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

Just on this point, I think we may be getting closer to a resolution of the facts. I will just read a brief quote from the communications minister that he put to ABC radio earlier this month. He said:

The only thing the data retention law is requiring is that types of metadata which are currently retained will be retained in the future for at least two years.

That sounds rather harmless, but it is not true. It is actually not the case at all.

Senator Xenophon has read the views of Mr Burgess from Telstra. I have something here that the CEO of the Communications Alliance, Mr John Stanton, put to Computerworld in an interview in December last year. It is worth reading it in full. He said:

The telecom industry “has grown a little weary of hearing this proposal described as a requirement to do no more than service providers do to today …

“It’s in most cases far from that. It is a data creation regime as well as a data retention regime.”

…   …   …

“There are elements of the dataset, for example, that require data to be collected and manipulated in ways it’s not today. Historical aggregate records of upload and download volumes, for example – I don’t know of any provider who manages to put that material today. There’s no business requirement for it, and the feedback from some of our members is that will be quite difficult to do.”

That was the CEO of the Communications Alliance, representing pretty much the entire Australian telecommunications community.

I draw the minister's attention to his own bill—proposed subsection 187A(6):

To avoid doubt, if information that subsection (1) requires a service provider to keep in relation to a communication is not created by the operation of a relevant service, subsection (1) requires the service provider to use other means to create the information, or a document containing the information.

In black and white, your own bill says to the service providers that, 'If you do not presently keep the material outlined in the table'—and this is the table that we have been discussing in 187AA—'this places an obligation on you to create the information.' It uses the words 'create the information'. That is why I think people are a little sick of hearing this from the communications minister and others. If anything, Attorney-General, you have provided a slightly more nuanced view to us this morning than the communications minister has been providing. Spokespeople have been waving their hands, saying, 'It doesn't require the creation of anything you haven't already been doing.' It is not true. Please stop saying that.