Children as young as 10 could soon be held without charge for up to 14 days under new national terror rules.
Justice Minister Michael Keenan said it was “deeply regrettable” children so young may be detained for two weeks as terror suspects under changes agreed to by state and federal leaders in Canberra on Thursday.
“But unfortunately that is the reality of the situation we find ourselves in because ISIL specialises in recruiting children,” he told ABC radio.
Mr Keenan pointed to the 15-year-old killer of NSW police employee Curtis Cheng and the arrests of 16-year-olds for planning terror attacks on Australian soil to justify the beefed-up laws.
“They (10-year-olds) won’t be held indefinitely and it will be subject to an enormous level of safeguards,” he said.
“I would certainly hope we never have a circumstance where we would need to use that, but we do need to give our authorities the powers they need.”
Meanwhile, Malcolm Turnbull insists Australians won’t be under mass surveillance after chief ministers agreed to make drivers licence photos more readily available to police.
An online national face-matching service will give police and security agencies in all jurisdictions immediate access to photos from passports, visas and driver licences.
It will be used to instantly identify people who are “suspects or victims of terrorist or other criminal activity”, which now can take up to 10 days.
Scanning live CCTV isn’t part of the new system, but police wanting to identify someone in such footage can get access in real-time.
The data could also be accessed by private operators – stadium or airport operators, for example – but only for a “lawful purpose” and with government approval and supervision.
Two new Commonwealth offences for terrorism hoaxes and the possession of the instructional terrorist material will also be created.
On top of that, the states and territories agreed to expand the phone-based national emergency alert warning system, which is now being used in natural disasters, to make it available during a national security incident.
