A joint parliamentary committee has called on the Abbott government to appoint a new national security legislation watchdog as a matter of “absolute urgency”, warning the extended delay in filling the role “leaves a gap in accountability and oversight”.
The committee on intelligence and security has been considering the latest round of the federal government’s counter-terrorism laws, which will allow Australia’s overseas spy agency to track citizens it suspects of fighting with the militia group Islamic State (Isis), and pass this information to the Australian defence force.
The grounds on which police could impose controversial control orders on Australians would also be expanded under the bill.
Critics have raised fears that the legislation could allow the Australian Security and Intelligence Service (Asis) to help the ADF carry out “targeted killings” of Australian citizens fighting with Isis, thought to number at least 60.
But the committee rejected this possibility, accepting Asis evidence that nothing in the amendments gave the spy agency new powers to assassinate or use violence against people. The defence force, too, was still governed by its rules of engagement, the committee said.
It backed a “substantial expansion” of the grounds on which control orders can be issued, to include situations where law enforcement suspects a person may be providing support for, or facilitating, a terrorist act or “hostile activity in a foreign country”.
Control orders, introduced in 2005 following terror attacks in London, allow federal police to impose conditions on a person’s movement – including forcing them to wear a tracking device or stopping them from leaving the country – in order to “protect the public from a terrorist act”.
Just two have been issued in the past nine years, but police told the committee at least three more orders would have been sought in the past few months if the proposed laws had been in place.
“Control orders will be sought more often than they have been in the past” under the amended laws and the “current heightened security threat”, the report suggested.
A 2012 review by the former independent national security legislation monitor, Bret Walker, found control orders were “not effective, not appropriate and not necessary”, and recommended they be scrapped.
Walker’s term expired in April and no replacement has been appointed, which the committee said left a “gap in accountability and oversight of the control order regime”. It recommended the position be filled with “absolute urgency”, and that the new monitor consider whether additional safeguards should be introduced.
Some of the safeguards around issuing control orders, which the attorney-general, George Brandis, sought to have “streamlined”, should be kept, the committee said.
It said “special advocates” acting on behalf of suspects should be appointed to review the often-classified evidence on which control orders are based.
The new counter-terrorism bill builds on the agency powers legislation that passed both houses of parliament in September and the foreign fighters bill that cleared the Senate last month.
The attorney-general’s office has been contacted for comment.
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