Submission — News — Queensland Council for Civil Liberties

Submission to Inquiry into Youth Justice Reform

Most persistent offenders acquire a criminal record, so one option is to increase the rate at which we imprison recidivist juvenile offenders. Even the most optimistic research to date suggests that incapacitation is not a very cost-effective way of reducing juvenile crime. The money we spend incarcerating juvenile offenders would, in many circumstances, be better spent treating or trying to rehabilitate them. There is good evidence that treatment for drug dependence is an effective way of reducing re-offending. There is also good evidence, despite earlier suggestions to the contrary, that it is possible to rehabilitate re-offenders using methods such as conferencing, cognitive behavioural therapy or training in basic life skills.

Double Jeopardy Exception and Subsequent Appeals Bill 2023

The rule against double jeopardy is not a rule designed to protect the guilty but to protect the innocent.

Criminal Law (Coercive Control and Affirmative Consent) and Other Legislation 2023

The issue is how do we meet the legitimate aims of this legislation whilst protecting the fundamental liberty rights at stake in the criminal justice process.

2023 DIGITAL ID ACCREDITATION

The implementation of a digital identity scheme in Australia is a significant step and it is imperative that this is approached in a way that is measured, transparent, comprehensively safeguarded and that the Australian community is fully informed as to all potential consequences of this path;

Submission on the proposed changes to Dog Laws

The important connection between a dog and their owner renders the destruction order a decision that should be a last resort and made with careful consideration. Destruction orders infringe upon the rights of the dog and the dog owner. However, the threat the dog poses to the community and the careful consideration that occurs for destruction orders renders such a decision appropriate and necessary to uphold community safety in the relevant circumstances.

SubmissionQueensland Council for Civil Liberties23 August 2023Courts, Human Rights, Animal Rights

Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill

The government's role as an intellectual arbiter of the truth in social and political debate must be constricted, if not completely denied. This is based on a deep skepticism about the good faith of those controlling the government. That skepticism flows from the fact that decisions about what is true or false, when made by those in power, are bound up with political perspectives of those in power. In that regard the government is not impartial when it comes to contested disputes about the facts underlying political life. This is not meant to be some conspiracy theory. It derives from the fact that in the words of Lord Acton “All power tends to corrupt.”

Response to Safe and Responsible AI In Australia Discussion Paper

In our view, Australia should require any development or application of artificial intelligence to an authorisation and licensing process that primarily focuses on the human rights implication(s) and we submit that this approach ought to be consistently applied to State use of these computational processes as well as any private development or application

Inquiry into Australia’s Human Rights Framework

Currently, Australia is the last western democratic country to refrain from explicitly protecting their human rights in legislation, which has subsequent implications for the protection of human rights for Australian citizens

Review of the National Security Information (Criminal and Civil Proceedings) Act 2004

This broad definition of ‘information’ and over-classification of what amounts to ‘national security information’ has serious implications. Anything that could fall within these definitions could be withheld from the defendant (or, in civil proceedings, withheld from one party[1]), which relates to issues of due process discussed above. These broad definitions and scope of the Act increased the encroachment of the executive on due process and a right to a fair trial. As a result, the executive is given ‘enormous scope for unwarranted interference in the administration of justice’

Criminal Code (Serious Vilification and Hate Crimes) Amendment Bill 2023

We remain of the view that you cannot end racism and other pernicious ideas by censorship and policing. What needs to be done is to focus on addressing the root causes of why some people are attracted to such ideologies in the first place, including social isolation, growing economic insecurity and mistrust in government and the media.

Response to the Privacy Act Review Report

We commend the Report as it addresses our submission and, in our view, is a significant and positive step towards the proper recognition and protection of Australians’ right to privacy.

Strengthening Community Safety Bill.

With respect, in our opinion, the current Youth Justice Act is appropriate for the circumstances and Queensland‘s current environment. Knee-jerk responses to bad publicity should never be used as the basis for law reform.

Local Government Electoral Expenditure Caps Bill 2022

Restrictions on electoral expenditure are akin to the rules of debate in a meeting which restricts the length of speeches and provide for rights of reply. In the context of political speech, the restrictions are essential to fairness, in that the arms race between various political players is continuously increasing the cost of elections, which results in an increasing number of people being excluded from the political process. Capping expenditure would also help to create closer financial equality between candidates at elections

SubmissionQueensland Council for Civil Liberties20 January 2023Elections, Free speech, criminal law

Police Powers and Responsibilities (Jack's Law) Amendment Bill 2022

Astonishingly, when the government announced these laws, it relied upon a review of the trial of this system as justifying their introduction. As this submission will demonstrate, to the contrary, that report justified the criticisms which have been made of this type of law.

SubmissionQueensland Council for Civil Liberties13 January 2023Police, police powers, Privacy, Human Rights

Child Protection (Offender Reporting and Offender Prohibition Order) Bill 2022

We start from the premise that prisoners including those on probation, parole or other post detention supervised release, do not have the same privacy rights as ordinary citizens, but they are not stripped of their entire right to privacy

Domestic and Family Violence Protection (Combating Coercive Control) Bill 2022

The Council maintains its position that the advancement of women’s equality and protecting them from violence cannot come at the expense of fundamental legal principles and arrangements designed to protect the liberty of everyone

Submission on the National Anti-Corruption Commission Bill 2022

Civil libertarians have traditionally been very sceptical about the creation of standing Royal Commissions such as this. And in our view, there have been examples of cases in which the State Commissions have abused their powers. So it is perhaps with some reluctance that we accept the necessity of this body. Accepting that there is a need for this body it is absolutely vital that it is not given an unrestrained roving commission to enforce vague notions of integrity.

Public Health and Other Legislation (Covid-19 Management) Amendment Bill 2022

In 2001 and 2005 the Federal and State Parliaments passed laws designed to deal with terrorism. Most of those laws were subject to sunset clauses. Over 20 years later those laws remain in place, with the sunset period being regularly extended with very little debate. The liberty undermining principles contained in those laws have now been extended into numerous other areas of the criminal law, as we predicted they would. We do not wish the continuing existence of these powers to be used as justification for the micromanagement of people’s lives in other areas.

SubmissionQueensland Council for Civil Liberties16 September 2022Covid19, Human Rights Act

Proposed local government electoral expenditure caps scheme

The expenditure cap for third parties should strike a fair balance between respect for freedom of speech and association, and the importance of preventing third parties exercising disproportionate influence in elections and being used to circumvent expenditure caps. The current proposal is that each third party can spend the same amount as all the mayoral candidate caps combined. This is absurd. This system permits every third party the same influence, in expenditure terms, as all the mayoral candidates combined. It is hard to see how this system would not inevitably lead to the exact outcome the system purports to be trying to avoid – that being the complete drowning out of other election participants’ voices.

Commission of Inquiry - Crime and Corruption Commission

It is this Council’s position that the monitoring role by the CCC is ineffective both in respect of individual cases and in dealing with trends in relation to complaints against police. While high level corruption or other serious police offending is investigated and prosecuted from time to time by the CCC all other cases are handed back to the QPS with a so-called monitoring role by the CCC. It is submitted that Queensland should adopt the New South Wales procedure for investigating complaints against police namely that there should be a standalone body separate from the QPS and the CCC to investigate complaints against Police.

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