Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise with pleasure to speak on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security Amendment Bill 2015 and express the Greens' appreciation to Senator Wong for introducing the bill into the Senate and bringing it on for debate today. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security has been in its current form since 2005, following the passage of the Intelligence Services Act 2001. The current committee was preceded by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on ASIO, ASIS and DSD, and the joint committee on ASIO.

This bill seeks to amend a number of pieces of legislation. Specifically, it seeks to amend the Intelligence Services Act 2001 by removing some of the current constraints on the membership of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security which would change it from the current six members from the House of Representatives and five senators, to one government member and one government senator, and one opposition member and one opposition senator, with the balance of the committee drawn from either chamber.

I would like to flag right up-front in my contribution that we note that the proposed amendments around the membership of the parliamentary joint committee that are contained in this legislation do not specifically provide for a member of the Senate crossbench to serve on the committee, and I include Australian Greens senators in that definition of the crossbench. I flag on the record today that the Greens will be introducing an amendment to this legislation to provide for that to occur. It is important to understand that we are not asking for crossbench control of the committee or for a crossbencher to chair the committee necessarily but simply for a voice from the crossbench, including the Australian Greens, on what is a very important parliamentary committee—one that plays a crucial role in the oversight of Australia's intelligence and security agencies and also has a crucial role in scrutinising proposed legislation. But I think we can all agree that in recent years—and in that definition I go right back to 2001-2002—legislative changes have continually eroded and encroached on some of the fundamental human and civil rights that are quite rightly and quite understandably held so dear by so many Australian people.

We are very pleased to see that this legislation also provides for the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security to conduct own-motion inquiries.

I listened to the contributions from Senators Wong and Johnston, and I go firstly to the contribution from the senator who just resumed his seat, Senator Johnston. It is fair to say that one of the major planks of his argument against this legislation is that it blurs the lines between parliamentary oversight and independent oversight in the context of Australia's security agencies. We will take on board Senator Johnston's comments on that and have a closer look at that issue.

But I do wish to point out to the chamber that Senator Johnston quite rightly pointed to the role that the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor plays in terms of independent oversight of our legislative frameworks around national security. I draw the attention of senators to a report tabled yesterday in this place, from the Australian Law Reform Commission, entitled Traditional rights and freedoms—encroachment by Commonwealth laws. That report said:

Counter-terrorism and national security laws that encroach on rights and freedoms should … be justified, to ensure the laws are suitable, necessary and represent a proper balance between the public interest and individual rights.

Of course, we in the Australian Greens agree with that sentiment. But I want to make it very clear that the Australian Greens remain unconvinced that the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor is adequately funded by government. We also note, as was made clear in the Law Reform Commission report, that Independent National Security Legislation Monitor recommendations do not currently receive a government response. That is unacceptable in the view of the Australian Greens. The Independent National Security Legislation Monitor does a great job across a wide suite of legislation. It provides reports to this parliament, and it is simply not good enough that the government does not provide a response to the recommendations of the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor to this parliament.

It is crucial that the work that the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security does in scrutinising legislation that relates to counter-terrorism and national security is robust to ensure that new laws do not unnecessarily encroach on rights and freedoms in this country. I have to agree with many of the sentiments expressed by Senator Wong in her second reading contribution on this legislation. Unfortunately, I have to point out that those sentiments are not always backed up in this place by Labor's position on changes to our legal framework that create more or enhanced powers for our police services, intelligence agencies and security agencies.

We seem to have a very strong bipartisanship in this area that the Australian Greens suspect is driven more by political considerations than anything else. Neither Labor nor the coalition while in opposition want to appear weak on national security issues, because they can then be attacked by either Labor or the coalition when in government. Unfortunately, it seems that both the coalition and Labor have decided that, for political purposes, they are not going to have a breadth of distance between them on national security issues. So it has fallen to the Australian Greens, in the main, to point out that, while there have been many changes that create new, or enhance existing, powers for security, intelligence and police agencies in this country, on many of those occasions the case has simply not been made that those changes make Australia any safer.