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

This is an amendment that introduces a new offence for publishing or disseminating DSGL technology. Proposed subclause 14A(1):

… makes it an offence for a person to publish or otherwise disseminate DSGL technology to the public, or to a section of the public, by electronic or other means where the person does not hold an approval under this section.

This offence will cover persons who intentionally release controlled DSGL technology into the public domain. As a safeguard, the offence provision will include the ability for the Minister to give written approval for the publication or dissemination of DSGL technology if it is in the public interest to do so.

We talked about that a few moments ago.

The offence does not apply if the DSGL technology has already been lawfully made available to the public, or to a section of the public.

The offence will be relevant to researchers only if their intended publication communicates specific controlled technology that is listed on the DSGL—that is, if the publication includes the information that communicates how to develop, produce or, in some cases, use items that are listed on the DSGL. Once DSGL technology is published in the public domain the public domain exemption could be used and the DSGL controls would no longer apply. This would have the effect of de-controlling any published information. It does not make sense to require an Australian researcher to apply for a permit to supply controlled information to a researcher overseas but allow that same Australian researcher to publish the same controlled information to the public at large.

Defence envisages that the publishing offence will have an exemption to allow publication of controlled information in rare circumstances where the minister believes the public interest to publish the controlled information outweighs the need to protect the security of that information. We envisage that this will be a rarely used mechanism, and you have heard me use the bird flu example. All of this will be tested during the pilot program and will be conducted during the transition period and thereby overseen by the Strengthened Export Controls Steering Group.