Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make a brief contribution on the National Security Legislation Amendment (Comprehensive Review and Other Measures No. 2) Bill 2023. It is a result of the Richardson review, a review that was commissioned by the former government into our intelligence framework and that, indeed, sets out a raft of sensible recommendations that, unfortunately, the coalition will now not be supporting.

I had the great privilege to sit on the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security many years ago and found it the one committee in this place where there was a bipartisan determination to put the needs of our country, the safety of our citizens and the positioning of our nation in the geostrategic space globally at the forefront. Labor, Liberal and National Party members of parliament, as the MPs of government, worked very hard to find consensus positions when I had the privilege to sit on that committee. But it would seem with the hasty addition of the amendment to change the composition of this very important committee to our national security from 11 to13—growing it isn't so much the problem. Putting people who are not parties of government on this incredibly important committee risks the bipartisan nature of the committee, risks the great tradition of the committee of keeping its deliberations to itself and risks, I would argue, the openness with which inquiries will be able to be held by this committee. Therefore, the work of the committee will be compromised. It seems patriots are very hard to find in the Labor government at the moment, whether it is overseeing the Office of National Intelligence, the AFP, our geospatial organisations, the Australian Signals Directorate, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation or the Australian Secret Intelligence Service.

When we last debated this bill, I looked up at the gallery, where young students, young Australians, were coming and seeing how their parliament works. Rather than trade political barbs across the chamber, as has occurred throughout this debate, I was dying to get up to actually explain to those young students—I think they would have been in about grade 5—what this committee does. They wouldn't even know that ASIO exists. They wouldn't know that ASIS exists. They wouldn't know what the Australian Signals Directorate does or why it is necessary. And that's how it should be. These are organisations that keep our country safe, now and in the future, and the men and women who serve in them take incredible risks on our behalf.

To ensure that those agencies—they can't run off willy-nilly and be laws unto themselves—do have a level of parliamentary oversight that isn't just the government, we set up this very important committee, because of the level of secrecy required. But to expand it beyond the parties of government just shows how reckless the Labor government is with national security, with conventions that have stood the test of time, and shows that the Labor left is on the ascendancy within the Labour Party cabinet. On these two things the Labor left and the Greens political party fundamentally agree. It is the Labor right, I believe, would argue that this committee should be kept as a committee of government MPs and not be expanded, but they've lost that war. The great privilege of being in government means setting the budget and making sure these agencies are resourced effectively to protect our people and our servicemen and servicewomen from terrorism and other challenges, but it is also a grave responsibility. It is a great privilege to be in government, but it is also a grave responsibility. And I think Attorney-General Dreyfus has completely neglected his responsibility of accountability and transparency that this committee provides the parliament and the Australian people on their behalf.

These aren't things that should be out in the public sphere. This committee hears things that shouldn't be on the front pages of newspapers for very good reasons. But you don't care. You actually want that to happen and to put at risk the servicemen and women not in the ADF alone but in intelligence organisations that are on the ground in places far, far away doing things on our behalf that we can't speak of in this place. I want to know what the deal was because it wasn't consulted on and it wasn't a recommendation out of the review. What was the deal that Dreyfus got to expand the committee to MPs who aren't charged with the responsibility of, and held accountable for, being in government? It must have been significant.

As a former member of this committee, I'm appalled by this amendment. I ask the government to reconsider putting it to the chamber because it is an absolute aberration of the function of this committee. Those members of the now government who have worked collaboratively in a bipartisan way on this committee know that. You've got to come clean with what the deal was, because it's absolutely abrogating your responsibility as a party of government. I will not be supporting the bill; and I commend Senator Paterson, as the shadow minister for the opposition, on his staunch rejection of this amendment—in particular—which means we will not be supporting the other sensible review amendments put forward by the Richardson review.