Bundarrah Days

I don't usually comment on issues unrelated to the environment and environmental politics but in the case of accused terrorist doctor, Mohammed Haneef, I'm prepared to make an exception.

Firstly, I want to point out that the Federal Government is elected and among its responsibilities is national security.

Secondly, the judiciary is not elected and contains far too many activist judges and magistrates.

The latter are now screaming injustice over the detention of Mohammed Haneef for reasons of national security but I don't think I'm being particularly cynical when I observe that that these same people would have no hesitation locking you and I up on a charge of culpable driving, for example. In other words I am saying they are legal hypocrites.

Obviously I believe in the rule of law and the importance of an independent judiciary. I also believe that sometimes a government has to take steps that might appear to work against that independence in order to protect it.

Terrorism poses a serious threat to our way of life and dealing with it is going to require extraordinary actions on a number of fronts if we are to preserve the things we value most highly.

Greg Sheridan had this to say in The Australian today. I agree with him.

"If any part of our system has performed badly here, it is the courts for refusing to implement the intention of the legislation, which is that bail should be rare in terrorism cases. This judgment of the legislature is shared by Howard and Rudd. So is the civil liberties section of the legal profession telling us not only that they are well motivated, whereas the politicians are malevolently motivated, but that they, the lawyers, understand the threat of terrorism better than the political system understands it?

Finally, Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews decided that if Haneef were to be at large he could not, in Andrews's view, pass the good character test. Andrews outlined his reasons in documents released by Haneef's lawyers. These included that Haneef was charged with a serious crime and was a known associate of people Andrews had reason to believe were engaged in criminal activity. There were also reasons Andrews could not disclose, but we know that these involved AFP investigations that showed Haneef was in frequent and elaborate contact with people at the centre of the British terrorism investigations. There is other material that, despite the best efforts of a robust media, we have not yet found out.

On the basis of this evidence, Andrews made the right decision. There is no universal human right that says everyone on the planet is entitled to a visa for Australia. Visas come with requirements, among them the character test. Given the information Andrews received, he really had no alternative.

I predict Haneef will not languish long in Villawood detention centre, nor that he will be charged for his accommodation by the Government. In many areas of the law - from apprehended violence orders to preventing people who have long since completed their sentence in corporate crimes from becoming company directors - the law has to act to protect and prevent, rather than to punish. Getting the balance right in such cases is always difficult. But I would trust our democratic political system a thousand times more than I would trust its civil liberties lawyers."