Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move amendments (1) and (2) on sheet 8881 together:

(1) Schedule 2, item 8, page 9 (after line 7), at the end of section 94B, add:

(3) The annual report prepared by the Secretary and given to the Minister under section 46 of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 for a period must include the following information in relation to exemptions granted under subsection (1) during the period:

(a) the number of exemptions granted;

(b) the number of screening officers in the class of screening officers covered by each exemption;

(c) the number of requirements from which a class of screening officers is exempt under each exemption;

(d) the period for which each exemption is specified to remain in force, or if a period is not specified, the period for which the exemption is likely to remain in force.

(2) Schedule 2, item 18, page 11 (after line 31), at the end of section 165B, add:

(3) The annual report prepared by the Secretary and given to the Minister under section 46 of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 for a period must include the following information in relation to exemptions granted under subsection (1) during the period:

(a) the number of exemptions granted;

(b) the number of screening officers in the class of screening officers covered by each exemption;

(c) the number of requirements from which a class of screening officers is exempt under each exemption;

(d) the period for which each exemption is specified to remain in force, or if a period is not specified, the period for which the exemption is likely to remain in force.

I thank Senators Pratt and Patrick for asking questions about these amendments because it has elicited from the minister no reason why these amendments should not be supported. Basically, these amendments seek to reveal a greater amount of information where there are exemptions being granted to certain levels of training and qualifications that security officers are meant to have. This legislation says that security officers should have a level of training and a level of qualification. We are supporting this bill on the basis that we have appropriately trained and appropriately qualified security officers.

If there is a need to exempt officers from these requirements then we need to know why. We need to know more than just the number of exemptions, which is all the minister seems to be suggesting is required. I'm sorry, it just does not wash to say that we can ask these questions at estimates. I have been in the Senate for six years and have quite a lot of experience of asking such questions at estimates. I know what happens. You have prevarication. You get things taken on notice and you get the response in the week before the next estimates session. It can take a year or longer to get a straight answer out of estimates if the government wants to hide the information. If the government is concerned about security implications or any other implications of revealing this information, there is a really good way to ease the government's concern, and that is to actually not have very many exemptions. I cannot see why these exemptions should be necessary except in extreme circumstances.

My amendments say that we need to know not just the number of exemptions that are granted but the number of screening officers in the class of screening officers covered by the exemption, so that we can see whether that number is a small or large proportion. If only one out of 100 of those screening officers were exempt from the need for training or qualifications, you would think, 'Maybe there are extenuating circumstances,' but if there were 80 out of 100 and this were ongoing, then that would be something that we, the public and the community need to know about. It's certainly something we in the Senate need to know about.

We need to know the number of requirements from which a class of screening officers is exempt under each exemption so we know whether it is just a small number of the requirements or whether it is all of the requirements that are being waived. We need to know the period for which this exemption is going to be in force. Is it just for a short period, perhaps, while the screening officers are actually doing their training and there is a shortage of screening officers and these people are doing their training at the same time they are on the job and the exemption will cease after a few months? Or is it an ongoing issue? These are all very reasonable and very important bits of information that are needed to make sure that the security regime that is being put in place is appropriate, with appropriately trained officers who have got the appropriate skills and qualifications.

I listened very closely to the minister as to why this amendment was not reasonable, and I'm afraid I was not convinced by her answer. I think essentially there's just a reluctance to go into this level of detail. All we were told was that this level of detail is not appropriate. I'm sorry; that is not good enough. Good legislation requires this level of detail being available to the public and to the Senate. This amendment will ensure that the level of information that the Senate needs and that the community needs is published in the annual report and is available for everyone on a timely basis.