Australian Human Rights Commission Information for LOIPR - Australia, 27 June 2016 8. Counter-terrorism legislation Concluding Observations, para 14 Relevant provision of the CAT: Article 2 60. The 2015 CAT submission51 and the UPR submission,52 identified that Australia’s counter-terrorism laws restrict human rights and that recent legislation has not been shown to be legitimate and proportionate responses to potential harms. 61. Since November 2014, new national security laws have been introduced to Parliament: 62. • Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Act (No.1) 2014 (Cth) – passed 2 December 2014 • Australian Citizenship and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2014 (Cth) – passed 3 December 2014 • Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Act 2014 (Cth) – passed 26 March 2015. The Commission provided submissions to each of these bills when referred to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security for inquiry and report.53 In particular, the Commission is concerned that the following bill amendments were incorporated into the Acts unchanged: • Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Act (No.1) 2014 (Cth): increases the availability of control orders in light of the previous Independent National Security Legislation Monitor’s (INSLM) criticisms of the current control order regime and without introducing any of the additional safeguards recommended by the Council of Australian Government’s (COAG) Review of Counter-Terrorism Legislation. • Australian Citizenship and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2014 (Cth): the application of the Act to children aged 10 – 14 years (section 35A); the ten year retrospectivity of the Act regarding prior convictions; the lack of entitlement of the person affected to make submissions on the revocation of their citizenship; the lack of a requirement for a criminal conviction prior to revocation of citizenship for some offences. • Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Act 2014 (Cth): introduction of a mandatory data retention scheme that requires service providers to retain communications data for two years. The Act does require that any interference with the data be justified on reasonable grounds and interference with privacy must be justifiable and proportionate. The Commission has expressed concern that the regime unjustifiably limits individual rights to privacy and freedom of expression. 12