ASIO stalled on youth terror interrogations

ASIO will have to wait to get new powers to coercively question 14 and 15-year-olds and plant tracking devices on suspects without warrants.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton. Picture: Gary Ramage

ASIO will have to wait at least six weeks to get new powers to coercively question 14 and 15-year-olds and plant tracking devices on suspects without warrants after Labor delayed consideration of new legislation in parliament.

Labor’s Kristina Keneally called on Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton to split the bill to allow the passage of uncontroversial elements extending coer­cive questioning powers to espionage and foreign interference suspects.

The government and ASIO resisted the move, saying the legislation was needed in its entirety “to keep Australians safe in a complex and changing security environment”.

An ASIO spokesman said: “The bill represents a balanced and proportionate response to the evolving national security threats. It contains strong safeguards, and imposes rigorous oversight.”

It’s understood the bipartisan parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security, which had been close to green-lighting the ASIO bill, has shelved its report on the legislation until parliament resumes in the second week of October.

The PJCIS will issue recommendations shortly on proposed legislation to strip the citizenship of Australians who join overseas terrorist organisations.

The ASIO amendment bill would lower the age at which ASIO can coercively question suspects from 16 to 14, and allow intelligence officers to plant so-called “slap and track” devices on terror and espionage targets without judicial approval.

In a leaked letter to Mr Dutton, Senator Keneally, the opposition home affairs spokes­woman, said Labor was prepared to agree to “straightforward amendments” while the PJCIS further considered other elements of the bill.

“Such legislation could be passed through both chambers of parliament quite quickly, giving ASIO the confidence that it has compulsory questioning powers available to it now for espionage and acts of foreign interference as well as for terrorism cases,” she said.

She said the rest of the bill needed to be considered by the PJCIS in a manner that was “not seen to be rushed, to review what the government has already ­acknowledged is a complex legislative reform”.

In a submission to the PJCIS seeking to justify the new powers, ASIO said terrorists were being radicalised at a younger age by ­Islamist and far-right groups.

It said one of the seven terrorist attacks conducted in Australia since 2014 was carried out by a school-age person, and three disrupted plots had involved ­minors.

ASIO’s submission did not detail any cases involving 14-year-old terrorist offenders, but pointed to the murder of unarmed NSW police worker Curtis Cheng by 15-year-old terrorist Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar.

ASIO said the ­ability to plant tracking devices on terror and espionage targets without having to obtain a warrant would allow it to respond more quickly to security threats and protect officers from physical threats.