Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the chair for his very generous comments. I am not sure whether he had been party to my thinking, because I did in fact plan to broaden my comments a little in the context of some of the points he was making in relation to a report that might seem somewhat anodyne. I add to his comments my thanks to our professional staff and I ask members, in reading this report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security entitled Annual report of committee activities 2011-2012 to have regard to a recent statement by the Prime Minister on Australia's national security beyond the 9/11 decade. In reading the speech, what was of concern to me were the suggestions that in the decade since 9/11 the situation and risks that we face are somewhat different. There was an emphasis in that speech about the era in which the behaviour of states, not non-state actors, will be in the main part of our national security thinking. It goes on to say that the national security decade was a time of a rapid ramp-up of resources. Now, inevitably, we are in a period of consolidation. I am interested that we also have the member for Melbourne Ports, because he is familiar with some of the arguments that I am now going to raise.

I do not think we are in a position to look at these issues in relation to national security on which we are reporting, unaware of some of the events that are occurring internationally. The matters on which I will comment are not matters that I am privy to. They are matters that you will read about in the newspapers. I was just looking at some of them as I thought about what I might say today about Australians abroad and some tragic events more recently in Bulgaria. I read about what is happening in Syria and the reports of Australians abroad engaged in activities in that region. In some cases their work is said to be humanitarian, but in others the reporting suggests that they are active participants. These are people who can come back to Australia after they have been trained in organisations that ought to be of considerable concern to us.

And so I am glad that the chair mentioned paragraph 132, because it raises concerns that the committee had about the impact of the efficiency dividend on agencies. I do not think that it is appropriate, in the context of the comments that have been made about national security, that these observations by the committee that has responsibility for looking at these issues should be ignored. This ought not to be a period of consolidation that sees a contraction in the expenditure available to national security agencies, if that is the government's intention. I think that observation is quite pertinent.

In relation to the other matter that the chair spoke of—in relation to the concerns that were raised about security assessments of refugees—I do not think that people should be unaware of the way in which the refugee convention says decisions should be made. We do not have to accept people as refugees if they are of security risk. Yet findings have been made by the government that people were refugees before the security assessments took place. We would not be asking this question in this report if the government had been rigorous about ensuring that no decisions were made on refugee status before the security assessments had been made, and it was a major error. The committee report does not bring it out, but I think it is pertinent that people should know we are only being asked to look at this decision because of flawed decision making initially.

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