Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is simply right. It necessarily imposes a limit on the ability of a parliamentary committee to oversee properly, publicly and in detail the role of the ACC. That may well be the intent of government, and that may well have been the intent of parliament in establishing the committee. So be it. It just imposes a limitation on members of parliament to pursue matters.

A direct analogy is the role of oversight of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, which does have access to private information. It does have access to detailed information, and that in turn imposes responsibilities on members of that committee to perhaps conduct themselves, in an intelligence oversight committee, in a different way to an oversight committee of other committees of the parliament.