Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2025
Senator SHOEBRIDGE (New South Wales) (12:19): This is extraordinary, isn't it? We're seeing the Labor Party join up with the coalition to guillotine laws and ram them through this parliament without proper scrutiny on the last day of a sitting week. They're trying to hide it behind other business.
They're ramming through laws that are going to supercharge the ability of ASIO to literally pluck you off the street, hold you in secret detention for 24 hours, interrogate you and force you to answer every question with a threat of going to jail if you don't. You don't even have to be suspected of anything. You just might be someone they want to talk to.
They're ramming this legislation through to expand the reasons, almost indefinitely, for which ASIO can just pluck people off the street. They're ramming it through today with a guillotine to try and get their dirty business of the security state through and their dirty business of granting ASIO whatever power it wants. They want their dirty business rammed through under a guillotine while no-one's watching.
Do you know what? Look around this chamber, and look at the speakers list, there's no-one from Labor coming in to defend this. It's indefensible.
The speaking list has collapsed from Labor because they know that coming in and talking to this is like going for a bath in toxic waste with the public. The coalition, the ones who come here and trumpet about individual liberty and fighting against the state, are in it up to their necks. They agreed to the guillotine, to ramming it through.
This is a demonstration, exhibit A, in what is wrong with this place. We're meant to be here protecting democracy. We're meant to be here protecting freedoms.
We're meant to be here protecting people on the street from, let's be frank, this place—what Labor does in this place and what the coalition does in this place. Instead, this place is doing a job on the people of Australia and trying to do it in the dark. That's what the guillotine's about.
That's why no-one from Labor will come out and speak to it. They want it to go through without anyone watching what they're doing. It's a downright bloody disgrace.
The Greens voted against this legislation when the coalition and Labor first brought it in, in 2003. We voted against it when they tried to constantly have the sunset never set, to extend the sunset time after time after time, and we're voting against it today. We are the only party that has stood in this place not to back in ASIO and secret state and secret detention.
We're the only party that stood in this place every single time and said: 'We're on the side of liberty. We're on the side of the Australian public.' We're doing it again today, and Labor and the coalition are on the side of secret detention powers. They're on the side of plucking you off the street and having you interrogated in the dark.
Get this: if this extension of the power goes through, they can pluck you off the street with a warrant. They call it a warrant, but let's be clear: it's a piece of paper. And do you know who's going to sign off on ASIO's powers?
People might be thinking: 'Surely, there would be a judge there, right? Maybe even a magistrate. Surely, there's someone independent of government.
Surely, this couldn't be done by a politician, could it?' But, no, the person who signs the bit of paper to have you plucked off the street by ASIO and put in a dark room for 24 hours is the Attorney-General, a politician. That's what's being proposed here. Politicians can have you plucked off the street and secretly interrogated for 24 hours by ASIO or the AFP, and they want to expand the reasons why ASIO can do that.
They want to expand it to include this concept of 'promotion of communal violence'. Read the definition of 'promotion of communal violence' in the bill, and do you know what it says? It says 'whatever the bloody hell ASIO thinks it is'—that's what the definition says.
You could drive a bus through the definition. When we look at other countries, at history and at how we lost democracy and freedoms, it happens with actions like this. Governments say: 'We need to do this.
We need this extreme power over you to protect you. We need to be able to decide whenever we want, however we want, whoever we want. We can just monster them to protect you.
Don't you worry, it won't be you. Oh no, it's that lot over there.' Maybe this month, they're coming after people seeking freedom for the Palestinian people. Maybe next month, they'll come after some First Nations activists who are demanding their land back.
Maybe next month, they'll decide to go full on against our neighbours and our friends in the Islamic community here. Maybe after that, they'll come after unionists. Maybe after that, they'll come after the Greens—maybe they'll put the Greens higher up the list.
That's what's at stake here because that's what history shows us: you give governments these extreme powers, and they use them. You may not think they're coming after you first, but don't you worry; you're on the list. When will we say 'no' to this?
When will this parliament not back in ASIO, the secret state, the security state—whatever the hell the government of the day wants. When will we back in the right of Australians to go about their lives and not fear their own government? If this legislation gets through, Australians will have a right to fear their own government—because whenever the government chooses to it can pluck you off the street.
What happens in these secret detentions? I gave a speech a few months ago in this place about a woman who finally felt that she could talk about her experience of being pulled off the street and compulsorily interrogated by the AFP because she'd attended a protest in the city. She had been fearing being put in jail if she told anyone about it—she'd been fearing this for over a decade.
She'd been plucked off the street in 2003, and she'd been fearing that if she told anyone—her mum, her dad, her kids, her friends—she'd be put in jail. She could finally speak about it and tell me about it because she was going to take her own life, because she had terminal cancer—that's when she felt she could talk about it. She'd been keeping this fear inside of her for two decades that, if she told anyone about how she was pulled off the street and compulsorily interrogated by the AFP because she'd attended a protest, she'd go to jail.
It was the only time she could speak about it—and in her last moments on this planet what was in her mind was telling the truth about what happened to her and being able to finally talk about it. She didn't fear the consequences, not because the law had gone away but because her life was about to end. And Labor and the coalition want to extend these powers and do that to even more Australians.
That woman was never suspected of anything; she was just a witness they wanted to interrogate. What happens under this law? ASIO decide your brother or sister might have gone to a protest, might have signed a petition or might have had a chat in the pub, and they think, 'Well, we don't suspect you of anything, but you might have some information about'—what is it—'promotion of communal violence', or whatever the hell ASIO says.
Maybe you're thinking about doing some disruption for a climate protest. Maybe you're thinking about protesting ASIO—I don't know. But they think that there was a discussion there about promoting communal violence.
They will go to the Attorney-General and say: 'Look, this is a problem. This person doesn't like ASIO; they're going to have a go at ASIO,' or, 'This person doesn't like Woodside; they're going to go at Woodside.' And they say to the Attorney: 'We want to drag him in and find out who they know, who they talk to. We want to get their emails.
We want to get their socials. We want to drag them in.' The Attorney-General signs a piece of paper and, bang, you get a knock on your door, or you get pulled out of work or you get pulled over on the street, and they take you into a room and they can question you for 24 hours. You can bring your lawyer in at the start, if you can contact them—they don't necessarily give you any time.
But if they don't like what your lawyer's doing, they just boot your lawyer out. You are there without a lawyer. You might be worried that something you say could get you in trouble, because you're not sure what the hell—there are no charges in front of you; you haven't been told what it's about.
You're just being questioned. You say, 'I don't want to answer that.' They say, 'If you don't answer it, we're going to charge you and put you in jail for up to five years.' Then, after 24 hours of this—and I think they have to give you a little bit of sleep at some point, and they have to give you some water. They give you a bit of sleep, give you a bit of water, wake you up again and question you again, and they spit you out after 24 hours.
You go home. Your partner comes out and says, 'Bloody hell, where were you?' You say, 'I can't tell you.' Your kids are saying: 'Dad, Mum, where were you? What's happened?
You missed the soccer. What the hell happened?' You're shaken, you haven't had any sleep and you're in the same clothes you were in. 'I can't tell you. If I tell you, I go to jail.
I can't tell you and I can't tell you why I can't tell you.' That's the law you're backing in here. Who the hell does that? Those are some of the most repressive laws you could do.
Who could do that to a citizen? They don't even have to be suspected of anything. You lot want to extend this by extending the sunset clause, forever.
You want to increase the grounds on which ASIO can come and do this. Is there any wonder you're trying to slip it in in a guillotine? I look at the speaking list, and there's not a bloody Labor politician on it.
The only coalition member who speaks on it is one of— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Grogan ): Senator Shoebridge, I'll ask you to mind your language in this chamber. Senator SHOEBRIDGE: I withdraw that word starting with 'b'. There's not a Labor member on the speaking list, and the only coalition member is one of them who has the actual guts to come up and say no.
But the coalition machine is voting for this, and none of them are willing to even put their name to it and come and explain to the public why they're doing this. You can't explain; if you were to tell the truth, you'd say, 'We're craven, craven to the security state, and we'll do whatever the security state wants'. You've done it every time.
The Prime Minister, the great shrinking man of Australian politics who, in 2003, when this legislation first came here, said, 'Never do that', said: This legislation is without precedent— I'm quoting him here; it's on his website, even— 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.
That's why he voted against it in 2003. Those were his words. Then he went on and he said: An ideological struggle in favour of democracy and freedom cannot be won by giving up democratic values, freedom and respect for civil liberties.
This is not a new struggle. Way back in 1800, British parliamentarian Edmund Burke told parliament: 'Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny'. That statement is as true today as it was when such a far-sighted legislator first uttered it.
Those were the words of the current Prime Minister, a person who has shrunk in office to a degree that he's hard to recognise. The same bloke who said that in 2003—that these laws are a threat to our civil liberties and that they are the worst of tyranny—is now leading a government that wants to supersize them. And no-one from Labor has the guts to explain how that happened; none of them.
Of course, their poodles in the coalition trot along behind them and say: 'Security state? No worries! We'll give it to you.' What's the point of you?
Well, the point of you, it turns out, is to take freedoms from Australians, to take liberty from this country, to supersize the security state and to do it in the dark and under a guillotine. You haven't got the guts to actually have a committee discussion about this or to be interrogated in the parliament about your powers. You're happy to interrogate the people of Australia in secret and in the dark, but you won't even stand up in this place and answer questions in committee.
That's what the guillotine does. What a disgraceful bunch of hypocrites you all are. We will oppose this law today, like we opposed these supersized security laws in 2003, like we oppose them every time you tried to extend the sunset clause, because the Greens fundamentally believe that the people in this country deserve rights to protect them against their government.
Not only do we say it; we vote that way, we vote on principle, we vote on our policies and we're going to do that today. I move: Omit all words after "That", substitute "the Senate rejects the bill and is of the opinion that the compulsory questioning warrant scheme is a draconian and unjustified departure from the rule of law that should be repealed". And I also seek leave to withdraw amendment (1) on sheet 3796.
Leave granted.