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

I note the interjection, but I think that might be a bridge too far! The fear is that there will be a member of the crossbench. Somebody who is not in the club might get an entry, might get an invite and might see how it works and turn a critical eye on it. Worse still, they might—there is a possibility!—produce a dissenting report and say that the club's quiet little arrangement and their proposals are not in the national interest. Imagine that! Imagine if there were a voice of dissent on the committee. The fear of the opposition is that somehow that voice of dissent, that critical discussion, is going to see the roof collapse and, worse still, it is going to see the security agencies refuse to tell the parliament—the parliament's own secret committee—what is going on. We're literally seeing elected members of the opposition in the Senate worried about the security agencies unilaterally turning the tap off to the oversight committee if, heaven help us, a member of the crossbench is admitted.

Is there such a supine view of the parliament, as against the intelligence agencies, that the opposition seriously thinks they would allow that to happen? Is it the view that if the intelligence agencies just unilaterally of themselves decide to turn the tap off to this committee the parliament will just say, 'Oh well, that's what the security agencies are doing.' Who's running the country? Who's actually making the decisions here? And the comfort with which the opposition put that proposition to the chamber, that the intelligence agencies can just unilaterally shut down the information flow to the parliament and there's nothing they can do about it—you would have thought that anyone who respects their position as a senator, as an elected rep of the parliament would be embarrassed to put that proposition forward. They would feel like they had no agency in this space. They would feel like they had literally handed over the strategic direction of the country to a bunch of unelected members of the security agencies. You would almost think that was the case, wouldn't you? You'd almost think that's true.

The bill also amends the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act to require the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security to report annually on public interest disclosures received by and complaints made to the Inspector-General. We think that's good. As we said, it's a positive step forward.

I've mentioned the changes to the PJCIS, but there are some negative changes in the bill, and they trouble us. Changes of concern include an expansion to the exclusions in the spent convictions scheme that will enable ASIO to use, record and disclose information about spent convictions. This was raised as a concern by the human rights committee inquiry into the bill, and we share those concerns. Spent convictions should be spent convictions. There should be some point at which ASIO can stop monstering you on the basis of a spent conviction.

The bill also reduces oversight by excluding ASIS, the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation, the Australian Signals Directorate, the Office of National Intelligence and the Defence Intelligence Organisation from the Commonwealth Ombudsman's jurisdiction. We don't support that. We're deeply troubled by it, and we will likely be seeking amendments to address that. We know that we now have the NACC that picks up a small amount, potentially, of this work, but we can't see a valid argument to exclude the ombudsman from that important oversight work.

We also have some concerns about proposed changes to the AAT Act and the Archives Act, which will require all proceedings in relation to security records under the Archives Act to be heard in the security division of the AAT. We don't think that further secrecy and less oversight in this space is a positive thing. The bill also expands exemptions for IGIS under the FOI Act and Archives Act to mean they only need to provide evidence in proceedings under those acts where the material in the proceedings relates to one or more of the agencies that the IGIS oversees. Again, we see no reason to restrict the information.

From my party's perspective, the Greens perspective, this bill does some good and it does some bad. It takes us forward in some elements of oversight, maybe a little crack in the parties of government, or the parties of war, control of the PJCIS. But then it takes us backwards in other important parts of oversight. It's interesting, isn't it? That's often Labor legislation, isn't it? One step forward, one step back, but you can't clearly define the purpose.