Since gaining a full majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, earlier this year, the government has been determined to ram legislation through without scrutiny.
Sydney Morning Herald columnist, Alan Ramsey, in this week’s article, explains a little know Senate procedure called the 4:30 rule.
“It is a so-called standing order that forbids a Senate vote of any kind after 4.30pm on the Thursday of any sitting week. The cut-off used to be 6.30pm, but it was amended to 4.30pm after the Government got control of the Senate this year.”
The rule is intended to allow Senates time, when weekly sittings finish each Thursday, to return to their home states that night rather than the following day.
Ramsay reports:
“And smack on the stroke of 4.30 on Thursday afternoon this week, the Government's Senate leader, Robert Hill, got the call and announced: "I move that upon its introduction in the House, the provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Bill 2005 be referred to the Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 8 November, 2005."”See the leaked draft version of the Bill.
This unprecedented move has the effect of “killing any meaningful scrutiny of its proposed anti-terrorism measures, in alliance with state police forces, to detain people for as long as a fortnight without charge and in complete secrecy. The detail is not known. The Government has not released the legislation.”
Tasmania's Bob Brown (Greens)is quoted saying:
"This is an absolutely black day for the Senate and for democracy in this nation. This is a manipulation of the rules in a snide and underhand way by a gutless minister, who has left the chamber, to totally override the democratic principles of the Senate and its review function by effectively abolishing the committee system on a major issue."
At The SMH’s sister paper, The Age, respected commentators, Michelle Grattan and Brendan Nicholson took the story a step further. After revealing the leaked document, they gave a further analysis of its contents: Terror laws 'leaked' to net.
They report that the legislation contains a qualified right to kill in certain circumstances when taking a person into preventive detention or detaining them. In response, Law Council of Australia president John North said the law was "frightening"
"…especially in light of the fact that federal police were not always in uniform and not always identifiable as law enforcement officers. The legislation seems to be couched to cover the London Underground shooting situation and is therefore frightening," he said. British police shot and killed Brazilian man, Jean Charles de Menezes on the Underground in July, in the mistaken belief he was a terrorist.”
The article goes on:
Under the legislation, control orders can be sought from a court where it would assist in preventing a terrorist act or the person has trained with a terrorist organisation.
People under them can also be prohibited from going to specified places, stopped leaving Australia and forced to report in at specified times.
They could be required to be photographed and fingerprinted.
A person faces life imprisonment for financing a terrorist, even if done recklessly, not intentionally.
This government is taking a similar, heavy handed approach to their proposed industrial relations reforms. (See: Australian Ethics?)
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