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

I rise to speak on the National Security Legislation Amendment (Comprehensive Review and Other Measures No. 2) Bill. I just want to start by responding to some of the rubbish we've just heard from Senator O'Sullivan—in particular, his contention that if the Greens had a member on the PJCIS it would leak. I refer Senator O'Sullivan to the fact that the media regularly, and with some frustration I might add, write articles about how the Greens don't leak. In fact, somewhere between 40 and 50 per cent of the stories generated out of this place into the press gallery actually come from leaks from either the Labor Party or the Liberal Party. It is the parties of war, the parties of the police state, the parties of the surveillance state that are leakers, and do you know why that is, Senator O'Sullivan? It's because only broken things leak, and the Labor and Liberal parties in this place are horrendously broken.

One of the ways in which they are broken is that they are completely captured by the intelligence apparatus in this country. That's the problem that we have here, and it's one of the problems that the PJCIS has, because, of course, what happens in this parliament and in that committee is that the spooks or the intelligence apparatus come in to the responsible minister of the day and say, 'We want more powers,' and the responsible minister of the day tugs the forelock and says, 'Yes. Of course you need more powers. I'll take that to cabinet,' and cabinet, of course, tugs the collective forelock and says, 'Yes. Of course. We're going to give you more powers.' So it goes through cabinet, and then these bills get drafted. They go through cabinet, and then they go into the smoke-filled, darkened meetings of the PJCIS, and what happens in there is that whichever of these two parties of war, whichever of these two parties of the police and surveillance state, is in government says, 'Yes. We've passed this through cabinet,' and then the opposition, whichever one it is—whether it's the Labor Party or the LNP; they're equally captured by the security apparatus in this country—says: 'Yes. We agree with that. We think the spooks need more powers as well, to increase the surveillance on ordinary—'

Debate interrupted.