Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Okay, I will withdraw that. But certainly it will put massive pressure on their ability to continue their operations. It is not the only cost in the pipeline. When you look at TSSR, the telecommunications sector security review, and the cost implications that might come out of that, there are added costs. We have done nothing to provide some assurance to those companies—apart from this legislation. The government has rushed this legislation through, given no assurance and, when there is no ability to actually ensure that those people are looked after, they will then no doubt lowball the amount and put pressure on those small companies, even though they have the ability today to fix it up.

The other issue that I wanted to impress upon people is parliamentary oversight. For this to work, understanding that this is more likely than not to go through both houses of parliament, it is my fervent wish, when it is set up and parliamentary oversight is exercised—and this takes nothing away from the calibre, commitment and determination of my colleagues in sitting on those committees in the future—that we would continue to test the assumptions that are put forward. Security agencies will by their very nature be very cautious and want to ensure that the full breadth of measures available to them can be exercised. But you cannot necessarily write a blank cheque on these things, and I am genuinely worried that all it takes is for a security agency to say, 'We need these powers; if we don't, terrible things will happen.' We are going to have to test that. Our job as parliamentarians is to balance the need for security with the need for the exercise of freer liberties. It is certainly something that needs to be dealt with.

People are concerned about this. People outside this chamber recognise that the general groundswell of opinion is for governments and companies to lay off privacy. An article in CNET in early March was entitled, 'Tim Cook to governments: Lay off our privacy'. That is the Apple CEO saying that governments would need to be very mindful of people's privacy down the track. If someone in Apple gets it, it is because their consumers are telling it to them. They are responding. This is not an issue that is going to go away. The next generation of voters, the next generation of Australians, will value their privacy more and more, and that is why there is such concern about this.

Again, I recognise that we have to balance the issues that confront law enforcement with being able to have access to data that can help them in their work. But I also recognise and respect the value placed by the citizens of this country on their privacy. I recognise and value the work being done by telecommunications companies that will be impacted by this. I hope that these types of concerns are tested in the years to come. Bear in mind: this system will be set up in two years and then tested in two years after that. That is a long period of time for this system to be in operation.

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