Losing our balance in 'Fortress Australia'

The checks and balances in Australia against the misuse of government power are also slight. Counter-terrorism laws highlight the weaknesses in our system of government and how we, more than ever, need strong protection against the abuse of our basic rights. We have in the past relied upon parliament to hold the government to account, but this is not enough. Ministerial responsibility is not the check that it once was, with greater capacity today for ministers to reject calls for their resignation by blaming failures upon their departments or a lack of knowledge.

As the deportation of US peace activist Scott Parkin shows, our government can take actions with a significant effect on freedom of speech and protest and on individual liberty, and it can do so without having to give adequate reasons. While criticism can also be levied at past governments, the stakes have never been so high. Past governments have not had the range of powers now at the disposal of the federal government, let alone the authority that would be gained under Howard's proposals. Indeed, the powers now in force are far more extensive than anything enacted during the Cold War to deal with communism.

With each new terrorist attack, it is possible that governments will seek harsher and harsher national security laws. Other nations are in the same cycle, in what appears to be a race to the bottom, although their laws are at least tempered by their explicit protection of fundamental rights.

Driven by fear and the need to act, we run the risk of a series of overreactions. This is the very dynamic that terrorists rely upon. What they cannot achieve by military might, they seek to achieve by stimulating our fears. Indeed, it is by our own actions that we are likely to isolate and ostracise members of our community who might then become targets for terrorist recruitment. It is also by our own actions that we travel further from our ideal of what a democratic and open society based upon the rule of law should be.