John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, I present the report of the committee on the review of administration and expenditure: No. 9: Australian intelligence agencies. I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the report.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

The oversight of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security of the Australian Intelligence Community is a very important responsibility of the committee, as senators would be aware, so I am very pleased to present this ninth review of the administration and expenditure of the AIC by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.

The review examined a wide range of aspects of the administration and expenditure of the six intelligence and security agencies, including the financial statements for each agency and their human resource management, training, recruitment and accommodation. In addition, the review looked at issues of interoperability between members of the AIC.

Submissions were sought from each of the six intelligence and security agencies, from the Australian National Audit Office and from the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security. The submissions from ANAO and the six intelligence agencies were all classified confidential, restricted or secret and therefore have not made available to the public. As has been its practice for previous reviews, ASIO provided the committee with both a classified and an unclassified submission. The unclassified version is available on the committee's website.

Each of the Defence intelligence agencies provided the committee with a classified submission. The agencies marked each paragraph with its relevant national security classification. This has enabled the committee, for its 2009-10 review, to directly refer in this report to unclassified information provided in the Defence agencies submissions. The Committee also received five submissions from members of the public or public organisations, including the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, the Brigidine Asylum Seekers Project, RISE and the Refugee Council of Australia. These submissions all dealt with ASIO's security assessments of refugees.

On 25 March last year, the committee held a private hearing at which ASIO, ASIS, DSD, DIGO, ONA and DIO all appeared before the committee. On 16 June 2011, the committee held a public hearing—the first, in fact, since 2006—and heard from representatives of the Refugee Council of Australia, Refugees, Survivors and Ex-Detainees, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and ASIO in relation to visa security assessments. The committee thanks all attendees, particularly those from organisations providing support to refugees, for the time and effort they took to put their views to our committee.

Given the public interest and importance of the issue of visa security assessments in the report I have tabled, I should say the committee certainly notes the request by some advocacy groups for ASIO to declare its non-statutory criteria for making visa security assessments. The committee believes that making non-statutory criteria publicly available could compromise national security because applications from potentially hostile individuals could be tailored to meet those criteria. Therefore, the committee has not supported that suggestion.

The committee notes that since its previous administration and expenditure inquiry ASIO's visa security assessment workload has increased significantly. Procedures and processes for undertaking visa security assessments have been placed under considerable strain and, I must say, in some cases assessments have taken longer than is desirable.

The committee takes very seriously the concerns put before it by various refugee and asylum-seeker advocacy groups, but it also recognises the difficulties that ASIO has in fulfilling its responsibilities in this area. Therefore, the committee welcomes the efforts, introduced by ASIO on 1 March 2011, to streamline the process of security assessments in an attempt to clear the backlog and to process future assessments in less time. The committee is satisfied that the current regime for visa security assessments is the correct one. The committee notes that the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security has stated that ASIO is doing its job in a 'proper and legal manner'.

Overall, the committee is satisfied that the administration and expenditure of the six intelligence and security agencies is sound. However, I would note that concerns raised in relation to the efficiency dividend's impact on agencies during the committee's Review of Administrationand Expenditure:Australian Intelligence Organisations, No. 8 were specifically raised in the evidence the committee took for the current review. This is extremely concerning to the committee. The committee will continue to monitor the impact of the efficiency dividend on the Australian intelligence community. The committee was pleased with the level of information given to it in relation to interoperability and it will continue to monitor this area to ensure that interoperability management and budgetary structures are in place across the Australian intelligence community. As always, the committee thanks the heads of the AIC agencies and all those who contributed to this review. I commend the report to the Senate.