Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Joint Select Committee on Cyber-Safety, in the short time available to it, issued a very detailed report with 13 very strong recommendations to improve the Cybercrime Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 that we are now debating. I am extremely concerned that the hard work of that committee is being ignored. Though the committee's report does not address all of the concerns that the Greens and other stakeholders have had about how this bill would operate in practice, it does propose some very solid improvements to the bill. As my colleague Senator Scott Ludlam has indicated, the Australian Greens continue to believe that there are fundamental flaws in this cybercrime bill and the controversial European Convention on Cybercrime that it seeks to implement. In fact, this bill goes further than the problematic European treaty. Unlike the European treaty, this bill requires the ongoing collection and retention of communications. Unlike the European treaty, this bill requires police to pass on data even if it is inconsistent with human rights standards. And, very concerningly, this bill leaves open the door—

Debate interrupted.

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