John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Hotham is right again. I support him, because the government has ignored the advice. Under the proposed access card scheme, each individual will also be assigned a unique personal identifier number, or UPI, which will be stored on the chip and on the surface of the card. The government has advanced the argument that the UPI is vital for service delivery and the convenience of cardholders. The benefits of such a number have been doubted by the task force.

Nonetheless, a universal identification number, no matter how attractive its purported benefits are, poses too great a threat to the privacy of individuals—as the member for Hotham so clearly understands. Indeed, the task force has said:

... if the card number is displayed it increases the risk of fraud. This risk outweighs some advantages for government administration and user convenience.

The government should not arrogantly depart from the recommendations of its own task force on issues of privacy protection and fraud prevention. It is worth noting that the unique universal identification number is also a crucial element of any national ID card. Despite proposing to put the necessary infrastructure in place, it is not inevitable that this health and social services access card will become a national ID card in the future. That said, it is not impossible either.

The government has provided assurances in this legislation that the card is not, nor is it intended to become, a national identity card. However, the bill still facilitates such an expansion by putting the necessary infrastructure in place. The potential for this access card to become an ID card remains, even if the likelihood of that risk eventuating remains low. If the government has the courage of its convictions it ought to remove the means by which this access card could become an ID card in the future. It could do so by scrapping the universal identification number from its proposal. In concluding, I hope you have a happy birthday, Simon.

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