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

I would like to come to some of the matters raised by the member of Fisher, the deputy chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, but I want to start by speaking to some of the amendments and recommendations around the National Security Legislation Amendment (Comprehensive Review and Other Measures No. 2) Bill 2023 that have been agreed to. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, which I chair, put a report through with recommendations around the review of the bill to implement 10 recommendations of the 2020 Comprehensive Review of the Legal Framework of the National Intelligence Community, otherwise known as the Richardson review, after Dennis Richardson, the review's author, and these relate to the Attorney-General's portfolio. That review made 203 recommendations, 13 of which are classified. To date, 30 recommendations have previously been implemented; 53 required no further action; and 120 are currently in progress.

This bill proposes two amendments to the Intelligence Services Act 2001 as well. The recommendation of the Richardson review implemented by the bill seek to improve and modernise various legal provisions, ensuring the national intelligence community can continue to undertake its important work effectively and with appropriate accountability in the current circumstances that we face and into the future.

The bill also considers principles delivered by Justice Hope 40 years ago outlined in the review which highlighted the importance of agencies being held accountable and operate in accordance with the law with respect to human rights and fundamental freedoms while remaining politically impartial.

This bill would amend multiple acts in implementing the 10 recommendations of the comprehensive review, the Richardson review, would also increase the number of members appointed to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and provide a more flexible composition of members from the House and the Senate. It would also clarify the level of detail required to describe a number of additional activities that the foreign minister may authorise to be undertaken by the Australian Secret Intelligence Service. Implementation of those recommendations from the comprehensive review provide the most detailed consideration of our national security laws through the 203 recommendations that I touched on earlier.

The bill also includes amendments to address the following recommendations. Recommendation 18 is to amend the Law Officers Act 1964 to remove the ability of the Attorney-General to delegate their powers under the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation Act 1979 with the exception of measures relating to the provision of financial assistance. Recommendation 19 is to amend the Acts Interpretation Act, ASIO Act and Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act to prohibit the conferral of the Attorney-General's powers with respect to the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisations through executive action—instead, requiring legislative amendment—and the Governor-General would be able to make a substitute reference in ordering in respect of the Attorney-General only if the Prime Minister is satisfied exceptional circumstances exist.

Recommendation 66 is to amend the Criminal Code Act to include Defence in a number of subsections, especially where ASIO officers are acting in the course of their duties and where that conduct is reasonable in the circumstances. Recommendation 136 is to amend the Crimes Act to expand exclusions to the spent convictions scheme. Recommendation 145 is to amend the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act and the Public Interest Disclosure Act to require the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security—IGIS for short—to report annually on public interest disclosures received by or allocated to the IGIS and complaints made to the IGIS. Recommendation 167 is to amend the Ombudsman Act 1976 to exclude the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, the Australian Geospatial Intelligence Organisation, the Australian Signals Directorate, the Office of National Intelligence and the Defence Intelligence Organisation from the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth Ombudsman. These agencies are subject to the jurisdiction of the IGIS—Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security—which is the dedicated oversight body for intelligence and security matters alongside the PJCIS with the oversight work we do.

Recommendation 186 is to amend the Freedom of Information Act to remove the ATO's freedom of information exemptions with respect to its non-intelligence functions regarding the Australian Hydrographic Office. Recommendation 188 is to amend the FOI Act to provide consistent exemptions under the FOI scheme to suspicious matters reports and suspicious transaction reports produced by the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre. Recommendation 191 is to amend the Archives Act and the AAT Act to provide that all security matters arising under those acts are heard in the security division of the AAT, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

Finally, recommendation 192 is to amend the FOI Act and the Archives Act so the IGIS is only required to provide evidence in proceedings under those acts where the material in a proceedings relates to one or more of the agencies the IGIS oversees. There is quite a lot of detail there. All of those recommendations and in particular the 10 recommendations, some of which I have detailed, have been supported in a bipartisan fashion by the opposition members of the PJCIS as well as the opposition, I think, generally speaking. There's certainly no opposition to those recommendations. These have been in train for quite awhile, as I mentioned, with the Richardson review. There's also bipartisan support for the changes to ASIS. I think the Deputy Speaker and the member for Fisher noted that those hearings were classified hearings with respect to some of the ministerial directions and activities that ASIS conduct under the direction of the Foreign Minister.

The bill, as I noted, would also amend the Intelligence Services Act to increase membership of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security from 11 to 13 members. The bill maintains the government majority on the committee. In addition, the bill will amend the current requirement of six MPs from the House of Representatives and five senators, changing it to provide a minimum of four MPs, including two government and two non-government MPs from the House, and four senators, including two from the government side of the Senate and two from the non-government side of the Senate. That's the change. The remaining five members can be drawn from either house of parliament. This is an important amendment because it provides greater flexibility for the composition of the PJCIS's House and Senate members while preserving the requirements for the committee to comprise members from both chambers.

This committee has longstanding bipartisanship and collegiality. The opposition members, the non-government members and the government members on the committee have worked, I think it's safe to say, if I can speak for previous chairs and committee members, in the most respectful way to try to reach consensus that is considered in the national interest for our national security, and that has been done in good faith for a long time. Of course, as I mentioned, the opposition members have supported the changes to everything in this bill, including the changes to ASIS. However, it is the first time in 17 years that the committee hasn't reached a consensus. The opposition members chose, for the first time in 17 years, to break that bipartisanship to make a dissenting report on just that one recommendation in relation to the composition of the PJCIS. For my part as the chair, it is extremely disappointing that the opposition have chosen to politicise this particular change, because, frankly, there is a fair bit of misinformation and disinformation that has been bandied about which I would like to address now.

In the House, the member for Fisher and the member for Canning have made a number of points in their contributions to this place in respect of the bill. They argued that there was a long period of time to form the committee and this was somehow the government's fault. Let's be clear about that. The negotiation to form a committee and ensure committee members are chosen for PJCIS, as I said earlier, currently requires you to have six members of the House and five members of the Senate. This is part of the issue of flexibility. There was back and forth about determining which non-government and government senators could conceivably be put on the committee, and that's often a consultation that occurs. That is really part of the reason for the change with this amendment. It is to give further flexibility while maintaining members from both houses. The difficulty of having that higher bar of five and six is removed. That's an important point to make amongst all the misinformation that we're hearing.

The other points being made—and I heard them from the member for Fisher just before I rose to speak—are about these changes somehow changing the composition of the committee with the appointment of non-government members not from any of the political parties. The fact is this: the power to appoint any senator or member of parliament to the PJCIS currently exists. These changes do not change that power. That exists today and has existed for a period of time. There have been in the past other non-government members of the committee who have not come from a major political party. It has happened. The power exists and has existed for a period of time. These changes—which they are choosing to put out a dissenting report on, choosing to politicise and, in doing so, choosing to break the bipartisanship of 17 years—have no bearing on that power. The Prime Minister, in consultation with others in the parliament, can appoint any member of parliament, from the House or the Senate, to the committee. That has not changed. To make a disingenuous argument that they would oppose these changes around increasing the numbers and composition of the committee and somehow extrapolate from that that they know what's going to happen in the future, I think, is very disingenuous and very disappointing.

I would like to put on the record that these changes, these amendments, have no bearing whatsoever on the power that currently exists to appointment members of parliament to this committee. That's an important point to make because there's been a fair bit of misinformation about that. As I said, the member for Fisher claimed that there's no evidence that the changes to the composition of the committee would lead to greater oversight and accountability. Well, actually, there's a very intense workload for this committee. I think everyone on the committee knows this. They know the reality of this—the important work that is conducted by the committee—and there is a great volume of work in the oversight of all of the national intelligence community and the security agencies. It is a very intense workload. Having members on that committee conduct that work is important. I think the changes, as I said, will add to the flexibility and relief of the workload that exists for this committee.

Put simply, the amendments to the composition of the PJCIS allow for that flexibility, and increased membership of the committee allows for engagement in this important work by members of parliament. That's an important point to make. I want to put those facts on the record. I'm pleased that the opposition is supporting all of the elements of this bill, particularly those that we recommended in the PJCIS report we handed down. It is disappointing that they chose to make a dissenting report on one particular aspect of the work on this bill.

In conclusion, I make the point that I would hope the opposition understands—and I think some of them do—the important nature of the work that is done in the national interest by the PJCIS. I hope that they would not seek to politicise that to score cheap political points in the media. I hope that the collegiality and bipartisanship in the work that we do, which is so important in this committee, is maintained, because we are in probably the most volatile strategic circumstances that we've faced as a nation in decades. The work we do to oversee our intelligence community and our security agencies is a critical part of ensuring that they are held accountable but that the taxpayer dollars that are spent on these agencies are spent in the best possible way to get the best value both for the work that they do and for the Australian people. It is an important role. I hope this is an aberration rather than something that will be continued by the opposition, and I hope we can work in a constructive way going forward.

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