Kerry Nettle (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

That contribution raises a couple of things for me. One is about ASIS being the overseas spy agency and ASIO doing the work here. Senator Ludwig said that ASIS are not spying on Australians, which has been an issue of contention before, but it was actually out of the royal commission when Gareth Evans said, ‘But they do keep records and files on Australians,’ and that is an issue of concern for Australians.

With respect to the explanation that ASIS should have access to the AUSTRAC records so that they can be involved in overseas activities rather than going through ASIO, you could extrapolate from that argument that this amendment we are dealing with right now is about giving foreign intelligence agencies access to information through ASIS. If the argument is that it should not go from ASIO through to ASIS, you could mount an argument to say the foreign intelligence agencies should have that direct access rather than going through ASIS, as is proposed.

Minister, in the explanations that have been given in the chamber to date, would it be appropriate to limit ASIS’s access to AUSTRAC to that information which relates to overseas financial transactions? If the idea is that we have ASIO and AFP doing the domestic transactions, with oversight under the existing legislation, and ASIS is for overseas, why then not just limit ASIS’s access to AUSTRAC information to overseas transactions?