George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Well, the answer is there has been no delay. Secondly, Senator McKim, once again, I thought by reading the actual provision to you, we would put an end to the false issue that you keep raising that this is about surveillance. The powers in section 315C—just to repeat—are not about surveillance. That is not their purpose and it is their effect. Their purpose and effect is to impose a compliance obligation on carriage service providers.

Senator McKim, you quote from evidence before the PJCIS, which I might say, parenthetically, didn't persuade any members of the PJCIS on either side of politics as to its cogency. But leaving that to one side, what you disregard is that the meaning of the word 'information' in the relevant section, section 315C, which, if you have read, you certainly haven't understood, is qualified, and you made no reference to the qualification. So we are not merely talking about any information or document, but:

… information or a document that is relevant to assessing compliance with the duty imposed by subsection 313(1A) or (2A).

So the information or documents to which section 315C is directed are only information or documents by which compliance with an obligation imposed on the carriage service providers is to be evidenced.

It is absolutely commonplace for there to be a supervisory authority which determines whether or not a compliance obligation imposed on a company, in this case, a telecommunications company, has been met. And the way in this which bill goes about that is to provide a power in the secretary of the Attorney-General's Department, not obviously a political official, to require the provision of documents of the telecommunications company, which will indicate whether or not there has been compliance with their obligations under this bill—nothing whatsoever to do with surveillance of content. That is the answer to the second observation, Senator McKim.

In relation to the third observation, may I merely say, as I said in introducing the amendments and in winding up the second reading debate, there has been a long period of discussion and consultation with industry. You would be familiar, Senator McKim, having been in public life yourself for a long time, that when new obligations are imposed upon industry, sometimes industry resists. I think it is fair to say that in the initial stages of this process—which began, by the way, under the previous government, the Labor government, in 2012—there was some resistance from some parts of the industry. However, through a very long process of consultation and discussion with industry, we have landed at a point at which the government is comfortable that the legitimate interests of industry have been accommodated. Senator McKim, I am surprised to hear you mounting an argument that could have fallen from the lips of Senator Leyonhjelm. You may feel that telecommunications service providers should live in a regulation-free environment. That has never been the case and it's not the government's view. The regulatory burden has been mitigated by the government as a result of those discussions with industry and we are now, I think it's fair to say, on the same page.

I have been given some further information, Senator McKim, on this other false issue you raise about the tabling of the annual report under the TIA Act. It was sent to my office after parliament rose for the winter recess on 29 June. The obligation under the standing orders for the tabling of the report meant that the report was required to be tabled by 14 September—that is, 15 sitting days later. Today is 14 August. So, Senator McKim, perhaps your paranoid fantasies might try to accommodate why, if the government were trying to conceal this report, it tabled the report in advance of the debate on the bill when, in fact, the government would have been entirely within its obligations to withhold the tabling of the report for another month.