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

First of all, I want to chastise you for your very unchivalrous and rude reflection upon those who advise me—as I have tried to point out to you, those who advise me are not only qualified lawyers who work for the Attorney-General's Department but they are specialists in this area of the law, with a specialist knowledge of this bill.

Senator McKim, the purpose of the metadata retention legislation was to impose an obligation to retain metadata for a period and for the purposes set out in that legislation. This legislation, as I have pointed out to you several times now, is concerned with something completely different—that is, creating a system for creating a framework for the protection of telecommunications systems. In order to better protect the security of information carried by telecommunications systems and by carriage service providers, it imposes obligations upon those companies and carriage service providers of the kind that I have described in the second reading speech and in summing up the second reading debate. The issues are completely different.