Australian Federal Government introduces "absurd" police powers

Over the last couple of weeks, you may have noticed a swarm of articles discussing the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2021, which blitzed through both Federal Houses of Parliament in under 24 hours and was passed on 25 August 2021. It received Royal Assent on 3 September 2021.

The Department of Home Affairs describes the purpose of the Bill as “[to modernise] Australia’s law enforcement and intelligence legal framework to better equip the AFP (Australian Federal Police) and ACIC (Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission) to deal wit