Anti Terrorism In Australia

The aim of this report is to explore the anti – terrorism legislation in depth within Australia, and the effectiveness of it. “Australia has long played a leading role in the development of laws to combat terrorism.” (Australian Government, 2008) The validity of Australian anti – terrorism laws have long been questioned by the contemporary society. One of these being a recent example of five men being charged over an allegedly attempting to leave Australia by boat to join the Islamic State in Syria. Although no hostile activities occurred, they were extradited to Melbourne to face court. Issues to be covered are the outline of the legislation and the way it’s being put into place, examples of counter terrorism within the country (both being

a legally constituted government. Following the September 11 attacks in the United States, Australia made its first serious attempts at developing anti – terrorism legislation. One of the first acts of counter terrorism by Australia was the Government directing the National Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to take steps Banking Regulations to block accounts which might be associated with persons or organisations identified by either the United Nations (UN) or United States. (Hancock, 2002) October 8th, the Government made regulations in accordance to the Charter of the United Nations Act 1945 (Cth). The regulations would prevent an Australian[s] within the country from dealing with either financial or other assets with people or entities that engage in or support terrorism, or who may either be in direct or indirect control of such a person[s] or entities. The expression “terrorism” appears very scarcely in a number of Commonwealth statutes. National Security and Organised Crime are two subsections one would think terrorism consists of. While terrorism is rarely used within Commonwealth statutes, national security it used quite often. The expression “national security” again is used in a wider variety of statutory contexts. It is used to describe the purposes for which assistance must be provided

The ABC published an article in May 2013 that the excessive anti – terrorism laws must go. It exclaims that the laws are a product of the hysteria which prevailed in the aftermath of major international terrorist attacks such as 9/11. (ABC, 2013) This piece exclaims the importance of creating new anti – terrorism laws, considering it has been more than a decade since our first anti – terrorism laws have been enacted. It goes on to state that there is no longer a justification for delay in reforming our anti-terrorism laws. Also, the government should not be excused by its claim that consultation with the states and territories is necessary, nor should the federal election be an excuse for failure to act upon this. George Williams, a Professor of Law at the University of NSW, states that Australia has the concept of stopping terroristic regimes wrong. He states: “We place too much weight on the idea that terrorism can be prevented by enacting new laws.” (Williams, 2015) Williams continues to state that 64 anti – terrorism statues have been put into place since the September 11 attacks. During the time of the Howard Government, a new anti – terrorism law was passed every 6.7 weeks. These laws were produced to keep Australians safe, however, to also produce a sense of alienation within the Muslim