Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

The two bills before us deal with identity verification. Identity verification is such that a person's identity is electronically confirmed by comparing a person's face or biographic details with existing records. I come to this place as somebody who ran the 2016 census. I don't want anybody to smile or laugh, but having been given not much notice before that census, I can remember the concerns then about identity theft. I can remember the concerns expressed by many senators and many members in opposition at the time about the whole process. I was assured that everything would be fine and, as we know, on the night the systems failed. But in the long run, a huge percentage—more than 94 per cent, as I recall—of answers were returned and it was, in the main, a successful census.

The census is important. Making sure someone is who they say they are is also very important. We oppose this legislation as, if you like, a holding position, because not enough information has been provided. It once again is legislation on the run by a government which came to office in May 2022 promising transparency and that they would be better than the last government at ensuring that everything was on the table. Yet, no one knew these particular bills were coming. There is no regulation impact analysis. Dare I say, there is no consultation, and this isn't good enough. It's simply not good enough. When I ran that census, I said at the time—and was ridiculed for it—that the large supermarket chains probably have more information on people than do the government agencies. That's probably true: anybody who has a loyalty card probably gives up so much information, they just don't realise it. I hark back—and perhaps I'll get frowns from the other side too for doing this—to the Australia Card. The famous—some might say infamous—Australia Card, was a proposal made in 1985 and abandoned in 1987. The proposal was made by the Hawke government. It was raised at the National Tax Summit, as I recall. Indeed, the proposal was put and defeated by the Senate, blocked by the upper house on a number of occasions. The former member for Hotham, Lewis Kent, absolutely pilloried the Australia Card.

There are probably three types of people in society. There are conspiracy theorists, who don't want anyone to have any information about them. There are those who, quite frankly, couldn't care less, who just go with the flow. And then there are those who think if you've got nothing to fear; you've got nothing to hide. I'm probably one of those who are halfway between the middle and 'nothing to fear, nothing to hide'. Because if you're not doing the wrong thing then you've probably got nothing to fear from somebody knowing what you're taking off the shelf and putting through the cash register, such as a government agency or if you've got a loyalty card.

Interestingly, the Australia Card brought about a double dissolution. The government went to the people and were re-elected. It was interesting that, following their re-election, the Labor government then came unstuck with the Australia Card because a retired public servant by the name of Ewart Smith noticed the there was a flaw in the drafting of the Australia Card legislation which no one, on either side, had ever picked up. Even if the bill had been passed in a joint sitting, certain regulations necessary for the functioning of the system could have been overturned by the Senate. This is an interesting point because questions are raised: what protections do we have for privacy? Privacy, to a lot of people, is very important.

Only on the weekend, and the day before yesterday, and again yesterday, I received a text message from, supposedly, myGov—'my g.o.v.' I looked at the text and thought, initially, it was a scam. When it came in the next day I thought, 'I'm not even going to open that.' Then I got a final notice. I still don't know what it is on my phone because I haven't opened it. I'm not game to, but I'm assuming it's a scam.

I will commend the Minister for Communications, opposite, the member for Greenway, for the work that she has done to stop scammers. She, in conjunction with, I believe, the Assistant Treasurer, the member for Whitlam, have continued the previous government's work in making sure there are rules and controls around finding scammers and bringing the full force of the law against those people; that is a very good thing.

But this particular legislation allows private companies to be involved in matching photo ID. There are potential security and privacy concerns around that. It allows for photo ID to be cross-checked with state and territory driving licences—previously it was only passport photos. As a former transport minister who, on many occasions, headed up the transport forum with the states—once when Warren Truss could not make a meeting and I was his assistant minister, and then on the occasions when I was the transport minister for three years and I headed that particular important forum—one of the things that I thought the state transport ministers and I were all as-one on was making sure that we had the best possible cross-matching rules when it came to drivers licences. If photo licences identification was one of those things then I was all for it. But you sometimes agree to those things and then state ministers go back to their various state cabinets and it will be knocked out. It was so hard. It is always so hard to get all the states to agree with the Commonwealth—I could almost end that sentence with 'all the states to agree'. But Labor has a chance to do some good things in that regard at the moment because all the mainland states are Labor. The Commonwealth should be able to get some good policy through transport and various other fora, because on the mainland they are all red states.

My point about that is that it would be a good thing if the states had been consulted. Apparently the states have not been consulted about photo ID being cross-checked with state and territory driving licences. The state government opinions are not clear regarding this, and the states haven't been properly consulted, and that is such a shame, if there is good legislation to be brought forward. And I'm not saying this is bad legislation. I'm just saying that the government came to office on the promise and the pretext that they would be more transparent, they claimed, than the previous government. I would argue that we, as a former coalition government, were very transparent.

At times there are policies that are brought forward in a rush; hence the pins-in-strawberries affair some years ago, when as a Commonwealth we acted very quickly to ensure in a bipartisan way that we stamped that out. There was an absolute rush, and the former home affairs minister, the member for McPherson, sitting in the chair, were very good in that regard as well as in regard to ensuring that identity theft was not an issue in this country. There are always going to be nefarious people. Many people think our jails are filled with criminals who are generally, you'd argue, blue-collar criminals. But white-collar criminals are probably just as bad, if not worse, because they can steal people's livelihoods, hopes and futures and indeed lead to loss of life. The work that you did, Deputy Speaker Andrews, in that regard, in your home affairs portfolio, was very much appreciated.

The way this legislation has come before the parliament is characteristic of the presumptuous approach that is the hallmark of the Albanese government. I don't like saying that, but it is the truth. And I would urge and encourage ministers to think about consultation with the opposition when bringing forward bills such as this, because there is a lot of experience on the opposition frontbench and, dare I say, backbench. And legislation such as this, while I appreciate that it will pass the lower house, because of sheer weight of numbers, is important.

I know that the communications minister comes to this place in good faith. I have a lot of regard for her, and that is not diminished. But when the views of states and territories are unclear, when the Attorney-General wants to rush legislation through the parliament, you do get a little bit suspicious—in fact, you get a lot suspicious. We know, for example, that the government tried to limit scrutiny of this legislation. Why? I do not know. With the Australia Card, I must admit, I didn't think at the time that it was such a bad thing to do. I know that even at election time and dare I say at referendum time there are so many people who do not have ID but should have, and the process at election time whereby people don't vote at all and claim they do, or vote multiple times—all that sort of thing—would potentially be avoided if people had a photo identification saying that they are who they say they are when it comes time to fill out those boxes.

We just saw that at last Saturday's referendum. When I was at the booth, and following that, people were complaining to me about either lack of transparency or the fact that certain things were said to them by the AEC that they didn't appreciate or didn't think was good enough. I have every faith in the AEC to do their job, but it is a big job, and people do need to have the proper identification to ensure that they are who they say they are. We can't be sure of the impact. As I said, with the National Taxation Summit leading to the Australia Card there was the situation whereby a public servant belled the cat when it came to the flaws within that particular legislation.

So, regarding these particular bills, I ask: what potentially may have been missed, given the rush to bring the legislation into the chamber and get it through to the Senate? What has been missed? What is the operational effect on businesses that use DVS daily? What are the wider implications for the Australian economy—an economy already crushed by the full weight of the cost-of-living crisis?

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 11:15 to 11:26

Principally, the coalition does not object to the ethos of this legislation, but we are concerned that the Senate committee apparently asked to not hold even a single hearing. Concerns have already been raised in submissions. There are far too many questions unanswered and too much uncertainty. We simply cannot, as an opposition, effectively just wave legislation such as this through.

Interestingly enough, this is based on coalition legislation. In fact, in 2018 we introduced the Identity-matching Services Bill and a related bill amending the Australian Passports Act, but we did the right thing: we referred the bills to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security for report. After the 2019 election, we reintroduced them and referred them again to the PJCIS. That's the way to do it. That's the proper process. But this government have been in power since May last year. The training wheels are off. The excuses should be over. They've been in long enough to stop blaming the coalition for everything, and they've been in long enough to ensure that important legislation such as this is given far more care and far more consideration and the opposition given far more due respect.

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