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

I will come to that point. We do need to better regulate this area. The old envelope versus content distinction does not encapsulate the intrusion involved in accessing metadata today. We can trace people's locations with these things now, Senator O'Sullivan, and you should understand that better.

The data retention bill will limit access to metadata to a much smaller number of core law enforcement and national security agencies. Corporate and competition regulators will retain access to metadata to help them crack down on serious white-collar crime and other wrongdoing. But it is also important to point out that security and law enforcement agencies will use metadata in a targeted fashion to investigate specific subjects. It will not be part of some mass surveillance dragnet that is being suggested by some.

Labor members of the joint parliamentary committee insisted that the authorisation requirements for access to metadata be tightened. Before approving access, the authorising officer must be satisfied on reasonable grounds that any interference with the privacy of persons that may result from the access is justifiable and proportionate. In making this decision, the authorised officer should be required to have regard to: the gravity of the conduct being investigated, including whether the investigation relates to a serious criminal offence, the enforcement of a serious pecuniary penalty, the protection of the public revenue at a sufficiently serious level or the location of missing persons; the reason why the disclosure is proposed to be authorised; and the likely relevance and usefulness of the information or the documents to the investigation.

The data retention bill will also significantly strengthen the Ombudsman's powers to supervise access to information under the TIA Act. The Ombudsman will be empowered to comprehensively assess agency compliance with all of its obligations under the TIA Act, including the use of and access to metadata. Oversight of this category of data would also extend to auditing the use of and access to data retained as a result of the data retention obligation. This is a significant win for oversight and accountability. There is currently no independent oversight of the use of and access to metadata. Neither the TIA Act nor the predecessor arrangements in the Telecommunications Act included an independent oversight arrangement in relation to metadata. Labor has insisted that the Ombudsman be given additional resources to fulfil this important role.

Labor has been consistent in our belief that we must strike the right balance between keeping people safe and protecting the rights and liberties we value as Australians. Parliament has no greater responsibility, and it is essential that we take a mature and bipartisan approach to these issues. I am confident that the hard fought improvements won by the Labor Party achieve the right balance. As I have already said, Labor has pushed for comprehensive amendments to this bill. But there also remains some unfinished business.

Labor remains concerned about whether companies should be obliged to store retained data in Australia. Former Director-General of ASIO, David Irvine, said at a recent Defence and National Security round table that he would be concerned about the security of retained data if it was stored overseas because it would be:

… governed by someone else's sovereign legislative system.

This matter is currently being examined as part of the Telecommunications Sector Security Reform—TSSR—a process commenced by Labor while in government and which the Abbott government has stated will be completed well before the end of the data retention scheme implementation period. When completed, any TSSR legislation will come before the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. Consistent with the comments of the former head of ASIO, during the review of any TSSR legislation Labor will insist on a requirement that retained telecommunications data be stored onshore, an extra protection needed for people even today under the status quo.

There also remains unfinished business relating to the oversight of the entire architecture of Australia's national security agencies. My former colleague Senator John Faulkner, who retired from the parliament in February this year, was a fierce advocate of this cause. No one should doubt that Senator Faulkner believed that Australia is served by professional and well-run intelligence and security agencies. But Senator Faulkner also argued that effective safeguards against the abuse of security powers cannot depend and should not depend on the personal integrity and quality of the leaders of our agencies. If we are to have full confidence in our security agencies, we must have a suitable level of transparency built around them. It was Senator Faulkner's view that it is the parliament to which those agencies are accountable, and it is the parliament's responsibility to oversee their priorities and effectiveness, and to ensure agencies meet the requirements and the standards parliament sets. I agree.

Senator Faulkner developed a set of reforms designed to ensure that the effectiveness of parliamentary oversight of intelligence and security agencies keeps pace with any enhanced powers given to the agencies. One key reform was for the intelligence committee to have oversight of some operational matters of the security agencies. Progress towards that reform is evident in some ways in this bill, which Labor pressed be amended so that the committee could oversight the data retention scheme. But there is more to be done.

So Labor will bring forward legislation this year to give effect to the reforms proposed by a Senator Faulkner to build better oversight of the whole national security framework. It is in this context that the bill was first presented. The bill now, as heavily amended, sits— (Time expired)