Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

The government has made this stunning cut. I am talking specifically about the $6.9 million that has been cut from the ASIO budget to deal with asylum seeker security assessments. It has cut this funding at a time when ASIO is being pressured to pump through vast numbers of security checks for those who have come to Australia illegally by boat.

The response of the government to the riots on Christmas Island, where buildings were burnt and Commonwealth officers were assaulted, where literally millions of dollars of taxpayers' money was put to the torch, was astonishingly to write to all these people saying, 'Look, we'll cave in to your demands; we'll make sure that all these security assessments are done by the end of April. Regardless of whether ASIO has the capacity to push through these individual security assessments, we will put an arbitrary time frame on these assessments being done.' Of course, that sent a great message to everyone within the detention network that the way to get a response from the Labor government is to act up and it will respond accordingly. ASIO has also had funding cut for training overseas liaison officers to the tune of $8.1 million.

As I have said, ASIO is not the only national security agency that has been targeted by the Labor government with cuts to their budget bottom line. The Australian Customs and Border Protection Service have suffered at the chopping block also, with 90 staff axed and funds cut from crucial areas such as aerial surveillance, as I said earlier. They have also had $32 million slashed from their passenger facilitation program at our eight international airports. The Australian Federal Police have also been badly affected by Labor's mismanagement of Australia's national security. Labor cut funds to the AFP and also cut 72 of their staff. I know that this will particularly interest the member for Fowler, who takes a keen interest in police matters, and I am sure he will express his disappointment in the caucus about these particular cuts. With cuts like these, you really do need to wonder whether Labor take our national security seriously.

As mentioned in the bill's explanatory memorandum, the amendments proposed in this bill will amend the ASIO Act to align the definition of 'foreign intelligence' with the definitions in the Intelligence Services Act and the Telecommunications Interception and Access Act 1979. It will amend the ASIO Act to clarify that a computer access warrant authorises access to data held in the target computer at any time while the warrant is in force and is not limited to data held at a particular point in time, such as when the warrant is first executed. This does not change the law but ensures consistency within the computer access warrant regime.

The bill will also amend the ASIO Act to exclude the communication of information concerning the engagement or proposed engagement of staff within the Australian intelligence community from the security assessment procedures in the ASIO Act and put ASIO on the same footing as other intelligence agencies in relation to sharing information relevant to implement within the community.

Further, the bill will amend the Intelligence Services Act to permit the Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation specifically to provide service to the defence forces in support of military operations and to cooperate with the ADF on intelligence matters. This is for clarification to ensure consistency with the Defence Signals Directorate's similar function. The bill will further provide for ministerial authorisation for the purpose of producing intelligence on an Australian person where the minister is satisfied that an Australian person is involved in or likely to be involved in activities relating to the contravention of UN sanction enforcement law. It will amend the Intelligence Services Act to clarify that the immunity provision in section 14 is intended to have effect unless another law of a Commonwealth, state or territory specifically overrides it. Finally, it makes a corresponding amendment to computer offences in part 10.7 of the Criminal Code.

This bill is currently the subject of a Senate inquiry. The Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee is having a look at the provisions of this bill. The opposition welcome that. We think it is appropriate that the Senate have a look at these matters, although we are broadly supportive of what is in this bill because it enhances the ability of our intelligence committee to do their job effectively. As I said at the beginning of this debate—and I probably would not have laboured the point so much had I not been so heavily encouraged by the member for Shortland—our intelligence community is suffering grievously at the hands of this government. The tiny cuts that are needed to make up for the fact that $1.75 billion has been wasted on the border protection fiasco has come out of our front-line national security agencies. Every single front-line national security agency had a cut in this budget. Extraordinarily, this is occurring at a time when they are massively overstretched specifically as a result of Labor's border protection fiasco. All of these agencies are required to deal with the people-smuggling issues. All of them have been specifically tasked to deal with this by this government and, at a time when there is this call on their resources, they are all getting cuts in their budget and some of them are getting cuts in personnel. So, whilst the opposition support the passage of this bill through this House, we as ever reserve the right to foreshadow potential amendments pending the outcome of the Senate committee's review into this particular legislation. But, as I said, this government is making life for our intelligence community extraordinarily difficult, and that is something we will change when we get into government.

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