Exclusive: Department engaged researchers to review its preventive detention of terrorists, only to attempt to remove their most serious criticisms
Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast
Department of Home Affairs officials told researchers to water down a key report that threatened to undermine the government’s use of “extraordinary” counter-terror powers allowing individuals to be imprisoned for a crime they have not yet committed, documents show.
Australia’s preventive detention regime for terror offenders, which allows individuals to be imprisoned for up to three years to prevent a future crime, has been described as “extraordinary” and disproportionate by the nation’s independent national security laws watchdog, who called for its abolishment in March and said it was causing Australia to become a “coarser and harsher society”.
More Stories
DeepSeek blocked from some app stores in Italy amid questions on data use
SoftBank ‘in talks’ to invest up to $25bn in OpenAI
St Kitts and Nevis finds 13 decomposing bodies in boat adrift in Caribbean