Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I will just continue with trying to get some clarity from the minister—and I appreciate his contributions to date—about what the meaning of some of the wordings and the concepts in this legislation will be. It's actually something I referred to in my second reading contribution this morning where Mr Hastie specifically signalled out Julian Assange, using the term and concept of 'radical transparency', as opposed to just general transparency. This is relevant for the entire community, but it's particularly relevant for journalists. As we all know, the concept of journalism and citizen journalism is itself a fluid one. Within that concept is one of people wanting to ensure adequate transparency. As I said in my second reading contribution in a more general philosophical sense, the issue of adequate transparency of the activities of intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies—not just our own, of course, but our allies that we work with very, very closely with—is a key one. It's a contestable one. People will have different views about what is an adequate degree of transparency, but hopefully there is a recognition that there does need to be some degree of transparency. My initial question goes to the idea of where that line is with regard to radical transparency. Given that Mr Hastie specifically referred to Julian Assange, is there actually an explicit focus on the activities of him and his organisation?