Dawning of Howard's 'police state'

Among the long and learned documents that weigh heavily on the pile of more than 230 submissions to the Senate committee inquiring into Australia's tough, proposed, new counter-terrorism laws is a poignant one-page letter from a New South Wales policeman.

"I love my job and I love getting up in the morning to do what I do every day," he writes. "I am honoured and privileged, because I believe in the work that we police do day in and day out ... I do not consider myself to be an outsider." The officer, Mejed El-Dan, is also a Muslim.

"I am a proud Australian. I love this country and believe I am on the front line on the streets. This is part of my religion, to try and protect the civilisation that I live in, but not at the expense of the freedoms and civil liberties of people ... God knows it is already hard enough being a police officer of Muslim background."

Mejed El-Dan's concerns at the package Prime Minister John Howard is pushing through parliament on the crest of a tsunami of fear has been echoed with a mighty thunderclap around the nation.

Last week Muslim leaders backed away from the support they initially gave the laws as their extent became clearer.

This week New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma rejected a key provision of the proposed uniform national laws by ensuring the public's right to know that a person is being held under 14-day detention orders in his state, in contrast to the strict secrecy imposed by federal agencies.

And in the Senate hearings that began in Canberra this week, government backbenchers joined a growing chorus of alarm at new sedition provisions that many believe will allow authorities to stifle dissent and criticism, impinging even on filmmakers, writers, musicians and cartoonists.

The president of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, John von Doussa, QC, warned the new bill fulfilled the criteria for a police state.

The International Commission of Jurists' Australian branch said such laws could be expected only if the country was in a state of emergency and many of their provisions were serious breaches of Australia's obligations under treaties on international civil, human and political rights.

The Government is not flinching, backed by strong political support from the Labor Opposition, state governments (for the most part), the Federal Police and counter-terror agencies, and public polling.

But the submissions to the inquiry by the Senate's legal and constitutional committee show a broad spectrum of concern arcing across virtually every sector of Australian life.

Even Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Ian Carnell and Commonwealth Ombudsman John McMillan, federal watchdogs for the nation's intelligence and counter-terrorism agencies, are worried. They say more provisions may be needed to make sure the laws are subject to proper scrutiny and meet acceptable standards of fairness and humane treatment.

Critics complain the Government is pushing through with indecent haste laws which many believe are not necessary in any case - the raids two weeks ago that led to the arrest of 18 terror suspects were made under existing powers - and are preventing adequate scrutiny and debate.

There is also wide concern at the new laws' extraordinary powers of search, arrest and detention, the absolute secrecy imposed, and the potential for sedition provisions to be used to crush dissent and free speech.

Muslims fear the laws are aimed at them, and reject Government claims that their community has endorsed the package. In its submission the Muslim Civil Rights Advocacy Network warns: "There is concern that [the new laws] could easily be exploited to coerce or force a person to provide information that may not be reliable but what that person thinks the authorities want to hear ... "

The Federation of Ethnic Community Councils also believes the laws could single out Muslims and undermine community harmony and human rights. Similar concerns are held by the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, the Catholic Social Justice Council, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre and Monash University's Castan Centre for Human Rights Law.

The Conference of Leaders of Religious Institutes in NSW complains the speed at which the legislation is being pushed through undermines the role and importance of the democratic process. The Quakers say the laws have the hallmark of a totalitarian state.

Powerful media groups, including the huge News Ltd and Fairfax, the national wire service AAP and the State-owned Australian Broadcasting Corporation and SBS networks, have joined the Australian Press Council and the journalists and artists' union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, in fighting sedition provisions.

They are worried by the use of criminal sanctions to suppress reporting of terror-related news, of the potential for journalists to be detained because of information authorities suspect they might possess or the associations they keep in the course of their job, and the potential for sedition laws to block the dissemination and discussion of news, opinion and comment, especially of a political nature.

"The definitions of sedition set down in the bill are extremely broad and encompass behaviour which is presumably outside the scope of what the Government intends to prohibit," the Press Council says. "[Some sections] could apply to prohibit comments which criticise the Government's foreign policy or which argue in favour of passive protests against that policy."

Commentators have argued, for example, that had the law been in force in the 1960s and 1970s it could have been used to crush protests against the Vietnam War.

And the finance industry fears it may be caught by new measures to block money laundering and the financing of terrorists. The Australian Bankers' Association warned that financial institutions and their directors, officers and employees could face life imprisonment under a new broad and vaguely-worded crime of financing a terrorist, merely by carrying out their lawful occupation.

Sydney-based international funds manager Platinum Asset Management, with a portfolio worth A$16 billion ($18 billion), further warned that significant practical difficulties posed by the laws "could well impinge on the ability of Sydney to maintain its position as a major financial centre in the region". So far, the arguments have yet to convince Howard.