Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I have a couple of brief amendments, but I might just make some comments, because we have not had much discussion of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement Bill 2010 apart from some of Senator Parry’s comments earlier; mostly we have confined our comments to the earlier bill. We support the establishment of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement. We acknowledge the need to have strong oversight powers over the AFP and the ACC, which both have extensive powers that may be used to derogate from fundamental civil liberties. So the initiation of this joint committee is in itself a very good thing.

We propose some improvements to help its scope and to ensure that the committee’s role is of substance rather than to operate in a superficial manner under which the AFP and the ACC may justify their conduct based on the existence of an oversight committee. So, if that committee is going to exist, we need to make sure that it is able to do its job effectively. I move Greens amendment (1) on sheet 6182:

(1)    Clause 3, page 3 (line 37), omit paragraph (h) of the definition of sensitive information.