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

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to this report. I thank the chairman for his remarks. I will further develop them in the course of my comments but let me endorse his thanks to the committee secretariat for the work that they undertake.

Our committee, it would perhaps be helpful for members to know, is not involved in reviewing the security agency's sensitive work. We may receive informal briefings from time to time but we are not to inquire into activities that relate to their efforts to protect our security as a nation. But this report is, I think, pointing to where we are exposing ourselves to quite significant risks.

A point was made by the chair in relation to what is happening with efficiency dividends. Essentially, if I can put the argument simply, organisations after the Taylor review that were seen to require substantial additional funding to be able to carry out their multiplicity of tasks in relation to counter-terrorism, for instance, and maintaining our efforts in counter espionage, were not adequately resourced for the task. We are now in a situation, if you read the page 7 of the report, where the money is being stripped out as a matter of government policy through efficiency dividends, as they are called.

It is important to read the report as a whole and I would direct people to look at what is required in relation to visa security assessments on pages 14 and 15. ASIO is now dealing with something of the order of 34,000 security assessments in relation to individuals who have arrived in Australia without lawful authority. The Director-General makes the point that, given the number of people arriving, the requirement for us to conduct security assessments, which we have been refining down and down, nevertheless still represents a considerable allocation of the organisation's resources. If you go on and read page 17 you will see that ASIO is having to undertake increased numbers of counter-terrorism security assessments. They have increased by something in the order of 11 per cent.

The report is pointing to an agency that is faced with considerable demands for its services and its workload, and the organisations are seeing their funding contract. I am not here to argue that they should get additional funding but I will argue very strongly that we may have to look at the way in which this organisation is carrying out, particularly, the issue of visa assessments. They are receiving priority because there are advocates out there arguing these issues need to be dealt with quickly. I understand why people would say that but what we are seeing is the security assessments process being refined downwards—in other words, we are being exposed to potential increased risk—and the organisation is having to speed up its assessment in relation to an area which, in my view, does not have the same priority.

In concluding my remarks today I remind people that counter-terrorism has not gone away. We have got reports of some 200 Australians in Syria at the moment who are perhaps working with al-Qaeda and likely to come back to Australia. We have seen what has happened in Boston. We have seen what has happened in London. And we ask ourselves: 'Is it all over, 10 years since 9/11? Maybe we don't face a problem anymore.' I saw some comments that suggested that. I think this report demonstrates very clearly that those problems have not gone away, our resourcing is being diminished and we need to give it a better priority. (Time expired)

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