Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Well, I did assume the Leader of the Opposition was raising a serious issue, not something for political catcalling, so I hope that when we are talking about national security we may see a little decorum on the opposition back benches and the front bench otherwise people will conclude that they are not at all interested in national security. They are just interested in a bit of cheap politics.

But if they are genuinely interested in national security, then they would be genuinely interested in the facts. The parliamentary committee review tabled yesterday relates to the 2010-2011 budgets of the Australian intelligence community, that is, the budgets that were announced by the Treasurer more than three years ago. As announced in the 2013-14 budget, from 1 July the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation will receive an increase of $32.3 million, a 10 per cent rise in funding. Since coming to government in 2007, this government has increased funding for ASIO from $291 million in 2007-08 to $369 million in 2013-14. That represents a funding increase of 27 per cent. Over the same period the average staffing level for ASIO has increased from 1,349 to 1,778, a 32 per cent increase. So I would say to the Leader of the Opposition that before he makes any wrong claims about resourcing our national security, he checks the facts. Since coming to office the government has invested around $18 billion from 2008-09 to 2013-14 on national security matters.

On the question of Four Corners last night, there were a number of unsubstantiated allegations of hacking in the Four Corners report. As the Attorney-General has stated, neither he nor the Director-General of ASIO intend to comment further on these inaccurate reports in accordance with the long-standing practice of both sides of politics not to comment on very specific intelligence matters.

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