The NSW Council for Civil Liberties (NSWCCL) has called on the Senate to reject the ASIO Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2025, warning that the legislation will create a permanent gap in our civil liberties by removing sunset clauses on extraordinary post-9/11 questioning and detention powers.
The Bill, which passed the lower house and is currently before the Senate, would permanently enshrine powers allowing ASIO to detain and question individuals as young as 14 who are not suspected of any crime. It would remove or restrict accepted legal rights of due process, rights of an accused person to have legal representation and a fair trial.
NSWCCl warns that these powers granted to ASIO are completely disproportionate to the role it should have in our community. This is especially so given the bill further expands the scope for these powers to be used in specific terrorist offences to the much more nebulous ‘politically motivated violence’.
The lack of public and parliamentary scrutiny regarding this legislation is deeply alarming to NSWCCL. In collaboration with Liberty Victoria and Queensland Council for Civil Liberties, NSWCCL had previously made a submission to the review of this bill, and was disappointed to see that our recommendations to repeal these laws, in line with the findings of the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor (INSLM), were largely ignored.
We remind the media and members of the public that the Parliament’s duty is not merely to protect the safety of the public at all costs. It must also preserve the democracy which gives it its legitimacy. We cannot allow any government to use the rhetoric of “combatting extremism” to weaken the protections we have. To do otherwise is to risk allowing the people in Parliament to destroy the very thing they say they are seeking to save.
Comments attributable to Timothy Roberts, NSWCCL President:
“These powers not only infringe upon the civil liberties of all Australian people, they also undermine our democracy. They need to be scrapped, not made permanent.
“The expanded scope of ASIO powers proposed in this bill could theoretically capture activities related to political protest and represents a massive overreach of emergency anti-terror laws that has long been warned against.
“We are witnessing legislative fatigue, where extraordinary, authoritarian-style powers are being normalised through bipartisan lockstep, with only a few Independent and Greens parliamentarians offering any real scrutiny.
“A Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS), stacked exclusively with Labor and Coalition MPs is operating as little more than a rubber stamp for executive overreach.
“In her Interim Report of the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, Commissioner Virginia Bell clearly stated that our existing legal and regulatory frameworks did not hinder agencies from doing their jobs. If our current laws are already sufficient for our most capable agencies to protect us, we must ask why is the government so determined to enshrine and expand the scope of these intrusive, secret ASIO powers?
“This bill does not fill a gap in legislation to ensure our safety but it does create a permanent gap in our civil liberties.
