Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Attorney-General. Will the Attorney please update the House on how the Morrison government is protecting the national interest and, in particular, how the government is working to counter foreign interference?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question and for his excellent work with others from both sides of this House on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. That's been a very busy committee because, since coming to government in 2013, we've passed 19 tranches of national security legislation—laws that are keeping Australians safe in a very fast-changing and increasingly unpredictable global environment. We legislated, for instance, to ensure that abhorrent violent material could be removed from online spaces following the shocking events that occurred in Christchurch. We passed counterencryption laws to stop our intelligence and law enforcement agencies from going dark in the fight against terrorism and child sex offenders. Indeed, those laws were used 10 days after coming into effect to prevent a real risk of injury to Australians. So these types of laws are very, very important.

The use of other laws has taken a longer lead time. Perhaps the most complicated and significant of all the many advances designed to keep Australians safe was the complete rewrite of antiquated espionage offences, which introduced in Australia, for the first time ever, an offence of foreign interference and established a register to transparently record organisations and individuals engaged in influencing Australian government, parliament and politics on behalf of foreign governments and foreign government related entities. The interference and influence laws are changes that, in tandem, were at the forefront of perhaps the biggest change to national security laws in 40 years. Since 2018-19, we've also invested $126.6 million in countering foreign interference.

I can take this time to recognise the ongoing efforts of our agencies to investigate under these laws. They're on the front line. They're protecting Australians. They're engaged in very complicated and sophisticated investigations. Without commenting on operational matters, I would note that it is of some significance that we're now seeing the first investigative actions under the new foreign interference laws in New South Wales.

Those laws, of course, work in tandem with the foreign influence register. The ability to investigate and prosecute the new offence of foreign interference works with the influence register. I can update the House that, as at 19 August, there were 66 active registrations on the public register, representing 108 foreign principals associated with 31 different international jurisdictions.

Now the focus turns to the organisations that have not registered. I can update the House that the secretary of my department, independently exercising his authority, has recently issued two fresh notices under section 46 of the act which require an entity to provide information where it's reasonable to believe they have information or documents relevant to the operation of the influence scheme. Obviously, those notices have been issued to organisations that have chosen not to register under the FIT Scheme to date. As the Director-General of Security said, we face unprecedented levels of threat, and these laws are designed keep us safe. (Time expired)