Chapter 1 - Introduction
Background
1.1
On 3 November
2005, the Senate referred the provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Bill
(No. 2) 2005 (the Bill) to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee for inquiry
and report by 28 November 2005.
1.2
The Bill proposes to amend various federal laws with
the stated aim of improving existing offences and powers targeting terrorist
acts and terrorist organisations.
Conduct of the inquiry
1.3
The committee advertised the inquiry in The Australian newspaper on 5 November 2005, and
invited submissions by 11 November
2005. Details of the inquiry, the Bill,
and associated documents were placed on the committee's website. The committee
also wrote to nearly 130 organisations and individuals.
1.4
The committee received 294 submissions, as well as a
number of supplementary submissions, which are all listed at Appendix 1.
Submissions were placed on the committee's website for ease of access by the
public.
1.5
The committee held public hearings in Sydney
on Monday 14, Thursday 17 and Friday
18 November 2005. A list of witnesses who appeared at the hearing
is at Appendix 2 and copies of the Hansard transcript are available through the
Internet at http://aph.gov.au/hansard.
Acknowledgement
1.6
The committee thanks those organisations and
individuals who made submissions and gave evidence at the public hearings,
particularly in light of the short timeframes involved.
Scope of the report
1.7
Chapter 2 provides a background and overview of the Bill.
Chapter 3 considers key provisions of the regime for Commonwealth preventative
detention orders. Chapter 4 examines Schedule 4 of the Bill,
which seeks to introduce a regime of ‘control orders’ to authorise the overt
close monitoring of terrorist suspects. Chapter 5 considers the provisions of
the Bill relating to sedition (Schedule 7);
and advocacy of terrorism (Schedule 1).
1.8
Chapter 6 looks at the extension of police powers to
stop, question and search persons in relation to terrorist acts; and to seize
items related to terrorism and other serious offences (Schedule 5); the introduction
of powers to permit police to directly issue a notice to produce information
and documents from persons and organisations for the purposes of investigating terrorism
and other serious offences (Schedule 6); and the expansion of the scope of the
powers of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) (Schedule
10).
1.9
Finally, chapter 7 examines the proposed amendments to
the Financial Transaction Reports Act
1988 (FTR Act) and related legislation (Schedule 9); and proposed
amendments to expand existing terrorism financing offences (Schedule 3).
1.10
The Appendices to the report list, among other things,
answers provided by the Attorney-General's Department, the Australian Federal
Police and the Australian Intelligence and Security Organisation to questions
on notice asked at the hearings on 17 and 18 November 2005.
Note on references
1.11
References in this report are to individual submissions
as received by the committee, not to a bound volume. References to the committee
Hansard are to the proof Hansard: page numbers may vary between the proof and the
official Hansard transcript.
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