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

On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, I present the annual report of the committee’s activities for 2005-06. I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the report.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

Section 31 of the Intelligence Services Act 2001 requires the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security to report to the parliament annually on the committee’s activities during the previous year. I present the following report as a fulfilment of that requirement. This process is an opportunity for the committee to inform the parliament of the committee’s work in a consolidated form. It is also an opportunity for the committee to review its own work and to review the act as it affects the committee’s operations.

The Intelligence Services Act is relatively new, having been passed in 2001. The committee has been in place since March 2002. Over that time, the work of the committee has evolved and grown because of the nature of the times, something that does not need elaboration for the Senate. Each year the committee has found itself with a steady stream of legislative review, reviews of proscriptions as well as its core requirement of scrutinising the administration and expenditure of the intelligence agencies. The breadth of the oversight task has also grown because of the inclusion in this last year of three additional agencies into the responsibilities of the committee. The committee is still in the process of establishing its procedures and practices as far as the oversight of administration and expenditure is concerned. This report canvasses some of the complexities that the committee faces in managing its responsibilities. However, this is a work in progress and future annual reports will no doubt continue to examine the challenges faced by a committee such as this one.

Last year saw amendments to the Intelligence Services Act which changed the committee’s name from the ASIO, ASIS and DSD committee to the Intelligence and Security Committee. This reflected the fact that, on the recommendation of the Flood inquiry in 2004, the committee’s responsibilities for oversight had increased to include all six intelligence agencies: ASIO, ASIS, DSD, DIO, DIGO and ONA. The size of the committee was increased from seven to nine members with the addition of a new opposition senator and a new government member of the House. A position of deputy chair has been created. The committee now has the capacity to form subcommittees should the pressure of work dictate the need for them.

In the last year, the committee tabled six reports: four reviews of terrorist listings and two reviews of legislation—one a major review of the ASIO questioning and detention powers. In addition, the committee has conducted a review of the recruitment and training procedures of all six intelligence agencies, although this report was tabled outside the reporting period for this report. The committee also has a program of regular private briefings involving the directors of the agencies, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, and visitors—overseas counterpart committees or specialists. Details of all of these activities are listed in the report. The committee has chosen to highlight three issues of procedural and practical interest in this report.

The first affected the conduct of the inquiry into ASIO’s questioning and detention powers. The committee sought clarification of its powers in relation to the calling of witnesses who might have been associated with the operation of the powers under division 3 part III of the ASIO Act. Such people are subject to strict secrecy provisions under the ASIO Act. Nevertheless, the committee had a statutory obligation under the Intelligence Services Act to review the operations of the provisions. The committee sought to conduct as thorough a review as possible while not exposing individuals wishing to give evidence to any serious legal ramifications. Advice received from Mr Bret Walker SC affirmed the rights and protection of witnesses to give evidence to the inquiry so long as the provisions of the Intelligence Services Act for the taking of sensitive evidence were observed. The second issue related to the preservation of archive copies of classified documents within the committee’s own records, a matter that would require amendment of the Intelligence Services Act.

Finally, the committee remains concerned about the application of the non-disclosure provisions of sections 6 and 7 of the Intelligence Services Act. These blanket provisions, which require a series of permissions for both the taking of evidence and the clearances for reports, have been brought to prominence by the increasing role of the committee in legislative review. This is a process which does not necessarily involve national security information and more closely approximates normal parliamentary processes. The committee believes there may be scope for a refinement of sections 6 and 7 to accommodate what are unforeseen circumstances in the work of the committee. This is a report which covers the work of this committee for the past 12 months. I commend the report to the Senate.