James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Government Waste Reduction) Share this | Hansard source

I join with the other contributors who have essentially all made a very similar point—that is, we're very happy to be debating and passing what hopefully is the beginnings of reform and tightening of the law when it comes to the protection of privacy. I think it's fair to say that most contributions have suggested that we need to go further than what Privacy and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024 does, and I strongly agree with that contention made in debate by other speakers. When we had the debate recently around the Digital ID Bill, I certainly recall making this point—I think a lot of speakers made the point—in debate on that bill, which was that we were really waiting for the government to tell us where they were heading when it came to reforms to the protection of people's privacy. This bill would have been nice to have had sooner, and, indeed, it would have been nice to look at what this bill does and doesn't do in the context of some of the other legislation that we've had brought on for debate that is very relevant to the topic of privacy.

We've got very deep concerns, and I think there's unanimity around this. Data on people is much more abundant and kept in a form very different to that of years, decades and millennia gone by. Really, at a computer screen, a lot of people have access to people's personal information. Are the protections in our legislation strong enough? Clearly, they're not, because this bill is the beginnings of reform in this area. I desperately hope it's not the end.

I commend the beginnings of reform that I'm sure most members think need to be more robust than what this legislation does. Yes, the reform creates strong criminal penalties and an incrementally improved civil framework for dealing with breaches of privacy. But, frankly, this is an area of law and an area of dispute that I think will be extremely significant in the years and decades ahead. I hope this parliament is always landing on the side of protecting the privacy of Australians where government keeps information, where people within government have access to the information of Australian citizens and indeed where corporations and other entities in civil society are doing the same. This legislation has the beginnings of heading in the right direction. But, as other members have talked about in their contributions, we really hope the government has got a lot more planned than what is before us in this legislation. Given we're in the consideration in detail stage, my question to the Attorney-General would be to seek a clear understanding of what the government has planned beyond this legislation. Obviously, speakers have talked about a desire for a lot more than just what's in this legislation to be considered. I say in good faith that I'm sure the government has a lot more planned with regard to strengthening protections of people's privacy. But there are legitimate issues that have already been raised, and it would be good to know what plans, if any, the government for further reform in this area.

This bill is the beginning of certain steps in a certain direction, but we certainly would like to see a lot of other issues around privacy protection considered. Members have talked about some of the specific elements in the legislation, like doxxing et cetera. We absolutely condemn some of the awful examples of doxxing that we've seen in recent times, which this legislation touches upon. There are obviously a lot of other potential risks into the future. We mentioned that in the debate on the Digital ID Bill. I'm very concerned about the amount of data that governments in particular collect on people. We obviously reflect on medical data and other information that we are providing to government, but it's being more and more centralised and shared, and protections and appropriate penalties to dissuade misuse are very important as well. I'll leave those comments for any response to the issues that I've raised.

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