Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

As members opposite interject, we on this side of the House, like all members of the Australian public, listen to ASIO when they tell us that 95 per cent of the current targets that they are scoping for terrorism use encrypted applications. The commissioner of the AFP has said that we need these laws—in his words—to:

… give police a fighting chance … in an era when the information that we gather is encrypted by default.

We on this side of the House note that he doesn't say an advantage; he says 'a fighting chance'. When he uses the word 'police' he doesn't mean just federal police; he means state and federal police. We have now reached a sticking point with this critical legislation where members opposite want to deny this type of benefit to state police. We will talk about this overnight, but this side of the House will not deny these powers to state police and give them only to federal police. Our view is that the lives saved by state police are the same as the lives saved by federal police—that is, they are Australian lives. The Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police has said very clearly:

We have been using the term going dark for a while. I think the reality is they have now gone dark.

This legislation is urgent. (Time expired)

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