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

When my last contribution was interrupted, I was reflecting on the way that national security legislation is dealt with under existing arrangements. I referred to the fact that the government of the day, whether it is a Labor government or a Liberal government, takes advice from the intelligence apparatus, basically tugs its forelock and says, 'Yes, we'll give you all the powers that you're asking for,' then cabinet agrees that that should be the case, and then the legislation to create extra powers of surveillance—which are marching us, in the absence of a charter of rights in this country, down a really dark and dangerous path—goes into a darkened room, behind the closed doors of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.

What happens then—as Senator Paterson, who is interjecting, well knows because he is a member of that committee and has been for some time—is that that committee goes into whatever happens, because of course the crossbench are precluded from that committee, with a brief exception for Mr Wilkie from the other place and, obviously, depending on the outcome of this legislation. But what happens is that that committee might rasp off one or two of the roughest of the rough edges on that legislation, and then it comes into this place, and that legislation is supported by the political duopoly.

What I want to be very clear about is that national security laws, and the implications that they have for some of the fundamental democratic freedoms in this country—freedoms that hundreds of thousands of Australians have fought and died to protect—are far too important to be passed through this parliament based on a nod and a wink between the political duopoly. The major issue is the implied agreement between the self-described 'parties of government' in this place. Part of that implied agreement—part of the nod and the wink between the political duopoly—is to keep the pesky upstarts on the crossbench out of the process. What that results in is this creeping erosion of fundamental rights and freedoms. I remind you, colleagues, Australia is the only so-called liberal democracy in the world that does not have some kind of either charter or bill of rights, and the absence of a charter or bill of rights in our country allows for this creeping and ongoing erosion.

Make no mistake, we are walking down the road towards a full-on surveillance state, towards a full-on police state and, ultimately, to early onset fascism in Australia. We need to guard our freedoms. We need to guard our rights in this country, and it is extremely difficult to do so because we do not have either enshrined in the Constitution, where it ideally would be, or enshrined in legislation a charter or a bill of rights.

So again, we find ourselves here, and we find ourselves with the capacity to actually change the way that much of the legislation is examined by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, and it would be a welcome step for Mr Wilkie, who's obviously a man of considerable experience in this area, to be allowed or to be invited onto that committee, but we absolutely should have a crossbench member on that committee. When you look at the make-up, if you were to pro rata the numbers based on the Senate, the Greens would undoubtedly be deserving of a member on that committee. What we have, I think, here is a deliberate attempt to shut the Greens out.

I want to say very clearly to Labor and Liberal Party colleagues that the media regularly and with high levels of frustration write stories about how the Greens don't leak. You see that time after time. What we also know is that both the Labor and Liberal parties leak like sieves in this place. If the concern is the possibility of security breaches out of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, I would suggest that the level of concern should be directed at the major parties in this place, the so-called self-described 'parties of government', rather than at the Greens, because when you look at the way the media work in this place and when you read many of the media stories with an insider perspective, it is very clear that the Labor and Liberal party rooms leak like sieves. There are regular drops from inside the Labor and Liberal party rooms to the selected favourite political journalists, which just doesn't happen with the Greens. So if the concern is leaking, if the concern is security, I'd suggest that the Labor and Liberal parties should have a bit of a look in the mirror. What they'll see staring back at them is rank hypocrisy, because it's the major parties that leak in this place, not the Greens and the crossbench.

National security laws are too important to be done on a nod and a wink, but a nod and a wink is exactly the way this works. This implied agreement between the so-called parties of government has a significant deleterious effect across a range of policy areas in this country. Another example is Australia's foreign affairs policy, where both major parties seem proud of the fact there's no contest on foreign affairs. The Minister for Foreign Affairs is the easiest political job in the country because whoever is in opposition doesn't offer any meaningful criticism at all of the conduct of the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the day, and so it is on national security. This implied agreement between the political duopoly is the foundation for the ongoing erosion of rights and freedoms that is occurring in Australia. There have been well over 100 pieces of legislation passed through Commonwealth, state and territory parliaments in the last 20 years that have eroded rights and freedoms. Those rights and freedoms are hard fought and they're hard won. They've been fought for in wars in which thousands of Australian soldiers have perished through history, yet we seem to be giving them away with very little thought and very little scrutiny simply because the national security apparatus wants more powers.

I've read with horror some of the speeches given by the secretary of the home affairs department, Mr Pezzullo. There was the hobbit speech, where Mr Pezzullo had a central thesis that the Australian people are basically like innocent hobbits and need to be protected from all these dark forces out in the world and that we don't even understand what those dark forces are. It's the paladins or the rangers like Mr Pezzullo—the brave heroes—who are out there defending us against these dark forces, and, if he has enough powers to do that, that will allow us to continue to live our innocent little lives, cultivating our crops and having a beer of an evening. Well, I've rarely heard something as insulting to the collective Australian intelligence as that.

Then the other speech of Mr Pezzullo's that I read with horror is the speech I call 'Pezzullo's panopticon', which is a speech about how critical it is that our security apparatus has unbridled access to every single piece of information and data that exists, because only then can they fulfil their function of keeping this country safe. I want to be clear, people like Mr Pezzullo and other elements of our national security apparatus absolutely have a responsibility to keep us safe. But that's not the only thing that we as policymakers should consider in this place. We've got a responsibility to look at the bigger picture. It is an absolutely legitimate question to ask whether we are giving away too many of our hard-won rights and freedoms in order to increase the level of safety in this place. There are many Australians, including me, who would be prepared to put up with a bit more risk if it meant that we can hang on to some of our precious rights and freedoms. Ultimately, that is a legitimate question and it is the matter of public debate, in this context, that we should be having in this place.

Where do we draw the line? The line would be better able to be drawn in a way that reflects the range of views that exists in the Australian community if you were able, through the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security process, to hear the range of views that exist in this place because this place is, broadly speaking, reflective of the Australian community. I want to be really clear, colleagues. We need reform of the PJCIS process, yes, but it needs to be reform that allows all the views in this place to be heard. That will be the way that the PJCIS can hear and understand the views of the Australian people.