Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, I present the committee's annual report of committee activities 2023-2024.

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

by leave—Section 31 of the Intelligence Services Act requires that the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security report annually on its activities, and this report details the committee's work in the financial year ending 30 June 2024. I've said this before and I'll say it again: the PJCIS is the busiest committee in this building. I've chaired numerous committees and I've sat on many others. This one is the busiest.

Australia is facing the most geopolitically unstable period since World War II, with threats and competition, terror and conflict escalating at every turn. It is right, therefore, that Australia's leading legislative and civilian oversight mechanism, the PJCIS, is busy with a program of work that goes to the heart of our national security and intelligence architecture.

Over the review period, in addition to its ongoing oversight activities, the committee reviewed a range of prospective and existing national security legislation. The year also saw reforms proposed or implemented that affected the committee's work, including reforms in relation to terrorist organisations and citizenship cessation, as well as changes to the committee itself.

Following the commencement of the National Security Legislation Amendment (Comprehensive Review and Other Measures No. 2) Act 2023 in August 2023, the committee's membership increased from 11 to 13 members. On 14 September 2023, two new members were appointed by the House of Representatives. The committee then had 12 members and one vacancy for the remainder of the period, as it does still to this day. These 12 comprise five senators and seven members of the House of Representatives. The act also amended the quorum for the committee from six to seven members.

Over the review period, the committee presented 14 reports, which included one annual report, two reviews of intelligence agencies' administration and expenditure, three reviews of the listing of terrorist organisations, four statutory reviews and four bill inquiries referred by ministers.

The committee held 50 meetings and briefings, including eight public hearings, which supported the committee's work across 21 inquiries in total during that period. I'm going to say that again: 21 inquiries. The PJCIS is a very busy committee.

Notable reviews and inquiries concluded during the review period included the review of the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Prohibited Hate Symbols and Other Measures) Bill 2023, which banned the use and trade of symbols associated with listed terrorist organisations. I want to thank the Leader of the Opposition, the shadow minister for home affairs and the member for Berowra for their support as we fought for and secured an extension of that ban to the Nazi salute.

We reviewed amendments to citizenship cessation provisions under the Citizenship Act and we reviewed the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme of 2018, in which the committee recommended significant changes to improve the effectiveness of the scheme.

On behalf of the committee, I wish to thank all those who made contributions to the committee's inquiries and reviews during the 2023-24 financial year. Industry, academia, the Public Service, Defence, intelligence, law enforcement and partner nations provided valuable insight and information, and I thank them for their valuable contributions and candour. I acknowledge the member for Wills, who chaired the committee during the period covered by this report, and thank all committee members for their constructive and bipartisan approach over the past year.

I want to do something which we do not do often enough in this place. I want to thank the men and women of our defence, intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Now, the men and women of our Defence Force, rightly so, often are acknowledged in this place, and I'll acknowledge them again—the member for Herbert and many others. But we don't often—in fact, very, very rarely do we—as MPs, acknowledge the service of our foreign intelligence services and of our domestic intelligence services; in fact, all of the personnel that the PJCIS oversee.

I want to send a big shout-out to our intelligence and law enforcement agencies in particular. They are the brave men and women whose vigilance, expertise and deep love of country protect Australians and secure our future. On behalf of the PJCIS, the people of Fisher in my electorate, the Australian parliament and the Australian people, I say thank you for your service.

I also would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge and thank the outstanding work of the PJCIS's secretariat, one of whom—in fact, the leader of the secretariat—is at the table this evening. This is a committee, as I said, that is a very, very busy committee. That makes us busy, but it also makes the secretariat incredibly busy, and having to work under immense pressure, often, to meet what are very unrealistic deadlines placed on the committee by government.

And, just on that point, I want to take the opportunity—probably the last opportunity in this parliament—to recommend to government, whether it be this outgoing government or a new incoming government, to seriously consider, given the pressures that I hope I have indicated that this committee operates under, providing more appropriate staffing support to the members who serve on this committee. Now, all of the members who serve on this committee, and senators, are, under the Intelligence Services Act, required to obviously keep confidential the sort of information that we are privy to, which is to top secret level, which means that not even our staff are able to even handle these documents. So what we find is that members of the PJCIS have to do everything themselves, and we get no staffing support—zip, nothing, nada. Our staff cannot be involved. I want to encourage the government to look at providing appropriate staff to members of this committee, at the very least to the chair and the deputy chair, staff that have the appropriate security clearances, as they do in other countries like the United States and the United Kingdom.

This is a committee that oversees and keeps Australians safe, and, if governments of either persuasion are serious about having civilian and parliamentary oversight of our intelligence agencies, then they will appropriately equip the people who serve on this committee to do their job. Without that assistance, without that appropriate support, we cannot do our job properly. I want that placed on the record. With that, I commend the report to the House.