Australia’s democratic credentials under siege
Government critics say civil liberties are being sacrificed in the name of terror
MELBOURNE // “They’re coming after us,” Australia’s prime minister Tony Abbott said following the terror attacks in France, Tunisia and Kuwait last month.
Since ISIL made headlines with its advances in Iraq and Syria in June last year, the Australian government has raised its national security rhetoric and passed several controversial laws.
The heightened climate of fear has fuelled criticism that the right-wing government is undermining the nation’s democratic values and eroding civil liberties to fight terror.
In December, police raided a cafe in downtown Sydney where up to 30 hostages were being held by a lone wolf gunman, Man Haron Monis. The 16-hour siege ended with the deaths of two hostages and the gunman, who had forced his captives to display a militant flag in the cafe window.
Two months earlier, Australian police launched a massive counter-terrorism operation – hundreds of armed police raided homes in Sydney and Brisbane. Police would not comment on the number of arrests made.
The terrorism threat level was also raised to high in September.
Australia is becoming a “polarised and fearful place” because of the government’s scare campaign over ISIL, senator Scott Ludlam, deputy leader of the Australian Greens, told The National. Australia’s Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs has led the chorus of criticism, accusing the government and opposition Labor Party of colluding in order to increase government powers under the veil of national security, by passing laws “which violate fundamental freedoms”.
This includes a data retention law, passed in March, which grants government security agencies access to two years’ worth of metadata from citizens’ phone and internet records.
Julian Burnside, a senior lawyer and human rights advocate, said “the metadata laws are edging Australia one short step closer to being a sort of secret police state”.
In September last year, soon after the US-led coalition launched its military campaign against ISIL, the Australian parliament passed a counter-terror law that gave greater immunity from prosecution to intelligence officers who engage in special operations.
The law also punishes whistleblowers who disclose intelligence- related information, sparking fears that the media could be targeted if it reported on intelligence operations. Australia also rushed through a website- blocking bill last month, and a border force act that punishes medical staff with a twoyear jail sentence if they report abuses at detention centres for asylum seekers.
The World Medical Association said that the act was “shocking”, coming from a developed country such as Australia. The government is now pushing to revise citizenship laws through which dual nationals could be stripped of their Australian citizenship for fighting with terror groups abroad. About 150 Australians are thought to be fighting with ISIL and other militant groups in Iraq and Syria, and they are backed by about 150 Australia-based “facilitators”, said Mr Abbott.
At least 20 were believed to have returned by January and there are fears that home-grown militants returning from the Middle East could pose a threat to national security. The bill presented also includes vague terminology that widens its scope to beyond terror activities, such as a clause that could allow an Australian to lose nationality for damaging government property. Mr Ludlam has been a leading opponent of the government’s campaign to increase its powers at the expense of civil liberties and warns that Mr Abbott is leading Australia down a dangerous path. “There is no question that the Abbott government has repeatedly weakened some of the country’s civil and political rights underpinnings,” he said.
But Mr Abbott insists that to counter the threat posed by groups such as ISIL, it is worth giving up some basic freedoms.
“Regrettably, for some time to come, Australians will have to endure more security than we’re used to, and more inconvenience than we’d like,” Mr Abbott said in September before introducing counter-terrorism legislation. The government has allocated an extra AU$ 1.2 billion (Dh3.3bn) in funding for national security which Mr Burnside said was an “absurd amount of money” to be spending on fighting terrorism “when the fact is, deaths in Australia from terrorist activity are incredibly rare”.
He said that domestic violence was a greater killer in Australia but received little political attention in comparison to terrorism. Mr Ludlam accepted that the threat from ISIL was a credible one but it was grossly misrepresented. “The government has chosen to elevate the threat of a few dozen domestic religious zealots to a challenge greater than that faced by Australia during the Cold War,” he said. He said the government was “seeking to maximise this fear for political advantage”.
Mr Burnside agreed . He said Mr Abbott’s fear campaign was geared more towards domestic politics rather than confronting a terror threat. “Abbott recognises that by creating a climate of fear and then offering protection, he can retain government.”
But the strategy of playing fear politics to increase chances of re-election risks leaving Australians with fewer freedoms than their counterparts in the West, and vulnerable to prosecution for crimes reminiscent of autocratic police states. Mr Ludlam and Mr Burnside both point to the lack of constitutional protections for human rights in Australia as a weakness in the country’s political system that allows governments to tamper with civil liberties.
“I think we’re the only western democracy that does not have coherent human rights protection,” Mr Burnside said, adding that “our nation is less threatened by terrorism than by laws like these”.