Terror law deadlock
By MICHAEL HARVEY, chief politics reporter
14dec02
SWEEPING laws designed to catch terrorists are in limbo for the holidays after a bitter deadlock between the Howard Government and the Opposition.
In some of the most poisonous scenes that Federal Parliament has seen for years, both sides accused each other of robbing spy agency ASIO of extra muscle.
A marathon 27-hour sitting by the House of Representatives failed to resolve the stalemate.
Weary MPs hurled abuse across the chamber as prospects of a compromise faded.
Each side accused the other of leaving the nation exposed to possible terrorist attack.
"It will be on the head of the Australian Labor Party and on nobody else's," Prime Minister John Howard said.
Opposition Leader Simon Crean hit back: "John Howard wants to play to the fear of Australians. He doesn't want a solution."
ASIO will have to wait until at least February to exercise controversial new interrogation powers -- despite intelligence warnings of a possible terrorist attack around Christmas.
The original laws proposed to give ASIO the right to secretly detain and question people as young as 14, without charge, for up to a week.
They were the centrepiece of the Government's counter-terrorism package, announced after the September 11 attacks last year.
The laws applied to "non-suspects" -- people suspected of knowledge of terrorism but not necessarily of involvement -- and were intended to give agencies a chance to stop an imminent attack.
Labor used its numbers in the Senate to amend the laws, calling for:
A REVIEW of the laws after three years.
GUARANTEED legal representation of a person's own choosing.
EXEMPTION for children under 18.
The Senate passed the amendments but the Government rejected them in the Lower House, saying they made the laws unworkable.
The deadlock could give Mr Howard a trigger by mid-year to dissolve both Houses of Parliament and call an early election.
"What the Senate has done ... is nothing short of security vandalism," Mr Howard said.
Mr Crean said Labor was willing to grant ASIO significant anti-terrorism powers, but would not undermine basic civil rights. "Have the capacity and the decency to get the balance right rather than just play grubby politics," Mr Crean said.
In a last-ditch compromise bid, the Government accepted some Opposition amendments, including a "sunset clause" that would extinguish the powers after three years.
It also agreed to grant detainees an interpreter and meal and toilet breaks during interrogations.
But it refused to budge on the exemption for children between 14 and 18, and the 20-hour restriction on questioning.
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