Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the final report of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee, Comprehensive revision of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979, together with the Hansardrecord of proceedings and documents presented to the committee and move that the report be printed.

Ordered that the report be printed.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will speak to the report of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee, which I chaired: Comprehensive revision of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979. This report has been 15 months in the making. We kicked this off in November or December 2013. It has proven to be quite appropriate that we are tabling it as the Senate has begun consideration of the mandatory data retention legislation. It has been so long in the making.

This matter, however, is a little bit different. Senators would, no doubt, be aware in the second reading contributions that I, Senator Hanson-Young and Senator Wright have made thus far that we are dead against the government's proposed mandatory data retention scheme and cannot for the life of us understand why the Labor Party has caved in and given Prime Minister Abbott the surveillance lifeline. However, it is not enough to simply put on record what it is that we oppose. This report gives some guidance as to what we support.

I guess I should break it to the Senate at this stage that, although there is a consensus document and a majority report here, it contains largely uncontroversial matters related to the warranted surveillance regime in Australia. That is, roughly 4,700-odd warrants that are issued for intercepts or for reading stored communications, such as emails. Then of course we parted ways.

The opposition has tabled additional comments and I believe government senators have done so as well. So anybody listening to this debate will need to draw their own conclusions as to where different parties landed on the issue.

It is clear to everybody, from the former secretary of the Attorney-General's Department down, that the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act is in urgent need of reform. That does not mean the kind of tinkering around the edges that we have seen repeatedly in recent decades. The Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act was written in 1979, when Malcolm Fraser was Prime Minister, when the internet had not emerged into public consciousness and mobile phones did not exist. Yet we are still dealing, in my estimation, with a system that has failed to keep up with the march of technology.

This report effectively breaks out into a couple of different sections, and the first part, which is the consensus view of the committee, goes through ways that we could appreciably streamline the existing warranted telecommunications regime. The second part, which I guess then goes to the chair's minority additional comments, goes through the regime of access to metadata. Here our recommendation could not be more clear: if an interception warrant is required to listen to someone's phone call, if a warrant is required to read someone's email, a warrant should be required to gather bulk metadata, telecommunications data—also known as the private records of your location and of your social network; everybody you are in touch with and many other details of your life. We propose effectively a streamlining of the process. At the moment there are a number of different warrants that agencies need to apply for, and agencies made the case in my view—it was not an uncontested case—that this regime needs to be streamlined and slimmed down somewhat.

We have proposed, cautiously, what is known as an attribute based warrant and the introduction of a public interest monitor similar to that which exists in Queensland and Victoria. From the evidence we took, it is working reasonably well. The things this proposal does are twofold: It streamlines the process for which warrants can be sought and granted but it also places between the agencies and the granting of that warrant a public interest advocate whose job it is to contest—not to simply roll over, but to contest. You have to imagine that, if such an entity had existed in New South Wales, perhaps the police surveillance scandal that is unfolding at the moment might have been prevented. We had very strong evidence that such a public interest monitor should exist at the Commonwealth level, and for me these two recommendations go together—rolling the various kinds of warrants in with attribute based warrants on one hand, and introducing a public interest monitor to provide that contestability is equally important.

The other recommendation I want to draw senators' attention to is that warrants should be sought for bulk metadata. That is effectively updating our surveillance laws and our interception regime to take into account the huge changes that have occurred in technology since 1979. When those early drafters under the Fraser government identified that agencies would need to seek a warrant to intercept a phone call or read a message—not that email really existed in any sort of form at that stage—I think it would also have occurred to them that being able to track someone's location everywhere they go should require warranted access as well. That is one of the key recommendations we have made here—but not for everything. It was not the view of many witnesses that reading the white pages should require a warrant, so basic subscriber data identifying who was the subscriber to a particular account or a particular handset would continue to be applicable under the existing authorisations regime, although we do propose some additional safeguards—but bulk metadata of an invasive kind should require a warrant. We also believe that the act should have an objects clause, which may seem a little bit obscure to those without a legal background, but the fact is that the word 'privacy' is barely mentioned in our Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act. We believe an objects clause modelled on article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the privacy principles contained in Australia's own Privacy Act 1988 should be baked into telecommunications interception legislation here in Australia.

We also pointed very briefly to international experience. Despite the fact that the government appears to believe that precisely the opposite is occurring, in Europe the mandatory data retention regime, which provided for three months to an upper limit of two years of mandatory data retention, was struck out by the European Court of Justice on the grounds that it was offensive to principles of privacy and in fact offended human rights. That is remarkable and it seems to have gone completely over the head of Senator Brandis and Prime Minister Tony Abbott, because on more than one occasion they have tried to persuade people that international practice is moving in this direction when in fact it is moving in precisely the opposite direction. On figures provided to the committee, many jurisdictions in Europe—nearly a dozen—have some form of judicial oversight over access to telecommunications data—that is, for some or all of this material you need to go to a judge and get a warrant. That is the kind of international best practice that we believe Australia should be heading towards. The situation in the United States is obviously much less clear, but the debate that has unfolded there since the revelations of Mr Edward Snowden has created some rather unusual allies across the United States political spectrum who are seeking to have the powers returned to that which are necessary and proportionate and which indeed are in accord with the United States Constitution and their Bill of Rights.

This report is extremely timely. Those who understand that the Australian Greens are opposed to mandatory data retention can find in this document what it is that we support and the kind of reforms we believe would bring our telecommunications interception regime into line with the way technology and expectations of the public have emerged in the early years of the 21st century. We could not have done this without the secretariat and we also could not have done it without the hard work of Senate colleagues from across the political spectrum. Chairing this inquiry was not always easy—it was sometimes arduous—but everybody did apply themselves over a period of time. To my great surprise, Senator Ian Macdonald, who will willingly profess his ignorance of these matters, applied himself to the task with quite a lot of dedication. He asked hard questions and did not take anything for granted, and I found myself surprised from time to time by the degree to which Senator Macdonald in particular and also Senator Reynolds, when she joined the work of the committee in its later phases, did apply themselves with diligence. Nonetheless, politics and party discipline have regrettably prevailed and that is why we see a splintering of minority reports and additional comments reflecting the views of the leadership.

We simply could not have done this work without the hard work of the secretariat who do their work behind the scenes, particularly Ms Sophie Dunstone and Ms Sandra Kennedy—who regrettably the Senate has lost to the House of Representatives committee system. To those two in particular, and to Ms Jo-Anne Holmes, on behalf of the committee I thank them for their extraordinary work.

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on the matter of the final report of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Reference Committee's comprehensive review of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979. Although many of these issues have been, and will be, dealt with during the Senate's consideration of the data retention bill, I too would like to thank the secretariat for the work put into this inquiry and the production of the report. I also thank the chair for dealing with the matter under somewhat difficult circumstances.

I too joined this inquiry in its later phases, but I would like to highlight that the comments from opposition senators highlight the broader context in which this inquiry was conducted. We remind people following the course of these considerations that, although a 2013 report from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security regarding the act was unanimous and included the current Attorney-General as one of its members at the time, the Abbott government has still not responded to those recommendations in chapter 2, let alone commenced the considerable work outlined under recommendation 18, which relate directly to the process suggested to update this act.

As I said in my contribution on the data retention bill, this has been most unfortunate for public policy and sensible consideration of these issues. Perhaps that is the one point that I will take issue with the chair, Senator Ludlam, here. In one breath he suggested that people looking at this report will draw their own conclusions, once they look at the various positions addressed in the report; in an earlier, more hysterical breath he referred to Labor having 'caved in' on these issues. I remind senators and anyone listening to this debate that, whilst we have not been happy with the way the Abbott government has progressed not only modernising this act but also the broader data retention issues, there is significant change in the bill that was first presented to the House of Representatives by Malcolm Turnbull. There were 38 substantive recommendations that came out of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. As many would be aware, there was then further movement from the government amounting to, roughly, 75 amendments to ensure that what progresses in the Senate is a far more comprehensive, substantial and balanced approach to the data retention matter. That more balanced approach meets our requirements that we address oversight and privacy issues when considering how, under more appropriate arrangements, we deal with metadata.

I reminded senators earlier today of the unfortunate approach that the Abbott government took when the previous Labor government asked the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security to address many issues. Had the minister of the day, Senator Brandis, taken the committee's advice and proceeded down the way that was recommended—particularly in its recommendation 18—we would, and the government would, probably be in quite a different space. There has been a measured and balanced consideration of these issues and significant changes to how the government first proposed we work with the data retention issues as one element of this report. In terms of a comprehensive review of the act, there is still much more that needs to be done. The government would be wise to reflect on the previous recommendations of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security.

We have reminded senators in our report of what those recommendations are. For instance, recommendation 7 covers some of the issues around the specific attributes of communications and the attribute based interception issues. Some of what has been considered by this Senate committee is not necessarily new; it has been previously addressed by the joint parliamentary committee. But we felt it was appropriate to have a process that enabled crossbench senators to participate as well, as they are not presently represented on the joint parliamentary process. I hope Senator Ludlam appreciates that the Greens have had an opportunity to call before the parliamentary committee—the Senate committee—the witnesses that we had called upon the government to engage with, before designing this bill, in relation to data retention.

The Labor senators' contributions to this report put the report as a whole in a broader context of how it might better have been dealt with—not only data retention but also the modernisation of the TIA Act overall. We highlight some of the outstanding issues that the Senate needs to be mindful of. There is the issue of data storage, which has not yet been resolved, and the issues about strengthening oversight of our broader national security framework. Senator Faulkner commenced the process, but Labor will be keen to ensure progress in the context of any further work around the TIA Act and the broader national security issues.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I now present the report of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee on the Australian Federal Police Oil for Food Taskforce, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee, and move that the report be printed.

Ordered that the report be printed.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I rise as the chair of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee to speak to the tabling of this report into the work undertaken by the Australian Federal Police's oil for food task force. Firstly, I would like to place on record my thanks to the legal and constitutional affairs committee secretariat, so competently led by the committee secretary, Ms Sophie Dunstone, for their support to the committee throughout this inquiry. I would also like to extend my special thanks to Mr Hari Gupta at the secretariat for his exemplary work in bringing the Chair's Minority Report together. This was a task that was made even more than usually challenging by the degree of in camera evidence taken by the committee. To provide a report that was comprehensible to those who were not privy to the in camera evidence, so that it had some coherence, was a very challenging task. Mr Gupta did a very good job of that, but it did take some time.

I will turn now to some of the issues relating to this inquiry. I put on the record that, unfortunately, the Australian Federal Police were not as helpful as they could have been in assisting the committee during the course of this inquiry. In particular, they declined to release the advice of Mr Hastings QC in camera to the committee. In doing so, they gave up an opportunity to clear doubts held by some members of the committee, and certainly members of the Australian public, in relation to whether the task force was shut down prematurely and on what legal basis that occurred.

In the absence of any evidence of the legal grounds for shutting the task force down—apart from some somewhat vague assertions—there is serious ongoing concern that the task force was shut down for political, not legal, reasons. One of the reasons that concern continues is that there was a royal commission into the activities of the Australian Wheat Board, and this saga and the lingering smell associated with it is that although a great deal of illegal activity and wrongdoing was uncovered by the royal commission that has not resulted in substantive criminal charges. One of the offences that the Australian Wheat Board could potentially have been charged with is obtaining financial advantage by deception. A defence to that kind of charge would be that there was no deception, that there was no misleading. That would require a defence and evidence that those who were allegedly misled or deceived—in this case the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade—actually knew what the Australian Wheat Board were doing, and therefore misleading action did not take place. Of course, if that had occurred it would have exposed the department and raised serious concerns about what they knew at the time. The fact that this saga has continued and that there is a lingering smell associated with the activities of the Australian Wheat Board and the royal commission, which ultimately has not resulted in substantive criminal charges, again reinforces the point that we need a national independent commission against corruption.

In the course of this inquiry, we saw the two old parties tend to close ranks in the in camera hearings and in the finalising of the report, to protect the AFP and the Department of Foreign Affairs from being too closely scrutinised. While the Senate has the legal powers to effectively act as an ICAC, the Senate does not have the financial or human resources to have a permanent standing body. More importantly, there is not the political will to investigate something that in this case, for instance, crossed over both the Howard and Rudd governments. The Senate's power is self-restrained to the point of impotency. That will not stop the Australian Greens from moving an order for the production of documents to order that legal advice from Mr Hastings QC be tabled in the Senate. That would clear up any doubt around the reasons for the winding up of the task force, which is very clearly on the record as having failed to meet its terms of reference and wasted millions of dollars with very little to show for it—although it underspent its budget before it was prematurely closed down. It would also help to establish whether the closing down occurred was on the basis of legal advice or political imperatives.

Unfortunately, the failure of the Australian Federal Police to secure any criminal outcome against the Australian Wheat Board has been repeated in relation to other foreign bribery investigations. I make particular reference to the Securency scandal—the Reserve Bank of Australia note-printing scandal—but I would also refer to the Leighton Holdings issue, as raised in this chamber by Senator Dastyari, and the OECD's report that was highly critical of Australia's efforts in dealing with foreign corruption, with one prosecution arising from 28 referrals.

Because of this systemic failure of our national police force to cover one of its main areas of jurisdictional responsibility, in the Chair's Minority Report of this inquiry the Australian Greens have recommended that the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity launch a broad inquiry into the structural, recurrent failings of the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and into whether we should look at establishing a specialised agency between them and state law enforcement agencies to ensure that foreign bribery and white-collar crime is being investigated and prosecuted without compromise or delay.

A final point that shows the desperate need for an ICAC at the federal level is the testimony of Mr Jason Young, who is a former ASIC employee. On the public transcript, before the committee went in camera, he named a senior member of parliament as being a person of interest identified by ASIC in a brief that went to ASIC's executive. Mr Young's evidence was that when it came back from the executive the name had been dropped from the short list of who to pursue. Unfortunately, there is often a lack of political will in the Senate for very serious issues to be fully examined and pursued.

I would like to conclude by thanking and acknowledging the role of a particular individual, Mr Ross Fusca, for his evidence to the committee. Mr Fusca's original voice, which I became aware of through the media, raised concerns about the conduct of the task force and the closure of the task force without its having completed what was, in his view, its clear job. It was what brought the issue to light and was the reason that the inquiry was launched and that the Greens were so keen to have this inquiry.

Mr Fusca is a longstanding, experienced and honourable police officer. Along with many others who could be characterised as whistleblowers, he has shown great courage to voice his concerns. He has taken steps, to his own detriment—again, a common aspect of whistleblowing—in pursuing what he saw as being in the public interest and in the interests of integrity. Mr Fusca was a very dignified witness before the inquiry and I was quite humbled by the willingness that he showed to stand up, essentially put his head above the parapet and take on and voice the concerns that he genuinely has held in relation to the way this task force was conducted and ultimately closed down.

Unfortunately, despite strong efforts on my part to have at least some unanimous or majority chapters in the report which merely recited the factual background to the Australian Wheat Board issue and the royal commission before this inquiry to essentially make it easier for the public to read this and get a coherent sense of what has occurred, that was not possible to do. It was a particularly politicised inquiry and, ultimately, a very short majority report was provided by the government senators and the opposition senators. The Greens report is longer and I think it goes into more detail, which will make more sense to people who want to get the background to the inquiry. While I never expected that we would see shared recommendations coming out of it, it was a disappointment to me that we were not able to make the Senate committee system work as well as it can in giving important information to the public.

That said, again I would like to thank the secretariat for their good work. I commend the report to the Senate.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon to comment also on the oil-for-food inquiry into the closure of the Australian Federal Police task force. It is my view that, if ever a case demonstrates the need for a national independent commission against corruption, it is this one. Justice has absolutely not been done here. I say that because the Australian Wheat Board declared throughout the royal commission that it did not know that the fee it paid the Alia trucking company went to Saddam Hussein. It declared that throughout the inquiry. However, when the shareholders took a class action, in the subsequent court case to settle that matter—it was a civil case—the AWB admitted that it knew all along, and that was part of its agreement to settle. The issue then becomes: the Wheat Board lied. It knew that the money it was paying to the Alia trucking company went to Saddam Hussein.

There was an investigation by the Federal Police into what corruption might have occurred. The Federal Police task force was shut down before it could finish that work. Why was it shut down? It was shut down on the basis of legal advice, supposedly, from Mr Hastings QC, but that legal advice has never been provided or made public. We still have no idea about that legal advice. My view is that it was shut down for political reasons and for this reason: we had a situation where ASIC had been to Iraq, had interviewed people from the trucking company and had interviewed others, all making it very clear that the evidence that ASIC had would have demonstrated that not only did the AWB know the money went to Saddam Hussein but DFAT knew. The allegation through the inquiry was that it went right up to a federal minister who knew. They all knew. If the AWB had been absolutely nailed by the Federal Police, then the next question is: what would the Wheat Board's defence have been? The Wheat Board's defence would have been: they had not committed a fraud; they had not done anything wrong because they knew that the money to the trucking company went to Saddam Hussein but so too did DFAT and so too did this federal member of parliament, and therefore they could not be found guilty of a crime because they had not deceived anyone and everybody knew.

It all came unstuck. ASIC had that information, but ASIC could not just straightforwardly provide that information to the Federal Police. So it went to court. The Wheat Board, of course, appealed the judgement that came down to say that, yes, the information should be provided. Of course the AWB objected to that—they did not want that information provided at all and they objected to it. However, it was heard again and the judge reserved his decision. Before it came down, the task force was shut down. There was a small window of opportunity. Before the ASIC information could be provided to the Federal Police, which would prove that the AWB knew and DFAT knew and it was known even as high as the minister, the task force was shut down. So that information never went from ASIC to the Federal Police because the Federal Police task force was shut down. It is clear to me, and it was clear from the evidence that was provided, that it was not legal advice that there was unlikely to be a successful prosecution but that a political judgement was made that the Federal Police task force had to be shut down so that it would never come out that the AWB not only knew but that DFAT and the government of the day knew.

Of course it is hugely serious because it goes to the whole issue of Saddam Hussein, what people knew and the breach of all the sanctions that were in place. It would have shown that the Australian federal government knew that they were breaching the sanctions, because that would have been the defence of the Wheat Board if this had come out. I believe that is why the task force was shut down, which begs the question: who in the Federal Police forced the task force to close down and who directed the then head of the Federal Police, Mick Keelty, to close down that task force?

Those questions were never answered. There has never been an investigation into that. We still do not know. That is why we need a national ICAC. I find it absolutely appalling to be standing here in the federal parliament and not have the documents that you need to prove it.

Then I asked ASIC why it did not take the AWB, because they had misled the stock exchange. They had breached their corporate responsibilities by lying about what they knew and what they did not know. ASIC would not say at the time why it did not take that action, just that there was no clear view why the name of a federal politician was taken out of the ASIC brief, who should be investigated or why ASIC did not take on AWB as a corporate entity for having lied to the stock exchange. They are very clear and serious allegations that should have been followed up. So I can only conclude that this whole thing was covered up because it went to the heart of government, that the Australian government knew at the time that the AWB was breaching the sanctions and it would have all come out.

The Federal Police task force being shut down was a political directive to avoid all of that coming out, and I want to thank the whistleblowers who came forward in this inquiry. As my colleague Senator Wright, the chair of the committee, has said it is very clear that because this covered two periods of government, two different sides of the political spectrum, the Liberal government and then a Labor government, there was no interest in having Australia exposed in this way in the international forum. The world would have been looking at this level of corruption. The OECD is already looking at the extent to which Australia takes international corruption seriously, and I think that it is an absolute disgrace. I want to put on the record my appreciation of the courage that Mr Fusca showed in coming forward and raising serious questions as to why he was essentially frustrated in his ability to do his job in that task force and the task force was closed down.

It is a very serious issue that the Australian parliament still to this day does not have the documents it needs to prove the case. That is why we will be moving for the legal advice on the basis of which that task force was shut down. We want that legal advice provided because I do not believe that it will prove the point that the government has always claimed it proved. If it is so clear then why not release it and let the community see it? The whole thing has been a cover up from start to finish.

Quite apart from the AWB case, as I indicated, we need a much more serious approach to foreign bribery and corruption. The Federal Police now has a much more significant unit to do that work. But, frankly, no unit will be able to do the work if ultimately they are leant on politically to shut down investigations. That is why we need a national ICAC. We will not have a break in the corruption that goes on in this country, and let us not pretend that corruption ends in New South Wales. ICAC has made it fairly clear in New South Wales what the story is. We now need to make sure that we get a national ICAC, that we expose this and that the people responsible for the cover ups are held to account.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was a member of the committee that investigated the food for oil task force and the suggestion by the Greens political party that there was rife corruption amongst the police forces and the investigatory agencies. So I have a slightly better understanding of the report that has just been tabled than the previous speaker who, I think, breezed in on a couple of occasions for a short period of time. This oil for food matter has been the subject of the Cole royal commission. It was then the subject of a joint committee of this parliament. It was the subject of a $23 million investigation by the Federal Police and by ASIC. It was the subject of very intense scrutiny across the board.

Why the Senate agreed with the Greens political party to re-establish yet another committee to look at alleged shortfalls in the first inquiry I could never understand. They did say they had some new evidence that would expose widespread corruption amongst Australian agencies. The Senate committee duly sat. We heard the new evidence in camera. Whilst I accept the genuineness of the person involved, those who were there to actually see the demeanour of the witness and the evidence given were not in any way persuaded that the evidence was accurate, relevant and was such that it did expose any new information into this inquiry. With all the respect I can muster, this inquiry was a complete waste of the Senate's time and the costs of the committee. You will see that the majority report tabled today indicates that there was no evidence at all of any impropriety, no evidence at all of any necessity to conduct further investigations and, in fact, the majority report congratulated the Australian Federal Police and ASIC and all those involved on their work.

The Greens political party took a lot of umbrage at the fact that the inquiry was shut down, and the committee went into that in some detail. Why was it shut down? Not because there was corruption that was about to be exposed but nobody wanted to be exposed. It was quite the contrary. There was no evidence whatsoever that the original investigation was anything but appropriate and proper. The reason it was shut down—and, unfortunately, the Greens political party never seemed to be able to understand this—was that the law as it stood prevented any serious further investigation. The investigators came to that conclusion, and so they engaged a senior QC, at quite a cost, as you would expect, to look through all aspects of the investigation and to advise the police and the then government—which, incidentally, was the previous government—whether it should go any further. The QC fully investigated it and indicated that the difficulties in getting evidence to substantiate any prosecution were far outweighed by the cost and the likelihood of being able to get evidence that was telling.

As the majority report points out—something the Greens political party and perhaps some columnists did not understand—evidence given to the Cole royal commission could not be used, under Australian law, by the Federal Police to mount prosecutions. So the police had to go round and reinterview everybody, many of whom came from overseas and many of whom were unwilling, or uninterested in even talking to the Australian Federal Police. That was the problem that confronted the AFP when they started the investigation, but they had to go and again get all of the evidence that was given at the Cole royal commission. They interviewed some people in Australia, most of whom claimed privilege and some of whom refused to talk to the police. Whilst the Federal Police did a very thorough job, it became very obvious that there was nothing further that they could reasonably do that had not already been done.

It was clear to the committee that nothing important, nothing useful, could ever come from a further investigation into this. Certainly, there was no evidence and no suggestion of any corruption, impropriety or lack of good faith in anything the Australian Federal Police and ASIC did in their further investigation of that oil-for-food matter.

The Greens are calling for a federal ICAC. That, of course, is another issue. But, certainly, the results of this inquiry by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee do not in any way provide support or evidence for the call the Greens are making. Now, that is a debate for another time. But, as I said, there was nothing in the inquiry by our committee that would support such a call at this time.

There are other things I would like to say on this—and I am sure there are other senators who were going to speak. Unfortunately, I rushed into the chamber when I heard Senator Milne speaking and I do not have the report in front of me or all of my notes, so hopefully I will have an opportunity to speak on this again. Suffice to say that the report of the committee really gives a clear indication of the determinations of that committee. It is a majority committee report that I urge all senators to read, because it is only about six pages. It is very succinct, it is very to the point on the terms of reference for the inquiry and, as I said, it found almost unanimously that there was no point in wasting the resources of the Commonwealth and certainly of the Senate in further investigating this particular matter. I see another committee member in the chamber, but I understand he does not want to speak at this time. If nobody else wants to speak, I seek leave to continue my remarks later so this matter can be debated further at another time.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.