Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I want to conclude this as quickly as I can: last night the Attorney stated, consistent with the statements he made to the ABC: 'So the core provision of this bill is to impose upon telecommunications companies an obligation to retain the metadata that they hitherto had retained anyway for two years. What the bill does, in effect, is freezes the status quo.' Given what is reported to have been said by Mr Burgess, the Chief information Security Officer of Telstra—that they will actually be having to retain other data which they do not currently retain—does the Attorney concede that there are circumstances when—and it may freeze the status quo in some circumstances; I understand that—there may actually be a requirement on telecommunications companies to retain more data than they currently do? I am asking this on the basis of Mr Burgess's reported remarks.