Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Can I congratulate the member for Higgins on her first-class speech and on her commendation to the House to pass this important bill, the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014, which is another part of the government's suite of measures which will help us keep our citizens safe. In the last six months the government has put through the parliament three important pieces of legislation because the government is determined to keep our citizens safe. As the Prime Minister has said, it is the No. 1 duty of any government and it is the duty of this government in particular, given the heightened security threat that we have seen as a result of Australians travelling to both Iraq and Syria and returning, and the threat that they are presenting to our nation.

It is very important that we continue to do everything we can to keep our country safe. The government is about to bring another important piece of legislation to the vote, which will occur in the first quarter of next year, which will be around the retention of metadata. That will be the fourth component of the measures that the government is putting in place.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security looked at the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 very carefully, as it has with the two previous pieces of legislation. We came up with 16 important recommendations in our report. I might just step through a few of these, because I think it is important to inform the House of how the committee deliberated on this piece of legislation and then, in a bipartisan report, recommended that the legislation be passed by the parliament, with this list of recommendations.

I might just pause before I look at some of the key aspects and just pick up on some of the criticisms that have been levelled at the process by one particular individual in this place, who referred to the committee as some type of club. I find those sorts of references to the committee ill informed, ill advised and obviously it is not the approach that serious members of this House would take. Every member of the committee is appointed by the Prime Minister. I can tell you that everyone who is on that committee takes their role incredibly seriously and it is why, with the first piece of legislation, the National Security Legislation Bill (No. 1) 2014, the committee put forward 17 recommendations, all of which were adopted by the government.

In the second piece of legislation, the foreign fighters bill, 37 recommendations were put forward by the committee, all of which were accepted by the government. And obviously with this bill before us here, another 16 recommendations were put to the government, all of which were accepted. If you look at those recommendations—take the foreign fighters bill, for instance—there were sunset clauses put in on some aspects of that legislation. There were review processes both for the legislation for the independent national security legislation monitor and for the committee itself. These were not the decisions taken by some sort of club; this was a committee, with each individual on it seriously looking at this legislation and deciding what they thought was best when it came to how the parliament should consider this. So, any idea of some sort of club is I think ill informed and ill advised, and I would hope that we would see a better and more informed debate from the Greens in the future when we are considering very important legislation for this nation.

So, that little side matter has now been dealt with. It is unfortunate that those types of things have to be dealt with, because it would be much better if we were here debating the substance of this bill rather than having people trying to make cheap political shots on national security. When it comes to the bill itself, what did the committee recommend, and why? On schedule 1, the committee recommended that the government finalise, to start with, the appointment of the independent national security legislation monitor. Obviously this is an important step and something that the committee has urged the government to do as a priority. We would then like the INSLM to consider whether additional safeguards recommended in the 2013 Council of Australian Governments review of counter-terrorism legislation should be looked at and whether special advocates need to be considered, and that all this take place given new developments in the security situation.

In 2013 a review was done by COAG, but that was in a different security situation. We now have a heightened security situation, so we want that to be a key aspect of when this is now looked at. We have also recommended that the term 'supports and facilitates' in the proposed amendments to the control order regimes be based on language in the existing criminal code. Obviously these are key components of these new aspects of control orders that have been introduced, and we want to make sure that 'supports and facilitates', to the extent possible, reflects the language in the existing criminal code. The committee also recommended that the counter-terrorism legislation bill be amended to require that when seeking the Attorney-General's consent to request an interim control order the Australian Federal Police must provide the Attorney-General with a statement of facts relating to why the order should be made and any known facts as to why it should not be made. Once again, here we are just making sure that there is proper transparency and, in particular, that the AFP, in putting its case to the Attorney-General, makes sure that it takes into account the facts as to why it should be made so that the Attorney is fully aware of the known facts as to why it should not be made—just highlighting once again the committee's desire to see transparency in this aspect.

We also recommended that the bill be amended to require the Attorney-General's consent to an urgent interim control order and that it be obtained within eight hours of a request being made by a senior member of the AFP. Once again, we could understand why there needed to be a time frame here, and we thought that eight hours was the appropriate time frame. Obviously if the Attorney is on a plane flying from one side of the nation to the other then it would be very difficult for the AFP to contact the Attorney. But other than that—and it gives a bit of time on either side to account for him landing et cetera—we saw eight hours as the appropriate time frame here.

The committee also recommended that proposed paragraphs 104.3(d) and 104.23(2)(b) of the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill be amended to retain the current requirement that the AFP explain why each of the obligations, prohibitions and restrictions proposed in a draft control order should or should not be imposed on the person. So, once again, we are looking for the AFP having to state its case very clearly and looking at the pros and cons.

When it came to schedule 2 of the bill—the proposed amendments to the Intelligence Services Act—the committee recommended that the EM to the counter-terrorism legislation be amended to provide further information about how a class of Australian persons will be defined. The member for Kooyong touched on this point. We think it is very important that the public is fully aware of how this class of Australian persons will be defined. We went on to say that it needs to be made clear that any Australian person included in a specified class of Australian persons agreed to by the Attorney-General must be involved in an activity or activities that pose a threat to security as defined by the ASIO Act 1979. Once again, here we are looking for it to be made very clear in the EM how this class of persons will be defined. Obviously we want the community to have confidence in the approach we are taking with regard to expanding how these proposed amendments to schedule 2 will be enacted.

We also recommended that, subject to passage of the bill, the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security, the IGIS, provide close oversight of all ministerial authorisations given orally under this part of the bill and also all agreements provided by the A-G under the proposed amendments to paragraph 9(1A)(b) of the Intelligence Services Act.

In recommendation 9 we asked that the bill be amended to require an agency head to notify the relevant responsible minister of an authorisation given by the agency head under proposed section 9B of the ISA within eight hours. We thought that was a sensible time frame to enable the Attorney-General to be notified. Copies of the authorisation and other documents should then be provided to the minister and to the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, as outlined in the proposed sections 9B(5) and 9B(6) of the IS Act 2001.

We also said the IGIS should be required to oversight within 30 days all emergency authorisations given by agency heads—once again, an important check and balance in this aspect of the bill—and that the IGIS be required to notify the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security within 30 days of all emergency authorisations. So not only is the IGIS acting as a check and balance; the committee itself will now play a role in making sure these emergency authorisations are used only in exceptional circumstances.

Recommendation 12 was that the counter-terrorism legislation bill be amended to require an agency head to notify the Attorney-General within eight hours of an emergency authorisation given with the agreement of the Director-General of Security or without the agreement of either the Attorney-General or the Director-General of Security. This makes sure proper scrutiny is in place. Recommendations 13, 14 and 15 enhance the oversight around schedule 2 of the bill. If time permitted, I would go into a bit more detail on those recommendations; but, as the clock is ticking, I will have to leave that. I would recommend to all members of the House that they have a look at the recommendations because they do provide safeguards and oversight so that we can be confident and comfortable that our intelligence agencies will be acting in an appropriate manner, as they always do, when it comes to keeping our nation safe.

I thank all members of the parliamentary joint committee for the manner in which they went about looking at this bill. I thank the secretariat for their very professional advice and the manner in which they helped the committee in its consideration of this important legislation. These three pieces of legislation to enhance our national security are complex and this has required the committee to spend a great amount of time looking at them. Committee members and the secretariat have been incredibly diligent and professional in the way they have gone about this. To suggest that this is some sort of club is complete and utter nonsense. The committee's work has made this legislation better; and I think it has improved the safety and security of our nation, which should always be the No. 1 consideration of government.

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