Rex Patrick (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

Centre Alliance supports the Office of National Intelligence Bill 2018. This bill will carry through the government's restructuring of the Australian intelligence community with the establishment of the Office of National Intelligence, to replace the Office of National Assessments as Australia's peak intelligence assessment and coordination agency. Significantly, the new ONI will stand astride both Australia's foreign intelligence efforts and our domestic security arrangements.

The ONI will be the peak assessment agency but will also play a wider role in coordination, reflecting the complex overlap of both international and domestic security issues. This is a change that has been long contemplated and is arguably overdue. However, what I would like to do is highlight the continuing importance of parliamentary oversight over all aspects of the Australian intelligence community; I don't think anyone could argue other than that it is lacking that. That's not a poor reflection on the members of the PJCIS—very, very capable senators and members sitting on that committee—but the committee itself is restricted in what it can do in terms of oversight of intelligence. It's restricted not because the intelligence services have open slather and the parliament shall not look at them; it's because the parliament decided itself that it would carve that out from oversight.

We're in a situation where we have $2 billion being spent on the Australian intelligence community each year, with 7,000 people now engaged in this activity. We've also seen a number of pieces of legislation brought forward, and in some sense this bill serves to pull all of this together. With all of the new legislation, new powers and new responsibilities, we've seen nothing on the oversight side. The agencies that are involved are agencies such as the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, ASIO; the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, ASIS; the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation, the AGO; the Defence Intelligence Organisation; the Australian Signals Directorate, ASD; and now of course ONI, the new agency.

Most of these agencies—I make no criticism of this fact—necessarily conduct their operations secretly. They have significant powers that are exercised in secret. The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security is currently former Justice Margaret Stone, who I have every confidence in. However, there are some problems in respect of her jurisdiction. The priorities and objectives of all of our intelligence operations are set by the National Security Committee of Cabinet. Of course, ONI will feed into this and will no doubt have interaction in respect of that cabinet committee when it is making its decisions. Once the National Security Committee of Cabinet makes a decision, it is then transmitted or passed to the relevant agencies. The IGIS is limited in her jurisdiction at this present moment in that she can't examine whether or not the priorities and the operations set by cabinet are appropriate. All IGIS can do is look to make sure that, if an intelligence agency carries out an operation, it is done in accordance with those instructions.

I will give you a very practical example of a situation where a bit of parliamentary oversight may have saved the day, and that of course is in relation to the operations conducted by the Australian Secret Intelligence Service in East Timor back in 2004. Australia—it wasn't forced to—made a legally binding commitment to the East Timorese, shook their hands and said, 'We will negotiate the Timor Gap issue and we'll do so in good faith.' And I know people like to say there was an alleged operation, but we know in actual fact the operation took place. We know it took place because East Timor have argued this case in the International Court of Arbitration, and their arguments were made public because of a later operation by the Australian government to raid East Timor's legal offices, and, of course, to raid Witness K's house. That led to further action in the IJC, the International Court of Justice, where Australia had orders made against it. In fact, we ended up renegotiating the CMATS treaty.

I note Minister Ruston is sitting on the other side of the chamber listening to this speech. I know she is interested in this, because she was up in East Timor in the last week or two trying to repair the damage. There is no criticism of you, Minister—I know you're the A team for the government—