Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Hansard source

The government does not think that these amendments are particularly scary, as Senator Stott Despoja mentioned. The government does not think they are necessary for two reasons. Firstly, as I have indicated earlier, the government will be considering further recommendations from the Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee report. That in itself is an ongoing consideration which has been firmly committed to by the government during the course of this year.

Added to that, in relation to the B-party warrants, government amendments (16) and (17) will involve more detail in relation to the reporting of B-party interceptions. That will provide that, in the reporting to the parliament, there will be more information given in relation to those B-party interceptions. That in itself will provide the parliament with an ability to be well informed of the B-party interceptions. That in itself is an aspect of accountability, scrutiny and, indeed, review if the parliament wants to review any of those reports. We see reports in this chamber all the time. There is debate and discussion. We think that, for those two reasons, it is unnecessary. We have had the Blunn report, which was extensive. We have acted on that. We have had the Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee report.

Indeed, the genesis of all of this goes back to 2004. I remember very clearly the difference between the Australian Federal Police and the Attorney-General’s Department which was much publicised at the time. That was in relation to the differing views to these interceptions, which were made more problematic by virtue of modern technology. The question then being asked was whether an email was a letter or a telephone call, as someone put it at that time. We had to address that. We have been doing that over the last two years. We have had the Blunn report and Senate committee reports. I really do think that to incorporate any further review mechanism in this legislation would be unwieldy, particularly when you have regard to those other two matters that I mentioned.