A Senate committee is due to report to Parliament this week on proposed terrorism legislation that is causing serious concern. Julie Macken reports.

According to its critics, the soon-to-be-enacted Security Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Bill will do to Australia what two world wars failed to do: destroy its democratic foundations. They argue it will also leave more than half a million Australians at risk of being extradited to China, Burma and Indonesia.

[...] "If this legislation is passed,'' says John Dowd, commissioner and member of the International Commission of Jurists, "someone from Sri Lanka could have me extradited for going to a Tamil tea party. It plays into the hands of totalitarian regimes and puts Australian citizens at great risk of extradition.''

[...] While the bill contains new powers and offences, and many critics believe the Government has yet to make a case for new legislation rather than relying on the current criminal code, community concern centres on three main points.

They are the definition of terrorism, the Attorney-General's power to proscribe organisations and the fact that it extends to maintaining the "security and integrity'' of other countries apart from Australia.

The bill defines terrorism as a specified action or threat of action that is made with the intention of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.

The types of actions covered by the definition of "terrorist act'' include actions involving serious harm to persons, serious damage to property, and interference with essential electronic systems.

[...]Julian Burnside QC, of Liberty Victoria, draws on recent history to highlight how vulnerable Australians would become under this legislation. He refers to the public demonstrations against the use of attack dogs and balaclavas during the waterfront dispute of 1998, saying these people would be caught by the laws.

"It is astonishing to think that conduct that was viewed at the time as a rightful protest in public, against conduct that was regarded as un-Australian, would be punishable by life imprisonment,'' he says.

Social commentator and academic Eva Cox believes the legislation may create the pre-existing conditions that lead to terrorism.

"Sooner or later this legislation will be used to suppress dissent and that is exactly the kind of thing that creates terrorism in the first place,'' she says. "When people are denied their civil rights of free speech, freedom of movement and freedom of association, terrorism becomes increasingly attractive.''

However, it is the amendment that allows the Attorney-General to declare an organisation proscribed if he is satisfied that the organisation is likely to endanger or has endangered the security or integrity of the Commonwealth or another country that has critics truly alarmed.

"The Australian Government,'' says Cameron Murphy, president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, "has been under pressure from China for years over the way many Australian citizens support the Dalai Lama, Free Tibet movement and Falun Gung. Until now, the Government has been able to resist their pressure by saying, 'Sorry, we're a democracy and there is nothing we can do about it under our laws'. China knows there is a lot the Government can do about it if they pass this legislation. Under this legislation, China could demand Australia extradite these 'terrorists' to face charges in China.''

Dowd made a similar point in relation to Indonesia. "Remember that once you have a crime committed here, and if we have similar laws in both counties and an extradition treaty applies, it means Australians may lawfully be extradited to Indonesia or Sri Lanka to answer offences of terrorism. We can assume that if such treaties do not now exist, they shortly will.''

[...]

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