Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I just wish to speak briefly to the amendment proposed by Senator Duniam on behalf of the government.

Both of the bills that the amendment refers to continue with a cavalcade of legislation that has been presented to this parliament in recent years which significantly expands the powers of Australia's intelligence agencies and security apparatus. I remind colleagues that Australia remains the only liberal democracy on the planet which does not have some form of charter or bill of rights either constitutionally enshrined or as part of our statutes. Without those protections, this government—and it has to be said, with Labor in absolute lockstep most of the time—continues to grant sweeping new powers to our intelligence agencies, often without adequate scrutiny. And here we go again!

Senator Duniam wants to ensure that this Senate is not able to inquire into the details of this legislation. I remind colleagues and the Australian people that this legislation creates last-resort powers for our intelligence agencies—or, at least, one of them in the Australian Signals Directorate—that would allow the ASD to install programs and access, add, restore, copy, alter or delete data, and to alter the functioning of digital hardware or remove digital hardware entirely from a premises.

Many tech companies have expressed significant concern about the powers in this legislation and I want to place it firmly on the record that the Australian Greens share those significant concerns. We are seeing a power hungry government ride roughshod over the rights and freedoms of Australians by giving significant extra powers to our intelligence and security agencies, and they want to do it without even allowing the Senate an opportunity to inquire into the impact of these powers being granted and any unintended consequences to these powers being granted.

So we will oppose this amendment and we want to place firmly on the record that Australia needs a bill of rights or a charter of rights in order to protect the rights and freedoms that so many in the Liberal Party love to talk about but never come in here to defend. In fact, they come in here, time after time, to remove those rights and freedoms from the Australian people. We won't be supporting this amendment because these bills should be referred to a Senate inquiry.