Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

This seems to be one of those clauses which should have been put in right from the beginning and it is an example of what I mentioned before—but I will not labour the point, so to speak. We support the amendment. We think it does help in the scheme of how this bill will operate.

Question agreed to.

I move opposition amendment (1) on sheet 5225:

(1)    Page 14 (after line 6), after clause 17, insert:

17A  Periodic reporting

        (1)    The Secretary must before the end of June and November in each year, give to the Minister a written report on the operation of AusCheck which includes the following specific details:

             (a)    the number and type of background checks conducted by AusCheck;

             (b)    the average time taken to conduct background checks;

             (c)    the specific provision(s) in legislation under which background checks have been conducted;

             (d)    the number of individuals who have received adverse background checks and the basis for those adverse assessments; and

             (e)    the agencies to which information obtained by AusCheck has been shared and for what purposes.

        (2)    The Minister must cause a copy of the report provided to the Minister under subsection (1) to be tabled in each House of the Parliament within 5 sitting days of that House after the Minster receives the report.

I know that in the summary during the debate on the second reading the minister did address this issue. He also did it in committee as well. I will belabour the point. It is, I think, more important for the reporting to be done in such a way that a lot of this material is provided to the relevant committee, not only at estimates but also through the parliamentary process. It can be envisaged that within the Attorney-General’s Department they could provide a separate report about the operation of this scheme. It is within their purview. It is possible. It is done in other instruments which fall within the control or within the administrative orders of the Attorney-General’s Department.

Labor will insist on this amendment—we will not divide on it but we do ask you to reconsider it. If you need the time, then, of course, this matter will come back. There is an opportunity to look at it again, should this legislation need further amending down the track and we would ask you to at least not rule it out completely.

What is important to Labor is not the information contained within it specifically but the general thrust of the amendment. That is, there is a desire to have information provided to the public, through parliament, about the operation of this scheme. It is an important scheme. We think that the information as to how that scheme will operate should be collated by the department and provided through parliament to the public. It will hold sensitive information of a personal nature about people. We accept that privacy principles will apply and that will be maintained. We do think, though, that the public have a greater need to understand how that information will be collected and used and that the public will have that scrutiny through such a report to parliament. Therefore we urge the government to accept amendment (1), clause 17A, relating to periodic reporting.

Question negatived.