Judge warns against security overkill

Australia has been warned by one of its most senior judges against allowing itself to be terrorised into repression.

High Court Justice Michael Kirby gave the warning in a speech to a closed Australian Law Reform Commission conference on terrorism and the rule of law involving intelligence, defence, police and legal leaders.

Justice Kirby's paper, which unlike others delivered to the conference has been publicly released, is highly critical of the stampede to introduce new laws and powers in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.

His views echo similar concerns by civil rights activists alarmed by a steady crush of legislation restricting freedoms and granting police and counter-terrorism agencies increasing powers of arrest, detention and surveillance.

But they run counter to the views of the Government, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, the Australian Federal Police and similar agencies.

Justice Kirby said terrorism was not the greatest peril for the world, and that by exaggerating its dangers Australia could hand terrorists victory by destroying the framework of its democratic society.

Justice Kirby's step-grandfather was treasurer of the Australian Communist Party during the 1951 attempt to crush the party by "legislative excesses".

A Government bid to outlaw the party was blocked by the High Court, and a subsequent proposal to allow the move by constitutional amendment was rejected by a referendum.

"The need for prudence and care against over-reacting is as strong now as it was in 1951," the judge said.

"We should not forget that, to the extent that we exaggerate the risks to national security, we fall into the hands of those who threaten our constitutionalism."

Justice Kirby said more people died of Aids every day than died in the September 11 attacks, but most died anonymously in poverty in distant developing countries.

Lack of access to water, homelessness, poverty, malaria and ethnic violence were more potent dangers than the terrorism of Al Qaeda.

"We should found our policies and laws on national security upon sound data alone," he said.

"We should maintain our prudence, as we have in the past.

"We should address the causes, and not simply the manifestations, of terrorism as a danger to Australia's security [and] avoid the drawbridge mentality which, in any case, affords an ultimate security against fanatical individuals."

And, Justice Kirby said, Australia should not always follow American leadership: "As in the past, its responses may sometimes be misguided and prone to excess."