29th Oct 2014, 12:35 PM – Senate Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fighters) Bill 2014 - in Committee - Change exceptions to offence of entering and staying in a declared area

The majority did not want to change the exceptions to the offence of entering and staying in a declared area. Labor Senator Penny Wong had proposed to delete the current exceptions and replace them with an exception of "entering or remaining for a legitimate purpose".

Enter or stay in declared area offence

The bill will make it an offence for someone to enter or stay in an area that the Minister for Foreign Affairs declares as a declared area. A whole country can be a declared area, which was criticised by the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security.

The current exceptions to this offence (in proposed subsection 119.2(3)) include when a person is involved in:

• humanitarian aid (but this has to be the sole act),
• a court case,
• work for an Australian government (state or federal),
• work for a foreign government (so long as it's not violating Australian law),
• work for the United Nations,
• journalism, and
• visiting a family member.

Read more about this new offence in the bills digest.

Background to the bill

A number of incidents happened before and after this bill's introduction. There was one of the biggest counter-terrorism operations in Australian history. The Prime Minister Tony Abbott also confirmed that Australia would be sending the military to Iraq to fight the Islamic State (IS) (also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)).

Two particularly significant incidents were when:

• Australian teenager Abdullah Elmir threatened Prime Minister Tony Abbott in an IS video;
• Canadian gunman Michael Zehaf-Bibeau attacked the Canadian Parliament.