The Terrorism Legislation (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill introduced to Parliament today will ensure that Tasmania’s laws to prevent terrorism remain consistent with national and interstate legislation.

Recent reviews of Australia’s anti-terrorism legislation have resulted in a number of amendments to the Commonwealth Criminal Code Act 1995 and a Council of Australian Governments (COAG) agreement that some procedural and technical amendments to the issuing criteria and issuing process for preventative detention orders (PDOs) were needed to make them more operationally useful.

In 2005 all jurisdictions agreed to introduce a state-based preventative detention regime. As a result, Tasmania introduced the Terrorism (Preventative Detention) Act 2005.

The Act provides for an authorised person to seek the detention of a person for up to 14 days in order to prevent an imminent terrorist act occurring or preserve evidence relating to a recent terrorist act. The introduction of the regime on a national basis was to ensure that there was consistency in relation to the powers available to our security agencies and there were no vulnerabilities in the ability of any jurisdiction to protect its community against terrorist acts.

While PDOs have been used on few occasions since their introduction in 2005, in the last 12 months four have been issued – three in NSW and one in Victoria. The PDO issued in Victoria for an 18 year old man was followed shortly after by his arrest for planning a terrorist act against ANZAC day commemorations to be held in Melbourne.

Changes agreed to by COAG in 2014 include enabling authorised police officers to apply for PDOs orally or electronically in urgent circumstances, and enabling an application for a PDO to be made in respect of a person whose full name is not known. The current sunset clause will be extended until 31 December 2025.

The amendment Bill provides a sensible and practical approach to dealing with the ongoing threat of terrorism that is consistent with agreements of COAG.
Vanessa Goodwin, Attorney-General