Australia's Legislative Response to Terrorism

This paper was given as the Annual Lecture of the Criminal Bar Association of Victoria on ‘Advocating for Justice’, 26 August 2003.

Dworkin Ronald , ‘The Threat to Patriotism’, 28 February 2002, The New York Review of Books.

Ibid.

Franklin Benjamin , Reply to the Governor, Nov 11, 1755, Labaree Leonard W , (ed), The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (1963) vol 6 242.

Dershowitz Alan , ‘A choice among evils’, 5 March 2003, The Globe and Mall Metro A17.

I am indebted to Simon Bronitt for his argument that the rule of law has been threatened by the ‘war on drugs’ and the ‘war on terror’: Bronitt Simon , Constitutional rhetoric v Criminal justice realities: Unbalanced responses to Terrorism? (2003) 14 PLR 69.

Williams George , The ASIO Bill, paper delivered 26 August 2002.

Ibid.

The parliament later rushed through a special law proscribing the Hezbollah External Terrorist Organisation after the government argued that urgent action was required. Such legislation is of doubtful constitutionally validity given the High Court's reasoning in the Communist Party Dissolution Case 83 CLR 1.

R v Foster; ex parte Rural Bank of New South Wales 79 CLR 43.

For a more comprehensive statement of the provisions of the Bill see Morag Davidson, Anti-Terrorism Bill 2004 Bills Digest, No. 120 2003-04 Parliamentary Library Information and Research Services 19 April 2004.

Although the real reason for moving against the NCA may be more mundane. The decision followed closely on attacks on the former Chair of the Authority (Mr G Crook QC) by the government following modest and hardly surprising assessments of (the failures of) current drug law policy in the Authority's annual report.

Information supplied by Lex Lasry QC of the Victorian Criminal Bar Association.