James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Cyber Security) Share this | Hansard source

I want to make a brief contribution on the third reading, because we are about to find out whether or not a deal has been done between the government and the Greens on membership of the PJCIS. The Greens just moved two amendments to this bill, which they said were important, and they have failed. Whether or not the Greens now support this bill through the chamber is a test of whether or not they were serious about the amendments they just moved or whether the prize of possible membership of the PJCIS for the Greens outweighs their concerns about the bill which they've just outlined. We're about to find out whether the government is willing to do a deal with the Greens on a matter of national security, because they are unwilling to negotiate and discuss their unilateral changes to PJCIS membership with the opposition. If this bill passes with the support of the Greens and the government, it will be clear that they have done a deal behind the scenes, without any public transparency, about the membership of the PJCIS, the parliament's most functional and bipartisan committee.