Knee-jerk law making

The law, no matter how stringent, cannot guarantee our security. Moreover, as history shows, the more repressive or draconian the law, the more that some people will be likely to take extreme action. The law can thus also become part of the problem that we are seeking to mitigate.

It is natural that our fears will lead us to do all that we can to protect ourselves and our families, especially in response to a faceless and unknown threat like terrorism. With a recent poll finding that more than two thirds of Australians believe that terrorists will strike “before too long” and that a terrorist attack in this country is inevitable, it is not surprising that there is great pressure to enact new laws at any cost.

What we need is leaders who, rather than playing to our fears, help us to understand that we must accept a level of risk of terrorist attack. There is no other option. If we strive for the illusory goal of full protection from terrorism, we risk doing even greater damage to our society and its freedoms and values. This will also warp political debate, policy choices and resource allocation in ways that cannot be justified.

We risk repeating these same mistakes if we do not change course. Unfortunately, there is no currently sign that this will occur. New attacks will lead to new laws that will further erode our fundamental freedoms, increase fear and anger in parts of the community and make the problem more intractable.

It seems likely that in the last four and a half years we have seen only the beginning of the “war on terror”. The laws we have today were unthinkable prior to September 11. It is equally hard to imagine the laws that we will end up with in the event of future attacks.