Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to respond briefly, for just a couple of minutes, on a couple of issues that have been raised both by Senator Ray and by Senator Faulkner. As Acting Chair of the Joint Committee on ASIO, ASIS and DSD for the duration of the inquiry into the questioning and detention powers, the review of that legislation, can I say that we worked long and hard to make sure that at the end of the day we had unanimous recommendations. It is true that we had 19 recommendations. It is also fair to say that in most instances, even where there are unanimous recommendations from committees, the government does not always see fit to accept all the recommendations of a committee, even if they are unanimous.

The issue that has been raised at length is that of the sunset clause. As a member of that committee and as someone who chaired that committee, I place on the record the fact that I still support the recommendations of the committee in relation to that sunset clause. One of the issues that Senator Ray touched on—but I do not think it was made quite clear to everybody—was that, in reviewing the questioning and detention powers, we could only review half thoroughly, because there had never been anybody detained. We would have liked to have been able to look in total at the questioning and detention powers to see whether they were working correctly in both cases. We were satisfied with the work that was being done on questioning—we made recommendations we thought would improve that regime, and some of those recommendations have been accepted—however, we were unable to review whether or not the detention powers that were put in place by this parliament a couple of years ago actually were working in the way that we would hope they would work.

In discussion with members of the opposition and of the government, we had a good think about the issue of having a sunset clause in the legislation, and we came to the agreement that there should be one. I know it was opposed by some people and it was supported by others. Some did not want even to renew the legislation, but as members of that committee we thought—and we unanimously came to this view; it was a good, balanced position—that we should have a sunset clause but one with a reasonable time limit.

I hope we do not have to use the detention powers; I hope they never have to be used, that there is no cause to use them. However, if at some stage in the next four or five years they are used, we will have a chance to review them to see whether they are working properly and whether they are doing the job they set out to do. It was with that in mind that we thought we would give the sunset clause 5½ years. It would not be reviewed in the next parliament; it would be reviewed in the parliament after that. We thought that was a substantial amount of time. I remember discussing this with Senator Ray and we said, ‘Neither of us will be here to review it. It will be somebody else’s job.’ We thought it was a fair and reasonable arrangement.

While the government have not accepted that proposition of ours and have instead come up with a 10-year sunset clause, I think I should place on the record that I believe that our recommendation was a good compromise. In coming to the 5½-year sunset clause, we were working on a compromise which we thought satisfied the arguments of both groups—those who did not want the legislation to proceed any further and those who did not want a sunset clause at all. We felt that this was a good and reasonable compromise. I place on the record my disappointment that the government did not accept that recommendation. Some of the other recommendations that they did not accept I did not think were that important, and they accepted a lot that were important. 

As acting chair of the committee at the time, I felt I should respond on this issue, and I am quite happy to put those thoughts on the public record in this place.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.