Hide Rodney: Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
Hide Rodney: Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
[Volume:423;Page:18572] 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 The ACT party also rises in support of the motion to refer this bill to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee and also to reflect with some sadness that at this point of recommending the bill to the select committee there is not unanimous support across the House for it. I too question the logic of the Green Party and its objection to this bill. I listened most carefully to Mr Locke because quite often I find myself in agreement with him and I say to him that I am also quite clear that we do not want to be passing in a fit of panic legislation that diminishes our freedoms in a vain hope of say stopping terrorists. But when we look at this bill it is quite clear what it is setting out to do. 
Let us think about it. If we look at the principal Act what is a “terrorist act”? What is a “terrorist group”? It is a group that is set up to induce terror in a civilian population or to unduly compel or to force a Government or an international organisation to do or to abstain from doing any act. So it is an organisation that is prepared to scare civilians in order to get a Government to undertake a particular course of action. 
The outcomes resulting from this terror are referred to in section 5(3) as: “(a) the death of or serious bodily injury to 1 or more persons … (b) a serious risk to the health or safety of a population: (c) destruction of or serious damage to property of great value or importance or major economic loss or major environmental damage … (d) serious interference with or serious disruption to an infrastructure facility if likely to endanger human life: (e) introduction or release of a disease-bearing organism if likely to devastate the national economy of a country.” 
So we are talking about organisations such as al-Qaeda which are committed to scaring civilian populations through threats of disease through bombings blowing up power stations or whatever. Well I would have thought that the Greens would be against that. I would have thought that those members were opposed to 9/11. 
Now I will cut particularly to what this bill is addressing which is this. It is already an offence to finance such terrorist acts—and it should be because just as the man whose finger is on the trigger is responsible so too is the man who gives that terrorist the wherewithal to do that damage. Those people are terrorists too. I ask whether Mr Locke can see that. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: He can’t. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: No I do not think that he can. This is the next question which is what the bill is seeking to do: what about the financier who is not actually financing the bomb but is paying the rent that finances the terrorist organisation in other ways? Well I say that that person’s hand is on the trigger too. The people who funded the terrorists of 9/11 are guilty of a crime but under the Greens they would not be—would they? Should those people be allowed to go free? If someone is giving sustenance accommodation and the wherewithal to do such a monstrous act as 9/11 knowing full well what they are doing have they committed a crime? Well according to the Greens the answer is: “No they haven’t committed a crime.” I say to the Greens that those people have committed a crime against humanity and what this legislation is doing is recognising that. 
We can have our political differences and we can argue and debate but what we cannot do is attempt to foist our ideas policies and ideology on to others at the point of a gun or aim a bomb at innocent civilians simply to induce terror to achieve a result. Yet the Greens would have us say that such an action is OK. Maybe there is some consistency in the Greens because Keith Locke supported the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan which was a brutal brutal attack on a people. That was a terrorist attack by a State on another country. In the Greens’ lopsided political philosophy everything America does is wrong everything the West does is wrong and everything anyone else does to sow terror and dissent against Western nations is right. I think that is the core of the Greens’ opposition to this bill. Mr Locke talked about witch-hunts on communists in the 1950s. I do not think there should be witch-hunts on people because of their views. Here we have Mr Keith Locke— 
Ron Mark 
: Was Mr Locke arrested? 
RODNEY HIDE 
: No he is an elected member of Parliament for goodness’ sake! 
Dail Jones 
: He’s a communist. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Of course he is a communist. He was not arrested. He has the same rights as any other citizen to stand up and say what he thinks. Well how would he feel if terror were used against his ideas? He would have to oppose it surely. Where is the consistency in this? We have to stand up as a free nation as a democratic nation for the rights of the Keith Lockes to stand for Parliament and for the rights of the Keith Lockes to hold their views however whacky we may find them. We have to oppose those people who would use force and terror to impose their views on the rest of us. That is what we have to do. 
We have to not just oppose the man whose finger is on the trigger; we have to go after the men behind him—the funders the organisers and the financiers. I know that Keith Locke and a lot of people of his ideological ilk think they will never be able to convince enough people in a free society to agree with them. So the recourse of all communists everywhere has been the gun the mass terror and the very things this bill is designed to overcome. 
I ask the Greens to think about this. They say they stand for peace. Well I ask Mr Keith Locke: what do we do to those groups to those people who are opposed to peace who want to sow fear and violence against a population? We know they exist. We have seen it. But what do we do? To ensure peace we actually have to go after the bad guys.