Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the amendments be agreed to.

The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy introduced amendments in the Senate in relation to the bill yesterday, and these amendments were passed by the Senate. The proposed government amendments will make minor changes to the bill to strengthen the protections on the disclosure of information from the IPND. They will require specified emergency management persons to give a written notice to the discloser of IPND information—currently Telstra, as the IPND manager—stating that they will use or disclose the information only for emergency warning purposes. The written notice approach provided in the proposed government amendment will provide confidence to the IPND manager—Telstra, at the moment—that it may disclose IPND information to a prescribed emergency management person. This greater certainty is likely to speed the release of IPND data as well as to provide greater protection that it is being provided to the right person. This approach will also reduce the need for the IPND manager to expend time verifying the legitimacy of a request for IPND data in an emergency.

The written notice process in the proposed government amendments has been tailored to fit with the existing provisions in the bill and to minimise potential delays to the release of IPND data in an emergency. The proposed government amendments will also add a clause to clarify that a single written notice will be able to cover a series of disclosures. This will allow an emergency management person to receive regular updates of IPND information. This arrangement is similar to arrangements currently in place that allow copies of the IPND to be used for 000 and law enforcement purposes. I commend these government amendments to the House.

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