Terror fear drives tough Australian security law

By GREG ANSLEY Australia correspondent

CANBERRA - Australia's domestic spy agency has moved several significant steps further towards tough new powers allowing it to detain, hold and question people as young as 16 for up to a week as the nation further bunkers down against terrorism.

The Government appears to have calmed most of Labor's fears over its new security legislation strengthening the arm of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio), although minor parties may yet thwart it in the Senate.

Already defeated once in the Upper House and months in the making, the legislation is now riding on a mood of fear in Australia, given force by involvement in Iraq and billions of extra security dollars in the May Budget.

The proposed compromise - raising the minimum age level for detention from just 14 - also follows details of a plot to bomb the Australian Embassy and other missions in Thailand, and a new, four-level terrorist alert system.

Although Prime Minister John Howard denies any rise in the danger to Australia and the present level of threat remains at medium - two below the highest "extreme" alert - a new national counter-terrorism plan also hands greater emergency powers to the federal Government.

The proposed new Asio legislation reflects Canberra's growing concern at the possibility of terror attacks within Australia, highlighted by confirmation of a long-standing presence of Jemaah Islamiyah within the country.

Jemaah Islamiyah is believed to have carried out the Bali bombings.

Originally, the bill would have allowed Asio to pick up anybody above the age of 14 whom its agents wished to question, interrogate them for 48 hours without a lawyer, and hold them without charge for extended periods.

Faced with a second certain defeat, Attorney-General Daryl Williams has raised the minimum age up from 14 to 16, agreed to allow immediate access to legal representation, and limited interrogation to three eight-hour periods in a week.

Other safeguards, including the supervision of questioning by a judge, have also been written into the legislation.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said yesterday that it was reasonable to detain and question people for a relatively short time to enable Asio to do everything it could to gain information to enable a terrorist attack to be intercepted.

"All this has to be done with the approval of a judge," he said. "It won't just be done willy-nilly by Asio."

Although preferring a minimum age of 18, Labor is more inclined to support the amended bill, but it will still meet opposition from the Democrats and Greens in the Senate.

In other developments, most of the 110 air marshals recruited to protect Australian airliners with low-velocity guns are now flying domestic routes, although most aircraft will fly without the agents.

Concern for air travel has risen after a series of incidents, including the attempted hijacking of a Qantas flight by a man armed with wooden stakes, the arrest of a man who produced a knife on a Virgin flight, and threats by a passenger aboard another Virgin aircraft.

And Australian readiness to join a naval blockade of North Korea appears to be hardening. Howard confirmed yesterday that he had spoken with United States President George W. Bush about the proposal.

Howard also said that although no approach had been made by the US for new, major bases in Australia, any request would be seriously considered by Canberra.

"Why wouldn't we?" he told a Brisbane radio station. "We're very close to them."