencies added control over Australians. Ironically, since the introduction of the original legislation in 2003, 23 years ago, only 20 questioning warrants have been issued. We know that ASIO did not use its full powers leading up to Bondi.

We know that Liberal and Labor uniparty prime ministers Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese together removed and stole basic human rights and freedoms during COVID and in loosely worded censorship bills as recently as last year. The suite of control bills and policies in which both have had a hand include the Identity Verification Services Bill 2023; the Digital ID Act 2024 for government digital ID; the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024, the censorship bill; internet controls for under-16s; and the massive curtailing of cash.

Did I mention the Reserve Bank's work on developing digital currency linked to a global digital currency? It was in answer to my questions at Senate estimates. Combined, these six initiatives and bills enable a social credit system to control Australians.

To return to this latest bill, which reeks of control, if the Senate agrees to pass our One Nation amendment to specifically include and name radical Islam in the bill's provisions, we could reconsider our current position to oppose this legislation. Including radical Islam will show that Labor is fair dinkum about security. If not, Labor is not serious about security.

Labor's real agenda is control of law-abiding Australians. We have concerns about many of the bill's provisions. Let me name some: forced questioning without criminal charge; no independent judicial approval process; expanded questioning powers beyond the original terrorism focused rationale, broadening the circumstances in which these powers may be used to matters involving sabotage, promotion of the broadly defined 'communal violence', defence system attacks and territory security threats; and reduced transparency and limited public accountability.

The inclusion of 'communal violence', to use your term, is especially concerning because the government's definition expands this beyond violence to say: promotion of communal violence means activities that are directed to promoting violence between different groups of persons in the Australian community so as to endanger the peace, order or good government of the Commonwealth.

That definition is so vague and so open ended. Some commentators have said that One Nation's stance on immigration, being to the benefit of Australia, leads to fear and violence in the community—that we couldn't protect Australians. One Nation's amendment will remove this vague definition from the matters towards which these powers can be used.

There's another issue. Some aspects of compulsory questioning powers with minors as young as 14 have some merit, but I'll leave the last word to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese who, in his second reading speech on the original ASIO bill in the House of Representatives on 27 May 2003, quoted Hermann Goering, Hitler's Reich Marshal, at the Nuremberg trials: Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.

It works the same in every country. Anthony Albanese continued his speech with these words: This legislation— referring to the original ASIO bill— is without precedent in Australia's post Second World War legal history. Its provisions potentially allow for the mistreatment of ethnic minorities, the suppression of dissent and the detaining and investigation of wholly innocent Australians … This was Anthony Albanese talking about the basis of today's bill.

He went on: In fact what this legislation represents, indeed, is a threat from the inside. It represents a threat to the very democratic values which we say, quite rightly, distinguishes us from authoritarian, undemocratic regimes. Yet now, as prime minister, he wants to add harsher powers to control law-abiding Australians—to control!

This bill erodes the rights of all Australians regardless of whether individuals have a desire to commit an act of terrorism. One Nation wants to protect all Australians. That requires specifically identifying and including radical Islamic ideology that drives Islamic terrorism.

Once powers like those in this bill are introduced and made permanent, they're almost never wound back; they're here to stay. That's why we oppose it. What's the point of security with no personal freedom?