The Australian approach to enacting counter-terrorism laws

Abstract

This thesis examines the way the Australian Federal Parliament approached the task of enacting counter-terrorism laws over the five year period from 11 September 2001 to 11 September 2006. It is observed that it was common for members of Parliament to describe what they were trying to achieve in this type of legislation as striking a ‘balance’ between national security and individual rights. This supports an assertion that the content of counter-terrorism legislative proposals put forward by the Federal Government should have been subjected to some deliberation as part of the process by which Parliament enacted them into law. This also justifies drawing the standards against which the counter-terrorism law-making process is assessed from the literature on deliberative democracy; in particular the understanding of deliberative democracy propounded by John Uhr.

Both quantitative and qualitative methods are used to analyse the counter-terrorism law-making process adopted by the Australian Parliament. The quantitative data that has been collected allows the broad contours of the process by which all the counter-terrorism laws which were passed in the five years after 11 September 2001 to be delineated and assessed. The data presented relates to the amount of time Parliament spent enacting each piece of counter-terrorism law, and to the activities of certain parliamentary committees as they scrutinised counter-terrorism bills before they were enacted. The qualitative analysis is contained in two case studies focusing on two individual Australian counter- terrorism laws. These case studies provide a more detailed analysis of the factors that engaged or stymied Parliament’s ability to adopt a law-making process that could be classed as deliberative.

The results of both the quantitative and qualitative assessments suggest that the Australian Parliament’s adherence to the democratic process of deliberation as they enacted these counter-terrorism laws was sporadic. It seems that while parliamentarians found it relatively easy to emphasise the importance of adhering to democratic traditions in their rhetoric, it was more difficult for them to ensure that the counter-terrorism law-making process conformed to deliberative democratic standards. Accordingly, this thesis casts doubt on the quality of the consideration given to these important laws.