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

The government does, surprisingly, support the intention of the Greens amendments, although I say very early that we are not going to support the two amendments. Amendments (1) and (10) having been moved by the government earlier this morning make these amendments a little moot, but to the extent that we have included not only the national human rights obligations but also our international security and counterterrorism obligations within the legislation it would be unbalanced to consider only one set of obligations and not the other. So the government has made provision for both.

As the amendments before us address only one half of the equation, the government does prefer its own amendment. I think you would be taking away one-half of all of our obligations if we were to support this amendment but, in moving these amendments, you do recognise that there are not only human rights obligations but also international security and counterterrorism obligations. With that, we prefer our amendment.

Amendment (3) means that the monitor could take references from the Human Rights Commissioner. The government amendments on this matter are in fact wider than those suggested by the Greens and present a more complete description of those the monitor can consult with. So the government remains resolute in supporting its amendments. We do not support the Greens amendments, although I think we are talking about the same principles.

Question negatived.

by leave—I move amendments (11), (12) and (13) on sheet BD213:

(11)  Clause 10, page 8 (lines 13 and 14), omit paragraph (2)(a).

(12)  Clause 10, page 8 (after line 16), after paragraph (2)(c), insert:

           (ca)    the Human Rights Commissioner; or

           (cb)    the Privacy Commissioner; or

the head of an agency established by a law of the Commonwealth or of a State or Territory; or

(13)  Clause 29, page 18 (lines 4 to 7), omit subclause (1), substitute:

        (1)    The National Security Legislation Monitor must prepare and give to the Prime Minister a report (an annual report):

             (a)    relating to the performance of the Monitor’s functions as set out in paragraphs 6(1)(a) and (b); and

             (b)    containing such details relating to the performance of the Monitor’s function as set out in paragraph 6(1)(c) as the Monitor considers appropriate.

I will speak to the government’s amendments (11) and (12) to clause 10 and also to government amendment (13), which relates to clause 29, but they may need to be put separately. The consequential amendment to amendment (10) will omit paragraph (2)(a) of clause 10. Amendment (12) on sheet BD213 implements recommendation 9 of the committee’s report. It makes clear that the monitor may consult with the heads of any statutory agencies established under Commonwealth and state and territory laws, such as the Privacy Commissioner and the Australian Human Rights Commissioner.

Government amendment (13)—annual report—implements recommendation 12 of the committee’s report and expands the reporting requirements to require that the monitor include references from the Prime Minister in the annual report as the monitor considers appropriate. Any sensitive information would be excluded from the unclassified version of the report, as I mentioned earlier.