Australian spy agency set to gain greater powers

5.45pm

SYDNEY - The Australian government seemed set today to win sweeping new powers for the nation's key spy agency to fight terrorism after watering down proposed laws under pressure from the opposition.

The new laws, unveiled after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, would give the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) power to detain and interrogate people without charge for up to a week.

But Attorney General Daryl Williams said the government had agreed to raise the age at which people could be arrested on suspicion they may know of a terrorist act to 16 from 14 in order to pass the laws blocked in parliament's upper house Senate.

The legislation had been blocked in the Senate, where Prime Minister John Howard's Liberal/National coalition does not have a majority.

The leader of centre-left Labour in the Senate, John Faulkner, said his party would consider the concessions, which include relaxed proposals on interrogation time and access to lawyers. If a deal is struck, the government is likely to present the legislation to parliament again next week.

"The opposition must work with the government to ensure our intelligence agency has the tools it needs to find out about planned terrorist attacks when it is most important to have this information -- before Australians are hurt or killed," Williams said.

The government has argued that broad detention powers are necessary to protect Australia in the aftermath of September 11 and last October's nightclub bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali, which killed over 200 people, including 88 Australians.

But civil liberties groups, opposition Labour and other minor parties opposed the bill, worried it would allow ASIO to become a secret police and permit indefinite detention because of provisions for rolling arrest warrants.

- REUTERS