Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

We in this House all know that we are living in a changing world, and with that change have come security challenges. We know that authoritarian powers are on the move, and the last two ASIO directors-general, Duncan Lewis and Mike Burgess, have both said that espionage and foreign interference are occurring in Australia at unprecedented levels. I think that last night ABC's Four Corners, which documented the intelligence activities undertaken by China's Ministry of Public Security, underscored that very point. So it's important that we make sure our legislative framework for our intelligence agencies is fit for purpose. We've got to make sure that our intelligence agencies, our intelligence officers and supporting personnel can do their jobs, on behalf of Australia, to protect us, maintain our security and defend our interests. That means we have to adapt our framework to make sure that it's fit for purpose as we see shifts in threats, technology and modes of statecraft.

That's why the Richardson review was commissioned in 2018, the same year that the former Turnbull government passed landmark, historic espionage and foreign interference legislation. The Comprehensive Review of the Legal Framework of the National Intelligence Community, also known as the Richardson review, was the most significant review of Australia's intelligence legislation since the Hope royal commissions in 1974 and in 1983. The majority of the National Security Legislation Amendment (Comprehensive Review and Other Measures No. 3) Bill 2023 deals with the 12 recommendations of the Richardson review, all of which the former coalition government agreed to in 2020, so we support this on a bipartisan basis.

The bill includes additional elements that the current government has identified in consultation with national security agencies. The bill contains a number of provisions to amend the ASIO Act, the Intelligence Services Act, the TIA Act and the Archives Act to support and provide increased oversight of our intelligence agencies. These reforms address those 12 recommendations. Separate to the recommendations, the bill clarifies the operation of existing provisions in the ASIO Act and the Intelligence Services Act and updates the publication offence in the ASIO Act. Very generally—for the Australian public—the measures in this bill will support Australia's national security agencies by strengthening identity protections for employees, particularly against the backdrop of increased espionage and foreign interference in this country; increasing operational flexibility and sharing of information; clarifying some authorities to provide greater certainty for our intelligence agencies; and supporting quicker processing of security clearance suitability assessments. This is actually really important. Our whole national security enterprise, from Defence through to the national intelligence community, is undergoing greater recruitment efforts, and, as people are onboarded into Defence or our intelligence community, they need to have security clearance. So speeding that process up is vital for our national security, particularly when you add in AUKUS and the need for defence industry, which supports AUKUS, to have people who have the highest clearances. This bill will also promote increased oversight of national security agencies by introducing additional safeguards to provide oversight of ASIO's work on security assessments and vetting and by limiting who can exercise certain powers.

We on this side of the House, the coalition, will always support sensible changes to ensure that Australian men and women serving in our intelligence agencies can do their jobs effectively—that they can gather the intelligence, on behalf of us, to keep us safe. That's why they do what they do. We need to ensure that they are subject to appropriate oversight, and that's why we support these amendments. As such, we support the passage of the bill.

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