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

I thank Senator Brandis for making a contribution to at least make clear the coalition's views on these changes. I think Senator Trood raised a couple of issues during the committee hearing but, apart from that, the coalition has been almost totally absent from the debate. So it is good that you are least here this evening to give us the benefit of your views. I do not share your comfort that the definitions that the govern­ment is introducing here, which we are seeking to repeal tonight, do not, as the Law Council and the Castan Centre for Public Law have indicated, radically broaden the range of subjects on whom ASIO should now be spying. I am not as comfortable as Senator Brandis and his colleagues in the coalition or the Labor Party with the idea that corporate espionage is now an entirely legitimate activity for ASIO. They must be doing something in that giant complex that is under construction on the other side of the lake; they are not in there quite yet, but we now have a better idea, albeit still shrouded in complete ambiguity, of what ASIO will be up to. I do not share the opposition's comfort whatsoever that we are not about to vote through a very significant expansion to ASIO's mandate. I will not detain the chamber further. I commend the amendments.