Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Hansard source

I thank all honourable members for their contribution to this debate. This National Security Legislation Amendment (No. 1) Bill will implement a series of targeted reforms to modernise the legislative framework governing the activities of the Australian intelligence community. It is imperative that the statutory framework governing these agencies' operations keeps pace with the contemporary evolving security environment. The important reforms in this bill will help ensure that our intelligence agencies maintain their capability to protect Australia and Australians against current emerging and future security threats.

I note that the measures in this bill have been formulated and further refined with the benefit of two bipartisan inquiries undertaken by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. The committee's first inquiry was completed in 2013 under the chairmanship of the member for Holt, the Honourable Anthony Byrne. It recommended a number of reforms to Australia's national security legislation including intelligence legislation. This report led to the introduction of this bill, which represents the government's response to chapter 4 of that report.

Following the introduction of the bill in the Senate on 16 July, the Attorney-General referred it again to the committee under the chairmanship now of the member for Wannon, Mr Dan Tehan. The committee made 17 recommendations in its advisory report on the bill, tabled out of sitting on 17 September. It recommended passage of the bill subject to a handful of targeted amendments to enhance oversight and accountability particularly with respect to ASIO's warrants and its special intelligence operations. As the Attorney-General announced on 19 September, the government supports all of these measures and moved amendments in the Senate on 25 September to implement them.

In addition, the government tabled a replacement explanatory memorandum elaborating on the justification for various measures in this bill in line with the committee's recommendations. This is now included in the revised explanatory memorandum tabled in the House. The government has also supported the amendments moved by the Palmer United Party and passed by the Senate to address the manifestly inadequate maximum penalties applying to offences for the disclosure of the identities of our intelligence personnel. The proposed 10-year maximum penalty will ensure that sentencing courts have discretion to impose a fitting penalty in relation to conduct at the most serious end of the spectrum including that which places at risk the lives or safety of the dedicated men and women who serve their country.

I want to move to respond to some of the specific points that have been made in this debate. I would like to thank the opposition for their express support for this bill, as amended in the Senate, to include the government's responses to the parliamentary joint committee's recommendations. As honourable members in both the government and the opposition have acknowledged, the measures in this bill will, with the benefit of the recommendations from that committee, strike an appropriate balance between ensuring that our agencies have adequate powers and providing for necessary limitations and safeguards. The bill has undergone a rigorous and thorough process of scrutiny—and I might just say that, whilst we welcome the bipartisanship that has been shown on this bill, clearly, from some of the comments from individual members, that bipartisanship is not necessarily shared by everybody within the opposition, but I will move to that a little later.

I want to address the comments of the member for Melbourne and member for Denison. I note that the Australian Greens and the member for Denison have made various comments about measures in this bill which have focused on special intelligence operations, disclosure offences and computer access. As the Attorney-General mentioned repeatedly in the Senate, all of these points were examined in detail by the parliamentary joint committee. We are comfortable that they have been dealt with appropriately.

On the specific issue of special intelligence operations, I note that adoption of this scheme was supported by the parliamentary joint committee in its 2013 and 2014 reports. The former Independent National Security Legislation Monitor similarly recommended the adoption of such a scheme. A comparable regime for covert law enforcement operations, known as 'controlled operations', exists in part 1AB of the Crimes Act.

On the issue of disclosure offences where concerns were shared by the member for Melbourne and the member for Denison, suggestions that they will unacceptably prevent acts of whistleblowing, it is important to note that none of the offences will disturb any of the existing mechanisms for making legitimate disclosures of suspected wrongdoing. This includes the making of disclosures in accordance with the Public Interest Disclosure Act and the making of complaints to the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. In addition, any person can report suspected offences to the Australian Federal Police.

To avoid any possibility that the offences could be perceived as disincentive to persons who may wish to make appropriate internal disclosures, the government's amendments, as agreed to by the Senate, insert express exemptions for disclosure to the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security or his or her staff. To the extent that the Greens appear to support wider exemptions that would permit the unauthorised dissemination of sensitive intelligence related information to the world at large, the government makes no apology for criminalising such conduct. This is not, as has been wrongly suggested, about preventing the release of information that might simply embarrass the government of the day or expose it to criticism; this is about providing a necessary and proportionate limitation on the communication of information that relates to the core business of intelligence agencies. I need hardly add that unauthorised disclosures of intelligence related information particularly on the scale that is now possible in the online environment can have devastating consequences for a country's international relationships, for a country's intelligence capabilities and, very importantly, for the lives and safety of our intelligence personnel.

The member for Denison had concerns—and I understand that these concerns are also expressed by the member for Indi—about limited consultations on this bill. Really, it is simply an incorrect assertion that this bill has been rushed through this parliament. I have made repeated references in my contribution, in my introduction are now in the summing up, to the reports that were done by the very effective bipartisan operating in the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. They conducted not one but two inquiries which attracted considerable public interest and participation. The government has also consulted the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security on the draft bill. In addition, the inspector-general's submission and evidence to the inquiry are all on the public record. This is consistent with the committee's intent that there should be consultation on, and further scrutiny of, provisions of the bill. As the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security acknowledged in its report, 'Full and proper consultation was undertaken.' This is evident in the report it has produced, which represents a very significant concentration of effort.

I again want to commend in this House the member for Wannon, who, as chairman of that committee, led those consultations. He is a very diligent member. The work that he has done within time frames has been exceptional. I want to commend him and others on that committee for the work that they have done in improving this bill. It is a committee whose thoughts and recommendations are taken very seriously by the government. The fact that this bill has evolved in relation to the report that they made is, I think, ample evidence of that.

Before I conclude, I want to turn to the remarks from the member for Fremantle. I understand that the member for Fremantle has strong views about this. I respect that she has a right to disagree with the government. I understand that she has echoed some of the concerns that have been made by the member for Melbourne, the member for Denison and the member for Indi. I will not repeat the government's response to those particular points, but I want to address something that she mentioned, which I do not believe any other member of this House has mentioned in this debate. This is a very important myth to dispel—the idea that the government directs our law enforcement or intelligence agencies over the timing of operations. That is absolutely wrong. It is an insult to both the acting commissioner of the Australian Federal Police and to the director-general of intelligence—who, quite frankly, would not accept an improper order from this government. We would never seek to make it and if we did, they would not undertake it.

Operational decisions about terror raids and, for that matter, criminal raids are taken by our law enforcement agencies independent of government. They do not respond to the government's political agenda. In relation to the raids that the member for Fremantle specifically addressed, those raids were taken because the law enforcement and intelligence community had had very credible intelligence that a random act of violence was going to occur on Sydney streets within days. The idea that our law enforcement or security community would sit around and wait for harm to come to random members of the Australian community is ludicrous. The idea that somehow they were directed by the government to do that because we were looking at legislation in this House is completely and utterly wrong. The member for Fremantle should repudiate any such ludicrous suggestions.

May I conclude by acknowledging the work of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. As I said, their work has been excellent. It has been thorough and constructive, and their reports are bipartisan. I thank my colleagues from all sides of the chamber for recognising the need for these important reforms and for placing principles of security and accountability above politics. Your work is a testament to the high quality of parliamentary scrutiny that is rightly applied to Australia's national security legislation and has rightly been applied in the case of this bill. This is an important bill. It secures the security of the Australian community and I wholeheartedly commend this bill to the House.

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