Melburnians rightly rose to defend freedom

The increasing paramilitarisation of wandering bureaucrats was always going to lead to overreach that united everyone in favour of defending civil liberties.

On Friday, the government's rebranded immigration enforcement agency, Border Force, was supposed to have its first outing working with Victoria Police. Operation Fortitude was relatively routine. Victoria Police was going to do its job and provide a visible police presence to enforce the law.

Officers were also to work with other agencies to promote inter-agency co-operation. It has been done before. But that wasn't how Border Force presented it. In a chilling statement the force said "ABF officers will be positioned at various locations around the CBD speaking with any individual we cross paths with". I read this in news reports and thought ABF had been selectively quoted.

Instead the original press release was accurate. Such statements are antithetical in a liberal democracy.

Logic said Border Force could only match its actions with its words by stopping people when they had no reasonable grounds of suspicion, or engage in racial profiling.

Neither are acceptable. It is also absurd that any of us walk around with our passport, or that we should be expected to do so.

Horrified, I called the minister's office seeking an explanation.

Later, the agency issued a clarifying statement that "the ABF does not and will not stop people at random in the streets and does not target on the basis of race, religion or ethnicity". By that stage the damage was done.

Regardless of Border Force's intentions, it raises serious questions about the culture of an agency where anyone thought such statements could be publicly released. It also raises questions about the increasing paramilitarisation of bureaucrats. No one has an issue with the law being enforced. We expect it. It's necessary. But it's the job of the police to enforce the law.

Increasingly governments are giving more powers to bureaucrats to actively seek out compliance with laws and regulations, rather than simply processing paperwork.

That only leads to those unskilled and untrained to overstep the mark and risk infringing our civil liberties.

That's clearly what happened on Friday to the point that the failure of one government agency forced the hand of Victoria Police to abandon its operation. But it's also a reminder that preserving freedom doesn't sit with the government. A healthy democracy is a constant negotiation between the government and the governed. We negotiate the terms of the agenda at the polling booth.

But our responsibilities don't end there.

We have an ongoing obligation to hold the arms of government to account. We periodically have debates about the merits or otherwise of laws to protect rights and freedoms. But freedom doesn't solely live in laws. It sits in the hearts and minds of the body politic.

On Friday, it didn't matter where you were on the political spectrum. Every Melburnian understood in a free and pluralist society it was their responsibility to defend freedoms and basic decency for all.

Tim Wilson is the Human Rights Commissioner.