National Security versus Civil Liberties: Towards an Australian Bill of Rights

Issues of border security were already at the forefront of the political agenda (Brennan 2003) when the events of September 11 and the Bali bombings shocked the Australian political landscape. Amidst this climate of fear, legislation was rushed1 through Parliament to combat the ‘terrorists’. The resulting terror laws, which include new state powers to detain citizens not accused of crimes and the reversal of the burden of proof on the state,2 have been dubbed “some of the most draconian ‘counter-terrorism’ measures in the western world” (Hocking 2004; also Evans 2003). Unfortunately, the frantic rush to pass legislation to protect the state may have evoked Sir Thomas More’s (Roper 1967:147) fear that in ‘cutting down’ the rule of law to ‘get after the devil’, citizens have ‘nowhere to hide’ from the abuse of state power.