The Australian government yesterday pointed to the rise of cyberwarfare and the increasingly blurred lines between war and peace to justify a potential major shake-up of defense laws.
However, the Greens warned against allowing defense to become “a protected secret club operating above the law,” as the government considers overriding some state and territory legislation.
The government said in a discussion paper that it needs to modernize the country’s Defence Act and related laws to “protect and defend Australia from adverse outcomes in situations below the threshold of armed conflict, as well as during armed conflict.”
Photo: AFP
“This is of increasing importance in a strategic environment characterised by ‘grey-zone’ activities, and where actions and effects are difficult to attribute or where public attribution is not desirable,” the government said.
However, the paper is vague about specific changes, but indicates that the government is considering powers to “access, store and use large amounts of data, including to support technologically enhanced command and control decision-making.”
The paper said some state and territory laws have “constrained proper Defence activities, including training and capability development.”
“Critical Defence activities will be supported by clarification of the circumstances in which state and territory laws do not apply to them,” it said.
Australian Senator David Shoebridge, the Greens’ defense spokesman, raised alarm about the potential changes, saying parliament already had “embarrassingly little formal role in overseeing military activities” and there should be “more oversight and accountability of defense operations, not less.”
“It should be a cause of national shame that the Australian public normally obtains more information about its major defense acquisitions from notifications given to the US Congress under US transparency requirements than we do from our own government including the ADF,” Shoebridge said, using an acronym for the Australian Defence Force.
Shoebridge said the desire to “act flexibly and remain responsive” should not be used as a justification for overriding state laws.
“The failure of the discussion paper to even indicate the nature of state and territory laws from which it is proposed to exempt defense is especially disturbing,” he said. “The existing range of such laws from environmental to human rights protections are an essential part of a modern liberal democracy, and if there is a serious proposal to change this, it should be articulated in detail to allow informed public submissions.”
Australian Assistant Minister for Defence Matt Thistlethwaite sought to allay concerns, saying the government was not seeking to water down environmental laws.
In an interview with the Guardian Australia, Thistlethwaite said the military wanted to be able to train with body-worn cameras, but that was not allowed under some state legislation that reserved such devices for police.
Thistlethwaite also said some military vehicles could not be driven on public roads — an issue that had become evident during disaster recovery and cleanup operations.
Thistlethwaite said that the government would consider public feedback on potential changes and had an open mind.
“The Defence Act was written in 1903 and it contemplates a binary state of affairs: The country is either in peacetime or war,” he said.
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