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

I seek leave to make a short statement. I understand it will be possible to debate this motion. I want to put very clearly on the record why I am proposing an amendment as it is a rather unusual thing to do to a Selection of Bills report.

Leave granted.

I thank the chamber. It is unusual for a senator to come forward and bring a disagreement to the chamber with a Selection of Bills Committee report.

Senator Brandis has brought forward a bill, the annual expansion of ASIO's powers—sometimes it is more than annual but I think it has been about a year since we were last here—and effectively cherry picking a set of recommendations from a Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security report from last year.

Without any disrespect at all to the PJCIS, I think it is utterly inappropriate to take a batch of recommendations that came from that joint committee, embed them into a bill and then send that bill back to the same committee that proposed the measures for review. What do we think they might say? Do we think they might give it impartial scrutiny and critique, call witnesses and go through it carefully; or will they say, 'This looks very familiar to what we said should happen 12 months ago'? It is entirely inappropriate that the committee that proposed the measures should now be the one to scrutinise them.

I hope that I will have Labor and crossbench support to allow the Senate to do its job. We have Senate standing committees to assess and analyse bills, to take evidence for, against, neutral, and to improve bills like this, particularly a bill as sensitive as this one. The proposal to expand ASIO's sweeping powers is so controversial—and I don't quite understand where the Labor Party's heads are at, because we hear different things from different spokespeople—but, the very least that should happen is that the Senate should be permitted to do its job, and that is why I have brought this motion forward.

In order not to take up too much of the chamber's time, I will also foreshadow a motion that I am bringing forward before too much longer to require the National Security Legislation Monitor to also investigate these bills. The reason for that is very simple: the parliamentary joint committee that provided this report last year that Senator Brandis is now cherry picking from said—and this is a recommendation that Senator Brandis will have signed off on and that the Labor Party will have signed off on; there are no crossbench voices any more than that committee because those positions were wiped out after the election. Presumably, the government doesn't care to hear from independent voices, but Senator Brandis signed off and the Labor Party shadow Attorney-General signed off on a recommendation that said that the National Security Legislation Monitor and the Inspector-general of Intelligence and Security—two small but very important offices, in fact, who hold, on one hand, the policy recommendations and the operational recommendations of our covert and clandestine intelligence gathering and police agencies—should be required to review the bills.

So the first thing that happened in response to that recommendation was that Senator Brandis proposed as a part of red tape removal that the National Security Legislation Monitor be abolished. So way to go with the transparency. I understand he may have changed his mind, although I would appreciate confirmation that that is the case.

I will shortly be moving a motion that ensures that the legislation monitor provides a report and that the IGIS provides a report. The only thing that distinguishes Australia from a police state is this so-called red tape: accountability and offices like the IGIS and analysts like the National Security Legislation Monitor. That is the thin line that stands between us and unregulated secret police and surveillance powers, and that is not overdoing it.

In Australia we have royal commissions into police corruption every couple of years around the states and territories. These are people—they are not immune to the pressures of the offices. They do dangerous and demanding work. They are not immune to corruption, and I don't think any of us should be surprised that a secret police or a secret intelligence-gathering agency should come to the parliament every few months asking for more intelligence-gathering powers. We should not write them a blank cheque. At the very least, I implore you, colleagues, to let the Senate do its job.