Advocating terrorism is outlawed and overseas conflict zones are in effect no-go zones after security legislation goes through

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

The Senate has passed sweeping changes to Australia’s security laws, including a new offence of advocating terrorism and special provisions allowing overseas conflict zones to be declared as effective no-go zones.



Labor and the Coalition voted together in support of the counter-terrorism (foreign fighters) bill on Wednesday, arguing that the recommendations of a bipartisan parliamentary committee had addressed concerns over elements of the laws.

The bill passed the Senate 43 votes to 12 on Wednesday afternoon, with the legislation now set to go before the government-dominated House of Representatives for approval.

The government is also planning to present a separate bill to parliament that could allow spy agencies to provide the military with information about the whereabouts of Australian jihadists fighting in Iraq and Syria.

The Greens, the Liberal Democratic senator, David Leyonhjelm, and the independent senator Nick Xenophon voted against the foreign fighters laws on Wednesday after raising concern about the reach of the laws, and the potential for innocent people to be affected.

Crossbench amendments failed to gain adequate support.

The attorney general, George Brandis, said the laws were required to address the domestic security threat posed by Australians who travelled to Iraq and Syria to fight before seeking to return home.

Brandis dismissed concerns about the new five-year jail term for advocating terrorism, saying: “There is not a word in this bill that impinges upon or restricts freedom of opinion.”

He rejected several Labor-proposed amendments, including one that would have broadened the defences people could raise if accused of the new offence of travelling to a declared area without a legitimate purpose.

The new provisions allow Australians to be jailed for up to 10 years for such travel, although there are specific defences listed in the legislation such as bona fide visits to family members.

Labor’s Senate leader, Penny Wong, said the list of defences should not be exhaustive and the courts should be given greater discretion to consider an accused person’s legitimate purposes for travel.

“It is not a sensible way to proceed to have parliament seek to set out the factual circumstance of every defence to this offence,” she said.

But Brandis said it was important for the bill to set out specific defences so people were aware of the law and not subject to “a liability of uncertain dimension”.

“The purpose of this provision … is to say that there are some areas of the world, areas under the control of terrorist armies, which are at war against their own populations as they are in northern Iraq, which are engaged in genocide and religious persecution and subversion of legitimate governments, to which Australians should not travel,” he said.

The government is expected to present a separate bill to parliament on Wednesday afternoon dealing with further changes to control order laws and intelligence powers.

These additional measures will be sent to a bipartisan committee for review before parliamentary debate.

The West Australian newspaper reported that the overseas spy agency, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (Asis), would be empowered to “provide assistance to the defence force in support of military operations and to co-operate with the defence force on intelligence matters”.

This raises the possibility that the Australian Defence Force (ADF) – which is conducting air strikes against Islamic State (Isis) militants in Iraq – could target Australian citizens fighting in the region.

The foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, said about 70 Australians were believed to be among extremist groups in Iraq and Syria, but she did not directly respond to the suggestion of the ADF targeting and killing Australian fighters.

Bishop said the government was “determined to ensure that Australian citizens do not add to the misery and suffering in Iraq and Syria, nor do they leave those countries as hardened terrorists to go to other countries or to come back to Australia to carry out terrorist activities here”.

She said such fighters were breaking Australian laws and putting themselves in mortal danger with a great risk of being killed.

“We call it the Australian Secret Intelligence Service because it’s secret,” Bishop said when asked about the proposal at the National Press Club.

“I don’t comment on intelligence matters and I don’t intend to comment on the operations of our intelligence services overseas, lest it risk lives. But the new phenomenon of foreign fighters in unprecedented numbers, this concept of home-grown terrorists who have been battle-hardened in Iraq and Syria, is something we all have to deal with.”

Bishop said the domestic spy agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio), and the Australian federal police (AFP) collected intelligence on Australian citizens.

“We now have Australian citizens who are taking part in a conflict in countries 12,000km or more away and are breaking Australian laws, very serious Australian laws, so what we need to do is ensure that our intelligence agencies are able to share the necessary information so that we can detect and, if necessary, prosecute those who are breaking Australian and potentially international laws,” she said.

The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, also declined to comment on the possibility of the ADF killing Australian fighters in Iraq and Syria.

Shorten said there was “a right way and wrong way to deal with these debates” and the government’s proposals should be submitted to the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security for scrutiny.

During the last committee process, the AFP called for further changes to the “complex and time-consuming” application process for interim control orders. But the committee members recommended that any such amendments be “referred to this committee with appropriate time for inquiry and review”.