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

The National Security Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 marks the beginning of what we understand will be months of parliamentary debate on national security legislation—today, an expansion of ASIO's intrusion and surveillance powers; perhaps next sitting, the question of Australians travelling to the civil war in Syria and the continuing war of terror in Iraq; then perhaps national mandatory data retention laws entrenching the infrastructure of passive surveillance over everyone in the country; and then after that we will see. One thing we know we will not be voting on in here is the Prime Minister's split-second decision to deploy the ADF back into war in Iraq, even though that open-ended commitment profoundly shapes the context in which this debate takes place.

I want to begin, as I suspect everyone in this debate will begin, with unconditional and unequivocal condemnation of the medieval barbarity of this entity that calls itself Islamic State. One of the founding principles of the Australian Greens is non-violence, and we condemn without reservation this organisation that has raised the bar on violence in an already violent part of the world.

I understand that, because of this government's cynical and unpopular standing in the Australian community, questions have been raised as to the motives and the timing behind the government's sudden array of national security measures. But for me these questions are secondary. No government—coalition, Labor or Greens—wants to suffer an act of terrorism against the Australian community on its watch. No-one, no matter what their politics, wants to look back in the aftermath of a violent attack in a familiar place and realise that there were things we should have done to better protect our community. Until shown otherwise, I want to assume that it is this imperative that principally motivates the government. What I will strongly question is whether the government understands just how counter-productive some of its initiatives are. I understand that some of these initiatives seem to make tactical sense in the very short term, but before I get into debate on the specifics of the bill, I want to look at the steps we have taken to get here today.

In the aftermath of the indiscriminate attacks on 9-11, Australia pledged its support to a global war on terror. At the tip of the spear, we joined military invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 that sought to obliterate al-Qaeda and the Taliban regime and depose the dictator Saddam Hussein. Our ground stations at places like Pine Gap have supported targeted drone assassinations of suspected terrorist figures, and everyone in their immediate vicinity, in any country in which the US chooses to conduct them. Across the Five Eyes alliance of intelligence agencies, Australia has supported the development of high-resolution real-time surveillance of the entire population, militarising the entire internet in the process. Every few years the powers of police and intelligence agencies are expanded and widened to fight this war on terror; and every time we surrender some of our hard-fought freedoms, we are told to accept in good faith that these expanded powers are needed to keep us safe. Detention without charge. Sedition laws. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent as we fight this war on terror with kill teams, laser guided bombs and drone strikes. Fire has been met with fire. As a result hundreds of thousands of innocent people have been killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and places far from here. Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. These are people with names and family histories and stories that most of us will never hear. Every one of these casualties of the war on terror is a human tragedy every bit as real as the tragedy that befell the Sari Club or downtown Manhattan more than a decade ago.

So what do we have to show for our series of tactical decisions to fight violence with violence and to militarise civilian communications channels? The terror networks we tried to smash have morphed and grown and spread to the point where we are now in a more precarious state than before. The death of Osama Bin Laden at the hands of US special forces three years ago appears to have had no discernible impact on the spread or capability of extremist networks. A fundamentalist army built on oil money and stolen American weapons now occupies a huge swathe of Iraq and Syria and has an expanding online audience. As we join yet another military coalition in the Middle East, Australian government representatives themselves now believe the threat is higher than ever before.

So on a day such as today, with the latest legislative upgrades to the war on terror on the table before us, we need to evaluate whether the arc of our response to terrorism in the last decade and a half is in fact making everyone less safe. Rather than speaking of 'national security', which has come to imply militarisation abroad and a stepwise erosion of precious freedoms here at home while the state steadily increases its powers of surveillance and coercion, perhaps it is time to start speaking of 'community safety'. Human security. Community resilience. De-radicalisation. It is why the Australian Greens will not be writing blank cheques to the surveillance state. It does not make us safer.

In times of heightened security civil liberties such as privacy or freedom of speech are more vital than ever. That is why the Greens believe—and I join my comments with those made by Senator Collins—we need a fully funded independent national security monitor. This was a cross-party initiative, introduced at the time of the Rudd government, that was supported and amended by the Australian Greens. I well remember the day that Senator Brandis—and it might have been the last time it happened—supported Australian Greens amendments to make the monitor more independent of the Prime Minister's office. It was one of those occasions—and I argued that it had been long delayed—when the parliament did its job, and at last we would have an office that would assess whether the counter-terrorism legislation and national security legislation that exists on the statute books in this country was necessary, proportionate and actually keeping us safe. In subsequent years the work of that monitor was almost completely ignored by both the government and the opposition of the day. If you take the time to read those reports, you will discover that many of the powers that sit on the statute books are considered dangerous or obsolete. That is why I think we are simply not learning from history.

I strongly condemn the decision of the government, as part of its arbitrary attack on the budget, to knock over the National Security Legislation Monitor—as Senator Collins said, as part of red tape removal. What on earth were you thinking? I understand that we have an agreement—probably a handshake agreement—that that monitor's office should resume. The office is unoccupied. Nobody is there at the moment. Senator Brandis is a full member—and, I understand, a diligent member—of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. He signed off on a report last year that said this very bill that we are debating today should, firstly, be put into the field as an exposure draft, which it was not; and, secondly, that the National Security Legislation Monitor should be given the opportunity to assess it. But that office is currently vacant and unoccupied.

I am sure that we will hear coalition speakers during this debate—I hope we will—talk of the need to balance privacy and civil rights against the needs of security. I believe it is a false construct and a false balance that is described. However, I presume you will, at least, make a rhetorical flourish in that direction. A very important part of that balance is having an operating National Security Legislation Monitor whose work is listened to and incorporated into the debate.

It is obviously not to deny the important role that our police and security agencies play in disrupting these networks, but I call the Senate's attention to an interview by Glenn Greenwald—who published many of the revelations of Edward Snowden, documents that exposed huge illegalities at the heart of the surveillance state in the United States—where he said, 'If these powers were being used solely in pursuit of terror networks and organised crime networks, we wouldn't be having this conversation. We wouldn't need to be having this conversation.' We will get to a debate on data retention, if the government is so bold as to bring a bill forward, so I will not dwell on it here today. They are applied so indiscriminately; they are utterly indiscriminate. It is the opposite of targeted and proportional.

I also want to point out—I am not sure whether Senator Collins is aware of this or not—that the amendments that the government has allegedly drafted in response to the parliamentary joint committee's report, which was tabled last week, have not yet been circulated to this chamber and that all senators—government, opposition and crossbench—are now debating a bill that we have not read. We have not been given the courtesy of even seeing the government's amendments to this bill. If this bill were trivial, that would be bad manners. But, on a bill as important as this, I say you are treating us with contempt. You are treating your own backbenchers with contempt or anybody who might come in here with a will to do, with due diligence, the job that we were sent here to do, whatever our political affiliations, with contempt by asking us to come in here and debate a bill that we have not read. That is treating us with contempt.

I should put on the record that we rang the Attorney-General's office an hour or so ago to find out whether he was going to do the chamber the courtesy of tabling the amendments at least before the debate began. We were told they had been tabled half an hour or so ago. Obviously, that has not occurred.

There are two main issues that I will raise and speak of in more detail when we get to the committee stage. I have got very strong concerns about the whole regime of special intelligence operations that throw an additional blanket over the operations of an agency that already, by definition and under its act, operates under conditions of great obscurity. I understand why that is the case, but any proposal that comes in here to make even more opaque the operations of these agencies and to do things such as propose almost complete immunity to breaking the law, which is where I think Senator Leyonhjelm's concerns around terrorism originated, and wide scope for misbehaviour make it impossible for this parliament to know whether or not these powers are being abused. It is already ready very difficult to tell and we tend to find out in the aftermath, as in the case of Dr Haneef, Mr Ulhaque or in any of the other instances where, in retrospect, when you look back you realise that ASIO's powers had in fact been abused—because these were just people—and recognise that they operate, very tightly circumscribed by an act of parliament. Nonetheless, the work of oversight committees or groups like the legislation monitor is essential in a democracy. These powers and these oversights are there for a reason.

I have strong concerns, but the issues upon which I have circulated amendments effectively fall into two areas. Firstly—and this was something that the joint committee picked up and I believe the government has chosen to ignore its advice—the definition of 'a computer' for which an access warrant will apply is considered to include 'computers attached on a network'. And as many, many submitters put to the committee and have put to the government directly, this effectively means that with a single warrant you could be authorising intrusion onto computers in a network in an unbounded way.

Senator Fifield, I know you are here in a representative capacity and this is not your bill but, just to put you on notice that, when we get to the committee stage I will be seeking detailed information—unless of course the government consents to the Australian Greens amendment, which is always a possibility—