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

I thank the member for his question and his abiding interest in this important part of the government's agenda. Since coming to government in 2013, this government has passed 19 separate tranches of national security legislation. They've covered a very broad range of issues, and they're meant to deal with a very broad range of threats, from removing abhorrent violent terrorist material to disrupting espionage and foreign interference.

In this answer, I'd like to concentrate and focus on one very important area, which are the counterencryption laws that we introduced. Those laws, as introduced and passed by this government, give federal and state agencies the ability to use powers for counterencryption against a broad range of offences—not just terrorism but also drug trafficking, murder, slavery and espionage. The very, very important speech that was given by the new director-general of ASIO last night showed why those laws are important, why it's important they don't get watered down and why it's important that they come through this parliament in a reasonable time and in a timely way. The director-general for ASIO, Mike Burgess, last night said, 'Our counterencryption laws were used within 10 days of them coming into effect'—in his words—'by ASIO to prevent a real risk of injury to Australians.' That is what our government's legislative agenda achieves on the ground.

This is a very timely point to recall what the shadow Attorney-General's position on precisely these counterencryption laws were. On 3 December 2019 the shadow Attorney-General's position was very clear. He was being interviewed by Fran Kelly, who asked:

… the amended version that Labor is putting forward only applies to terrorists and perhaps paedophiles and would only empower the national security agencies to intercept encrypted messages, not the state police forces. Is that correct?

The response was, 'That's our proposal.' So the shadow Attorney-General's position, on 3 December 2019, was that the counterencryption bill should not extend its counterencryption provisions beyond terrorism—that is to say that they should not apply to murder, to espionage and to matters of this type. And their position at that point in time was also that the bill should not extend to state police forces.

That was their position on 3 December. They were dragged kicking and screaming to help pass the bill on 8 December, and by 18 December the laws were used to protect Australians. Their position was to delay, obstruct and oppose the bill in the form that it was finally passed by this parliament. The Victorian assistant commissioner said that their position would significantly impact the fight against many types of crimes. It was interesting that they mentioned right-wing terrorism, because this goes straight to the heart of that issue. (Time expired)

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