Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise tonight to speak in the second reading debate on the Human Services (Enhanced Service Delivery) Bill 2007. In some respects I find it a strange debate. It is a strange debate because in many respects it is a debate about tomorrow that is being held today. I have been listening to this debate with a great deal of interest in the contributions that have been made by the various speakers.

It is popular custom to label each age that we live in. If we go right back, there was the Bronze Age; more recently we have had the industrial age, and today we say we live in the digital age. The digital age is the popular name for a time when the developed world continues to embrace digital technology. Ones and zeroes—binary language—is, I suggest, the most common language used throughout the world today. As each of us goes about our business every day we leave a digital trail of who we are, where we have been and what we have been up to. In this time, collecting, collating and analysing this data is far easier and more comprehensive than at any point in our history. What is more, if the current trend continues, we can expect these tasks to become even easier.

Therefore, a bill like the one being debated here this evening provides reasons for all of us, as representatives in this chamber, to pause and consider. I can certainly say that I have done that very thing in approaching the debate tonight. The goal of the Howard government, of implementing this access card, warrants support. There can be no doubt that within government departments there is much duplication, inefficiency and scope for improvement. There is much in the government’s dealings with Australians that essentially operates on the basis that it is the customer’s problem and it is up to them to fix it. There can be no doubt that in many respects the closest a department or agency gets to customer services is a sign on a wall, a numbered ticket or a recording saying, ‘Please hold; your call is important to us.’ The fact that this government is willing to embrace new technology and to take solid steps that overturn decades of often poor service, inefficient processes and a perverse attitude which places the onus on the customer rather than on the service provider is a very positive move in the right direction.

That said, the devil is in detail. In supporting this government’s initiative to introduce the access card, I have outlined my ongoing and strong view that there must be adequate protections built into the legislative and technological framework surrounding this card to prevent this technology being misused or leveraged in the future. I have made it clear over the past year or more that I am opposed to a national ID card. The national ID card, I believe, would turn on its head the relationship between the individual and the state. The card we are talking about tonight, in the legislation and its intent, is not a national ID card.

There is, however, a risk that the technology being rolled out in implementing this access card could be used by a future government—and, let me make it clear, not this government—to form the platform for a national ID card. My very small role in this place on this matter is to seek to minimise the opportunity for a future government to undertake this task. That is why at the outset I say that this is a strange debate for me, because it really is a debate about tomorrow that is being held today.

The access card this legislation governs, the information contained on the face and the back of the card, the information contained in the chip and the information held on government databases are directed toward the enhancement of government service delivery and the opportunity to minimise welfare fraud.

I have been particularly heartened by Minister Campbell’s approach to the roll out of the access card. Within government I have greatly valued the opportunity to raise issues and ideas and to have these considered as part of the package of bills that will govern the roll out of the access card. From my perspective, we must have clarity of purpose with respect to the access card. Information on the card must be confined to strictly comply with the purposes of the card. Information on the database should be confined to strictly comply with the purposes of the card across the respective agencies. And information on the chip of the card must be confined to strictly comply with the purposes of the card. For example, we know that this legislation and the access card concern themselves with government services, their enhanced delivery and opportunities to combat welfare fraud. No more and no less should be sought with respect to the information contained on or in, or networked to, the card.

Fundamentally, though, it would be dishonest to say it can be distilled into this most basic statement, because there remains a fundamental conflict in assessing the merit or otherwise of this debate—the conflict between the utility of the card and opportunities for future governments to obtain function creep by using the technology and the card in the future. In this respect I have welcomed the fact that the minister has been so pleased to take on board comments and to consider various criticisms, positive and negative, that I and others have put forward. Also I welcome future legislation which, as was outlined in the first and second reading speeches, will deal with further elements of information protection and legislative issues relating to the use of the card.

I do not seek to take any politically opportunistic stance with regard to the legislation that is introduced into the House. I certainly intend to work as part of government to ensure that the card and its surrounding legislation as passed by both houses will be the very best, will guard against future function creep and will remain true to the purpose that this government has in mind in introducing them.

I will touch on a number of measures that I have sought and discussed with the minister that I am confident in the future will be part of the package of measures to be introduced. They include, for example, audit trails. In addition to that, they include safeguards against additional database compilation as well as strong measures for enforcement of any breaches of this and other related legislation. Additionally, I would like to seek replacement time frames in the legislation, such that if a person’s card was stolen or lost there would be binding time lines on the Public Service to replace the card to ensure the continued delivery of government services although a card may not be able to be presented.

In this respect, especially with regard to audit trails, I believe there is much that can be achieved, and I was heartened in looking at a number of the comments that the minister and others have made on the access card to see that there are a number of measures that will be taken. For example, the fact that Australians will be able to have confidence that the access card will not change the current data-sharing rules between government agencies is one that I certainly put great stock in. The fact that in addition to that there will not be a change of arrangements between human services agencies with respect to delivery of government services, that Centrelink staff will be the only ones able to access the Centrelink data they currently have access to and that Medicare staff will only be able to access the same data that they currently have access to, is very comforting and certainly underscores and highlights that this card is a far, far cry from a national ID card. But, as I said, we should ensure that the total package of legislation, and not merely this one bill in isolation, is recognised as putting in place the appropriate safeguards that are required.

I mentioned the need to ensure that there are safeguards against database compilation. I have certainly welcomed this government’s commitment to ensure that those databases remain separate. I believe the fact that the minister has stated that we do not believe in a single database holding every Australian’s health and social service details and that agency specific information will continue to remain and reside solely with that agency does provide some reassurance that future database compilation will not take place. Of course, I recognise that the Attorney-General in speaking on this very issue said that it is impossible for a government to bind a future government. But in that respect there is a reason and a rationale for why I have sought more than merely a legislative prohibition on such database compilation.

It is very clear that, as much as possible, there will also need to be technological safeguards. In this respect, I have merely called for the architecture pertaining to the technology that is used to roll out this card to be designed from the outset to prevent future database compilation as much as is feasible and economically sustainable. I suggest to the House that as Australians we can take comfort in the fact that, if this kind of architecture and these technological safeguards were incorporated from the outset with respect to the roll out of this legislation, a future government seeking to compile it into one large database—as is occurring in the United Kingdom—would not be able to achieve that outcome. The reason that would not be able to be achieved is that it would require the system and particularly the technology and its architecture to be rewritten or to be rolled out again. And that, of course, would come at significant cost and give pause to any future government that sought to compile into one database, for example, every Australian’s health, welfare or other services and records, to such a point that it would probably be unsustainable or certainly, at the very least, a matter of much public debate. Those kinds of basic safeguards, I believe, provide reassurance to all Australians.

In this respect, I also welcome Professor Allan Fels’s chairmanship of the Access Card Consumer and Privacy Taskforce. The comments that I believe Professor Fels has put forward are very sound. In a number of respects, I certainly look forward to seeing the way in which this legislation interacts with following pieces of legislation to ensure that the various issues that have been raised by Allan Fels are incorporated—to the extent that, as I said, a decision also needs to be made about that fundamental conflict between card utility and function creep opportunity. In this respect, I am a realist. I recognise that it would be simply impossible to develop a piece of legislation that would prevent any future government from taking it one step beyond where it is. But, that said, it also would be remiss of any of us in this chamber to not recognise the opportunity for this kind of information collation and this kind of technological platform to be used for further data compilation in the future.

I must say that, in listening to the debate this evening, I have been a little alarmed at some of the poor policy positions that have been espoused by some in this debate—but also publicly. I was a little concerned that the member for Lowe kept referring to the fact that this legislation would see the creation of one single database. That is very wrong. I certainly would place myself at some distance from those who have in some way indicated that this legislation is seeing the creation of a single database. That is not the case. In addition to that, I have been concerned at some of the comments that have been made by others in the political arena. Senator Kerry Nettle, the Greens senator, for example, indicated their opposition to the access card, saying: ‘It simply is incredible for the government to pretend this is not an ID card. Each access card will have a biometric photograph and record all of the holder’s essential identity details.’

The issue is—I believe I have made it very clear that I am opposed to a national ID card—that this is far from a national ID card. As was outlined by the minister, there are very great differences between this card and a national ID card. Under this bill, this card will not be compulsory for every Australian, although it cannot be disputed that a large number will be using it every time they want to access government services. It will not be an electronic health record. It will not record financial details. It will not be required to be carried at all times. It will not be required to transact normal, everyday business. It will not be required to be shown other than for the provision of health and social services benefits provided by the Australian government and to confirm concession status. In this respect, the extension that this in some way is a national ID card is wrong.

But I also have said in the past that I want to ensure that this card cannot become a national ID card. And there is a great, gaping gulf between those two statements. So, in this respect, I would say to the Greens Senator Kerry Nettle, as well as to Senator Natasha Stott Despoja from the Democrats, who says that she is concerned that this is a national ID card—

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