John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, I present the report of the committee on the review of administration and expenditure: No. 9: Australian intelligence agencies. I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the report.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

The oversight of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security of the Australian Intelligence Community is a very important responsibility of the committee, as senators would be aware, so I am very pleased to present this ninth review of the administration and expenditure of the AIC by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.

The review examined a wide range of aspects of the administration and expenditure of the six intelligence and security agencies, including the financial statements for each agency and their human resource management, training, recruitment and accommodation. In addition, the review looked at issues of interoperability between members of the AIC.

Submissions were sought from each of the six intelligence and security agencies, from the Australian National Audit Office and from the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security. The submissions from ANAO and the six intelligence agencies were all classified confidential, restricted or secret and therefore have not made available to the public. As has been its practice for previous reviews, ASIO provided the committee with both a classified and an unclassified submission. The unclassified version is available on the committee's website.

Each of the Defence intelligence agencies provided the committee with a classified submission. The agencies marked each paragraph with its relevant national security classification. This has enabled the committee, for its 2009-10 review, to directly refer in this report to unclassified information provided in the Defence agencies submissions. The Committee also received five submissions from members of the public or public organisations, including the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, the Brigidine Asylum Seekers Project, RISE and the Refugee Council of Australia. These submissions all dealt with ASIO's security assessments of refugees.

On 25 March last year, the committee held a private hearing at which ASIO, ASIS, DSD, DIGO, ONA and DIO all appeared before the committee. On 16 June 2011, the committee held a public hearing—the first, in fact, since 2006—and heard from representatives of the Refugee Council of Australia, Refugees, Survivors and Ex-Detainees, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and ASIO in relation to visa security assessments. The committee thanks all attendees, particularly those from organisations providing support to refugees, for the time and effort they took to put their views to our committee.

Given the public interest and importance of the issue of visa security assessments in the report I have tabled, I should say the committee certainly notes the request by some advocacy groups for ASIO to declare its non-statutory criteria for making visa security assessments. The committee believes that making non-statutory criteria publicly available could compromise national security because applications from potentially hostile individuals could be tailored to meet those criteria. Therefore, the committee has not supported that suggestion.

The committee notes that since its previous administration and expenditure inquiry ASIO's visa security assessment workload has increased significantly. Procedures and processes for undertaking visa security assessments have been placed under considerable strain and, I must say, in some cases assessments have taken longer than is desirable.

The committee takes very seriously the concerns put before it by various refugee and asylum-seeker advocacy groups, but it also recognises the difficulties that ASIO has in fulfilling its responsibilities in this area. Therefore, the committee welcomes the efforts, introduced by ASIO on 1 March 2011, to streamline the process of security assessments in an attempt to clear the backlog and to process future assessments in less time. The committee is satisfied that the current regime for visa security assessments is the correct one. The committee notes that the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security has stated that ASIO is doing its job in a 'proper and legal manner'.

Overall, the committee is satisfied that the administration and expenditure of the six intelligence and security agencies is sound. However, I would note that concerns raised in relation to the efficiency dividend's impact on agencies during the committee's Review of Administrationand Expenditure:Australian Intelligence Organisations, No. 8 were specifically raised in the evidence the committee took for the current review. This is extremely concerning to the committee. The committee will continue to monitor the impact of the efficiency dividend on the Australian intelligence community. The committee was pleased with the level of information given to it in relation to interoperability and it will continue to monitor this area to ensure that interoperability management and budgetary structures are in place across the Australian intelligence community. As always, the committee thanks the heads of the AIC agencies and all those who contributed to this review. I commend the report to the Senate.

Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I listened with interest to Senator Faulkner's comments on this, because the impact of nearly a decade of counter-terrorism measures clearly is very relevant to Australia as it has had a considerable impact on the lives and liberties of Australians. The review of administration and expenditure undertaken by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security is very relevant to any consideration.

It is also relevant to note that the budget, on page 32, covers various deliverables under the heading, 'Implementation of relevant recommendations of the 2011 Independent Review of the Intelligence Community'. However, the report from the independent review of intelligence matters was heavily redacted and no recommendations were made public. This is one of the problems that we have in getting a full handle on the issues raised with respect to the report that has just been tabled, as it is still not fully clear to the public how all these agencies work together. With regard to the report from the independent review, for instance, it has sat on the Prime Minister's desk for six months. You would have to say it really is lacking in substance, as no recommendations were made public. Therefore when we come to this review of administration and expenditure, the obvious questions are: how do all these reviews fit together? How do they build on each other? Are they just going through the motions of apparently reporting, or is there a real attempt to make an assessment that can provide meaningful information to make an assessment of how we ensure our security is what Australia needs in 2012 and the years ahead? How do we learn the lessons of the last decade?

The threat status in Australia, from the information that is available, has remained about the same since the September 2001 attacks. Australians therefore have the right to know why there has been such a massive increase in funds for intelligence agencies and what these multimillion-dollar budgets are being spent on. But the reports coming out in this area certainly do not clarify that matter and that all-important question remains unanswered. The current report also fails on that score. The independent review of the intelligence community also failed to do this. Time and time again we see a failure to fulfil the objectives under which people expect these inquiries to operate.

It is also worth noting the comments of Mr Philip Flood, who headed the 2004 Flood inquiry. He said:

… Australians are entitled to expect that intelligence collection agencies are properly scrutinised and held to account.

That is where, when you look at these various reports, you would have to conclude that we continue to fail. The heads of agencies operate with minimal accountability, and there is the worrying possibility that they and their staff may at times operate outside the law. We have seen that in various specific examples and, because these reviews are so scanty, it is very hard to make that assessment. It is also relevant to note one of the studies by Civil Liberties Australia. They estimate that about 25 per cent of ASIO data collected on Civil Liberties Australia members, and released under the 30-year rule, was in error. That helps give some indication of the problems that you would have to anticipate in reading these reports.

It is also worth noting some of the information the Australian Human Rights Commission have provided. They have previously raised their concerns about the conduct of ASIO security assessments for people in immigration detention who arrived in Australia without authorisation. So I do note the comments of the previous speaker, Senator Faulkner, where he talked about the increased load that some departments now have because of increasing numbers of people coming to Australia. However, there also continue to be problems about how many of those agencies carry out their work. I note that the Australian Human Rights Commission has found that there are significant delays in finalising ASIO security assessments for a large number of people in immigration detention. The level of resources allocated for the conduct of security assessments is something that has been questioned, and the working relationship between ASIO and the Department of Immigration and Citizenship is something that has also been raised as a concern.

While the Greens welcome the release of this report, as with other reports it shows up many questions about how these agencies are working and to what degree intelligence and security are being managed in this country in a way that ensures that Australians are indeed secure, but secure in a way that protects human rights. We can most definitely get the balance right if attention is paid to that in a constructive way between these agencies and government.

Question agreed to.