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

I think we have clarified this quite a bit. I appreciate your, along with the officers at the table, taking some time to talk us through it. The more I hear, the more I wish I had moved a number of other amendments on the way through, but I will have to suffice with simply voting down the bill when push comes to shove in a few moments.

So ASIO personnel can conduct interviews on behalf of other agencies completely unrelated to the law enforcement, intelligence and security community even if there is no hint of the commission of, or allegation of, a crime being committed. It rests on the definition in this instance of national security, whatever that might be.

My final question—and I will then move the amendment that we have circulated—is whether the minister can describe whether there is any relationship between this amendment to the TIA that we are discussing today and the proposal—if you call it that—for data retention that has also been discussed at some length, whereby internet service providers and other telecommunications carriers would be required effectively to keep every digital trace that all of us leave in the course of our normal lives to be made available to the same intelligence community we have been discussing today. Is there any crossover at all between these two proposals?