farewell to our human rights.

Whatever way you look at the story, the headline leaves no debate.


DESPITE leaving Yatala yesterday amid a media frenzy - and being out of detention for the first time in six years - David Hicks is not a free man.

He is subject to a stringent control order and a gag.

Hicks endured more than five years in the hell-hole that is Guantanamo Bay - often in solitary confinement - and for most of that time without being charged.

When eventually charged, he did not face a fair trial but a flawed legal process.

That he was allowed to languish overseas, abandoned by his government while being used as a political punching bag back home (until it began to bite politically), is an indictment on the previous federal government.

Nevertheless, this undermining of legal principles is now being perpetuated by the Rudd Government with the attorney-general's rubber stamp of the AFP's application for a control order. By giving the green light to the control order, the Government failed its first test on national security and has shown itself to be little more than a clone of its predecessor.

Control orders are unjustified and unnecessary. Their usesubstitutes the ordinary criminal justice system with a parallel system run by the executive.

The AFP even admitted that if David Hicks were to attempt to engage in terrorist activity, that the existing criminal law and traditional surveillance techniques would apply.

Hicks's order obliges him to remain in his place of residence between midnight and 6am and report to police three times a week.

The AFP said this measure was necessary because monitoring his compliance would be too resource-intensive and would place an operational burden on the AFP.

Two things emerge from this:

if Hicks was a genuine threat, surely resources would not be an issue?; and the Howard government invested $8 billion in counter-terrorism so, if we can't spend some of this on someone who is deemed a threat, then what are we spending it on?

At the court hearing, Hicks was not allowed to present evidence and the order was not opposed by his legal team. Yet, the AFP proceeded to outline in excruciating detail everything they had on file about Hicks.

This included evidence that was six years old, untested, judged against a civil standard of proof and, in part, gained through interrogation at Guantanamo Bay where Mr Hicks did not have the benefit of legal advice.

Despite the sensationalising of some elements of this by the media, the most alarming aspect was what the evidence did not contain:

No threat ever made in relation to Australia;

No crime ever committed against Australian law;

No evidence that Hicks's action resulted in damage to any person;

No evidence of Hicks's state of mind in the last six years.

Hicks has expressed a desire to get on with his life and he has pledged not to let the Australian public down. But the ordeal continues: a confirmation hearing into the control order takes place on February 18.

Hicks's lawyer, David McLeod, says Hicks will abide by the decision and is glad to be before a properly constituted court for the first time.

What a sad reflection on what has occurred over the past six years: not necessarily even to this man but to cherished principles in our democracy and how these are vulnerable to politicians and governments desperate to prove their national security credentials.

That Hicks had no choice but to appear publicly yesterday with discernible number plates on his cars means his place of residence (and, therefore, the nearest cop shop) can be ascertained.

When it is, it will be the latest attack on what human rights this man has left and, once again, exposes how we have jettisoned some fundamental human rights in the war on terror.

Senator Natasha Stott Despoja is a South Australia Senator since 1995 and the Attorney-General's spokesperson for the Democrats.