Today the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, Queensland Council for Civil Liberties and Liberty Victoria (the CCLs) have jointly submitted to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security review into the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2025. The CCLs are alarmed that the federal Labor Government is making the post 9/11 questioning and detention powers permanent. The questioning warrant powers remove or restrict accepted legal rights of due process, rights of an accused person to have legal representation and to a fair trial. These powers can be used to arrest, detain and question someone as young as 14, without any suspicion or criminal charge against them. 

The CCLs submit that these immense powers are contrary to the basic democratic principles and would characterise ASIO as a secret police force, rather than an intelligence gathering agency. 

The CCLs remind the government that Parliament’s duty is not merely to protect the safety of the public at all costs. It must also preserve the democratic liberty which the public cherishes and is entitled to expect. The appropriate balance must be struck. If, in combatting extremism, this society descends into authoritarianism, then the Parliament has destroyed what it is seeking to save

Comments attributable to Timothy Roberts, President NSWCCL 

“These powers need to be scrapped, not made permanent. Any government interested in maintaining its identity as ‘democratic’ would not have laws with such far reaching powers. 

“‘Politically motivated violence’ is a dangerously broad characterisation that gives ASIO and the government of the day far too much license to target particular political groups. 

“It is alarming with all the recent international examples of the dangers of this type of overreach, our Government has chosen not to shore up its citizens rights, and instead erode them.

Comments attributable to Michael Cope, Queensland Council for Civil Liberties

“These are the powers of a police state. They are found in no other liberal democracy and must not be made permanent.”

‘During the post September 11 period civil libertarians warned that the draconian powers introduced would become permanent to the detriment of our liberties. This shows that our concerns were justified. We urge the committee to reject this course.”