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

Fair enough. I withdraw. Thank you, member for Solomon. The Albanese government is taking decisive action to bolster Australia's national security by ensuring our military secrets remain safe. Australian security organisations have long known that the biggest national security threats faced by Australia are from sophisticated foreign actors. We face such threats not just in physical spaces and in the seas or in the skies but also on a personnel to personnel level. Foreign intelligence services seek to penetrate not just our borders but also the space and time that bounds our information, our knowledge and our technologies. They do this by trying to involve themselves in government, military, academia and business to obtain classified information, understand military capabilities, policy plans and sensitive research and innovation.

In February 2023, the ASIO director-general, Mike Burgess, observed that third-party companies have offered Australians hundreds of thousands of dollars and other significant perks to help authoritarian regimes improve their combat skills. The Defence Amendment (Safeguarding Australia's Military Secrets) Bill comes in response to a string of such reports and concerns. While in some cases our defence and intelligence agencies have been able to prevent former personnel from travelling overseas, there is an overall and bipartisan, I would hope, agreement that this legislation is a necessary and pertinent response to many of the issues that we have seen.

The safeguarding Australia's military amendment—the SAMS—will strengthen Australia's existing legislative provisions to control and prevent the export and transfer of sensitive defence information to foreign militaries. It achieves this by creating an authorisation framework that regulates work performed by former Defence staff members, including both former ADF members and Defence Australian Public Service employees. This means that former Defence staff members categorised as foreign work restricted individuals are prohibited from working for foreign military or government bodies unless authorised. This will include ADF service chiefs as well as the chief and the vice chief. It will include permanent reserve force members of the ADF who provide continuous full-time service, the secretary of the Department of Defence and the head of the new Australian Submarine Agency, as well as all the civilian APS employees of the above.

These staff members will, on passage of this bill, be classified as foreign work restricted individuals and be subject to new restrictions from providing their services and training to relevant foreign countries and organisations. Relevant foreign countries will include all foreign countries unless exempt by the minister's determination. Beyond Defence staff members, Australian citizens and permanent residents will be restricted from providing certain types of training without authorisation, with criminal penalties for non-compliance. This includes Australian citizens or permanent residents seeking to provide training to foreign militaries or foreign government entities in relation to goods, software and technology in part 1 of the Defence and Strategic Goods List, or trading in relation to military tactics, techniques or procedures. It will become a criminal offence for foreign-work-restricted individuals to work for foreign military or government bodies without authorisation, carrying a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment. Exceptions to this offence include holding a foreign work authorisation, performing work under a Commonwealth agreement or engaging in specific authorised activities, such as humanitarian aid or UN-related duties.

I want to emphasise that the SAMS bill adopts a commonsense approach to regulating how former defence personnel with sensitive information provide services and training with non-friendly foreign governments. The bill contains sensible and targeted actions that will enhance the government's ability to prevent the unwanted transfer of sensitive defence information to those foreign militaries. The provisions are restricted only to those individuals with knowledge of Australia's world-class defence training in military technology who are engaging in activities that would harm Australia's national security. I also want to highlight that the bill is bigger than just dealing with this issue in Australia. The passage of this legislation will also align our legal framework with those of our partners within the AUKUS security partnership. In the UK the National Security Act 2023, which was enacted in July last year, made it an offence to obtain or disclose protected information, which includes tactics, techniques and procedures, after receiving similar reports of pilots training for foreign governments.

It is important that Australia's national security policies align and are being aligned with our most important partners as we work together on all the challenges that we jointly face. In addition, this bill will be complemented by legislative reform efforts currently underway to strengthen Australia's export control framework. SAMS complements the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill 2023 to further strengthen Australia's export control framework by enhancing the protections around the supply of controlled goods and technology within and outside Australia. The SAMS bill also supports the export-licence-free environment between AUKUS partners, unlocking defence trade innovation and collaboration. Together with the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill, the SAMS bill will meet the requirement to implement a standard of controls comparable to those of the United States to access the national exemption from US export control licensing requirements under the US Arms Export Control Act.

Strengthening Australia's export control framework will not only protect Australia's defence industry and the knowledge and capability there but, in combination with this bill, will also help facilitate passage of the United States legislation by ensuring that Australia's export control framework is aligned with US export controls. Australian export control reforms are essential to creating a stronger national defence industry. That base is so important, because it's the foundation of the collaboration we're undertaking with our AUKUS partners at the required speed and scale to meet Australia's challenging strategic circumstances and to support our international partners. These combined legislative reforms also open up significant benefits and opportunities for the Australian industry, higher education and research sectors. They are important steps towards establishing seamless technological transfers with our AUKUS partners. Together, the two bills demonstrate Australia's commitment to safeguarding sensitive technology and information shared with the US and the UK through and within AUKUS.

The government, the Minister for Defence and the department are all acutely aware that the measures in this bill can be complex and serious. The drafting of the bill has come after extensive consultation with all the interested and important stakeholders, including the defence industry sector, academia, veterans groups and unions representing many current or former Defence personnel. We are of the firm belief that the Department of Defence will be able to efficiently implement the foreign work authorisation system, including the processing of requests. The bill has also been reviewed by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, which I chair, and by representatives from across the House and Senate. It has been amended in line with some of the committee's recommendations. After an extensive inquiry and review process, the bill has been recommended for passing by the PJCIS as well.

The protection of our nation's secrets and sensitive information is central to preserving Australia's national security and to keeping Australians safe. If I ever had the privilege of flying one of those great planes that the RAAF has—and that is a great privilege—it would also come with the obligation to protect the knowledge and the military secrets that have been gained on those from falling into the hands of any adversaries. I want to acknowledge that we have veterans here in this place; the member for Solomon and the member for Herbert have served in our military, in the ADF. They know the importance of the obligation and responsibility they have given all that they have learned over their years of service to protect that information, knowledge and capability from falling into the wrong hands.

In all seriousness, this is really what the Defence Amendment (Safeguarding Australia’s Military Secrets) Bill is meant to do. It is meant to make sure that, for those of us who have served, both in Defence, as I have, or in the military, as the member for Herbert, the member for Solomon and many other veterans have, when we go about our business in the private sector we can do so with the assurance and confidence that we have sought the right authorisation and are clear to go ahead and do the work that we are doing post our service in the military.

In that vein, I am very, very pleased to extend my strong support for this bill, because it provides a commonsense but also necessary suite of measures to achieve this objective. It complements our defence export controls measures, it brings us into step with our AUKUS allies, it comes as a culmination of extensive consultations with relevant and impacted stakeholders and it comes at a time when the strategic theatres that we operate in and the threats that we face are becoming more and more asymmetrical and more and more difficult to identify. Those asymmetric threats warrant appropriate responses in this legislative framework as part of our response. We need those responses. We need transparent and clear responses. I am proud to say that this is the right approach to counter such threats on all fronts. I commend the bill to the House.

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