NSW Greens accused of “siding with terrorists” by opposing anti-terrorism laws

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In a fiery exchange in the NSW State Parliament, NSW Shadow Treasurer Walt Secord accused the NSW Greens of siding with terrorists after they opposed anti-terrorism laws.

Walt Secord

The exchange occurred during a debate on the Justice Legislation Amendment Bill, where the Berejiklian Government was forced to admit that they had forgotten to extend the laws on membership of 25 terrorist groups, which lapsed on September 13.

The terrorist groups included Al Qa’ida, Boko Haram, Hamas’ Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hizballah’s External Security Organisation, Islamic State, Jemaah Islamiyah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The hastily amended legislation was debated on September 25 in the NSW Parliament.

For 11 days, no one could have been charged with being a member of a terrorist organisation – due to the “bungle”, Mr Secord said.

NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman moved on September 24 to close the loophole with an amendment to the law removing the sunset clause.

A day later, Labor Upper House MPs agreed to join forces with the Coalition to allow the motion passage through the Legislative Council after members agreed to suspend debate on abortion laws to get the urgent bill through.

It was passed 34 to five with the Greens opposing the bill.

After the debate, Mr Secord said he was shocked to see the Greens opposing the laws banning membership of such violent terrorist groups. “It was mindboggling and downright stupid. In short, I do not step away from my comments that they were siding with terrorists.”

During the Legislative Council debate, Greens MP David Shoebridge raised concerns that provisions in the laws would limit people’s civil liberties and claimed they were designed to allow “covert search warrants, without the usual checks and balances”.

He also attacked Labor for “running along on the coat-tails of the government whenever there’s an anti-terror threat being raised”.

“In this case, it’s no wonder because the Opposition put these laws in the first place in 2005,” he said.

Mr Secord yelled out saying Labor made “no apologies” for the decision, to which Mr Shoebridge responded: “You’re not much of an apologist are you — in fact you’re a grub”.

Mr Shoebridge attacked Mr Secord calling him  a “grub” — a comment he was later forced to withdraw from the parliamentary record.

However, Mr Secord was not required to retract his comment that “You sided with terrorists”.