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

I thought we might have been right on the verge of finally winning one. My hopes were dashed!

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN: I am sorry to mislead you there, Senator Ludlam. I am glad that we corrected the record—thank you, Senator Collins.

That is all right. It has been a complex process. I move Australian Greens amendment (40) on sheet 7669:

(40) Schedule 2, Part 2, page 68 (after line 12), at the end of the Part, add:

47A At the end of Division 6 of Part 4 -1

  Add:

Division 7—Destruction of information or documents

182C Destruction of information or documents obtained under authorisation

Authorisations under Division 3 by the Organisation

(1) If:

  (a) information, or a document, that was obtained by the Organisation in accordance with an authorisation under Division 3 is in the Organisation's possession; and

  (b) the Director-General of Security is satisfied that the information or document is no longer required, and is not likely to be required, in connection with the purpose for which the authorisation was given;

the Director-General of Security must cause the information or document, including any copies of the information or document, to be destroyed as soon as practicable.

Authorisations under Division 4 by an enforcement agency

(2) If:

  (a) information, or a document, that was obtained by an enforcement agency in accordance with an authorisation under Division 4 is in an enforcement agency's possession; and

  (b) the head (however described) of the agency is satisfied that the information or document is no longer required, and is not likely to be required, in connection with the purpose for which the authorisation was given;

the head (however described) of the enforcement agency must cause the information or document, including any copies of the information or document, to be destroyed as soon as practicable.

Authorisations under Division 4A by the Australian Federal Police

(3) If:

  (a) information, or a document, that was obtained by the Australian Federal Police in accordance with an authorisation under Division 4A is in the Australian Federal Police's possession; and

  (b) the Commissioner of Police is satisfied that the information or document is no longer required, and is not likely to be required, in connection with the purpose for which the authorisation was given;

the Commissioner of Police must cause the information or document, including any copies of the information or document, to be destroyed as soon as practicable.

This is reasonably simple and we already traversed the reasoning behind it earlier in the debate, but to refresh our memory: this amendment requires that metadata obtained under the data retention legislation should be destroyed when it is no longer relevant to the matter under investigation. Earlier in the debate, we addressed the idea that, after the two-you mandatory retention period, stuff that had been collected for no other purpose than that people were being forced to collect it under the terms of the bill would be destroyed. However, this goes to the material being retrieved—and we have already discussed at length the fact that there are in excess of three-quarters of a million of these warrantless authorisations reported to the ACMA every year. Once that material is no longer relevant to any kind of investigation, it should be destroyed. We know that it is not. Not just the intelligence agencies are amassing it but the law enforcement agencies and other agencies are collecting it. There is no obligation as far as I am aware—please correct me if I am wrong, Senator Brandis—on the part of any of these agencies to destroy anything that they collect on a warrantless basis.

The software tools for aggregating and mapping this information are way more sophisticated than most people realise. I think the numbers increment by 10 or 15 per cent every year. So 750,000 this year, maybe 720,000 or 730,000 the year before. All of the records that are being grabbed are also being compiled. They are being stored; they are being compiled. And there is no question at all that it effectively means that the private records of phone and internet use, location, data and whatever else are being authorised, collected, archived and kept. This material—we do not know absolute numbers, because that material is not recorded—on tens or potentially hundreds of thousands of people is being stored.

So I struggle to imagine a justification whereby material is accessed on a warrantless basis for a range of matters—everything from quite serious matters to quite trivial matters. Many people who support these schemes have been at pains to tell us that this is about preliminary discovery so that people can be excluded as persons of interest and not pursued by more intrusive means. Why would you require the retention of their material? Why not instruct agencies to dispose of it when it is no longer needed? That would be in accord with the Australian privacy principles that were legislated and, to my mind, improved by this government about this time last year.