Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aviation and Transport Security) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move opposition amendments (5) and (6) together:

(5)    Schedule 2, item 32, page 61 (line 30), omit

                 “22 July 2016”, substitute

                 “22 November 2011”.

(6)    Schedule 2, item 33, page 62 (line 4), omit

                 “22 January 2016”, substitute

                 “22 June 2011”.

These proposed amendments to the ASIO Legislation Amendment Bill 2006 are really a straightforward issue. They concern the question of the sunset clause in the bill. In their speeches in the second reading debate, a number of people made mention of that, and the Attorney-General commented upon it in his summing up. In summing-up, the Attorney said that the justification for a 10-year sunset clause was that the government felt some obligation to stick with 10 years because that is what it had in the bill at the end of last year.

The only reason that 10 years was the period for the sunset clause in the bill at the end of last year is that the government used its newfound numbers in the Senate, where the Liberal and National parties now have a majority, to do what it pleases. The will of the parliament on these matters has been quite clear. When other security related legislation like this has been before the parliament, the parliament has put three-year sunset clauses in place. When the parliamentary committee—and I remind the House again that this is an all-party parliamentary committee, with Labor, Liberal and National Party participation—looked at these bills, it recommended, in the light of the 10 years the government wants, a five-year sunset clause.

By the light of historical terms for this and other parliaments, five years is, frankly, a long time for a sunset clause; 10 years is unparalleled. Ten years is not a sunset clause. The government knows that. The Attorney-General knows it is not a sunset clause. The truth of the matter is that the government does not want a sunset clause at all. But it could not get the premiers to sign up to a deal unless there was a sunset clause. In some remarkable twist of negotiation, it managed to get a 10-year sunset clause agreement out of the COAG meeting, with premiers agreeing to it.

Before the COAG meeting, and since, Labor federally has made clear that a sunset clause is and should be an integral part of legislation like this which affords to our secret intelligence agencies powers that are not normally made available to them. A sunset clause is critical to that. Ten years is not a sunset clause. It is more than the life span in the parliament of most members of this parliament. Most people who come into this parliament exit before 10 years. This sunset clause covers a longer period than the average political life span of someone in the House of Representatives. I am not sure how many of the members of the House who are here now think they are going to be here in 10 years. I have bad news for most of them: most of them will not be, and that includes the Attorney and me.

Ten years is not a period that parliaments generally adopt. In my speech on the second reading, I made reference to the situation in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom has laws not dissimilar to these. In fact, I think it is fair to say that the Australian government has to some extent sought to model a number of the provisions of our raft of legislation on what transpires in the United Kingdom. The UK has had to deal with terrorist attacks on a number of occasions at home—tragic, terrible incidents that still plague them. Against that background, the United Kingdom parliament has put in place a 12-month sunset clause for these sorts of laws—one year.

I have detailed a number of bills that this parliament dealt with when the Liberal and National parties were in opposition. They had a very different view of the world then. The Attorney-General, it seems, had a different view of the world then; at that stage he was moving amendments to sunset clauses of a far shorter duration—and, I might say, on much less contentious bills.

There is no justification for the recommendation of the joint committee being ignored. The joint committee arrived at its conclusion not only because it was the unanimous view of Liberal, Labor and National members of parliament but because that was the overwhelming weight of evidence, including evidence from security agencies themselves and those who oversee them. That was the weight of evidence the committee got. I am absolutely confident that on this point the Australian people expect a sunset clause of a reasonable duration. Five years is a long sunset clause in the context of all other sunset clauses this parliament has ever adopted. Ten years is ridiculous; it is absurd. The government should relent on this. It should accept the will of the Australian people, the unanimous view of an all-party committee and—I suspect, if there was a genuine secret ballot—the view of its own backbench. (Time expired)

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