Terrorism (Police Powers) (Use of Force) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 21 June 2018.)

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (16:35): I rise to speak in support of the bill. The bill is yet another step in the early days of the Marshall government to go about ensuring that we legislate in a way so as to make steady and practical reform in the interests of those who are charged with the responsibility to implement enforcement measures, whether they be those who serve the Crown, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, our courts or, as is the case of the subject of the Terrorism (Police Powers) (Use of Force) Amendment Bill 2018, those who serve in the South Australian police force.

We take the opportunity, as we should do in this place on a regular basis, to recognise the great, dedicated and sustained work in the interests of our South Australian community that those who serve in the South Australian police do for all of us in terms of maintaining a strong and healthy community.

The bill fulfils yet another of the Marshall government's election commitments, and that is the commitment to ensure that we provide greater certainty for police in those circumstances in which police are engaged in the use of lethal force. The government is moving, in terms of the reform, the subject of the bill, in order to ensure that a broad suite of measures is in place to ensure that our community is kept safe from the threat of terrorism. In the environment that we face as a community, regrettably the threat of terrorism is one of those modern phenomena.

It is one that, if we as a community are to remain confident that we can go about our business in a normal and confident and orderly way, then we must also think of those who are charged with the responsibility for ensuring that there is an effective response to incidents in the nature of terrorism events in the event—and God forbid—that such events would occur. We know that this is more than just a theoretical construct, and we know, so sadly, that it is more than just a threat that we see by reference to events overseas.

For a long time, we have looked at global security events and we look on from a distance in Australia and we count ourselves fortunate in this country to be away from strife and away from violence and these sorts of events. Sadly, we in Australia are not immune to these sorts of events. We all know very well that in New South Wales in particular in 2014 the events around the siege that took place at the Lindt cafe in Martin Place in Sydney bring very close to home indeed the threat of terrorism and remind us that it is a threat that can reach us very much at home and very locally.

For me, in reflecting on the events surrounding the Lindt cafe siege, I reflect personally on how close these events come to us. Tragically, Katrina Dawson was among those who died. I never had the pleasure to meet Ms Dawson, but I worked with and counted amongst my friends Katrina's brother Sandy. In watching those terrible events unfold, I spent much time in the aftermath reflecting on what a terrible disaster it is to be affected directly by these terrorist events. They are not events that occur somewhere else: they are events that so tragically affect us here in Australia and they affect us locally and, indeed, they affect those who are near and dear to all of us.

We must ensure that we do all we can to ensure that those who are responding to these events have at their disposal the necessary power and the necessary certainty, as the bill provides, to act as is appropriate in response to those events. These amendments are very much informed by the approach that was taken by the New South Wales state coroner's investigation into the Lindt cafe siege and in so doing are informed by real experience.

The Terrorism (Police Powers) (Use of Force) Amendment Bill 2018 will ensure that if police find themselves in this situation, they have a clearly defined right to use lethal force when responding to terrorist incidents in a manner that is most likely to minimise the risk to members of the public. The Commissioner of Police or, as the case may be, the deputy commissioner, if the commissioner is unavailable and the situation is urgent—as we know, in an event such as this it may well conceivably be—is to issue a declaration that an incident constitutes a terrorist act.

A requirement in the bill is that the declaration be made in writing. In urgent situations, the declaration can be made verbally, followed by a written confirmation. The bill therefore anticipates that circumstances may evolve with such urgency that it is necessary to act immediately and provide that confirmatory step subsequently.

Once a declaration is issued, any police officer who uses force, including lethal force, will be protected from criminal liability, unless the relevant police officer acted in contravention of orders issued by the police officer in charge. The chain of command is preserved: the declaration is required by the responsible officer, the form of that declaration is prescribed, and circumstances of urgency are contemplated and dealt with by the process that contemplates a verbal order followed by a written order if the circumstances of urgency are such that that is necessary and warranted.

The bill will further provide for measures to ensure that the identity of officers involved in the use of force in this way are protected and that an individual officer's identity is protected, as may be requested by South Australia Police. I note in this regard that the question of having provision for the protection of the identity of individual officers is further directly responsive to the circumstances of an incident that occurred recently in this state, at Tailem Bend.

To return to my remarks at the outset, in relation to the nature of the threat that is posed, and that it is indeed a threat that hits home locally, I note that the provisions in this bill are very much responsive to the outcome of the coroner's inquiry in New South Wales and also informed by events that have occurred in this state. It perhaps serves on this occasion to remind ourselves of the circumstances that police face and the context in which police conduct their activities and exercise their judgements prior to the introduction of the provisions of the bill.

Police presently operate in an environment where, in making a decision and exercising lethal force in circumstances justifying the use of force, as was the case in New South Wales, police rely on the defence of self-defence and thereby need to rely on a regime in which their actions are judged against circumstances of a criminal defence, as opposed to a positive regime providing for the use of lethal force in prescribed circumstances.

This bill endeavours to address and redress the situation where there may be reluctance or a sense of uncertainty in the mind of an officer engaged in the sort of terrible circumstances we have seen to ensure that, when deployed, when acting and faced with circumstances in which an imminent decision must be made, there is a prescribed regime in which those decisions can be made, as opposed to the knowledge that in the aftermath the officer will need to think in terms of a relevant defence rather than a series of steps in the chain of command. The bill requires the exercise of force, if it comes to that, in accordance with the chain of command, in accordance with a declaration provided by the commissioner or the relevant officer, at all times exercised in good faith.

To return to where I started, it is hoped that in this country and indeed around the world we never again see circumstances analogous to those we witnessed, and far too many of us in this country experienced directly, during those awful hours as the Lindt cafe siege progressed. It is hoped that we never ever see anything of the like again. To my friend and former colleague Sandy Dawson, to all the Dawson family and to all those others who I do not know personally but who, through our Australian community, are touched directly, this is one of those occasions for me to express my personal heartfelt sadness at their loss and my personal grief in appreciating to some extent the tragedy of the loss of a family member, as happened at the Lindt cafe.

We as legislators can do no more than all we can to ensure that we have adequately equipped police and others who are in responding roles, to thank them for their dedicated service in all of our interest and in legislating as we can in this place to take steps to reform our laws so as to provide them with the greatest certainty with which to discharge their responsibilities. I commend this bill to the house.

Mr ODENWALDER (Elizabeth) (16:56): I rise to make a brief contribution to this bill. I declare that I am the lead speaker on this bill. I indicate immediately my support and the support of the opposition for the Terrorism (Police Powers) (Use of Force) Amendment Bill. I think it is important that in these matters, if nothing else, we need to strike as far as possible a bipartisan approach, so this is one of those times where the government has the opposition's full support in this bill so far as it goes.

I listened with great interest to the member for Heysen's contribution. I do not have that connection to the Lindt cafe siege, but I was in Sydney very close to Martin Place very shortly after that and saw the outpouring of emotion there on Martin Place. I saw the flowers and the wreaths and the tributes in Martin Place. I have never seen anything like it before or since in Australia. It drives home how important these matters are and how we need to, as the member for Heysen has said, give our police all the powers they need to deal with situations like this.

Before the last election, I know there was argy-bargy between the parties about what form this legislation should take, but before the last election both parties were supportive of similar legislation. Ours was a little different. The legislation we were pursuing was broader. The policy positions we were taking were broader, but essentially on the matters confined within this bill I think we are pretty unified.

This is an important issue. It is important because it is about providing certainty. It is about providing protection to people who have to make what is an unimaginably difficult decision, and they have to make these decisions every day, and that is whether or not to take another person's life in order to preserve their own or to preserve an innocent person's life. This is a terrible responsibility to put on someone and it is a responsibility that police officers face every day. They have to face every day situations where they do not know what to expect. They have a matrix of responses to situations and to threats ranging from do nothing to shoot someone in the stomach to stop them from attacking someone and everything in between.

They have to make those decisions every day. Thankfully, mostly they make decisions on the lower end of the scale but occasionally—and the member for Heysen outlined the legal parameters of these things—they have to make decisions on the extreme end of the scale. It is there that they need adequate protection. I understand there are political imperatives, but labelling the legislation 'shoot to kill', perhaps that was a media invention, I am not sure, but it is a little misleading. Police already have the power to kill, if you want to put it in those terms. They have the power to self-defend, as we all do, but they have the authority to preserve other people's lives when they see it at risk.

What we are arguing about is at what point can they make that decision and at what point will they be properly protected when they do make that decision. As I said, they do have a matrix at the moment. When every individual police officer is faced with any situation of a threatening nature, they have to decide at what point they are going to land on that continuum from do nothing to shoot someone and, in the process of shooting them, perhaps killing them or perhaps not. The intention is not to kill them but to stop the threat.

In effect, this legislation broadens the power to stop a threat to themselves or to other people but goes a little further, as the member for Heysen alluded to, than the self-defence provisions. In declared and narrowly defined situations, it includes threats that are not technically immediate but by any reasonable assessment they are imminent. Obviously, the police commissioner or the deputy commissioner, whoever it is, makes an assessment that this indeed may happen and declares it a terrorist attack.

As I said, the intent of the legislation is not to allow police to kill people per se. Importantly, it provides them with two things. It provides them with protection from criminal liability when they are required to use force. Also importantly, it provides them with anonymity in court proceedings and in the media around those court proceedings. These are key to this legislation. The opposition would not support this legislation without those two key components, and I am glad that they are front and centre in that regard.

There are of course police officers and the Police Association, in particular, who would like to see the anonymity provisions broadened out. They point to a case this year where the commissioner had to take something to the courts to overturn a coroner's decision to name STAR Force officers. I am not intimately familiar with the details of the case, but something we should all consider later on is whether police officers involved in terrorist investigations, or other investigations of a very sensitive nature, should be afforded some sort of automatic anonymity, as this bill provides, unless the Supreme Court considers it in the public interest or, indeed, if the officer decides to waive that right.

As I said, these two provisions are key to the opposition's support for this bill. Providing that these provisions are robust enough is something we looked at very closely. In the end, we were satisfied, and that is why we landed on a position where we support this bill. There is of course an argument, that I understand police advice hinted at last year, that these particular provisions should be broadened out to include incidents other than terrorist incidents. What springs to mind immediately are some of the horrific domestic violence sieges we have seen. There was an incident in New South Wales last week where someone took the life of his two children.

Domestic violence situations can end up in awful sieges where it is arguable that a death or serious injury is imminent or likely. There is a pretty good argument that police should be given powers similar to the powers in this bill, although not exactly the same, in order to deal with situations like that, but that is something we will come to. I will talk about that more at the committee stage, but I hope these are things that the Attorney has considered and will continue to consider as time goes on. Giving police these extra protections is certainly something that we are discussing on our side of politics. We will also be looking more closely at the anonymity provisions.

As I said at the beginning, and as the member for Heysen has outlined, these provisions were based on the New South Wales legislation, which in itself is based on the findings of the New South Wales coroner's inquiry into the Lindt cafe siege. It is worth reading a little bit about the coroner's conclusions in that case without going over the particulars of the case, with which we are all fairly familiar with. The coroner said:

The snipers and the police commanders [in the incident] believed that police did not have lawful authority to shoot Monis because he did not pose an imminent or immediate danger to the hostages. That belief was an unduly restrictive view of their powers. This interpretation of the circumstances failed to have sufficient regard to Monis' possession of a shotgun and suspected IED, his threats, his claimed allegiance to Islamic State, his unwillingness to negotiate, and his continuing to unlawfully deprive the hostages of their liberty.

The coroner goes on:

Nonetheless, I can readily appreciate why individual officers might be inclined to take a cautious approach to interpreting their powers. Their careers and even their own liberty could hinge on the later concurrence by others in the criminal justice system that their resort to deadly force was justified. I make no finding critical of the snipers who concluded they were not lawfully justified in shooting Monis before Tori Johnson was killed.

The coroner goes on to say:

It may be that the special powers available to police responding to terrorist incidents should include a more clearly defined right to use force.

The coroner then goes on to recommend:

…that the Minister for Police consider whether the provisions of the—

New South Wales act—

should be amended to ensure that police officers have sufficient legal protection to respond to terrorist incidents in a manner most likely to minimise the risk to members of the public.

As I said at the outset, this legislation is not about giving police powers to kill people. This is about protecting police officers who make reasonable decisions under very, very difficult circumstances, all within a framework where a situation has been declared of a particular nature by the commissioner or the deputy commissioner. I look forward to exploring this more in the committee stage, and I look forward to exploring in this house provisions where we can further protect the police in terms of criminal liability and also in terms of anonymity in other cases. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr BASHAM (Finniss) (17:06): I also rise to support this bill. Terrorist violence is an unfortunate reality in our lives. It comes in many forms, but there are two almost universal features of such incidents: innocent lives are at risk and there is a need for action by police to protect those innocent lives.

During my informative years at school, I certainly remember many times seeing the news and reading the stories from England of the IRA attacks and the horrific violence and death that used to occur many miles from us here in Australia and thinking, 'That could never come here.' Unfortunately, the world has changed, and those sorts of threats have become much more common right across the world, and we have seen significant threats starting to appear here in Australia. Australia is a very peaceful country for the most part, but we are seeing, sadly, these violent terrorist incidents occur.

One of the first such incidents to occur in Australia actually goes back to the time of World War I. It happened on New Year's Day in 1915 in Broken Hill. Three people were killed by foreign nationals firing on a train. Three others were killed and seven wounded, including two children, in the aftermath. The foreign nationals were then killed by what was effectively an unlawful lynch mob. Police and military at the time were inept and slow to respond. One fortunate thing in our society these days is that that is not the case. We have fantastic police and military forces who are well-trained and well equipped to deal with such incidents.

We as lawmakers also need to play our role, ensuring that there are laws sufficient to deal with the terrorist violence. The Terrorism (Police Powers) (Use of Force) Amendment Bill 2018 is a considerable, positive step in this direction. The drafting of this bill has been informed by the findings from and responses to the New South Wales coroner's investigation into the Lindt cafe siege. Like the member for Lee, I also was in Sydney in the days just after the Lindt cafe siege. Like him, I was very much taken aback by the outpouring of grief, the difficulty in moving around the city and the reluctance of taxidrivers even to go through the city when we were trying to get down to Circular Quay from the airport. It was very confronting and also moving to see so close at hand how that community had been affected and hurt by what had occurred.

The bill will ensure that police officers, when responding to terrorist incidents, have a clear and defined right to use lethal force in a manner most likely to minimise the risk to members of the public. The Commissioner of Police, or the deputy commissioner if the commissioner is unavailable and the situation is urgent, is to issue a declaration that an incident constitutes a terrorist act. The declaration must be made in writing. In urgent situations, the declaration can be made verbally with written confirmation to follow as soon as practicable.

Once a declaration has been issued, police officers who use force, including lethal force, will be protected from criminal liability unless they act in contravention of orders issued by the police officer in charge. As requested by SAPOL, the bill will contain a provision to protect the identities of officers involved in the use of force. This is a direct response to the incident that occurred recently at Tailem Bend. Currently, the police rely on the defence of self-defence when justifying the use of force. This was also the case in New South Wales.

The bill seeks to address the reluctance of police officers to use lethal force and to protect police officers from the risk of criminal liability when they are acting in good faith. To protect us in such incidents, police officers often need to make immediate, decisive decisions and actions. In a moment, a life might be lost forever. Police officers need to be able to make those decisions to protect innocent lives so those innocent lives are not lost. We also need to protect those police officers who take those decisive actions so they do not second-guess themselves when taking the force necessary.

I am very grateful for the work of the South Australian police force in protecting us as a society. They do a great job keeping the community safe and secure. Rarely, but sometimes, actions beyond the norm have to be taken to protect us. In those instances, police officers should be protected. Police officers go to work every day knowing this could be the day they are asked to make that instant decision to protect a life. That must be very challenging for the people who do that job. I admire them for their efforts and their ability to work every day under those circumstances.

I hope with all my heart that this legislation never, ever has to be used. I hope that we never see here the acts we see elsewhere in the world and that are becoming more and more common across the world. Terrorism is a very sad reality in today's world. The effect on our community is enormous.

I reflect back to shortly after the September 11 attack in America when my wife and I were on our honeymoon. I remember having breakfast on the cruise ship out of Los Angeles, and a lady from Washington joined us for breakfast. This was probably around two years after the act of terrorism in New York, but this lady was so scared, she was still unable to fly. She had bused her way to the cruise ship from Washington to Los Angeles, which is a bit like going from Sydney to Perth to board a cruise ship. She would have loved to come to Australia, but she could no longer get here because the length of the cruise she would have to take to get to Australia was well beyond her budget. She could not see how she could ever fly again.

Acts of terrorism have very long-lasting effects on people. It is not just the instant loss of life; it is very much an ongoing effect on our community. I very much support this bill and commend it to the house.

Mr RAU (Enfield) (17:16): I will be very brief. I do not want to repeat anything that has already been said. Obviously, I endorse all the remarks of the shadow minister in relation to this matter. I will just raise something for the consideration of the Attorney, and those who advise her, between here and somewhere else. If you look at the legislation that is being put before us presently, the key element of the legislation is the definition of 'a terrorist act', which appears in proposed new section 27A.

If you try to work out what that means, you are referred back to the primary legislation, which in turn refers you back to the Commonwealth Criminal Code, which itself is fairly elaborate; I would describe it as something like a maze. My point is this: in the past five minutes I have not been able to ascertain exactly what it means because the Commonwealth Criminal Code is a riddle inside of an enigma, but let us not go down that path. The point is that there is a jurisdictional uncertainty in this bill, not because the Attorney has deliberately made a mistake, and not because the shadow minister is not interested in solving this problem. It is because I am concerned that this is not clear enough.

The reason I am concerned is that in the event of this thing being triggered, and the police going off and doing a whole bunch of things in good faith, if it goes badly for whatever reason and if it turns out ex post facto that there has not been the jurisdictional threshold of a 'terrorist act' met, then whatever protections this is supposed to be offering them vanish. I realise that this is like a one in a million, needle in a haystack-type proposition, but if we are trying to ensure that police are protected in doing the duty they have to do for all of us, it is worth considering the fundamental jurisdictional weakness attached to this and asking ourselves whether or not we can do something to pull that up by its bootstraps.

I emphasise that I am not criticising the legislation the Attorney is bringing forward. I think the shadow minister has made it clear that we are supporting it. However, I just point out that, as far as I can determine, there is an ambiguity at the centre of this. I am damned if I can work out how any police officer, operational or otherwise, is supposed to wrap their head around that in the heat of the moment. If they get it wrong, it is possible—and I am not saying likely, but it is possible—that there could be litigation which is enabled by the gap between what they think they are doing and what this law actually lets them do.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (17:19): I rise to support the Terrorism (Police Powers) (Use of Force) Amendment Bill 2018. Very sad terrorism activities have taken place in the world for a very long time. The member for Finniss reflected on the World War I terrorist attack on a train near Broken Hill. I read that story a couple of years ago and it intrigued me that that was a terrorist act on Australian soil where three people lost their lives to international terrorists. We have seen so many acts over time and, obviously, in recent times on the international stage through the acts of ISIS or ISIL that have torn communities apart. Thankfully, they have been basically pretty well destroyed.

This legislation was based mainly around the Lindt cafe siege, which took place in Martin Place on 15 December 2014 and lasted for some 17 hours. People were just going about their business and going into a cafe for a cup of coffee or a cup of tea or perhaps just going to catch up with a friend and have something to eat and then all hell breaks loose. It is just terrifying to think about the situation and what could possibly have been going through those people's minds during that siege.

During that siege a total of 18 hostages were confirmed—eight staff and 10 customers of the cafe. Tragically, we had two deaths—Tori Johnson died after being shot by Monis and Katrina Dawson was killed during the police raid. We have had some comments from the member for Heysen about his relationship with the Dawson family. I apologise if I get the pronunciation of some of these names wrong. Marcia Mikhael, Robin Hope and Louisa Hope were also injured during the siege. Other hostages included: Paolo Vassallo, John O'Brien, Stefan Balafoutis, Elly Chen, Jieun Bae, Harriette Denny, Viswakanth Ankireddy, Joel Herat, Fiona Ma, Jarrod Hoffman, Puspendu Ghosh, Selina Win Pe and Julie Taylor.

I remember the vision from the cafe scene and the people who at different times managed to get out of the cafe and escape into the waiting arms of the police and other emergency services people. But it also was confusing when you could see that, from where Channel 7 were, there was a clear line of sight for what you could call the kill shot. A lot of this debate has come about because there was a clear line of sight, but it is all about whether police have the right to use lethal force. That has been debated long and hard since the siege and, obviously, there was a coronial inquest report.

I must salute those brave police officers who just charged in when the gunshot went off just before the siege ended, because at that time they had no choice but to act because there was obviously a threat to human life. They charged in at risk to their own lives and took control of the situation. For the training that these people have to do in the police force and the decisions they have to make under pressure, you must absolutely commend them. When there is an incident, it is not always a terrorism incident like this. It can be an incident involving the STAR Force with a domestic situation.

I know there was one on Hindley Street a little while ago now where someone held a child hostage, and I believe it was a STAR Force officer who rolled across the bonnet, shot the perpetrator and saved the child. What would have happened, in my understanding, if that police officer had killed the perpetrator of the hostage situation, is there would have been a coronial inquest and they would have been suspended on full pay. This always hangs in the back of their mind.

I know that there is some reflection, and it was not a terrorism act as such, on what happened at Tailem Bend. It was at Elwomple, just down the road from Tailem Bend, where STAR Force police and other police were involved in a siege and tragically had to use lethal force to end that siege, but they know their rights and responsibilities. Under obviously imminent threat they have to make that hard decision. They are trained to kill. Let's not muck around, they are trained to kill and that is how to end these scenes. They had to make that hard decision to take those shots.

I am going to read an extract taken from the coronial inquest report into the Lindt cafe siege, and it is from the conclusion of the authority to use deadly force. It states:

The snipers and the police commanders believed that police did not have lawful authority to shoot Monis because he did not pose imminent or immediate danger to the hostages. That belief was an unduly restrictive view of their powers. This interpretation of the circumstances failed to have sufficient regard to Monis' possession of a shotgun and suspected [improvised explosive device], his threats, his claimed allegiance to Islamic State, his unwillingness to negotiate, and his continuing to unlawfully deprive hostages of their liberty.

Nonetheless, I can readily appreciate why individual officers might be inclined to take a cautious approach to interpreting their powers. Their careers and even their own liberty could hinge on the later concurrence by others in the criminal justice system that their resort to deadly force was justified. I make no finding critical of the snipers who concluded they were not lawfully justified in shooting Monis before Tori Johnson was killed.

It may be that the special powers available to police responding to terrorist incidents should include a more clearly defined right to use force.

In recommendation 24 of that coronial inquest report was the use of force in terrorist incidents. It states:

I recommend that the Minister for Police consider whether the provisions of the Terrorism (Police Powers) Act 2002 should be amended to ensure that police officers have sufficient legal protection to respond to terrorist incidents in a manner most likely to minimise the risk to members of the public.

We on this side are introducing the Terrorism (Police Powers) (Use of Force) Amendment Bill 2018 because it fulfils another Marshall Liberal government election commitment to provide that greater certainty for police in the use of lethal force. Through our government, we will ensure that a broad suite of measures is in place to keep the community safe from the threat of terrorism. As I indicated, these amendments are well and truly informed by the approach taken in New South Wales in 2017 in response to the New South Wales state coroner's investigation into the Lindt cafe siege.

This bill will ensure that police officers have a clearly defined right to use lethal force when responding to terrorist incidents in a manner most likely to minimise the risk to members of the public. The Commissioner of Police, or the deputy commissioner if the commissioner is unavailable and the situation is urgent, is to issue a declaration that an incident constitutes a terrorist act.

The declaration must be made in writing but, obviously, in these situations there can be an urgent situation where that cannot happen straightaway. In that case, the declaration can be made verbally with written confirmation to follow as soon as practicable. Once a declaration has been issued, police officers who use force, including lethal force, will be protected from criminal liability unless they acted in contravention of orders issued by the police officer in charge. The bill will also contain a provision to protect the identity of officers involved in the use of force, as requested by SAPOL.

Even though it was not a so-called terrorist act but a siege situation, this is a direct response to the incident that occurred recently in my electorate at Elwomple, near Tailem Bend. Currently, police rely on the defence of self-defence when justifying the use of force, as was the case in New South Wales. What this bill seeks to do is address the reluctance to use lethal force and protect police officers from the risk of criminal liability when they are acting in good faith.

I certainly note the comments by the members for Enfield and Elizabeth and other members on my side of the house in regard to how far you can go with authorising lethal force. With this bill, it is to do with terrorism and police powers. Perhaps this is the start of a process of making sure we have the right balance between community safety and protecting those police officers who do, quite frankly, lay their life on the line. Sadly, some people pay the ultimate price in protecting our community. I certainly salute them.

I think of what happened with Derrick McManus all that time ago on 3 May 1994. Derrick McManus was going around to present a warrant to Tony Grosser and was shot 14 times during a 41-hour siege. He could not be rescued for three hours, but his colleagues bravely went in and got him. Dr Bill Griggs, who is quite a famous retrieval doctor on the medical retrieval team, says:

He is one of the sickest patients I've ever had to treat that has actually survived...I actually don't know how he survived, he's an incredible human being.

The story of Derrick's preparation, survival and eventual triumph is a universal message of what can be achieved through sheer guts, determination, setting achievable goals and a never say die attitude. I had the pleasure of being at a forum in Meningie where Derrick McManus spoke. He is an inspiration who paid a high price.

Apart from the physical price he paid that day, I believe he paid a very high personal price with disruption to his family and his very near-death experience. I know this is not directly related as a terrorist incident, but it just shows the extent of what our forces and brave people like Officer McManus go to to protect our community. It also shows the extent of what his fellow police officers and people in the medical fraternity, like Dr Bill Griggs, did to keep him alive when they could not get to him immediately because they were in Tony Grosser's direct line of fire.

We need to make sure we get the right outcomes. We need to make sure we have the right protections. We need to make sure we have community safety. In this world, we have seen terrible incidents overseas such as in Manchester, the Bataclan in Paris and so many other sites where people are resorting to different weapons of a terrorist nature. People use vehicles on the road, whether it be a car, a small van or a truck.

We see what communities have to do just to protect themselves, using bollards and other devices to stop people using these everyday things for conducting our lives, like vehicles, as weapons with deadly effect. I look forward to the continuation of the debate over time. I know several other members want to continue the debate, and I will certainly be interested in the committee process. I commend the bill.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General) (17:37): I would like to commence by thanking all speakers who have contributed to the debate on the Terrorism (Police Powers) (Use of Force) Amendment Bill 2018. A number of matters were raised by the shadow minister, which I will endeavour to clarify as quickly as possible, but perhaps I will first address the member for Enfield's contribution, for which I thank him. Unfortunately, this issue had not been resolved under the previous government.

The previous minister had taken the view that this was not necessary and that we do not need the provisions in this bill, so I particularly welcome the shadow minister's indication that, under the new shadow ministry in opposition, they have seen the light on this and are supporting the same. There are a number of reasons for this. It is a longstanding Liberal Party commitment to clarify in the statutes the protection of police officers in respect of criminal liability.

We have undertaken that commitment in this legislation and, in addition to that, we have made provision for an extra matter raised by SAPOL, and that was the protection of anonymity of police officers who are involved in a siege situation in a terrorist scenario. Just to be clear, the police already have special provision in respect of sieges. The McManus situation has been outlined and the tragic circumstances of police officer Derrick McManus's injury. Special forces are sent in to try to deal with those circumstances. Members of these special squads are not named in the general press for good reason.

The Commissioner of Police put to us, via submissions by the Police Association and directly, that in a terrorist situation if officers work in a circumstance where there has been a declaration, a special force is sent in to deal with the terrorist situation and they too need to have this protection. It could not be in a situation where their names would be disclosed and therefore may be vulnerable to some repercussions from those who might be party to or sympathetic with the conduct of terrorist activity.

We listened to that, so this is a new initiative we have added into this bill which not only accommodates that which we think is worthy of consideration and important that it be in the statute, other than protection in circumstances where investigative officers have some protection of anonymity in the serious and organised crime arena which again is a circumstance where police officers need to be protected. So, we have these circumstances where outside of the normal rules there needs to be protection and then, individually, circumstances where a police officer may seek to have their anonymity protected.

The most recent I can think of was when the Coroner was investigating a matter in which Mr Clavell was in a siege situation here in the city in which he died. During the siege, I think he had three women allegedly in a siege situation. In any event, his death was investigated by the Coroner and recommendations were made. There was much discussion in the course of the hearing of that matter, and then ultimately in the determination, of whether police officers' names should be suppressed—in other words, kept confidential—to ensure that there was no potential repercussion to them and I suppose quite possibly also their family. Ultimately, that protection was upheld and prior commentary made in the course of that case I think was quashed to ensure the protection of police officers.

We provide for that in a number of circumstances. In this instance, we consider the request of SAPOL to be meritorious. We have recognised that and included it in the bill. The matter, though, which I started to recount and respond to which I interrupted myself on was that of the member for Enfield's contribution. He raised the question of definition of what is a terrorist act, and he quite rightly pointed out that the bill before us identifies the terrorist act declaration to be referenced in clause 3 to refer one to section 27A of the primary act, that is, the Terrorism (Police Powers) Act 2005. When you get there, you then find that you are referred to commonwealth regulation that sets out what a terrorist act declaration is as part of the terrorist act definitions.

I agree. It is really irritating to say the least and sometimes difficult to quickly traverse the transfer from pieces of legislation. Some would say you would go online and look at the electronic version and you would cross-reference to each of the bills as they might be referred to, but the reality is that sometimes it is not clear when you get to the end. I will undertake to provide to the house, and certainly to the opposition, a copy of the commonwealth definition which applies just so that it is absolutely clear for those who are following this debate, or indeed to the police commissioner if he has any confusion about what it actually is defined as.

Although I appreciate the member for Enfield raising this matter, he was the previous Attorney-General who made amendments to the Terrorist (Police Powers) Act 2005. He attended a number of national meetings with attorneys-general from around the country, and for a period that also included police ministers, during which time there were joint meetings over the last few years dealing with terrorist acts. There is no question that everyone's attention to this was heightened after the Lindt cafe siege and the subsequent coronial inquiry and other inquiries that took place subsequent to that event.

I am just a little puzzled that he is a bit confused as to what it might mean. After all those years of his making decisions about bills and making submissions at national meetings, he is a bit confused as to what a terrorist act is. I am not quite sure how his contribution would have been effective at those national meetings. Nevertheless, he has had a lightbulb moment as to what needs to be clarified. I am happy to try to assist him in that regard to ensure that we have some clear understanding of what is being described. Let me explain.

As I am advised, the reason we have reference to the commonwealth regulation in this regard and their definitions is that there has been the development of a number of laws relating to terrorism in detention and criminal sanctions, etc. As much as possible, states have tried to work with the commonwealth to have some uniformity in relation to definition and application. To do that, we need to agree what is to be a terrorist act so that when states like ours come into our parliament and say, 'We want to be able to provide either powers or protections to our own state police force who are and, we anticipate, continue to be the first responders to these incidents and are likely to be probably the only responders to many of them,' they are the people who are called in.

The police commissioner in South Australia is the one who will be asked to make a terrorist act declaration, so we need to pass legislation that will arm them with that and protect them with the exemption from criminal liability, as we are doing this act. Therefore, we need to have a clear understanding of what that definition is. We can still refer to it. We can make provision for members to know what it is, but the reason we are not putting it in stone in our piece of legislation is because of the general agreement to try to keep consistency around the country. If there is going to be a change in that definition, the logical extension of that is that we would ask the commonwealth to change that. We would then have a consequential application in each of our jurisdictions.

I hope that covers the matter from the point of view of identifying why that is the way it is prescribed. I thank members for their contribution. This is a very difficult matter. It is a serious issue. We have committed to it and we have delivered on it, and I, like other members, hope that we do not have to deal with this in the future. I do not want to be in the situation of putting on the Channel 7 news again as I did when viewing Sydney then 24/7 during the Lindt cafe siege, knowing that my son worked in the Channel 7 building at the time, fearing what on earth was going on and wondering whether he was at work. Had he gone and got a cup of coffee at the Lindt cafe across the road before he went to work?

This touches everybody. Everyone, somewhere, knows someone who is vulnerable in that situation, or, for example, as the member for Heysen has identified, is very good friends with the brother of one of those who was tragically killed. This ripples through the whole community, and even if you did not know somebody directly who was vulnerable in those circumstances it sends a shiver up everyone's spine to think that this may happen again in the future and people we love may be in the firing line. With that, I thank members for their contribution and propose that we move to committee, clause 1, and then I think we have other matters to deal with.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

Clause 1.

Progress reported; committee to sit again.