David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It's not a good start for a new government to directly flout the law in relation to one of the key committees that it seeks to establish in the life of a new parliament that has, if I might remind members of this chamber, about one in four senators from the crossbench, who are totally excluded from this committee. About 15 per cent of the other place is on the crossbench and is totally excluded from this committee. As Senator Waters said, one in three Australians voted for non-government and non-coalition representatives in this parliament, and then this government and the opposition—Labor and the coalition—have this old-boys club stitch-up to start the new parliament. That's not the parliament that Australia voted for.

Limiting the membership of this committee to just the Labor and Liberal parties is more than the closed-shop politics as usual we saw under the Morrison government. It's remarkable, though, because the law requires full consultation, in clause 14 of schedule 1 of the Intelligence Services Act:

In nominating the members, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Government in the Senate must have regard to the desirability of ensuring that the composition of the Committee reflects the representation of recognised political parties in the Parliament.

That's what the law says, and you have directly flouted the law. We hear these mealy-mouthed comments from the opposition, seemingly okay with the government breaching the law. We have this nonsense proposition from the government that they have consulted. The problem with not consulting is that it is mandatory. You can't choose to consult or not consult, because the law requires you to consult. In relation to the Senate, it says:

Before nominating the members, the Leader of the Government in the Senate must consult with the Leader of each recognised political party that is represented in the Senate and does not form part of the Government.

The Greens put you on notice of your legal obligations to do this, in correspondence co-singed by the Leader of the Greens in the Senate, Senator Waters; by Mr Adam Bandt, the Leader of the Greens in the parliament; and by me. We sent you that correspondence, trying to be helpful, on 26 July 2022. We said, 'These are your legal obligations.' We tried to be helpful. We didn't want you to be breaching the law. We were worried that you were just going to do the usual old boy's club thing and exclude the crossbench. We were trying to be helpful and trying to tell you what you had to do, but you just ignored it.

The offence isn't ignoring the correspondence we sent; the offence is ignoring the law and acting unlawfully in setting the membership for one of the key security and intelligence committees in parliament—acting unlawfully in establishing the committee membership of a core legal oversight committee. There's a deep irony in what the government has done here. And the opposition signed on meekly. They just want to keep the club going, so that when they get into government they can hand out the bounty just between the two parties. You think the rest of the country thinks this is acceptable, but it's not.

Then we get the specious argument from the government that they have consulted--because they sent a letter. Let's read the letter and work out if anybody in the world, apart from Senator Gallagher, thinks this is consultation. This is what it says: 'Dear Senator Waters, re appointment of members of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. In accordance with clause 14 of schedule 1 to the Intelligence Services Act 2001, I advise that I intend to nominate the following senators to be members of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security: Senator the Hon. Simon Birmingham'—he has an interest in this—'Senator Raff Ciccone, Senator James Paterson, Senator Marielle Smith, Senator Jess Walsh'. If that's consultation, there's a lovely little bridge in Sydney that I'd like to sell you.

This is nonsense. It's unlawful. It's a stitch up. It's the worst of the kind of politics that the electorate rejected just 108 days ago. This is an unlawful stitch up. I have to say, it may not end here in the Senate. You can't just choose which laws you comply with and which laws you don't. There's nothing super special about being a senator that says you can act contrary to the laws. This isn't just the Senate committee established under rules of this place. This is a statutory joint committee established under laws passed by both houses of parliament and signed off by his nibs the Governor-General. This is the law which you are directly breaching. You think it might end here. Well, it may not end here. This is not going to go away. You can't start a new government by flouting the law and signing on to the old boy's club and think we're just going to take it. We won't.