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

If we tailored all of the legislative framework that we seek to enact such that we can monitor and assist sovereign nations upon the basis that they will not exercise their sovereign power, rightly or wrongly, we will receive no benefit from these enactments. Whether they will choose to use the information in the abuse of human rights—which I think, with great respect to Senator Nettle, is extraordinarily remote, given that this is about money accounts and flows of money to the protection of Australia—I think is a question which is extraordinarily moot and obscure. If the senator would like to give me an example, I am sure I can take you through it. But the point of the exercise is that this intelligence agency is going to receive information from AUSTRAC pursuant to the terms of the act and provide it in the intent of protecting Australia from money laundering. I am not sure that the purview of human rights comes into that question at all, and I would be interested to hear an example of how you anticipate that would apply.