Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I indicate that the Australian Greens will be supporting the amendments. Indeed, they replicate some amendments that the Australian Greens were intending to move ourselves and we will not necessarily have to do that now. We are pleased that the government has introduced amendments to act many of the 15 recommendations made by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and we consider that these changes constitute the absolute minimum necessary to begin to bring the bill closer to what is acceptable in terms of incursions on human rights and civil liberties. However, it is our view that these remain seriously inadequate to remedy the full range of human rights concerns that have been raised by many organisations and, indeed, by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights of this parliament.

There are three of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security recommendations that are not reflected in the government's amendments and I would like to take the opportunity to ask the Attorney-General about those and why the government was not minded to take up those recommendations. The first I want to advert to is the PJCIS recommendation 1, which refers to the need to finalise the appointment of an Independent National Security Legislation Monitor 'as a matter of absolute urgency', to quote that recommendation. Attorney-General, given that the government has stated in the media that it accepts this recommendation, when can we expect to see a fully-qualified, well-resourced person in this role, given that there has never been a time when a person in that role has ever been needed as much as they are today.