Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

My colleagues, in particular the shadow minister for defence, have done a very good job in outlining what the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2020 does and why, subject to passage of the government's amendments, Labor supports it. I would just like to make a few comments about why the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, of which I am a member, recommended that the original bill introduced by the government be split in two and that very significant parts of the bill not proceed at all in their current form.

The parts of the bill that the committee found should not proceed in their current form included proposed new positive security obligations for workers and businesses who operate and maintain a vast array of infrastructure assets across Australia. The detail of exactly what those positive security obligations would or could be and who those new obligations would apply to was to be left to regulation. This meant the breadth and potential impact of the legislation was uncertain; but, potentially, the measures proposed by the government would have impacted literally hundreds of thousands of workers and businesses across Australia.

It was both deeply concerning and wholly unsurprising to learn that, despite the impact that these proposed measures could have on the lives and livelihoods of hundreds and thousands of Australian workers, the government did not consult workers or a single trade union prior to the introduction of the critical infrastructure bill and the government barely consulted with industry either. It is quite unusual for the intelligence and security committee to receive submissions from trade unions, but the government's failure to consult with workers or their representatives was drawn to the intelligence and security committee's attention by the ACTU and the Electrical Trades Union of Australia.

This abject failure to consult was not only an insult to Australian workers who would be potentially impacted by the measures in this bill; it was also counterproductive. As the ETU told the intelligence and security committee in one of its three submissions to the committee's inquiry, by failing to consult with the ETU and other unions, the Department of Home Affairs had:

… missed a significant opportunity to gain insights into the security and resilience of critical infrastructure from the perspective of the people who actually build, maintain and operate these assets on a daily basis. In addition, the Department appears to have no visibility of existing provisions in industry, at least as they relate to the industry sectors the ETU is familiar with, and their effectiveness.

The government's failure to consult, coupled with the broad and uncertain nature of the powers it was seeking in the original version of this bill, gave a rise to a serious and understandable concern and anxieties the part of many workers and their representatives. As the ACTU noted about the original version of the bill:

… this proposal could subject nurses, truck drivers, call centre workers, electrical linesperson's and even apprentice electricians to the same rules as ASIO officials, subject to the Minister's whims.

…   …   …

Some employers have already flagged to their workers they intend to use the introduction of this legislation to request access to workers' communication and social media and discriminate against employees for their political views, in order to over-zealously comply with rules not yet issued. As union members in public services can attest, political preferences, party membership, membership of a trade union, participation in democratic expressions of protest, social media profiles, internet activity, and psychological medical history are examined in security vetting. Awarding this power to industry or subjecting packaging workers in the food and grocery sector to this process through a Government agency would be a gross overreach.

I'd also like to acknowledge the many businesses and industry groups who also expressed concerns about the breadth and ill-defined nature of many of the powers in the government's original bill, albeit from a different perspective. The concerns of workers' representatives and the concerns of industry were heard loud and clear by Labor and Liberal members of the intelligence and security committee alike, which is why the committee recommended unanimously that the critical infrastructure bill be split into two, with many of the more contentious measures to be reconsidered and redrafted in light of the committee's comments and feedback from key stakeholders.

I would like to thank the government—and I can thank the minister because she's present here in the chamber—for accepting the committee's recommendations, which were a sensible, measured and bipartisan response to an identified need by security agencies on the one hand and, on the other, serious and understandable concerns about the original version of the bill from a range of stakeholders, including the ETU, the ACTU, industry groups and legal experts. With the amendments introduced by the government to implement the intelligence and security committee's recommendations, I commend the bill to the House.

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