Mr McCLELLAND (Barton) (3.49 p.m.) —Before coming into the House to speak on this ministerial statement on national security, I did a broad brush Internet search. When I searched for the interrelationship between the words `Ruddock' and `terror' there were 11,300 hits. When I searched for the words `Ruddock' and `fear' there were 13,900 hits. When I searched for the words `Howard and `terror' there were 749,000 hits. When I searched for the words `Howard' and `fear' there were 1,290,000 hits. We did not hear the words `national interest' in this ministerial statement, but `national interest' are the words that underpin Labor's approach to domestic security.
If anyone had any doubt that this government intends to use fear as a political tool in the forthcoming election year, they had to read only to the third paragraph of the ministerial statement before they found an entirely unjustified accusation against the Australian Labor Party. Labor leaders have repeatedly acknowledged that, regrettably, in this day and age, we are in a modern war against terrorism. For instance, the member for Brand said:
The Australian people are at war. We have been at war since the middle of September last year, a week or so after the horrendous events of 11 September.
The member for Hotham said:
But it really is with the horrific scenes from New York, Washington and Pennsylvania that we now know that far from abolishing war the new millennium has simply given it a new and more terrifying form.
We have heard repeated statements from the member for Werriwa, the current Leader of the Opposition, who has reaffirmed on numerous occasions Labor's resolve to win the war against terrorism. For my own part, I would refer the Attorney to a statement I made in a speech on civil call-out legislation on 28 June 2000, when I said:
I think it is fair to say that in modern-day Australia the greatest threat to Australians is not from foreign invasion of 15,000 troops but rather 15 individuals coming into Australia to undertake terrorist activities, whether that is using sophisticated weaponry, chemicals, gas or even biological weapons.
I note that that was spoken before September 11. We saw on 11 September in the United States 20 terrorists, not 15. But regrettably that prediction was not very far from the mark. We recognise that we are in a modern war—a modern war that involves civilians—and it is an atrocious war. Of course we recognise that. It is in the national interest that we devise policies and structures that best enable us to confront and meet that war. And the characterisation of war is not inappropriate, Attorney.
I note that in 1948, after the lessons of the Second World War, the United States joined their separate departments of army, navy and air force under the one department of defence. It took the Whitlam Labor government to do the same thing in 1974 in Australia—to unify our defence forces in terms of fighting conventional war.
We are not in a conventional war but we are in a war. We agree wholeheartedly with that. Again, the lessons are there. We have seen the research done by the United States since the events of September 11. They found that their border and security agencies were operating in separate information silos. Indeed, some analysis suggests that, if there had been greater coordination, perhaps those terrifying and tragic events would have been prevented. They have unified those agencies under the one Department of Homeland Security to fight the modern characterisation of war. We need to do the same thing in Australia. We cannot wait another two decades before responding. We cannot wait until an event occurs in Australia before learning that we have to do something about our current fragmented management structures.
Looking at what they have in the United States, you will see that they have a dedicated secretary of the Department of Homeland Security whose job, 24 hours a day seven days a week, is to focus on the domestic security of the United States of America, its citizens and its infrastructure. If you look at the web site of the Attorney-General's Department, you will see that its responsibilities are:
Administrative Law and Civil Justice
Constitutional Policy
Copyright
Corporate Services
Dispute Resolution
e-commerce
Family Law
Freedom of Information
Human Rights
International Law
Legal Aid
Legal Services
Legislative Drafting
Marriage Celebrants
Native Title
Privacy
The fourth last one, Australians might be pleased to know, is `national security' and the last one is `security coordination'. The fact that the Attorney-General is busy, I would concede. But his other responsibilities prevent him from focussing 24 hours a day seven days a week on the security needs of this country. That goes some way to explaining what can only be described as the mammoth—and I was going to use an unparliamentary term, but I will not use it out of respect for the Speaker—mismanagement that we have seen in several respects.
We have seen Willie Brigitte being granted a tourist visa to enter Australia, with the government not being overly concerned about restoring communication mechanisms to prevent that occurring in the future. We have seen the French government, by notice given on 22 September, inquiring as to his presence in Australia and referring to the fact that he trained in the Pakistan Afghani region. Despite the fact that ASIO's annual report states, as a priority, the identification of those persons who have trained with terrorist groups overseas, there was no response to that French inquiry until the French made a second inquiry and, indeed, sent a warning on 3 October—which, the Attorney-General has said in this House, was received on 7 October. That was when we got a response.
The Attorney said words to the effect that he would be forthright in the fight against terrorism. But we have seen no statement from the Attorney-General as to what he would have regarded as an appropriate response time to the 22 September message: within 24 hours, within 48 hours, within a week or within two weeks. It just has not been commented on.
There was no response to that second memorandum, which came in after hours on a Friday to ASIO offices, until the following Tuesday because an officer did not look at the communication over the long weekend. Have we heard comments from the Attorney-General that that is just not good enough? Of course it is not good enough. Any fair-minded Australian would tell you that that is not good enough. Have we heard the Attorney-General saying, `I want to find out why that occurred'? No, we have not. We have seen him blame the French government for failing to telephone prior notice of that communication being made. Is it in the national interest to blame a foreign government when clearly we are going to need its support to further investigate any persons who may have been associated with Willie Brigitte—who all concede had evil intentions in his presence in Australia?
We also saw the situation where he was returned, if you recall. We have not found out yet from the government who actually made the decision for him to be returned to France. All we heard at the time was an accusation by the Attorney-General that that return was the result of Labor's amendments to legislation, despite the fact that the relevant provisions giving the Attorney-General power to detain and question were not touched at all in the parliamentary process—again, blame instead of acknowledgment and repair of error.
There is the recent example of Omar Abdi Mohamed, a man accused of receiving in excess of half a million dollars from an organisation listed as `terrorist' both in the United States and in Australia. However, I understand that today representatives of the Department of Foreign Affairs could not confirm that the relevant organisation is listed—and it is—as a terrorist organisation in Australia. We saw the minister for justice in a written statement on 30 January saying that it was immaterial that this fellow was in Australia. Why? The minister for justice said—and this was subsequently picked up by the Attorney-General—that it was immaterial because he had only been charged with immigration breaches. In fact, if we look at the charge sheet, it includes allegations that in truth and in fact between December 1998 and February 2001 the Western Somali Relief Agency, to which the fellow was attached, received $US351,036 from the Global Relief Foundation. That is a specific allegation that again was not revealed to the Australian people.
The Australian people are entitled to ask whether, as a result of this history of conduct and method of operating, we have a government that have become propagandists on the issue of national security—propagandists for party political motives, not for national interest. Indeed, if I talk to people in my electorate about that, there has been a dramatic shift in opinion regarding the conduct of the Attorney-General in his ministry from what was previously the case. Australians are prepared to look seriously at these issues, but they want a government that is open, frank and sincere, one that acknowledges errors and one that talks about how it is going to rectify them.
Again, we have not found out from this government how it was that Omar Mohamed was charged by United States authorities on 19 December—or at least a charge was issued on 19 December. Clearly, investigations were occurring but Australian authorities had not been informed. We have not found out from the Attorney-General how it is that the government cannot say whether the United States government had previously made inquiries as to whether this fellow was in Australia. If ever there were cases demonstrating our lack of communication with the French government and with the United States government in respect of people who would perpetrate acts of terror coming from overseas to Australia, they are the Brigitte and the Omar Mohamed cases. If ever there were an example of how our border and security agencies are operating in separate silos, it is this recent example where the government cannot even say, because there apparently is no procedure for logging and recording such inquiries, whether an inquiry was previously made by the United States as to why this fellow was here. We cannot have our border and security agencies operating in separate silos and realising the inefficiency of that fragmented structure only after a terrorist event occurs. It is too late.
The statement, with respect to the Attorney, is quite astounding. The copy that I have is headed `Overseas development'. If you read the statement you will see that there is not one fact of any overseas development. Clearly, the Attorney-General, if he went to the United States on a fact-finding mission, went there with a closed mind. He did not look at the reasons why they unified their border and security agencies under the one umbrella. Certainly, he seems to accept some advice from the Canadians and perhaps the United States that Australia may not need an Australia coastguard.
Did he tell them of our 37,000 kilometres of coastline? Did he tell them that our Coastwatch function currently contracts out to 12 separate government agencies? Did he tell them that our vital Coastwatch functions are contracted out to private contractors with a massive turnover in labour and the like? Did he tell them that we have no effective interdiction capacity other than in highly politically charged instances, such as those that have happened twice in the past two years, when the Navy was called in to tow out a vessel carrying illegal arrivals? Did he tell them that, by equipping Customs officials as a result of recent actions, we have a partial capacity to intercept fishing vessels, but that we do not have that same interdiction capacity in respect of vessels carrying guns, drugs or indeed potential terrorists?
What we want to see, quite frankly, is not more words on statute books, Attorney. We want to see effective and efficient management structures and a real determination by this government to pursue terrorists and prevent terrorist actions from occurring. We do not want to see party political statements. The real strength of the Australian nation against terrorism is our unity, and we do not want to see that squandered for party political purposes.
Debate adjourned.