Terrorism suspects David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib will be able to serve any United States sentence in an Australian jail under a bill passed by parliament.
The men have been held in detention at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for more than two years without charge or trial but may soon appear before a US military commission.
The Senate has passed a bill changing prison transfer laws to allow anyone convicted and sentenced by a US military court to be transferred back to Australia to serve their jail time.
The bill also paved the way for new transfer agreements to be set up with other jurisdictions such as Hong Kong, which is currently the subject of talks.
Justice Minister Chris Ellison said the government had done all it could to keep in touch with the Hicks and Habib cases and had urged US authorities to expedite any legal action.
“We’ve negotiated important concessions to ensure that their trial by the US military commission is fair and transparent,” Senator Ellison said.
Labor criticised the government’s handling of the Australians’ detention, but supported the bill.
Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate Joe Ludwig successfully proposed a second reading amendment condemning the government for acquiescing in the use of US military commissions to try Australian citizens and for failing to explore all options for the men to be tried in Australia
Senator Ludwig said the government’s lack of action had left the men in a legal no-man’s land.
Nick Bolkus (ALP, SA) said the government had only shown cursory interest in the health and welfare of the two detainees and had not considered their psychological state.
“The government must ratchet-up inquiries into Hicks and Habib,” Senator Bolkus said.
Greens leader Bob Brown, who unsuccessfully moved to have Hicks and Habib immediately returned to Australia, said other countries such as Britain, Denmark and Russia had been managed to have their detainees returned to their homeland.
“This government accepts inferior standards of the law,” Senator Brown said.
But Senator Ellison said only those who were not of continuing interest to US intelligence authorities had been released to their home nations.
The Australian Democrats, who supported the bill, said the government was putting the country’s relationship with the US ahead of its citizens’ legal rights.