CANBERRA : Australia's government rushed controversial emergency
anti-terrorist legislation through parliament after Prime Minister
John Howard said he had received credible reports of a planned
terror attack against the country.
Critics quickly suggested the timing of Howard's announcement of an
unspecified terror plot was linked to his government's plans to
push through a raft of new anti-terror laws that have been labelled
a threat to civil liberties.
But Howard said that following the new alert from security
agencies, he had obtained the support of political leaders from
across the political spectrum to alter existing legislation so that
police could act against suspected terrorists even before they had
details of a specific planned attack.
"We have decided to alter the existing terrorism legislation to
substitute for a current provision which says that in order to
prove a charge you have to prove an established preparation for a
specific terrorist act with a more general provision providing for
a terrorist attack," he said.
The new amendment would add further
grounds for banning groups and "clarify that, in a prosecution for
a terrorism offence, it is not necessary to identify a particular
terrorist act," Howard said.
"It will be sufficient for the
prosecution to prove that the particular conduct was related to a
terrorist act."
The amendment is part of controversial new anti-terror laws that
the government drafted after the London transport bombings by
British-born Muslims in July that killed more than 50 people.
The new laws, under which suspects can be
detained without charge for up to two weeks, placed under house
arrest and fitted with tracking devices, have been widely
criticised as infringing on civil liberties.
Australia has not been attacked on its own turf but Australian
interests have been targeted elsewhere.
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