Comment on the Terrorism (Community Protection) Amendment Bill 2021

While the objectives  of the Bill in seeking to increase engagement in the community and to enhance community safety are laudable, the manner in which they are sought to be achieved is inapt and the proposals go well beyond what is required to meet those objectives.

We hold concerns that this scheme will lead to an increase in mistrust among certain sectors of the community and that it is open to significant abuses of power.
We will focus our concerns on two key areas:
(1)    Eligibility for the scheme and manner of persons being entered into the scheme; and
(2)    Intrusion of freedom of association, privacy and information sharing.