CAA SUBMISSION ON PROPOSED AMENDMENTS

to the

TERRORISM (COMMUNITY PROTECTION) AND CONTROL OF WEAPONS AMENDMENT BILL 2024

The principles of this legislation are flawed.

PART 1 TERRORISM COMMUNITY PROTECTION

There is nothing in this amendment that would in any way improve or provide any Community Protection.

The concept of this Bill as a community protection initiative is absurd as it identifies at-risk individuals and invites them to volunteer for the MAP program.

And there are serious questions about the efficacy of deradicalisation programs.

As reported in the Herald Sun on 15^th of Jan ’25, under the banner ‘Deradicalisation programs have mixed impact, report says’,

“Deradicalisation programs have failed to change the behaviour of high-risk individuals authorities fear could commit acts of terror in Australia or produce data on whether the initiative actually works.

Further, there have been a small number of cases where the risk associated with clients had escalated and required the involvement of law enforcement.”

The revelations come amid rising reports of antisemitism and after a spate of attacks by individuals in deradicalisation programs last year”.

This report highlights the folly of relying on bureaucratic processes to manage such an important function to protect the community instead of the legal system.

If legislation is deficient, correct it and empower the law enforcement process to manage these extremists. Courts can at least make binding orders to mitigate risk, something the bureaucracy can’t do.

We were stunned to discover two operational deradicalisation programs, LSTIP and MAPS.

Establishing a deradicalisation industry is obviously on its way, which leads to suspicion that the growth of this industry has more to do with the players involved in creating their quango rather than protecting the community, which appears to be a by-product at best.

Again, this initiative is designed to help the perpetrators, not the public. The perpetrator-first approach is the hallmark of Restorative Justice, a flawed approach to crime and/or antisocial behaviour where the perpetrator is rewarded rather than punished.

The reliance on deradicalisation is a significant flaw as there is no empirical data to suggest the likelihood of success and no reliable mechanism to guarantee that deradicalisation has been achieved; the expert consensus is that it has a hit-and-miss success rate.

To rely on such a system to protect the community is an abdication of the government’s responsibility and should something go awry. The government should be held accountable alongside the perpetrator.

How is this protection manifested? How do the Community feel protected,

The community do not know who these individuals are, where they are located and the circumstances of their radicalisation.

A family may choose to change their circumstances if they become aware of somebody close being identified as being either potentially or actually radicalised. Moreover, the employment arrangements involving the perpetrator may vary legitimately when an employer finds out an employee is on that path.

Why should the community be left in the dark? That is not community safety. It is protection for the perpetrator.

The amendments do not address these issues, leaving the government with substantial liability if things go wrong, and they fail to let people know the risks.

We live in a democracy, and nobody should be exposed to sanctions by the government bureaucracy. This is an unambiguous role of the courts. The High Court has had plenty to say about this question recently.

The volunteer nature of persons entering the MAP program leaves open the allegations of coercion to volunteer, such as” Have we got a deal for you”?

As for the perpetrator, there appears to be no effort to include protection for their rights once they are nominated as potentially or actually being radicalised. At what stage can their rights be interfered with is, or should it be a matter for a Court, not the bureaucracy?

The failure to process suspects in the normal consequence through the Courts is a failure of democracy – they are voluntarily coerced into accepting they are radicalised, and they are entirely processed administratively, losing all rights.

The high court has been clear on the application of penalties by bureaucrats and not the Courts, and no matter how much bureaucrats may pretend otherwise, MAPS and LSTIP are sanctioning.

We are not arguing against the concept of deradicalisation, but we are saying that the courts, not bureaucrats, must manage it. At least that way, the radicalisation has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt or on the balance of probabilities, not some obscure administrative process.

If the current offences do not adequately cover these situations, new legislation must be enacted to ensure the Courts manage these people.

A parallel to understanding the folly of this approach would be to have the community advise a bureaucracy of a regular drunk driver. That driver is offered an alcoholic program but continues to drive under the influence.

A second and more current initiative is Pill Testing, where the government will test your illicit pills and give you the green light to take them. They are still illicit, and the tests only cover the pill presented, not the ones being consumed.

Their efforts, and there are more, indicate a trend where any personal accountability and responsibility is diminished and fuelled by government intervention.

The long-term result will be the diminished need or perhaps elimination of some courts as their function is demoted so that governments can control these matters through their bureaucracies. We will all then live in a Restorative Justice nirvana.

The cost of a democracy designed to manage the individuals without checks and balances the Courts would provide is horrendous, and the energy expended would be far better used to fit the suspected radicalised individual with an ankle bracelet based on a court order.

That would protect the individual from malice by false accusations and protect the community, whereas the voluntary program will not.

Part 2 CONTROL OF WEAPONS AMENDMENT BILL 2024

The Control of Weapons Bill amendments should repeal the whole Act and ensure that police have the power to do their job. This is a switch-on-switch-switch-off approach that is clearly aimed at controlling police operations without the expectation of any positive outcome, either proactively or reactively.

It is also a dangerous and direct attack on the essential independent operational function of policing.

It is ludicrous for Police to declare an area subject to exercising powers unless an improbable agreement can be made that all perpetrators restrict themselves to the given controlled area.

Controlled weapons do not gain status by being carried in a declared area, so the concept of controlled areas is absurd. They are always a controlled weapon no matter where they are carried.

The perpetrators only need to avoid the area to avoid detection – that doesn’t stop the problem; it simply relocates it. If anybody is found by Police with a weapon in the declared area, they obviously didn’t read the paper. The foolhardiness of this approach is the people who carry controlled weapons are most unlikely to read the paper or go online to the police site to check where the police operations are.

This strategy follows the line of the approach to the drug problem – providing injecting facilities – providing drug paraphernalia to addicts, and testing pills, all deliver the same message that these things are not really illegal because the government is facilitating them.

That’s how the warnings of declared areas will be interpreted.

The weapons are the same; therefore, perpetrators must be subject to the same risks of getting caught irrespective of where they are and when.

If the legislation is deficient in this area, the amendments must enhance the ability of the Police to intervene in the carriage of any controlled weapon.

Anybody carrying a controlled weapon in any place at any time must be able to be arrested and prosecuted. Police must have the power to search and seize based on reasonable suspicion. Reasonable can be tested by the courts.