Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition was not opposed to dealing with all of the government amendments in one batch. I will confine my comments on pretty much all of those amendments to the general comments that I will make at this stage.

The government amendments reflect the outcome of the hard work of the Labor members of the intelligence committee. We ensured full scrutiny of this bill and we insisted that the government fully implement the broad and important recommendations that the intelligence committee came to. We will support these amendments, which reflect the conclusions of the committee. It is important that amendments to legislation like this are preceded by rigorous committee consideration.

Labor's further amendments, which I will deal with when they arrive in the running sheet order, reflect concerns noted in the intelligence committee's report which have not been fully addressed by the government's response to the discrete recommendations. I indicate that the opposition will be supporting all of the government amendments.