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

Minister, I just wonder then whether, as a courtesy, you could put that question to the officers from the department who are sitting immediately on your left and who are paid by the responsible minister to know answers to questions like this one, which goes to the heart of the question that I put to Minister Sherry before we got up for dinner: what is this bill allowing you to do that you cannot already do? ASIO has been able to track non-state actors' handling of weapons of mass destruction, precursor materials and things involved in exactly that kind of trafficking, which are legitimate targets of clandestine intelligence agencies. You have been doing that for 60 years. Can you please tell us what has changed.

There is nothing in this bill—unless you can point it out to me; there is certainly nothing controversial—that addresses the medium; there is nothing that addresses cyberattacks. It is about the people and the 'who' we can go after, not about the medium or the vector that we might be being attacked behind. There are a couple of questions rolled in there, but I am still trying to get to the heart of what this amendment actually allows ASIO to do that it cannot already do. Just by way of an aside, I do not think the example of tracking of weapons of mass destruction or their precursor materials is a legitimate example. Our intelligence agencies are already perfectly capable of doing that, and they have been doing that for decades.