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

I briefly rise to put on the record the coalition's position on the previous amendment and this one. We will not be supporting the amendment. We are grateful to the government for the briefing they provided, which very clearly illustrated the need for this bill and the urgency with which it must be passed. We will always act in the national interest in a bipartisan way when it comes to national security. It does not assist, when dealing with these complex matters, to put in amendments such as this which seek to frustrate and delay dealing with the substantive matters and which require the parliament to return to the legislation in three months time, as would be the case with this sunset provision. This again demonstrates the way in which the Greens—who have been briefed on the importance of this bill, who understand the importance of this bill—are willing to play political games with national security to virtue signal to their supporters in the community and get in the way of dealing with what is a very real national security challenge which has been brought to our attention and must be dealt with properly.