Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, I present the committee's advisory report, incorporating a dissenting report, on the National Security Legislation Amendment (Comprehensive Review and Other Measures No. 2) Bill 2023.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

by leave—The committee's report supports the measures in National Security Legislation Amendment (Comprehensive Review and Other Measures No. 2) Bill 2023. The bill implements 10 recommendations of the 2020 Comprehensive Review of the Legal Framework of the National Intelligence Community—known as the Richardson review, after Dennis Richardson, the author—that relate to the Attorney-General's portfolio. The bill also proposes two amendments to the Intelligence Services Act 2001.

The recommendations of the Richardson review implemented by the bill would seek to improve or modernise various legal provisions in order to ensure the national intelligence community can continue to undertake its important work effectively and with appropriate accountability in the current environment in 2023 and into the future. The amendments include removing the ability for the Attorney-General to delegate critical powers related to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, ASIO, as well as restricting the ability to confer powers related to ASIO to another minister, except in exceptional circumstances: providing defences to ASIO offices to certain criminal offences under the criminal code relating to tampering or interfering with telecommunications and carrier facilities; enabling ASIO to use record and disclose spent convictions information under the Crimes Act for the purposes of performing its functions; streamlining and clarifying the oversight of intelligence agencies by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security and the Commonwealth Ombudsman, including the requirement for the IGIS to publish public interest disclosure and complaints information in its annual report; and other reforms to the Freedom of Information Act, Archives Act and the Administrative Appeal Tribunal for intelligence agencies and the IGIS to improve clarity and transparency. These amendments are all based on recommendations made by the Richardson review, accepted by government, and developed by the responsible agencies. The evidence provided to the committee has established that these amendments will deliver the improvements and safeguards outlined by the Attorney-General when the bill was introduced and in the bill's explanatory material.

The committee does make one recommendation in its report regarding the creation of defences under the Criminal Code for ASIO officers when utilising some of that agency's most covert and intrusive capabilities. In evidence to the committee it became clear that the application of the defences may be wider than originally envisaged, in extending to a broadly defined category of 'ASIO affiliates'. Accordingly, the committee has recommended that the explanatory memorandum for the bill be amended to acknowledge this fact, and that future review of the home affairs minister's guidelines to ASIO consider the need for appropriate safeguards over such people and the defences that may be applicable.

The bill contains two further proposed amendments. The bill would amend the intelligence services act 2001 to change the constitution and the quorum of the intelligence and security committee. It would also amend the requirements for directions from the foreign minister to the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) regarding activities relating to the capabilities, intentions or activities of people or organisations outside Australia.

These amendments were considered and supported by the committee's report.

Classified evidence provided by ASIS and the IGIS gave the committee confidence that the proposed amendments regarding ministerial directions to ASIS were required for the proper exercise of ministerial responsibility over its most sensitive operations. The committee thanks both ASIS and the IGIS for their forthright cooperation with the committee in this review. This committee is unique in the parliament in its ability to receive highly classified and sensitive information to aid its deliberations, and the cooperation of the intelligence community in that regard helps ensure the appropriate rigour to the committee's considerations.

The proposed changes to the composition of the PJCIS, the intelligence and security committee, increase its membership by two, to 13 members, and its quorum from six to seven members, which will allow for increased flexibility and an increased membership on the committee to engage in its important work. I note that there is a dissenting report from the opposition, which is somewhat disappointing given this has been a very strongly collegiate and bipartisan committee. I would say that the collegiality has continued, although the bipartisanship on this particular report has not, and we have in good faith engaged and done our best to reach a consensus. Unfortunately, on this occasion we haven't.

I would not like to pre-empt the deputy chair's statement on the dissenting report, but I would simply like to say very clearly—and this is important for the record—that the changes that are proposed in the amendments and the recommendations in the committee's report do not change the appointment process or the key requirement that the government of the day hold a majority on the committee. In other words, the powers to appoint any member of this parliament to that committee exist currently and have nothing to do with these particular changes. These changes that are recommended are to increase the number of the committee and also change the composition of the committee, with respect to the requirement for a certain number of members of the House and Senate as a minimum threshold.

On behalf of the committee I would like to thank those who participated in the bill review by providing a high-quality level of evidence within a very short time frame to assist our deliberations. I would like to thank the Deputy Speaker—sorry; I mean the deputy chair of the committee. I would like to thank you, too, Deputy Speaker Vasta, but certainly I thank the deputy chair and other members of the committee for all the hard work that they've put in during the course of this particular review and in the short time frame we had to deliberate.

I commend this report to the House.

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