Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I just want to put a few remarks on the record about the Greens' grave concerns with the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (International Production Orders) Bill 2020, and those will be expanded upon when the matter reaches the Senate. As has been outlined by the minister and the opposition spokesperson, what this bill does is introduce a regime for Australian agencies to obtain international production orders that require designated communications providers overseas to intercept communications and provide access to stored communications and telecommunications data.

There are some very real concerns with the lack of protections and the lack of parameters that are set out in this bill. As I say, the Greens will expand on this when the bill reaches the Senate, as it appears destined to, but one very strong concern is the lack of required parameters for international agreements and incoming orders that are made under them. The bill lacks both the protections that are included under the equivalent United States legislation and the safeguards provided for under mutual assistance laws with respect to matters such as protection of human rights, prohibition on torture, and restrictions on accessing data about Australian persons. It is not at all clear whether international agreements will be subject to adequate scrutiny, including by the parliament, before coming into effect. And what about the question of what happens when any such agreements are amended? There is a real question about whether it's appropriate for the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, as opposed to members of the judiciary, to be in the practice of issuing orders with respect to these kinds of matters. We also note the lack of proper protections for journalists' telecommunications data compared with domestic provisions, given that we are dealing here with arrangements that are reached overseas and companies that operate overseas.

There's a real question, as well, about the appropriateness of IPOs for purposes relating to control orders, in particular for monitoring compliance with control orders, and the fact that powers will be available for those purposes under IPOs that are not currently available within Australia. There's a question about the appropriateness of IPOs for national security purposes, particularly given the breadth of powers to access telecommunications data, and whether the safeguards for these IPOs are adequate. Critically, given the crucial role that they will play, there are some real questions that remain from this bill, even as amended, about the adequacy of provisions enabling service providers to object to IPOs, both in terms of the grounds for objection and the means for considering and determining such objections.

It's not possible—and this is a big part of the problem—to assess the adequacy of safeguards in nearly all aspects of the proposed regime in the bill, because the bill really only sets out a minimal framework for oversight with an apparent intention for many critical details, including safeguards, to be governed by the terms of individual agreements between Australia and other countries. Some civil society stakeholders have made the point that they're concerned that AAT members lack the independence required to properly fulfil the role of considering and issuing IPOs. We have heard in this place a sustained assault on what political parties do with the AAT, and I think if you accept those arguments you've got to take them through to the logical conclusion and raise the question about whether the AAT, as opposed to members of the judiciary, is the appropriate place for dealing with many of these crucial issues. The Australian Privacy Foundation has made that point very, very clearly.

We also have no guarantee that agreements between countries for data are going to be made public in full. It is for this reason that even the human rights committee, in inquiring into this bill, considered that the bill may not adequately protect the right to privacy and did raise questions about further amendments. In light of the time, the Greens will make further contributions and set out the significant problems with this bill when it reaches the Senate.

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