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

Thank you. It is probably a bit cheeky to ask whether that was just copied straight off ASIO’s website. I draw your attention to clause 19A in schedule 6 of the bill. Proposed subsection (3) goes into what kind of resources ASIO may make available to the various people it may now find itself working with. The clause talks about the ‘services of officers and employees, and other resources, of the Organisation available to the body’. We have been speaking today mostly about intelligence hoovered up in the course of ASIO’s normal work being delivered to various other agencies. This appears to go substantially further than that, so I am just wondering if, for example, ASIO personnel and resources might be utilised in other agencies or in the context of a multi-agency taskforce for purposes that are unrelated to obtaining, correlating and evaluating intelligence relevant to security. For example, could ASIO personnel be used to request and conduct interviews with people for purposes unrelated to the fulfilment of ASIO functions and would they have to identify themselves as ASIO personnel if that were being done?