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

I will not press the argument, because it appears that, again, the numbers are against us. I thank the Attorney-General for clarifying the flow chart. It is useful to know exactly how he envisages it working in practice. I still find it remarkable that the only example—or counter-example, I guess—that you could give us as to why the agency feedback would not be passed on to the telecommunications providers as a matter of course is security. I would think that if the agencies had a problem relating to security about how service providers were proposing to implement their obligations, albeit unwillingly, that would somehow still be withheld from the service providers. We are not talking about publishing this material and putting it into the public domain; we are talking about the technicians and the people who are now suffering a legal obligation to do something they would rather not do to be able to receive directly feedback that the agencies were providing. It is remarkable, again, that a government that proposes deregulation in every other sphere be imposing such an enormously intrusive obligation. I understand and acknowledge Senator Brandis's outlining of the rights of appeal and so on, but, nonetheless, it must be observed that industry is doing this under duress. They have been fighting this proposal since—as far as I am aware—2008. So it is, at the very least, a measure of transparency between the intermediary within the ACMA and industry. It would seem to me to be an issue of good faith, if nothing else. Unless other senators have comments, I will commend Australian Greens amendments (8) and (9) on sheet 7669 to the chamber.