Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

LSON () (): In July this year, my colleague Senator Shoebridge wrote to the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Government in the Senate, raising the legal obligations regarding the composition of this committee, as provided in the Intelligence Services Act. He did this following initial advice from the Albanese government that it intended then to nominate a committee which didn't involve the Greens or the crossbench or, indeed, a member of the National Party.

Following this, the Greens received correspondence from Senator Wong, seeking to appoint two Liberal members and three ALP members to the committee. That followed the House appointing three ALP, one Liberal and one Liberal National Party of Queensland members. An 11-member committee that doesn't include a member of the Greens, a teal or, indeed, a member of the Nationals is extraordinary in how it fails to represent this parliament, which was democratically elected by the Australian people and, therefore, the population of Australia. Over a million people voted for the Greens, and they're not represented on this committee.

The requirements for establishing the membership of this committee are contained in schedule 1 of the Intelligence Services Act 2001. It requires consultation with the leader of each recognised political party in the House and the Senate which 'does not form part of the government'. That's in the act. So much for Senator McKenzie coming in here and saying that this was somehow illegal. There might be some conventions in this place, but some conventions are meant to be broken. It then also says:

… the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Government in the Senate must have regard to the desirability of ensuring that the composition of the Committee reflects the representation of recognised political parties in this Parliament.

Senator Shoebridge, at the time, rightly put out a statement to the media saying:

Limiting the membership of this critical committee to the Labor and Liberal Parties is more of the same closed-shop politics as we saw under the Morrison government.

The public expects Parliament to deal with sensitive security and intelligence matters with integrity and rigour, not just have the two major parties play footsie on them.

  …   …   …

The Act clearly sets out that the membership is meant to be a result of consultation and reflect the Parliament, Labor's proposal completely fails to deliver on that and unnecessarily politicises this committee.

The proposed committee membership means 15% of the Parliament and a full 23% of the Senate are not represented at all on a committee providing important guidance relating to international security and defence, funding of intelligence agencies and international laws relating to terrorism.

Let me give you an example of something I think is completely relevant and the reason why you do need the Greens on a committee like this. On the weekend, the Acting Leader of the Greens, Senator Faruqi, put out a statement on the Office of National Intelligence. They have written a report called an 'urgent climate risk assessment'. A number of stakeholders, including ex-CDF Admiral Chris Barrie, are calling for the immediate release of this report. This is important. The US counterpart, their office of national intelligence and the Pentagon, have both released their intelligence agencies' assessment of the risk of climate change to their national security. You may remember President Obama saying that climate change is the biggest threat to US national security.

I initiated a Senate inquiry in this place in 2017-18 looking at exactly this. The report is available for senators to read. Intelligence agencies, the defence establishment and a number of think tanks—everybody—have agreed that climate change is a threat multiplier and a very serious threat to our national security. We're talking about massive movements of people in years to come if we don't get on top of the greatest challenge of our time. We're talking about conflict over scarce resources. We are talking about a whole range of various serious threats, not to mention the threats that extreme weather events pose to our national security.

Can anybody in this chamber think of a bigger threat to life, property, our economy and our communities right now than extreme weather events such as hurricanes and fires? Do I need to remind you of, just three years ago, the damage that fires did to the east coast of Australia? We had Navy boats evacuating Australians off our beaches. That's not to mention drought and a whole range of pests, diseases and biosecurity threats. There is no bigger threat to Australia's national security than climate change or, to put another way, there is no bigger threat to us than not acting on climate change, and yet this report hasn't been released.

Did this committee, the PJCIS, review this report? Did senators from the Labor and Liberal parties, who both seem hellbent on facilitating more fossil fuel developments when the International Energy Agency, the UN and a whole range of different institutions and the science tell us that is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing right now? This is not just a Greens thing or a thing for people who care about conservation or species extinction. This is a significant threat to our national security, and yet this report hasn't been released. Why not? We wouldn't know, would we? We don't have any Greens sitting on this intelligence committee. But I'm sure those analysts who wrote this report knew what they were doing. I think this report should be released. I know my colleague Senator Faruqi will be trying to work across the Senate to at least get disclosure.

I'm sure Senator Paterson knows about this report. He sits on that committee. And I'm sure other members of this Senate do as well. Why hasn't it been released? Has its release been politicised? Do the Labor and Liberal parties, who are in bed with fossil fuel cartels in this country, not want it to be released because it cuts across their policies to facilitate more coal, oil and gas development in this nation at a time when our intelligence agencies are warning us that we need to take action on climate change and, at a minimum, to take this very, very seriously? That is just one example.

There are some positive changes in this bill, which my colleague Senator Shoebridge has already gone through. As a result of the comprehensive review of the legal framework of the national intelligence committee undertaken by the Attorney-General's office, there are some changes to the composition of the PJCIS to extend the number of members from 11 to provide that the PJCIS consist of 13 members, comprised of at least two government senators, two government members of the House of Representatives, two non-government senators and two non-government members of the House of Representatives. A consequential amendment would also be made to clause 18 of schedule 1 to raise the number constituting a quorum from six to seven members. The bill would also amend the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act 1986 to require the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, IGIS, to report annually on public interest disclosures received by and complaints made to the IGIS. That is recommendation 145 of the compressive review.

There's something else I'd like to comment on while I remember it in relation to Senator McKenzie's extraordinary contribution in here, arguing for more secrecy. There has been a non-Labor member and non-Liberal Party member on the PJCIS already, and that was the member for Clark. Andrew Wilkie sat on this committee. Did the sky fall in? No, it didn't. Let's remind the chamber, Andrew Wilkie, a member in the other place, the member for Clark, was a whistleblower when he was in intelligence. Yes! You nod, Senator Paterson. He called out the liars and the spin of the Howard government, arguing that the existence of weapons of mass destruction was a good reason for Australia to be involved in the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq. Look how well that turned out! That was because of the closed shop on national security we have in this Australian parliament.

It didn't take long for everybody to work out that this weapons of mass destruction lie and deception was a crock of the proverbial. Andrew Wilkie was vindicated because it didn't take us long to work out that we went to that war on the basis of a lie, a shameless lie. That conflict triggered the civil war in Syria, the rise of ISIS, tens of millions of refugees fleeing across Europe in a wave of human misery, more than a million people, most of them innocent civilians, killed. What was achieved? I don't think there's anyone—including in the US, our ally, who egged us on in this coalition of the willing—who looks back on that period of history and thinks it was the right thing to do. It was a bloody disaster, not to mention the fact it cost trillions of dollars, which might have been great for the weapons companies, and it created a lot of work for our intelligence services. But, honestly? All that's because we have a closed shop on national security in this building. It's not just on matters relating to the intelligence services. It's the same thing when it comes to the billions of dollars—the tens of billions, the hundreds of billions of dollars—we're spending on procurements and on military hardware. It's gone on for too long. It's not representative of the Australian public, and it's not representative of this parliament. If you love democracy, you have nothing to fear from having the Greens or crossbenchers on this committee. It should be so.

The Greens support increasing the public reporting and accountability in this bill. The bill also removes the ability of the Attorney-General to delegate powers under the ASIO Act and TIA Act and prohibits conferral of the Attorney-General's powers under the ASIO Act and TIA Act upon another minister, except by legislative amendment or a substituted reference order made by the Governor-General in exceptional circumstances. Ensuring these powers are exercised by the Attorney-General is only appropriate. But there are things we are concerned about in this bill. I won't go into detail because my colleagues have already, but in particular we're concerned about the expansion of exclusions in the spent convictions scheme to enable ASIO to use, record or disclose spent convictions information. It was raised by the human rights committee inquiry into this bill, and it needs to be amended. 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. Why would we do that? Why would we remove the very, very limited oversight that this parallel universe already has? It has virtually none. It has virtually no oversight. So we don't support those changes and we will be working hard to amend them.

In the one minute I have left I want finish by saying that I haven't been deeply involved in this kind of legislation—I've had some fantastic colleagues who have been involved over many years—but what I have seen in relation to the persecution Witness K and Bernard Collaery over a significant matter of public interest, and I would say a public interest disclosure, in relation to what happened at Timor-Leste and the way they were persecuted through the courts for blowing the whistle, what we're seeing in relation to the Afghanistan war crimes committed and what we're seeing in relation to Julian Assange, I do have grave concerns over the lack of scrutiny of our intelligence services. This is a significant matter of public interest. The very least you can do is give democratic representation on this committee. If you're worried about leaks—Senator McKenzie said that you can't trust the Greens—that's very offensive—then I will highlight what Senator McKim said, 'We are not the party that leaks things to the media; the Labor and Liberal parties are.' The minimum we can do is get the Greens and crossbench on this committee.