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

No. Malaysia is different—no biometric testing there, just deportation. I am afraid that, irrespective of biometrics, nothing would have saved me from being deported from Malaysia. And it is Anwar Ibrahim's birthday today, and he is still incarcerated. I am sorry for the distraction, Mr Acting Deputy President.

I just wanted to raise these issues. I think that the Senate committee report, including the dissenting report from Labor senators, was a very important exercise. There was a genuine concern raised by the opposition about the way that people would be treated, whether there would be safeguards for collection from minors and vulnerable groups and the way that people would be treated. I believe that the opposition's concerns have been reflected in the government's amendment on sheet GN118, which will be debated should this matter go into the committee stage, as I expect it will. It relates to persons not being required to provide personal identifiers in a cruel, inhuman or degrading way. It relates to the manner in which the biometric information is collected. I will ask some questions of the government as to how they expect this to operate, how they will deal with complaints, the level of training, the quality of training, the quality control, the level of randomised supervision of how officers will be dealing with this and whether these tests are genuinely random. I think that these are legitimate questions to ask. I think that the amendments by the opposition intend to do the same thing but are quite prescriptive, and I am concerned that there may be some consequences that are unintended in relation to those amendments that may hamper the legitimate work of the Australian Border Force in strengthening the integrity of our borders.

I also think it is worth asking, in the committee stage, how this will work in the context of CrimTrac. A question that I will be putting to the minister is: if your fingerprint is taken as part of a biometric scan, can it be used for purposes other than simply border control? For instance, if that fingerprint matches up with a crime scene for a serious criminal offence, what would happen in those circumstances? I also note that there was a trial, which was on a consent basis, where 12,000 individuals were tested at number of airports around the country. That was generally quite a successful trial—there were not any complaints—but I will ask some questions in respect of that.

In terms of issues relating to how this new system will work, my concern is that, if it is known that only 'people of suspicion' are targeted, then anyone who is pulled up for this test—if they are a person of suspicion or have been flagged by some sort of alert system—arguably could say that simply being targeted in that way could be cruel, inhuman or degrading. Whereas, if it is a genuinely randomised test—in other words, of people who have been flagged for some suspicion but also people who have not been flagged—then that would neutralise that argument.

I will be asking the government to make an undertaking that, after 12 months and within 18 months of the commencement of the operation of this section, the Australian Border Force provide a report to the minister that will be tabled in both houses of parliament that will relate to the operation of these amendments and to issues of complaints—how many complaints there have been, how complaints have been dealt with, the level of training and quality control, the level of supervision and, overall, the operation of this section. I do not think that is an unreasonable request. It is something that I imagine the minister would get in any event. That would also be a useful basis for the Senate estimates process to explore further if there are concerns as a result of that report provided by the Australian Border Force. An undertaking from the government in those terms is a matter that I think ought to be dealt with in the committee stage of this bill. I think that it would be a useful exercise and one that would provide a level of safeguard in respect of this.

With those caveats and those issues and some questions I want to explore in the committee stage, I support the second reading of this bill. I prefer the government's amendment to those of the opposition because I think that it is broad enough to do what it is meant to do in dealing with some of the legitimate concerns of the opposition that were brought up in the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee in consideration of the provisions of this bill.