Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the statement.

In the response just provided by the Minister representing the Attorney-General on the government's refusal to comply with orders of the Senate in relation to documents relating to the terrorist organisation, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, once again we have seen this government completely disrespecting the Senate.

The minister's statement has provided absolutely no justification for its assertion that the public interest would be harmed by the release of these documents confidentially to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. That assertion makes absolutely no logical sense. Everybody in this Senate knows that the IRGC is involved in terrorist activity. Everyone in this Senate knows that the government knows it. That is why the documents that we have sought to compel the government to provide were created. How can the confidential disclosure to the parliamentary committee with specific oversight of security and intelligence matters of two documents based on publicly available open source information possibly create a risk to our national interest? That is the grounds upon which the government has again refused this request today.

The reason the government refuses to release these documents—despite the fact that, as I've said, they have no proper justification for doing so—is that it doesn't want the public to know that its agencies were preparing for the IRGC to be listed before someone in government put a stop to it. The government never admitted of its own volition that the Department of Home Affairs had been highly advanced in preparing a listing of the IRGC in January last year. In fact, when the Attorney-General's Department made a last-minute submission—almost a last-second submission—to the Senate inquiry I chaired, on the night before our report was tabled, that department was in possession of a statement of reasons and a nomination form for the IRGC, but they made absolutely no reference to it in their submission to my committee. Instead they claimed that they had suddenly—in the space of two weeks—formed the view that it wasn't legally possible to list the IRGC.

But we have enough information now, despite the best efforts at secrecy from this government, to have an idea where the direction to shut down the listing of the IRGC came from. During Senate estimates last year, I asked the Attorney-General's Department where the idea to put in a last-minute submission to the Senate inquiry claiming it was impossible to list the IRGC had come from. The answer was, 'We had conversations with the Attorney-General's office.' I asked whether those conversations were initiated by the Attorney-General's office rather than by the department, and department officials confirmed that this was the case. So we know that the government department had prepared documents for the terror listing of the IRGC, and we know that members of the Albanese government's cabinet made sure that that listing was shut down. Every time we have asked a minister since then what they are doing to progress a listing, including drafting any legislative amendments that they believe would be required—something we have offered bipartisan support for—the answer has been that they're not doing anything.

This is a political decision for secrecy and inaction by the Albanese government. Again today we have a minister coming into the Senate and blatantly refusing to follow an order of this Senate. When it comes to serious national security matters, there is a clear pattern of obstructionist behaviour by the Albanese government. Just look at the story in the Age newspaper today in which multiple government insiders admit that the offices of the minsters for immigration and home affairs held tactical meetings about how to avoid answering questions from my colleague Senator Paterson about the criminal records of detainees released into the community by the government. It reveals that, instead of spending their time focusing on the safety of the community, they were holding meetings about how to keep the community in the dark.

We learn today that government ministers were infuriated that their own department secretary answered questions and provided the requested information because it was, according to a government source, 'tactically the wrong thing to do'. That is a disgraceful attitude to public safety by this government, but it is exactly the type of attitude we have become used to over the past couple of years and, indeed, over the 12 months since we've been examining these Iran questions. We are not going to put up with the government refusing to answer questions about why it has done everything it can to stop the IRGC being listed as a terrorist organisation. It is completely unacceptable that this government is refusing to comply with orders of this Senate relating to the IRGC, and we will continue to pursue answers and transparency from this secretive, arrogant government.