Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Attorney-General, Senator Brandis, and expands on those questions from Senator Wong. Can the Attorney-General update the Senate on what the government is doing to keep Australians safe?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me expand a little on some of the information I provided to Senator Wong. The government has taken decisive action from the earliest stages of the Syria-Iraq conflict to ensure that our community is protected from terrorism. Even as the Islamic State declared its so-called caliphate in June 2014, the government was already embarking on the most significant program of counterterrorism legislation reform in a generation to address the unprecedented scope of the terrorism threat here at home.

I mentioned to Senator Wong the eight tranches of targeted national security legislation by which we have empowered our law enforcement, security and defence forces to fight terrorism at home and abroad. The government has been advised by our agencies and by the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, Commissioner Colvin, that as a result of that legislation his work and the work of other states in dealing with the terrorism problem has been materially assisted. As well, the government has invested an additional $1.5 billion in law enforcement and security agencies to combat terrorism. In this year's budget we are investing an additional $321 million in specialist capabilities for the AFP, the largest single funding boost to the AFP's domestic policing capabilities in over a decade.

The first duty of any government is to keep its citizens safe; the first duty of any parliament is to keep its citizens safe. As I said a moment ago to Senator Wong, I think the collaboration across party lines to debate, to fine tune, to improve and to pass the national security legislation shows this parliament working at its best.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hume, a supplementary question?

Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can the Attorney-General explain how the coalition government's legislative reforms have been keeping Australians safe?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me give you a very specific example, Senator Hume. Among the many reforms that we passed in 2014, we lowered the threshold for arrest for Commonwealth terrorism offences from reasonable belief to reasonable suspicion. Those new thresholds allowed our law enforcement agencies to act earlier to disrupt imminent terror-attack planning. As we know, there have been 12 thwarted terrorist events in Australia since September 2014, and some of those events were conceived and planned to be mass casualty attacks of the kind we saw recently in Manchester. Because of some of the measures, including the one I have just mentioned, our authorities were able to interdict and stop such terrorist strikes at an earlier time than they would otherwise have been able to.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hume, a final supplementary question?

Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How is the Attorney-General working with the private sector and international partners to keep Australians safe?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In a fortnight's time, I will represent Australia at the Five Eyes conference in Ottawa. The principal business of that conference will be to discuss further the very high level of collaboration that already exists between those five nations on counterterrorism cooperation. But it is not merely a job for governments alone, because, as we know, terrorist recruitment, proselytisation and propaganda are mediated in social media and on the internet, and therefore the private sector also has a role to play. Particularly, I might say, is that so in an era of what has come to be known as ubiquitous encryption, so that increasingly encrypted telecommunications are the mode of communication of choice for terrorist planning. We need the cooperation of the private sector in order to address that problem. (Time expired)