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

I'm going to begin by making a statement of the obvious: Labor supports effective and rational measures to secure Australia's critical infrastructure. I'm a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, which reviewed the original version of the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure Protection) Bill 2020. As other speakers in this debate have noted, the committee's bipartisan report, which was tabled on 29 September 2021, recommended that the original bill be split in two and that very significant parts of the bill not proceed at all in their original form. Just to make sure that all members of the House understand the significance of this: this is a committee that consists of six government senators and members of this House and five senators and members of this House from the Labor Party. Those 11 members unanimously recommended that the original government bill be split in two, and that a very significant part of the original bill not proceed at all.

The reason why the intelligence committee recommended that very significant parts of the original bill not be proceeded with is that they were neither effective nor rational. For example, the original version of the bill included proposed new positive security obligations for workers and businesses who operate and maintain a vast array of infrastructure assets across Australia. But the detail of exactly what those positive security obligations would or could be and who those new obligations would apply to was left entirely to regulation, and the government couldn't provide the intelligence and security committee with any real insight into what those regulations would look like. This meant that the breadth and potential impact of the government's legislation was uncertain. In other words, the government wanted the parliament to hand it a lot of power to do something, but it couldn't tell the parliament exactly what that something was.

While the government's intentions were unclear, perhaps even to the government itself, what was clear to Liberal and Labor members of the intelligence and security committee was that the powers sought by the government had the potential to impact literally hundreds of thousands of workers and businesses across Australia. And yet the government couldn't explain how those measures would improve the security of critical infrastructure.

Of serious concern to all members of the intelligence and security committee was that despite the impact that the proposed measures could have for the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Australian workers, the government did not consult workers or their representatives, and barely consulted with industry, before the introduction of the original version of the critical infrastructure bill. The government accepted the intelligence committee's recommendation to split the bill in two so that the parts of the bill that had been identified as urgent could pass the parliament without delay, and the other parts of the bill could be reconsidered and redrafted in the light of the committee's comments and feedback from key stakeholders. The parts of the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2020 that the Department of Home Affairs identified as urgent passed the parliament last year with bipartisan support, following a number of amendments being made to implement recommendations of the intelligence and security committee.

And that brings me to the bill before the House today, which contains the remaining elements of the original bill, but, we all hope, in an improved and amended form. That remains to be seen, because this bill has, appropriately, been referred to the intelligence and security committee for inquiry and report. But in a significant breach of convention, the government has insisted that the bill be debated in the House of Representatives before the committee has completed its inquiry. My colleague the shadow minister for defence, the member for Gorton, has already outlined Labor's concerns about the government's departure from convention. It's also a matter of concern to me personally, as a member of the intelligence and security committee—and I expect that it's a matter of concern to all other committee members, whether Labor or Liberal.

The bill is now before the intelligence and security committee, and has only been introduced into the parliament very recently—in fact, last Thursday. And so, as is customary, Labor's final position on this legislation will be determined after the committee has completed its review. And just for the assistance of the member for Mackellar, the second reading amendment moved by my colleague the shadow minister for defence deals with a single matter. Not the broad-ranging, invented concept that he was talking about, but a single matter, which is the breach of convention involved in the government bringing on this debate ahead of the inquiry and report by the intelligence committee—and that is the only thing that the second reading amendment deals with.

It being the case that serious concerns have already been raised with my office about inadequate consultation by the government on this bill, including a lack of consultation with industry, workers and unions, my colleagues and I will be pursuing that lack of consultation in the inquiry. Labor members will also be looking very carefully at the extent to which the various other recommendations set out in the intelligence committee's earlier report into the original version of the critical infrastructure bill have been implemented in the development of this legislation. The intelligence and security committee does not make recommendations for fun. They are the product of extensive deliberations between committee members, Labor and Liberal, after careful consideration of the evidence that's brought to the committee. We expect them to be implemented. If one or more of the committee's recommendations have not been implemented in this case, the Department of Home Affairs and the government had better have a good explanation.

I also note that a number of recommendations have been made by the intelligence and security committee in other contexts that go directly to the security of Australia's critical infrastructure and the security of the personal data of Australians that the government still hasn't responded to. In October of 2020, for example, the committee recommended that the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act be amended to require service providers to store telecommunications data on servers located in Australia. The government has not responded to, let alone implemented, that recommendation.

The intelligence and security committee is an essential bipartisan institution. Until the member for Cook became Prime Minister, the committee's role in the development of national security legislation was invariably respected and sometimes lauded by all sides of politics. In recent months, we have seen an escalation in desperate, divisive, irresponsible rhetoric from the Prime Minister and some of his senior ministers on matters of national security. We saw that desperate, divisive, irresponsible rhetoric being repeated in question time today. No serious and responsible person from either side of politics or indeed from outside the political arena thinks that the politicisation of national security is in the national interest.

I've previously referred in this place to remarks that the former Attorney-General, George Brandis, made in his 2018 valedictory speech about the importance of bipartisanship on national security issues. In that speech, Senator Brandis listed three reasons why our domestic national security policy had been, in his opinion, successful during his time as Attorney-General. The second reason he listed was bipartisanship. Referring to eight national security bills introduced by the Abbott and Turnbull governments and supported by the Labor Party in both Houses, Senator Brandis said:

All eight tranches of legislation were passed with the opposition's support after scrutiny by the PJCIS. It was a fine example of government and parliament working hand in hand to protect the national interest. I have heard some powerful voices argue that the coalition should open a political front against the Labor Party on the issue of domestic national security. I could not disagree more strongly. One of the main reasons why the government has earned the confidence of the public on national security policy is there has never been a credible suggestion that political motives have intruded. Were they to do so, confidence not just in the government's handling of national security but in the agencies themselves would be damaged and their capacity to do their work compromised. Nothing could be more irresponsible than to hazard the safety of the public by creating a confected dispute for political advantage.

Senator Brandis's reference to 'powerful voices' in the coalition who were arguing in favour of politicising national security, contrary to the national interest, was widely understood to be a reference to the current Prime Minister and the current Minister for Defence. I disagreed with Senator Brandis on many matters, but, on this issue, he was absolutely correct. When politicians seek to use national security as a political weapon, it's bad for our country, it's bad for our security agencies, and, ultimately, it's bad for our national security.

We've seen the same characters on the other side of the chamber seek to politicise national security and Australia's security agencies before. When the current government leaked what was said to be ASIO advice to the Australian newspaper to launch a political attack against Labor in February 2019, the then director-general of ASIO, Duncan Lewis, could not have been clearer. After making it clear that the ASIO advice had been misrepresented and distorted in newspaper reports, Mr Lewis went on to say:

When reporting wrongly attributes advice from ASIO, or where our classified advice is leaked, it undermines all that we stand for.

I urge members of the government to reflect on those comments by the former director-general of ASIO, Mr Lewis, which he made on 18 February 2019, and to go back and read Senator Brandis's valedictory speech. While you're at it, I would encourage you to read the current director-general of ASIO's recent comments to Senate estimates, where he made a similar point.

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