Civil wrongs lobby

Opponents of Thomas's control order are out of touch

Two Saturdays ago, The Weekend Australian reported that families of those killed in the Bali bombings were outraged at the decision to quash the conviction of Jack Thomas on terrorism-related charges. The report touched off a firestorm of controversy from those who thought the quotes were gratuitous and biased (despite Mr Thomas's self-proclaimed connection to Abu Bakar Bashir) and that the only proper way to report the story was to talk to civil rights lawyers cheered by the release of the man who dubbed himself "Jihad" when he converted to Islam. The controversy was exacerbated by the imposition of a control order on Mr Thomas, restricting his movements and communications on the grounds that he may one day put his terrorist training to use. In protesting against the order, the civil rights lobby – and its allies in a largely sympathetic media – revealed themselves as profoundly unserious about prosecuting the war on terror. And they demonstrated that this group is more concerned with fighting political battles with the Howard Government than it is with protecting the Australian people. As Paul Kelly, Editor-at-Large of The Australian writes today, this subset of lawyers is deep in the throes of "intellectual failure and (the) depths of prejudice". Kelly adds that Mr Thomas "has become the instrument of a polemical campaign by the legal and civil liberties lobby to de-legitimise and strike down the recent provisions of the Criminal Code, a campaign enthusiastically embraced by sections of a gullible media".

Here the Thomas affair has revealed a rift in our society between those for whom the war on terror is seen as little more than a mendacious project of the Howard Government and the rest of the country, which, quite sensibly, does not see a control order on a man who admits having undertaken weapons training with al-Qa'ida as the thin edge of a wedge that will end with Labor voters being herded into camps. Society has long accepted that there are certain people who, after having otherwise paid their debt to society, remain clear and present dangers to others. This is what the wider Australian community demands from its government. More importantly, it is what is called for under a government's duty of care for its citizens. Yet some civil libertarians have even gone so far as to oppose control orders even in such cases – a clear illustration of just how out of touch that lobby is from the community and the reality that vicious sex criminals with high recidivism rates will be dangers to children and others until the day they die. The same can be said for would-be terrorists whose combination of training and ideology means that they could strike at any time.

Certainly, it is possible to intelligently criticise the Government's handling of Mr Thomas's case. But in attacking the law under which his control order was issued, individuals such as barrister Julian Burnside and Liberty Victoria's Brian Walters muddy the waters and miss the point. Under sections 104.2 and 104.4 of the Criminal Code, the Government had to prove that "reasonable grounds" exist under the "balance of probability" that such an order will either assist in preventing a terrorist attack or if the person in question has undertaken training with a terrorist organisation. Mr Thomas meets these qualifications in spades. The 21st-century threat of terror attacks by Islamic terrorists against civilian populations forced the change in the law. To do anything else would have been irresponsible. In opposing the law allowing for control orders, the civil liberties lobby is asking the entire public to ride its own very dangerous hobby horse.