David Bushby (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Chair of Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, I present the Annual report of committee activities 2015–2016, and I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I am pleased to present the committee's annual report for 2015-16. The committee's activities in this period built upon the significant work undertaken during the preceding year. The national focus on counterterrorism measures continued throughout 2015-16, with further legislative reform leading to significant activity by the committee. The committee maintained its bipartisan approach to reviewing proposed changes to Australia's national security legislation and, in 2015-16, concluded inquiries into the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Bill 2015 and the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2015. Across these two inquiries, the committee made 41 recommendations that sought to strengthen the provisions of each bill and ensure that they included appropriate safeguards and oversight mechanisms. I note that the government accepted all of the committee's recommendations.

The committee also continued to fulfil its key statutory oversight responsibilities. The Intelligence Services Act requires the committee to review the administration and expenditure of the six Australian intelligence agencies on an annual basis. The committee completed its review for 2013-14, concluding that agencies were overseeing their administration and expenditure appropriately. As it had in previous years, the committee looked closely at the impact of the efficiency dividend and other savings measures on agencies and sought assurances that each agency continued to have the necessary resources to address Australia's national security priorities.

The committee noted that increases to the ongoing funding of intelligence agencies, and the Office of National Assessments's exemption from the efficiency dividend, helped to allay the committee's concerns that agencies were at the point of being unable to find further efficiencies without affecting ongoing capability or operations.

The committee had continued to monitor these issues in its subsequent reviews, which it will report upon in its next annual report.

Also during this period, the committee conducted its second review of the Australian Federal Police's performance of its functions under part 5.3 of the Criminal Code, which contains the Commonwealth terrorism offences, control order regime and preventative detention order regime.

In addition, the committee reviewed and supported the relisting of five terrorist organisations.

One of the outcomes of the changed security environment has been expansion of the functions, oversight and scrutiny responsibilities of the committee.

Following the considerable expansion of the committee's functions that occurred in 2014-15, the committee obtained additional responsibilities following passage of the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Bill. This included the requirement that the committee review the operation, effectiveness and implications of certain parts of the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 by 1 December 2019 and an ongoing power to review any declaration of a 'terrorist organisation' under the act.

The committee accepts that recent operational experience has shown the need for measures to enhance the ability of security and law enforcement agencies to respond to threats and to protect the Australian community. Balanced with this is the ongoing need to ensure that individual privacy and other fundamental freedoms and rights are protected for Australians.

The functions performed by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security are an important accountability mechanism, providing scrutiny and oversight of the intelligence agencies and national security powers.

I commend the report to the Senate.

Question agreed to.