Locke Keith: Counter-Terrorism Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Locke Keith: Counter-Terrorism Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:612;Page:9341] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I would like to follow up some of the points made by the previous speaker about the title of the Counter-Terrorism Bill and whether “counter-terrorism” is an appropriate term. I took a very moderate approach in my first speech. I wanted to address the main issue of two different types of bill being incorporated into one with disadvantages for the public and for Parliament. The question posed is also whether this bill will really put counter-terrorism into effect—that is really opposing and reducing the incidence of terrorism throughout the world and particularly in the Islamic world which has most of the instances of terrorism at the present time. 
One of the criticisms that have been made including by submitters on this bill and on its predecessor the Terrorism Suppression Bill is that the definition of terrorism in the Terrorism Suppression Act is much too broad. It does not target only people who support those who use violence against and create terror amongst civilians; it also covers within the very broad definition of terrorism in that Act people who seriously disrupt an infrastructure facility in a way likely to endanger human life. One does not even need to intend to endanger human life to be covered under that definition. All that one needs to do is to fulfil two other criteria: first to unduly compel a Government to do something—which many politicians are accused of—and second the motive has to be political religious or ideological. Richard Worth made a point about the singling out of politically motivated acts and referred back to Matthew Palmer’s comments on that very question. 
I find that rather strange because sometimes a political motivation can lead to terror and very bad things that we all want to condemn. We have incidents in our own history such as the 1981 Springbok tour when people protested—including many members in this Chamber at the present time—and got involved in quite disruptive activity that could possibly be covered under this bill. The fact that they were doing it for a political reason—that is they were against racial injustice and South African apartheid—was used in court in their favour. That is the reality. Other people do things for a religious reason in a positive humanitarian way in terms of non-violent civil disobedience. But if in relation to real terrorism we really want to have justice we have to go back to treating all actions in terms of this legislation as being fundamentally the same if they have an intimidatory effect on a civilian population and cause real violence and death to people. The motivation is not what counts; it is the nature of the act and whether it is against what is in effect our criminal legislation. So do we need to have this layer of anti-terrorist offences on top of our criminal legislation? 
Another amendment to the title that I could have put forward might have been the “Counter-Terrorism (Except State Terrorism) Bill” because this bill and the preceding Terrorism Suppression Act target a particular form—killing wounding or inspiring fear in civilians—of terrorism: terror caused by non-State agents. We can see an example of that when we look at the recent terrorism in Indonesia. Everyone is very conscious of the horrific terrorist bombing in Bali that was commemorated recently. Everyone is very conscious of that terrorism and rightly very opposed to that. They welcome the fact that the perpetrators have been brought to justice and punished. We all agree on that. But within Indonesia there is another form of terrorism that kills wounds and maims many more people than in the Bali bombing did. That is not to excuse the Bali bombing but to point out that in Aceh today the Indonesian Government through its military is terrorising the people of Aceh killing many of them and pushing many of them out of their homes and the places they live in. That form of terrorism is killing more people than the Bali bombing did. Terrorism cannot be balanced on a scale. We cannot say that the Bali terrorism is any better or any worse than that in Aceh but in terms of the number of people killed more have been killed in Aceh.