Among all this week’s stupidity about a T-shirt and environmental “protection” laws that make it easier to approve coal and gas mines, was a small amendment snuck into an unrelated bill that could upend a basic right we all take for granted; the presumption of innocence before proven guilty.

It’s one of those tricky rights, that at times can be difficult to defend – the desire to punish wrongdoing, particularly if you know they are guilty without a court’s verdict, lives within all of us. There’s a reason why “an eye for an eye” resonates, even outside biblical believers.

But it remains one of the most important principles underpinning democracy, whether we like it or not.

And it needs to be protected. Even when it feels uncomfortable. Because it is a very, very slippery slope to start cherry-picking about the rights provided to people, even when you abhor the decisions they make.

Deep in the Social Security and Other Leg. Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2025, which is designed to provide payments to people affected by unlawful Centrelink debts (separate to Robodebt, this is another unlawful debt based on income apportionment) is an amendment that upends the presumption of innocence.

It grants police the power to recommend cancelling someone’s Centrelink payments, based on the suspicion they have committed a serious crime. Not conviction. Suspicion.

There are some caveats around the powers; the person has to be the subject of an arrest warrant issue in Australia, for a serious or sexual offence; a senior AFP or state or territory officer has to make the request to a minister in charge of the AFP, social services minister, human services minister; the department or the Human Services Department and the AFP minister (the attorney-general) has to consider the threat level of the person to the community, the impact on their dependants (if aware), and seek advice.

Privately, government MPs say it is in response to the case of accused police shooter Dezi Freeman, and would be used only for the “worst of the worst”.

But, as we should all know, good intentions rarely pass the test of public pressure or power. And even if you trust this government, do you trust the next one to not abuse those powers? Do you trust police to make recommendations only on what you would consider “serious” suspicion of a crime (no one is arguing the Freeman case is not serious or abhorrent). Defending principles does not mean you are defending an individual’s actions, even when the two are conflated.

We don’t even have to look to the US, where laws have been turned against groups the Trump administration doesn’t like – protesters top among them – on the flimsiest of justifications.

We have enough examples right here in Australia of how “well-meaning” laws can be used against marginalised groups. Indigenous people, migrants, the mentally ill, homeless people, all are at risk, because history tells us so.

We know police cannot be trusted to identify the primary perpetrator of violence in domestic and family violence. A woman fleeing her abuser, after being misidentified as the primary abuser, could very well lose the only income she can earn, because she’s hiding from the man who wanted to kill her.

Don’t agree? In 44.4 per cent of cases of murdered women, the victim had been identified by police as a respondent (perpetrator). For Aboriginal women murdered by a former or current partner, research found nearly all had been labelled a perpetrator by police.

From there, it’s not so difficult to imagine protesters becoming the target, especially those who protest at “defence” or “national security” sites. And from there?

There is a reason we have a separation of powers, where police or ministers do not judge the veracity of guilt. This amendment not only dispenses with the presumption of innocence, it sets a more punitive measure than someone who is on remand, or works in the private sector.

Politicians accused of crimes continue to receive their taxpayer-funded wage while awaiting conviction. You can run for parliament, while suspected of breaking the law. You can be charged with suspected murder, and still receive your salary, up until (and if) you are convicted of the alleged crime.

The idea is that someone on an arrest warrant will hand themselves in because they will no longer be able to support themselves. There is no evidence that would be the case.

But it’s not a leap to see how it would be abused. And if you think that cancelling the subsistence people on Centrelink are forced to live on will make a domestic or family abuser more likely to hand themselves in, and not subject their loved ones to an even more extreme, or possibly final, form of abuse, you do not understand abusers, or living with one.

The government might be trying to assure crossbenchers that this amendment has arisen from the Freeman case. But the Turnbull government attempted something very similar in the 2018-19 budget. It remained unlegislated until it was dropped by Labor in its first budget.

The amendment was not brought up in the inquiry looking at the original legislation. It was not publicly floated by the government. It was only found when anti-poverty advocates looked through the tabled legislation.

As is so often the case, it is the most vulnerable who must look out for all our rights, because they know that what impacts them, impacts us.

Not many people will make a lot of noise about this, but they should. Slippery slopes always start on supposedly solid foundations.

Amy Remeikis is a contributing editor for The New Daily and chief political analyst for The Australia Institute