Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fighters) Bill 2014

The majority supported the bill's new offence of entering and staying in a declared area.

Greens Senator Penny Wright had proposed to oppose it.

###Enter or stay in declared area offence

The bill will make it an offence for someone to enter or stay in an area that the Minister for Foreign Affairs declares as a declared area. A whole country can be a declared area, which was criticised by the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security.

Read more about this new offence in the bills digest.

###Background to the bill

A number of incidents happened before and after this bill's introduction. There was one of the biggest counter-terrorism operations in Australian history. The Prime Minister Tony Abbott also confirmed that Australia would be sending the military to Iraq to fight the Islamic State (IS) (also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)).

Two particularly significant incidents were when:

• Australian teenager Abdullah Elmir threatened Prime Minister Tony Abbott in an IS video;
• Canadian gunman Michael Zehaf-Bibeau attacked the Canadian Parliament.