David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

Two points, Senator. The first is that ASIO's mandate, if you will—and that is my word—is set out in the section I am looking at here, which is where 'security' is defined. It is part I, section 4. There we see the definition of security:

"security" means:

and then it is set out in paragraphs (a), (aa) and (b). I think we see there a codification of some of the issues that you are looking for.

I guess that when one contemplates the Cold War one is contemplating an environ­ment that is dramatically transformed today. We are obviously not today working in an environment where there is something of a global contest between two clearly discerni­ble ideologies and constellations of nation states. What we are looking at today is, firstly, a multipolar international environ­ment where non-state actors are particularly relevant and, secondly, an environment which has been transformed by technology. So the sorts of materials you were talking about and the sorts of tools that are required to monitor the movement of those materials, I think, have greatly changed, and as legislators we need to make sure that that is something we remain abreast of.