Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution on the National Security Legislation Amendment (Comprehensive Review and Other Measures No. 2) Bill 2023. Noting that we do have a hard marker at 11.15, I suspect I will be in continuation in this particular contribution. Firstly, before I turn to the specifics of what is in this bill, I want to associate myself with the comments made in the debate today by my colleagues Senator Paterson, Senator Cash and Senator Scarr in relation to the importance of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. We know that this legislation that we are debating here today will fundamentally undermine the role that that very important committee plays in ensuring bipartisan agreement on issues, legislation, matters and oversight that impact our nation's security. I think it is really disappointing that we are debating this legislation in such a hurried way and that the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, the PJCIS, had such little time to consider this legislation, when it does fundamentally change that bipartisan committee and what it means for that committee to be bipartisan.

The PJCIS has a very important role to play in this parliament, as my colleagues have already alluded to today. It has an important role to play in overseeing issues of relevance to our national security, and its bipartisan nature has, for the last dozen or so years or even longer, ensured that those issues have been dealt with in a bipartisan way. That committee has been bipartisan. The membership of that committee has consisted of the parties of government. There are very good reasons why this is the case. It is important in this country for us to have bipartisanship on matters of national security, because it is in the national interest to do so. I've never had the pleasure of being on the PJCIS, but I do know, from seeing the work that comes from that committee into this place, that an awful lot of work goes into ensuring that that committee makes bipartisan recommendations to the parliament when we're considering legislation in relation to national security. That is a good thing. That is an important thing.

While this bill, in and of itself, will have the impact of undermining that bipartisanship—for reasons I will get into at some point in my contribution, whether now or later this afternoon—I think it is also really telling that this legislation that we're debating here today is the first time in 17 years that a dissenting report to a PJCIS report has been tabled. Like I say, it is important that this committee is bipartisan. I think it is a show of how fundamentally flawed the process to inquire into this legislation was that coalition members of that committee thought that it was necessary to make that dissenting report and put their concerns on the record.

They are very fair concerns. There was a very short process for consultation on this big change to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. It was a short inquiry, and this bill has been rushed into this place today, again, I think, without the good spirit of bipartisanship that that committee is accustomed to, without fully consulting with the parties of government, without proper consultation with the government, being the Labor Party, or us in the coalition, being the opposition. This is a very disappointing state of affairs. Like I say, we all know that the PJCIS does incredibly important work, and I think, frankly, it's quite an insult to the parliament that the government has decided to rush through this big, fundamental change without appropriately consulting with members of the opposition, who, like I say, have an important role to play on that committee in terms of achieving bipartisanship of recommendations. For there to have been a dissenting report to a PJCIS committee report is a pretty big deal.

Going to the substance of the bill, it proposes amendments to enhance the legislative framework of the national intelligence community by implementing a number of recommendations of the Richardson review. The bill proposes amendments to 13 related Commonwealth acts to support these proposed enhancements. The bill also proposes to amend the Intelligence Services Act to clarify the level of detail required to describe activities issued under ministerial direction. We support these—

Debate interrupted.