MELBOURNE — More 100 people attended the “`War on Terrorism': Democracy Under Challenge” conference in Melbourne on August 9. The conference was hosted by the Victoria University law school and supported by the Federation of Community Legal Centres, Liberty Victoria and the Western Suburbs Legal Service.

The Australian government's new “anti-terror” law and a bill to allow ASIO to detain people for questioning were extensively discussed.

ACTU president Sharan Burrow opened the conference. She described how the terrorist attacks of September 11 provided the world's rulers with a “gleeful opportunity to turn back the clock”.

Jenny Hocking, author of Beyond Terrorism: The Development of the Australian Security State, described the ASIO bill as a “militarised approach to surveillance”. Human rights lawyer Julian Burnside said that the “anti-terror” laws fundamentally diverged from established criminal law principles because it is “the first time that a criminal act has been defined by reference to an ideological purpose” rather than being defined merely by the act itself and the state of mind of the accused.

The act states that an action or a threat of an action is terrorist if it “is done or the threat is made with the intention of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause”. Although “advocacy, protest, dissent or industrial action” may be exempted from what constitutes a “terrorist act”, Burnside pointed out that picketing is not lawful industrial action under the Workplace Relations Act and as a result may not enjoy the exemption.

Gary Blasi, professor of law at the University of California, described the heavy encroachments on civil liberties in the US following September 11. Other speakers at the conference included Tim Anderson, Jude McCulloch and Helen Caldicott.

Conference papers can be obtained at <http://www.vulaw.net/vunuke/>.

From Green Left Weekly, August 21, 2002.
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