In an extraordinary assault on what’s left of national security bipartisanship, the government has attacked the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) and humiliated one of its most prominent backbenchers, Andrew Hastie, implying he has endorsed Labor’s attempts to undermine national security.
Illustrating the extent to which national security has now become entirely about wedging Labor, the government yesterday openly attacked the committee, which it controls and chairs, for recommending changes to its foreign fighters bill. For the first time since the Howard years, most of the committee’s unanimous recommendations about amendments to the legislation — and particularly around giving the power to exclude foreign fighters to an independent figure rather than a politician — have been rejected by the government.
This rejection was disguised in the government’s response to the committee’s 18 recommendations by standard bureaucratic weasel words like “the government notes this recommendation” or “the government accepts this recommendation in principle” despite refusing to implement them. But all pretence was abandoned this week in parliamentary debate over the bill. The committee was merely, Peter Dutton told parliament on Tuesday, “a management tool for the Member of Isaacs [Labor’s Mark Dreyfus] … We are not going to have our bills that are important to keep Australians safe watered down by this individual … this government will not tolerate it.”
Dutton went further yesterday, claiming “Mark Dreyfus waters every bill down … what ends up happening is we end up with a bill that’s ineffective and these matters are too important for that … I’m not going to allow national security agencies to be stymied by Mark Dreyfus’ ability to water down bills.”
The government would no longer be accepting the recommendations of the committee — only if, Dutton said “it was in the national interest” to do so.
Bear in mind Mark Dreyfus doesn’t run this committee — Liberal Andrew Hastie, former SAS officer and national security hardliner, does. Who else is on the committee? Such softies as far-right senators Eric Abetz and Amanda Stoker. All have signed up to the committee’s recommendations which have been rejected by the government. All now stand accused by Dutton, by implication, of supporting Labor efforts to “water down legislation”, stymieing national security agencies and making recommendations that weren’t in the national interest.
For fifteen years or more, the PJCIS has been a mechanism whereby, away from the wedge politics relentlessly played by the Coalition on national security, mature consideration of security issues could take place. Moderates of both parties could try to temper overreach by hardliners eager to override civil liberties and privacy — and address poor drafting or hidden agendas by bureaucrats. It was the PJCIS that had — in an earlier iteration of the foreign fighters’ bill — spotted and stopped an unauthorised attempt by bureaucrats of the then-immigration department to collect biometric data on every citizen using an airport.
Under Rudd and Gillard, the committee’s role was expanded to routinely vet proposed national security legislation, an innovation retained by the Abbott and Turnbull governments, which referred all tranches of proposed new security laws to the committee and abided by the recommendations made by the committee, which is always chaired by the government.
And while the Coalition has resisted proposals to expand the role of the committee further to bring it into line with similar committees in the US and the UK, it agreed to a recommendation from the L’Estrange-Merchant intelligence review to further increase the capacity of the committee to request oversight of intelligence agencies and initiate reviews into non-operational areas of national security.
Except, all that’s now dead in the water. The PJCIS is now just another parliamentary committee that can be ignored when it serves the political interests of the government. Indeed, worse, both government and opposition committee members are guilty of stymieing security agencies and making recommendations that aren’t in the national interest.
Maybe, finally, Labor will learn its lesson on national security: no matter what it does, no matter how closely it hews to the government on national security, it will be accused by the government and by News Corp of being soft on terrorism. It has played by the rules and tried to use the PJCIS as an effective forum for addressing concerns about national security overreach, and copped plenty of grief for refusing to play the actual role of an opposition, leaving that to the Greens and the crossbenchers. Now that the PJCIS has been abandoned as a credible forum by the Coalition, Labor will have to think hard about whether to bother with it.
As for Andrew Hastie, who did more for national security before entering politics than the likes of Dutton and his bureaucrats could ever dream of, he’d be well within his rights to tell the government exactly what it can do with its committee chairmanship.
Dutton is a rabid dog. His bite will lead to the death of Australian democracy (which is desperately ill already).
And so, the securitisation process continues apace. Australia has, in that process, become a country that imprisons children for the ‘crimes’ of their parents who dare to try and seek asylum by boat and to discard the Australian children of IS parents because the parents may have commit atrocities. You may wish to read that sentence again. When are either of those acts acceptable? In the paraphrased words of a famous philosopher ‘Those who fight monsters must take care not to become monsters themselves, for the time spent staring into the abyss, the abyss stares back into you’.
I read your comment about “our” treatment of children, because all of these things are done at our behest, and with the full authority of the Australian Government.
I am ashamed, and now I know why, my lifelong friend who lives in Finland, cautioned me last time I visited her, to not be open about where we came from. Apparently we are running concentration camps on Nauru and Manus. I have been to Nauru and from personal observation, they are not far off it, except there is no systematic death factories.
I feel a great unease, when I see the empire, of Home Affairs and the absolute power that is wielded by the minister, without any oversight. This is a recipe for more excesses, which will end disastrously, at some stage.
A question that lurks around my conscious mind; If the Minister for Home Affairs has the final decision on a lot of contentious issues, can we not make him personally liable for the repercussions of a bad decision. Such as a decision that is not honestly come at except if colored by malice, meanness or sheer bloody mindedness.
“Maybe, finally, Labor will learn its lesson on national security: no matter what it does, no matter how closely it hews to the government on national security, it will be accused by the government and by News Corp of being soft on terrorism. It has played by the rules and tried to use the PJCIS as an effective forum for addressing concerns about national security overreach, and copped plenty of grief for refusing to play the actual role of an opposition, leaving that to the Greens and the crossbenchers. Now that the PJCIS has been abandoned as a credible forum by the Coalition, Labor will have to think hard about whether to bother with it.”
Labor must return to their democratic socialist roots.
Could not agree more 1984 AUS in that “Labor must return to their democratic socialist roots” of the Whitlam era.
However they have shown no inclination to abandon the social democratic / neo-liberal experiment inflicted on us by Hawke & Keating, with disastrous consequences playing out today.
The corporations, especially the multi-nationals have had open slather since the mighty leg up that Keating, in particular, gave them & now they call the shots in all jurisdictions. “He who pays the piper plays the tune” !
A directionless rabble would be a fair description of the Labor Party today, terrified of being wedged by the LNP.
Ditto on coal and Adani. Tell the people the truth, coal mining has to decline and do so swiftly. Tell them what you I’ll do for them and don’t go signing stupid pledges. You can’t beat the nasty party in bastardry.
Thanks gerryinoz !
Oh yes another example of where Labor and the country went “off the rails”.
If Whitlam & Connor had have been allowed to govern, their proposed Petroleum and Minerals Authority would have been up and running and we would not have the likes of Adani and the other multi-nationals calling the shots and trashing our environment in the process, or our LNP gas reserves being plundered with pitiful returns to us !
If the Labor Party had had the courage to stand up to the challenge that the LNP threw at them, first under John Howard, we might have some respect for ‘national security’ and the Labor Party. As it stands the Labor Party caves in to every cry that they are ‘not tough’ (as if that is a criterion for anything other than mirroring the bullying tactics of the right) and there is not respect the them, the LNP or national security. I wonder what it will take before Labor finds the courage to do something radical.
How long before Albo realises that voting with the Government will only open the flood gates of their contempt for Labor? Whether it is on the economy, security or any other topic acquiescing will only gain withering condemnation.
The Morrison Government will simply give Labor heaps at every opportunity, though seeing they won the election, fairly handsomely, under the circumstances you would think that governing would be their priority, not slagging off the Opposition.
Whatever, Albo stand up for decency, equality and humanity on every occasion and do so loudly; and you may start to cut through.
The govt definitely didn’t win “fairly handsomely”. They have 77 out of 151 seats. They went from a slim majority to an almost hung parliament and since the election a slightly less slim majority. They understand this well and how things can change with a few resignations or defections.
Regarding this latest piece of over reach – the same people who passed laws a few years back banning people from leaving Australia to fight overseas now want laws to prevent those same people coming back. In between this there were strong proclamations of wanting unapproved back here to face local justice. So which is it or is it as I suspect creating a catch all ?
Bit by bit the legal grab bag is being expanded so that any of us could end up selectively prosecuted just for getting out of bed. After all as Potato Boy reminded us the law is the law including it would seem when it’s an ass or used to function as a star chamber.