Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, I present the committee's report entitled Review of proposed amendments to the Home Affairs and Integrity Agencies Legislation Amendment Bill 2017.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

by leave—I am pleased to present the committee's review of proposed amendments to the Home Affairs and Integrity Agencies Legislation Amendment Bill 2017. The committee reported on its review of this bill on 26 February 2018, making four recommendations that were accepted by the government.

The proposed amendments will implement changes to schedule 1 of the bill to implement the committee's recommendations 1 and 2 in its previous report.

The proposed amendments will also introduce a new schedule 2 to the bill that amends 33 acts to implement machinery-of-government changes relating to establishment of the Home Affairs portfolio and the Attorney-General's ongoing oversight role.

The committee considered that the proposed amendments are consistent with the government's statements that they amend ministerial and department references to transfer responsibility for these 33 acts and amend provisions that either no longer make sense or are redundant, or to ensure that more than one minister can exercise a function.

The committee considered the government should keep the relationship between security and oversight under review to ensure the division of responsibility between the two ministers remains appropriate.

The committee will monitor the impact of the revised ministerial and departmental arrangements in its annual oversight inquiries.

The committee has recommended that the proposed amendments be introduced and passed by the parliament.

I thank the opposition for its assistance and spirit of bipartisanship during this process, particularly that of the deputy chair, the member for Holt.

Thank you very much, and I commend the report to the House.