Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President Bernardi, I do thank you for your protection. The government will not be pressured into agreeing to a proposal without giving it full and proper consideration. There will be no back-of-the-envelope policy decisions on this side, Senator Cameron. The move by Labor Senator the hon. Lisa Singh to introduce such a bill without appropriate consultation is premature. The opposition could have done this in a proper way, including informing the government earlier of their proposal. If the opposition really wanted to address this issue they should have taken the opportunity to consult widely, because that is what you do: you bring people along with you for your good ideas. You could not bring the Australian people along with you for the mining tax; you could not bring the Australian people along with you for the carbon tax. That was last September—you have got to get over it; it is not working for you. So, start consulting, bring us along with you, and we can start dealing with these sorts of issues in a constructive way to make sure that we get the right policy outcomes, particularly for these types of privacy issues.

The government are not opposed to considering proposals that improve data security practices. Measures that enhance the protection and security of personal information of Australians are critical, particularly in the digital environment, as I have previously outlined. There is more work to be done, including—I know you do not want to hear it; it is against your DNA—consulting broadly on implications of a mandatory notification scheme and consulting broadly with the community and industry. The government are not to prepared to agree to a proposal without giving it full and proper consideration. That is nothing less than what the Australian people ask us to do, to ensure that the policy responses we develop in this place actually address the issue and include them in part of the solution. We have always supported broad principles of privacy protection for individuals.

The lack of consultation with the previous bill was raised by various submitters to the inquiry. I would like to quote one from my home state from Liberty Victoria:

… we note with extreme disappointment that public comment opened on 18 June 2013 and closed two days later on 20 June 2013. This is a not conducive to open and transparent Government and it is extremely unlikely that many members of the public or any other interested party will have had time to review the Bill let alone prepare submissions to this Committee. Privacy is an important issue and with increasing amounts of personal data being collected by both the private and public sectors, the issue as to how that information is used and protected is of high public interest.

It is Thursday Trash Day for the opposition: 'We'll dig around and pull out the privacy bill. We won't actually go out and consult any further and have a look to see if we need any amendment. We won't actually talk to the government. We'll just pull out what we've got because we've got no other policy to bring forward.' The Australian Privacy Foundation similarly said during the prior inquiry:

The APF draws attention to the seriously negative impact on the democratic process that is inherent in the provision by the Parliament of only 1-1/2 working days, during which civil society organisations are expected to discuss, draft and finalise a Submission to your Committee.

Hello, what a failure! In its submission the Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre of the University of New South Wales Faculty of Law highlighted that it had:

… around 10 working hours in which to collaborate on, draft and finalise a submission …

This is an international issue; it is of high public interest. You think you could have given people a little longer than two days to get their high-quality submissions together so that the Senate, through its Legal and Constitutional Committee, last year, could have drafted an appropriate piece of legislation, let alone put any of the thoughts that had come through that inquiry process into the current bill before us—but not from Labor.

Coalition senators believe the concerns raised by those stakeholders should be scrutinised, understood and acted upon by the relevant government agencies as this new privacy regime is rolled out. These concerns still hold for the bill before us today. Privacy is too important not to be considered fully and properly. The coalition remain committed to a considered and consultative approach to policy development and to an open and transparent approach to government. It is what we said we would do, it is what we promised we would do and it is exactly what we are doing.