Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Again, the government, Labor, promised transparency, and is coming to the House with legislation that affects criminal or criminal related law that has retrospective effect, and is asking the House to debate it and vote on it in less than a day. This government promised transparency, and it's delivering contempt.

When legislation is brought to this place—especially legislation that has retrospective effect—that deals with criminal matters, that is a very serious piece of legislation. Every member of this parliament is entitled to the time to consider that legislation and decide whether to support it or not, or whether to seek amendments to it. We know that, when you have rushed legislation, especially when it is dealing with criminal matters, there is a huge potential for unintended consequences.

What we've got here is a piece of legislation, the Crimes and Other Legislation Amendment (Omnibus No. 2) Bill 2023, that was introduced yesterday. The Greens were briefed on it this morning for the first time, and now, before noon, we are being asked to vote on it—without a chance to go and seek advice or to have it go through the inquiry process, or to consider whether to make any amendments, or to consider whether to support it or oppose it.

What we do have in the limited time that we've had to consider this is an explanatory memorandum that, amongst other things, says that what this bill is going to do is operate as far back as 2013 to retrospectively validate actions of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission that, by implication, may be illegal. In other words, what this bill has been inviting us to do in the time that we've had to consider it is draw an implication that unlawful action potentially involving government agencies has been taking place in the criminal sphere for a period of time. If that is the case, the Attorney should tell us about it. If there's a wrong that is sought to be remedied by this bill, then tell us what has happened.

Has a government agency been acting in a way that is potentially unlawful? Is the government in receipt of advice that potentially unlawful activity has been happening? If that is the case, we are entitled to know about it. That may go some way towards persuading people to do it. It may go some way towards raising some questions about whether further amendments are required. It may go some way towards asking us whether there are questions about how intelligence or information has been gathered. At the moment we're in the dark, and a Labor government that has promised us transparency shouldn't have us in the dark. This is serious. When we're being asked to pass retrospective legislation, firstly, we should know why and, secondly, we should have the chance to go and get advice about it.

I imagine the Attorney-General may rise to speak about this. It's an opportunity to explain whether it's the case that the government is now in receipt of advice that something wrong has been happening. Is it the case that there are real question marks over past practices of any government agency? Asking this parliament to pass retrospective legislation is a very serious thing, and we want to know why we're being asked to do it. Secondly, explain why we're being asked to do it with less than 24 hours to consider our position.

Every member of this place has the right to scrutinise legislation, but that is especially important for those of us who sit on the crossbench. It may well be that the government briefed the opposition on this some time ago and that the opposition knows exactly what this is all about. That may well be the case. But that's not what the government has done, certainly, with the Greens. The briefing that we've received on it has raised questions that I'm raising here in this place today, so we're just not in a position to be able to say whether we support the legislation, and we shouldn't be put in this position.

No member of this parliament should be put in the position of being asked to vote on retrospective legislation that affects a government agency without being told why or without being given the chance to consider it. And to the Attorney I say again: if you want to get all of the parliament on board, brief us with enough time to consider the legislation and you may well then get unanimous passage of this legislation; I just don't know. But what we have to say no to is this process that we just have to take at face value—that when the government says something is urgent it is urgent and that when the government says something is technical it is technical.

The two-party system is in decline in this country. Labor's vote went backwards at the election. Less than a third of the country voted for the government, just a bit more than a third voted for the opposition and a third voted for someone else. Why? It is because they want more transparency and integrity in government. That starts with how this place works. There's a reason that we've got the biggest crossbench that you've ever seen—people want to understand what governments are doing, and people want to understand what deals the Liberal and Labor parties are striking. They want scrutiny of it, and they're entitled to it. There can be no more serious time to bring that scrutiny than when we're being asked to pass retrospective legislation.

So I make the point that we've not been presented with a case for urgency that says why the usual processes should be circumvented. For people who aren't as familiar with this place, the usual process is: a bill gets introduced; you get time to take it back to your colleagues, to your party room, to your caucus, and have a discussion about it; and you've got time to get advice from experts and work out whether you want to support it, vote against it or try and seek some amendments to it. Today, Labor has deprived us of that opportunity, intentionally. They have intentionally deprived us of the opportunity to sit down together as Greens to spend at least 24 hours getting our heads around the legislation, asking questions, seeking advice and having the capacity to talk about amendments. It has been rushed, with no basis for urgency, and we've just been asked to take it at face value.

If there's some suggestion—and I just don't know, because the government's not being transparent about this—that agencies have done something wrong, then tell us. If there's some suggestion, then tell us so that we can understand what we're voting on. If there's some urgent reason why retrospective legislation has to be passed, then tell us. If there's some reason why this had to be kept secret from the crossbench members of the parliament until yesterday, then tell us. Tell us why these had to be kept secret until yesterday, because I'm sure this bill wasn't drafted yesterday morning. It was introduced yesterday without any prior briefing about what is required. We were briefed this morning and then just asked to accept that it's all technical and not to worry about it. That is not the role of this parliament. The role of this parliament is not to just accept everything the executive government says. I know that, when Labor was in opposition, they railed against the coalition doing this kind of thing. They railed against legislation being rammed through that had serious consequences and potential unintended effects. Now that they're in government, they're just doing exactly the same. They're just doing exactly the same.

So we can't support this bill's passage through the House, and we reserve our position in the Senate. I hope that the government can put this through the usual processes where we can have a look at it. Who knows? We may end up supporting it. In the time that we've had available to look at it—I've referred to the explanatory memorandum—in the time that we've had available to digest it, it has raised questions. It raises questions. I'll conclude on this: when we're talking about retrospective legislation in the criminal sphere, why is it that the bar is all of a sudden lowered now that Labor's in government and it's okay to rush a bill with retrospective application in a criminal sphere through, without going through the usual processes?

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