Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

(—) (): I seek leave to make a short contribution on the report tabled earlier by Senator Smith, the Review of the mandatory data retention regime: A review of the mandatory data retention regime prescribed by Part 5-1A of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979

Leave granted.

I want to speak for a short period of time in regards to the tabling of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security's Review of the mandatory data retention regime: A review of the mandatory data retention regime prescribed by Part 5-1A of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979. I will start by making the obvious point that the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security is a committee that is closed to members of the crossbench; it contains only members of the LNP and the Labor Party. As such, the crossbench is denied a critical opportunity to participate in reviews such as this. In the absence of an opportunity to participate in the formal review, I offer these comments as part of the Australian Greens review of the mandatory data retention regime.

I make the obvious point that there's been significant public outrage over journalists and whistleblowers being treated like criminals in Australia. But under legislation such as this, the mandatory data laws, and more recently under surveillance powers and programs such as the 2017 Intergovernmental Agreement on Identity Matching Services, the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act and this year's announcement that the Australian Signals Directorate would soon, for the first time in its history, start spying on Australians, we are all unfortunately, in the government's digital crosshairs.

This legislation, the mandatory data retention regime, is indiscriminate. It provides for the metadata of all Australians to be collected, retained and used against them. When this legislation was introduced, in 2015, the government argued that metadata was like the name and address on the front of an envelope. The government tried to have us believe that, unlike the contents of the envelope, it wasn't really personal or private data. But actually metadata is like a data fingerprint. It can paint a detailed picture of people, their movements, their locations, their interactions, their behaviours and much, much more. The government said that these detailed pictures would only be used by select government agencies to investigate serious crimes, and there was a lot of discussion around the need for strong counterterrorism provisions at the time. But through submissions to this inquiry we know that that is not the case in practice.

According to submitters, over 80 government agencies have requested access to our, the Australian people's, personal metadata. Those agencies include the Victorian Office of the Racing Integrity Commissioner, the Hunter region illegal dumping squad and—would you believe?—the Taxi Services Commission. We know from public reports that access to metadata has been exploited by local governments in this country to gather evidence to support prosecuting people for having unregistered dogs. How have we gone from counterterrorism to unregistered pets? That is a question that the two major parties in this place, who both voted for these laws, need to answer. Submitters to this review raised concerns regarding local councils who have accessed our private metadata—I remind people listening that this is all done without a warrant—to pursue and fine people for things like traffic offences and the unlawful posting of bills. These are anything but serious crimes. This is the indiscriminate collection of data from every single Australian, whether they are suspected of a crime or not, that can be accessed without a warrant by government agencies around the country.

There are no enforceable limits on the use of our private metadata by these agencies. We simply don't know how our private metadata is being used, when it is being used, who is accessing it and when they are accessing it, because people are not informed by government when their metadata is accessed. I will make the blindingly obvious point here, that you shouldn't try to defend a nation's freedoms by removing the rights of its people, but that is what is happening here. We are continuing the slow but sinister frogmarch down the road to a police state and a surveillance state in this country. Unfortunately, although it's being led by people like Minister Dutton from the government side of this parliament, it is being obsequiously supported every step of the way by the Australian Labor Party.

I do acknowledge that this report has made some sensible recommendations. The one it missed was 'scrap the whole metadata retention laws entirely and go back to where we were before they came in', when people had far more privacy and far more of a legitimate expectation that they could live a free and private life in this country. But it has made some sensible recommendations for publicly available guidelines on requesting, collecting and managing the private metadata of Australian citizens, for more checks and balances and for improved authorisations, oversight, reporting and accountability. Half a decade after the passage of these laws, we welcome these recommendations. But we all know what you can't polish in politics, and this report does attempt to polish what is not possible to put a sheen on.

We need to bin this draconian and Orwellian legislation, and that is the Australian Greens recommendation that has come out of our review of the metadata retention laws. Scrap them entirely. They were brought in under false pretences. The Australian people were lied to and told that we needed these laws to protect us from terrorists, and instead they're being used by local councils to bust people for having unregistered pets. I've heard of scope creep and bracket creep, but that is really something.

Now more than ever, after over 200 pieces of legislation have been passed in parliaments around this country over the last couple of decades that remove fundamental rights and freedoms from Australian citizens, we need a charter of rights. We are the only liberal democracy in the world that has no constitutionally embedded rights, legislated charter or bill of rights. It's time we caught up, and it's time we realised that, in fact, Australians value their freedoms; they value their liberties; and many, many Australians don't want to live in a police state and a surveillance state. I thank my colleagues.