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

The previous speaker, the member for Canning, is also a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, and I thank him and other colleagues for their work on that committee. We did a fair bit of work on this bill when it was referred to the committee, as part of our work in making recommendations to government to always try and improve national security legislation.

I want to say at the outset that this government's primary commitment is to keeping Australians safe and protecting Australians' way of life, and this legislation is part of that effort. It's part of the effort to ensure that we have all the necessary resources and frameworks in place for our intelligence agencies. Of course, many of the elements of this legislation, the National Security Legislation Amendment (Comprehensive Review and Other Measures No. 3) Bill 2023, flow from the intelligence comprehensive review. The key part of this bill is the enhancement of transparency, and the frameworks for transparency around our intelligence agencies and the work that they do, in what we call the NSLAB. We've done a lot of work in this space to ensure that our intelligence and security agencies have the tools and resources they need to do their job efficiently and effectively. That's been part of the work of the PJCIS in reviewing the bill. We've worked towards finding a bipartisan consensus within the committee to ensure that the bill is passed in the best possible way, which is in the national interest and will get the best possible result for our intelligence agencies. It is about a continual improvement of our national security laws to ensure that our agencies are well equipped to continue their work to keep Australians safe and, as I said, protect our way of life. The introduction of this bill is very much part of that framework.

Last year, the PJCIS released its report in relation to this bill, the NSLAB. As you have heard, Mr Deputy Speaker, the bill covers 12 recommendations of the 2019 Comprehensive Review of the Legal Framework of the National Intelligence Community. This is actually the third in a series of bills that directly respond to the recommendations of that comprehensive review. As I said, its primary purpose is to ensure our intelligence agencies remain able to undertake their important functions efficiently, effectively and, of course, with the appropriate oversight. In many respects this bill consolidates the secrecy offences in the Intelligence Services Act and creates stronger protection of the identities of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, ASIS, and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, ASIO. That is a central element of the bill.

What I want to emphasise today are the amendments this act creates in relation to part IV of the ASIO Act, which relates to the agency's security assessment functions. These include improvements in the transparency and accountability of our intelligence agencies, a core objective of this bill. The comprehensive review that was released publicly in 2020 was the most significant independent review of Australia's collective intelligence legislation since the Hope royal commissions in 1974 and in 1983. That comprehensive review found that the legislative framework governing our intelligence agencies has been well maintained and largely fit for purpose but that targeted reforms are required to ensure our laws continue to keep pace with the ever-changing technological and security landscape. That has clearly been accelerated, particularly over the last decade and certainly over the last couple of years. The technological advances, the changes and the impacts and implications they have on our intelligence agencies and the work they do are profound, so it's critically important that we deliver these targeted reforms to keep pace with that increasingly complex environment—best described as our symmetric security landscape. That is critical to this bill because of the use of more and more complex technology in various attacks—cyberattacks, cybertargeting and throughout the cybersecurity space—but also more broadly in the way that adversaries tend to use technology in much more sophisticated ways to diminish our democratic institutions and our governance structures.

This bill continues that government reform agenda in response to the comprehensive review, with a very clear line of sight on these challenges. The Albanese Labor government take these reforms extremely seriously and we are intent on implementing them as efficiently as possible. So far, we as a government have enacted a series of targeted amendments to our national security laws to implement the recommendations of the comprehensive review. These include the National Security Legislation Amendment (Comprehensive Review and Other Measures No. 1) Act 2022, which implemented 12 recommendations, the National Security Legislation Amendment (Comprehensive Review and Other Measures No. 2) Act 2023, which implemented a further 10 recommendations, and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Modernisation) Act 2023, which implemented two recommendations. With this bill, we will be implementing another 12 outstanding recommendations of the comprehensive review. The bill supports Australia's national security agencies through the implementing of those recommendations with a couple of important elements: strengthening identity protections for those security agencies' employees; improving operational flexibility and the ability of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation to communicate information; providing greater certainty as to who can provide authorisations for various activities; and supporting quicker processing of security clearance suitability assessments.

National security legislation inevitably—and, in most cases, importantly—grants security agencies very critical functions that can be quite powerful as they're wielded in the day-to-day operations and investigations that these agencies undertake. That is why it's so important that we are enhancing the transparency and accountability of ASIO's security assessments, because we believe that more checks and balances are actually a good thing. That transparency in the work of our agencies, and those checks and balances, are important elements in our responsibility as a government to ensure that the powers that are being used by those agencies are used in the best possible way.

We as a government are broadening the definition of a prescribed administrative action to include decisions relating to parole, firearms licences and security guard licences. That means any advice provided to a state or Commonwealth body relating to parole, firearms licences and security licences in relation to an individual will now be regarded as a formal security assessment made by ASIO. This, in turn, means that individuals now have expanded rights of review and notification in relation to any advice ASIO gives in relation to the topics I just mentioned. This can sound quite complex, but I want to make this point: the reform just shows and demonstrates how committed the Albanese Labor government is to taking a transparent, accountability based approach to our security arrangements. This is an approach which balances every individual's right of review and transparency with the collective security needs of Australians and of Australia.

We always take a consultative approach when doing this work. I noted earlier the good work of my colleagues on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. When we were looking at it as a committee, we engaged in a consultative and consensus based way to seek to find answers and recommendations on the bill that could lead us to the best possible result for the national interest and for our national security. We did this in relation to many of the submissions to the PJCIS recommending making and supporting these changes in the bill.

We're also implementing new reporting requirements for ASIO in relation to any security assessments that the agency makes which are overly delayed. Currently, individuals undergoing security assessments by ASIO have no recourse other than complaining to the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, the IGIS, if there's an unreasonable delay in receiving their assessment. Our amendments will now require ASIO to notify the IGIS if there is a delay of more than 12 months in finalising a security assessment. A written protocol will be established to specify when ASIO is considered to have started preparing an assessment, the time frame for notifying delayed assessments and the information to be included in notifications. The protocol will also outline steps for ASIO to take after notifying the IGIS about delays. Again, we as a government are proud of the work in furthering the accountability of our highly competent but powerful agencies and making sure that they can do their work most efficiently and effectively. Each of the agencies that would be impacted by these changes supports this change, emphasising the importance of notifying the IGIS about these delays.

Through this legislation, we're also giving ASIO increased powers to introduce new classifications of prescribed administrative action. We know that the security landscape is fast-moving and complex. We know it's moving at such a clip that it's often hard for regulatory and legislative frameworks to keep up the pace. We think that these changes will allow ASIO to become more agile in the way it conducts its security assessments. At the same time, the regulations would grant greater transparency and rights of review to those individuals affected by the assessments. We're trying to get that balance right. Given our robust parliamentary processes via many different parliamentary committees in the House and the Senate, and joint committees like the PJCIS, we think these powers of regulation balance the interests of ASIO to be an agile and strong security agency able to undertake the very important and critical work it does with giving this place, the parliament, sufficient checks and balances over its activities, all while enhancing the agency's accountability and making its processes more transparent for any of its decisions which affect individuals.

Security threats are becoming more and more asymmetric, as I noted earlier. They're becoming more and more complex. They're becoming more and more difficult to combat and to defend against. Last year alone, a cybersecurity incident was reported every six minutes. That's a remarkable statistic. Hostile cyberactivities are driving disinformation, which has destabilising effects on our social cohesion. This is not just at the Commonwealth level but at the state level, where such threats affect state infrastructure and social services. This includes cyberthreats to hospitals that are operated by states. Our healthcare system, our education system, our academia, our democratic institutions and our corporations and their systems and are all subject to significant targeting, cyberthreats and cyberattacks. Attempts to enhance that cybersecurity are critically important.

This bill is just one part of a much bigger piece of legislative work necessary to ensure that we give the tools and the resources particularly to our agencies to ensure that we can defend against these threats that are emanating not just from state actors but also from criminal syndicates and non-state actors. These cyberattacks no longer just compromise military capabilities; they have real whole-of-government and whole-of-population effects—implications for the entire population—so it's essential that state governments are also able to act based on urgent advice provided by ASIO, which is what this act does.

We are continuing to provide all the tools our agencies need to get on with the job. ASIO will now be able to make preliminary communications to state governments or other state based agencies. State based agencies can now act on security advice that is not necessarily a formal security assessment if the agency is satisfied that the action is necessary for security reasons, and that's a significant step. We need to break down those barriers between our different levels of government. We are all seeking to protect our democracy and our democratic institutions, whether they be at the state, local or federal level of government. That requires a much more agile approach, which I'm pleased to say is part of this bill.

Obviously the work we do in the PJCIS—and I note that my deputy chair is here—is critically important. We take it very seriously, because we have a critical and I think sacrosanct obligation to the people we represent across this great country to protect their way of life, to protect our way of life, to protect the democratic institutions, to protect our democracy and to defend against those who would seek to sow discord and division and disrupt those institutions and our society. In the work that we do we don't always agree, but that's part of the democratic process, and I know from all my colleagues on the committee that we always strive to reach consensus on what we think is the best possible result for the national interest and the national security of Australia. That is where, in good faith, everyone steps into those PJCIS meetings and the work that we do. I want to thank the deputy chair and my colleagues on the other side for their contributions.

I will reiterate that the changes that were made in this bill based on the advice provided to us by the comprehensive review are quite an important part of that process. Thank you, Deputy Speaker, for being able to articulate the important work that we've undertaken.

See this speech in context