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

When my last contribution was interrupted, I was reflecting on the way that national security legislation is dealt with under existing arrangements. I referred to the fact that the government of the day, whether it is a Labor government or a Liberal government, takes advice from the intelligence apparatus, basically tugs its forelock and says, 'Yes, we'll give you all the powers that you're asking for,' then cabinet agrees that that should be the case, and then the legislation to create extra powers of surveillance—which are marching us, in the absence of a charter of rights in this country, down a really dark and dangerous path—goes into a darkened room, behind the closed doors of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.

What happens then—as Senator Paterson, who is interjecting, well knows because he is a member of that committee and has been for some time—is that that committee goes into whatever happens, because of course the crossbench are precluded from that committee, with a brief exception for Mr Wilkie from the other place and, obviously, depending on the outcome of this legislation. But what happens is that that committee might rasp off one or two of the roughest of the rough edges on that legislation, and then it comes into this place, and that legislation is supported by the political duopoly.

What I want to be very clear about is that national security laws, and the implications that they have for some of the fundamental democratic freedoms in this country—freedoms that hundreds of thousands of Australians have fought and died to protect—are far too important to be passed through this parliament based on a nod and a wink between the political duopoly. The major issue is the implied agreement between the self-described 'parties of government' in this place. Part of that implied agreement—part of the nod and the wink between the political duopoly—is to keep the pesky upstarts on the crossbench out of the process. What that results in is this creeping erosion of fundamental rights and freedoms. I remind you, colleagues, Australia is the only so-called liberal democracy in the world that does not have some kind of either charter or bill of rights, and the absence of a charter or bill of rights in our country allows for this creeping and ongoing erosion.

Make no mistake, we are walking down the road towards a full-on surveillance state, towards a full-on police state and, ultimately, to early onset fascism in Australia. We need to guard our freedoms. We need to guard our rights in this country, and it is extremely difficult to do so because we do not have either enshrined in the Constitution, where it ideally would be, or enshrined in legislation a charter or a bill of rights.

So again, we find ourselves here, and we find ourselves with the capacity to actually change the way that much of the legislation is examined by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, and it would be a welcome step for Mr Wilkie, who's obviously a man of considerable experience in this area, to be allowed or to be invited onto that committee, but we absolutely should have a crossbench member on that committee. When you look at the make-up, if you were to pro rata the numbers based on the Senate, the Greens would undoubtedly be deserving of a member on that committee. What we have, I think, here is a deliberate attempt to shut the Greens out.

I want to say very clearly to Labor and Liberal Party colleagues that the media regularly and with high levels of frustration write stories about how the Greens don't leak. You see that time after time. What we also know is that both the Labor and Liberal parties leak like sieves in this place. If the concern is the possibility of security breaches out of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, I would suggest that the level of concern should be directed at the major parties in this place, the so-called self-described 'parties of government', rather than at the Greens, because when you look at the way the media work in this place and when you read many of the media stories with an insider perspective, it is very clear that the Labor and Liberal party rooms leak like sieves. There are regular drops from inside the Labor and Liberal party rooms to the selected favourite political journalists, which just doesn't happen with the Greens. So if the concern is leaking, if the concern is security, I'd suggest that the Labor and Liberal parties should have a bit of a look in the mirror. What they'll see staring back at them is rank hypocrisy, because it's the major parties that leak in this place, not the Greens and the crossbench.

National security laws are too important to be done on a nod and a wink, but a nod and a wink is exactly the way this works. This implied agreement between the so-called parties of government has a significant deleterious effect across a range of policy areas in this country. Another example is Australia's foreign affairs policy, where both major parties seem proud of the fact there's no contest on foreign affairs. The Minister for Foreign Affairs is the easiest political job in the country because whoever is in opposition doesn't offer any meaningful criticism at all of the conduct of the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the day, and so it is on national security. This implied agreement between the political duopoly is the foundation for the ongoing erosion of rights and freedoms that is occurring in Australia. There have been well over 100 pieces of legislation passed through Commonwealth, state and territory parliaments in the last 20 years that have eroded rights and freedoms. Those rights and freedoms are hard fought and they're hard won. They've been fought for in wars in which thousands of Australian soldiers have perished through history, yet we seem to be giving them away with very little thought and very little scrutiny simply because the national security apparatus wants more powers.

I've read with horror some of the speeches given by the secretary of the home affairs department, Mr Pezzullo. There was the hobbit speech, where Mr Pezzullo had a central thesis that the Australian people are basically like innocent hobbits and need to be protected from all these dark forces out in the world and that we don't even understand what those dark forces are. It's the paladins or the rangers like Mr Pezzullo—the brave heroes—who are out there defending us against these dark forces, and, if he has enough powers to do that, that will allow us to continue to live our innocent little lives, cultivating our crops and having a beer of an evening. Well, I've rarely heard something as insulting to the collective Australian intelligence as that.

Then the other speech of Mr Pezzullo's that I read with horror is the speech I call 'Pezzullo's panopticon', which is a speech about how critical it is that our security apparatus has unbridled access to every single piece of information and data that exists, because only then can they fulfil their function of keeping this country safe. I want to be clear, people like Mr Pezzullo and other elements of our national security apparatus absolutely have a responsibility to keep us safe. But that's not the only thing that we as policymakers should consider in this place. We've got a responsibility to look at the bigger picture. It is an absolutely legitimate question to ask whether we are giving away too many of our hard-won rights and freedoms in order to increase the level of safety in this place. There are many Australians, including me, who would be prepared to put up with a bit more risk if it meant that we can hang on to some of our precious rights and freedoms. Ultimately, that is a legitimate question and it is the matter of public debate, in this context, that we should be having in this place.

Where do we draw the line? The line would be better able to be drawn in a way that reflects the range of views that exists in the Australian community if you were able, through the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security process, to hear the range of views that exist in this place because this place is, broadly speaking, reflective of the Australian community. I want to be really clear, colleagues. We need reform of the PJCIS process, yes, but it needs to be reform that allows all the views in this place to be heard. That will be the way that the PJCIS can hear and understand the views of the Australian people.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a brief contribution on the National Security Legislation Amendment (Comprehensive Review and Other Measures No. 2) Bill 2023. It is a result of the Richardson review, a review that was commissioned by the former government into our intelligence framework and that, indeed, sets out a raft of sensible recommendations that, unfortunately, the coalition will now not be supporting.

I had the great privilege to sit on the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security many years ago and found it the one committee in this place where there was a bipartisan determination to put the needs of our country, the safety of our citizens and the positioning of our nation in the geostrategic space globally at the forefront. Labor, Liberal and National Party members of parliament, as the MPs of government, worked very hard to find consensus positions when I had the privilege to sit on that committee. But it would seem with the hasty addition of the amendment to change the composition of this very important committee to our national security from 11 to13—growing it isn't so much the problem. Putting people who are not parties of government on this incredibly important committee risks the bipartisan nature of the committee, risks the great tradition of the committee of keeping its deliberations to itself and risks, I would argue, the openness with which inquiries will be able to be held by this committee. Therefore, the work of the committee will be compromised. It seems patriots are very hard to find in the Labor government at the moment, whether it is overseeing the Office of National Intelligence, the AFP, our geospatial organisations, the Australian Signals Directorate, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation or the Australian Secret Intelligence Service.

When we last debated this bill, I looked up at the gallery, where young students, young Australians, were coming and seeing how their parliament works. Rather than trade political barbs across the chamber, as has occurred throughout this debate, I was dying to get up to actually explain to those young students—I think they would have been in about grade 5—what this committee does. They wouldn't even know that ASIO exists. They wouldn't know that ASIS exists. They wouldn't know what the Australian Signals Directorate does or why it is necessary. And that's how it should be. These are organisations that keep our country safe, now and in the future, and the men and women who serve in them take incredible risks on our behalf.

To ensure that those agencies—they can't run off willy-nilly and be laws unto themselves—do have a level of parliamentary oversight that isn't just the government, we set up this very important committee, because of the level of secrecy required. But to expand it beyond the parties of government just shows how reckless the Labor government is with national security, with conventions that have stood the test of time, and shows that the Labor left is on the ascendancy within the Labour Party cabinet. On these two things the Labor left and the Greens political party fundamentally agree. It is the Labor right, I believe, would argue that this committee should be kept as a committee of government MPs and not be expanded, but they've lost that war. The great privilege of being in government means setting the budget and making sure these agencies are resourced effectively to protect our people and our servicemen and servicewomen from terrorism and other challenges, but it is also a grave responsibility. It is a great privilege to be in government, but it is also a grave responsibility. And I think Attorney-General Dreyfus has completely neglected his responsibility of accountability and transparency that this committee provides the parliament and the Australian people on their behalf.

These aren't things that should be out in the public sphere. This committee hears things that shouldn't be on the front pages of newspapers for very good reasons. But you don't care. You actually want that to happen and to put at risk the servicemen and women not in the ADF alone but in intelligence organisations that are on the ground in places far, far away doing things on our behalf that we can't speak of in this place. I want to know what the deal was because it wasn't consulted on and it wasn't a recommendation out of the review. What was the deal that Dreyfus got to expand the committee to MPs who aren't charged with the responsibility of, and held accountable for, being in government? It must have been significant.

As a former member of this committee, I'm appalled by this amendment. I ask the government to reconsider putting it to the chamber because it is an absolute aberration of the function of this committee. Those members of the now government who have worked collaboratively in a bipartisan way on this committee know that. You've got to come clean with what the deal was, because it's absolutely abrogating your responsibility as a party of government. I will not be supporting the bill; and I commend Senator Paterson, as the shadow minister for the opposition, on his staunch rejection of this amendment—in particular—which means we will not be supporting the other sensible review amendments put forward by the Richardson review.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

LSON () (): In July this year, my colleague Senator Shoebridge wrote to the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Government in the Senate, raising the legal obligations regarding the composition of this committee, as provided in the Intelligence Services Act. He did this following initial advice from the Albanese government that it intended then to nominate a committee which didn't involve the Greens or the crossbench or, indeed, a member of the National Party.

Following this, the Greens received correspondence from Senator Wong, seeking to appoint two Liberal members and three ALP members to the committee. That followed the House appointing three ALP, one Liberal and one Liberal National Party of Queensland members. An 11-member committee that doesn't include a member of the Greens, a teal or, indeed, a member of the Nationals is extraordinary in how it fails to represent this parliament, which was democratically elected by the Australian people and, therefore, the population of Australia. Over a million people voted for the Greens, and they're not represented on this committee.

The requirements for establishing the membership of this committee are contained in schedule 1 of the Intelligence Services Act 2001. It requires consultation with the leader of each recognised political party in the House and the Senate which 'does not form part of the government'. That's in the act. So much for Senator McKenzie coming in here and saying that this was somehow illegal. There might be some conventions in this place, but some conventions are meant to be broken. It then also says:

… the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Government in the Senate must have regard to the desirability of ensuring that the composition of the Committee reflects the representation of recognised political parties in this Parliament.

Senator Shoebridge, at the time, rightly put out a statement to the media saying:

Limiting the membership of this critical committee to the Labor and Liberal Parties is more of the same closed-shop politics as we saw under the Morrison government.

The public expects Parliament to deal with sensitive security and intelligence matters with integrity and rigour, not just have the two major parties play footsie on them.

  …   …   …

The Act clearly sets out that the membership is meant to be a result of consultation and reflect the Parliament, Labor's proposal completely fails to deliver on that and unnecessarily politicises this committee.

The proposed committee membership means 15% of the Parliament and a full 23% of the Senate are not represented at all on a committee providing important guidance relating to international security and defence, funding of intelligence agencies and international laws relating to terrorism.

Let me give you an example of something I think is completely relevant and the reason why you do need the Greens on a committee like this. On the weekend, the Acting Leader of the Greens, Senator Faruqi, put out a statement on the Office of National Intelligence. They have written a report called an 'urgent climate risk assessment'. A number of stakeholders, including ex-CDF Admiral Chris Barrie, are calling for the immediate release of this report. This is important. The US counterpart, their office of national intelligence and the Pentagon, have both released their intelligence agencies' assessment of the risk of climate change to their national security. You may remember President Obama saying that climate change is the biggest threat to US national security.

I initiated a Senate inquiry in this place in 2017-18 looking at exactly this. The report is available for senators to read. Intelligence agencies, the defence establishment and a number of think tanks—everybody—have agreed that climate change is a threat multiplier and a very serious threat to our national security. We're talking about massive movements of people in years to come if we don't get on top of the greatest challenge of our time. We're talking about conflict over scarce resources. We are talking about a whole range of various serious threats, not to mention the threats that extreme weather events pose to our national security.

Can anybody in this chamber think of a bigger threat to life, property, our economy and our communities right now than extreme weather events such as hurricanes and fires? Do I need to remind you of, just three years ago, the damage that fires did to the east coast of Australia? We had Navy boats evacuating Australians off our beaches. That's not to mention drought and a whole range of pests, diseases and biosecurity threats. There is no bigger threat to Australia's national security than climate change or, to put another way, there is no bigger threat to us than not acting on climate change, and yet this report hasn't been released.

Did this committee, the PJCIS, review this report? Did senators from the Labor and Liberal parties, who both seem hellbent on facilitating more fossil fuel developments when the International Energy Agency, the UN and a whole range of different institutions and the science tell us that is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing right now? This is not just a Greens thing or a thing for people who care about conservation or species extinction. This is a significant threat to our national security, and yet this report hasn't been released. Why not? We wouldn't know, would we? We don't have any Greens sitting on this intelligence committee. But I'm sure those analysts who wrote this report knew what they were doing. I think this report should be released. I know my colleague Senator Faruqi will be trying to work across the Senate to at least get disclosure.

I'm sure Senator Paterson knows about this report. He sits on that committee. And I'm sure other members of this Senate do as well. Why hasn't it been released? Has its release been politicised? Do the Labor and Liberal parties, who are in bed with fossil fuel cartels in this country, not want it to be released because it cuts across their policies to facilitate more coal, oil and gas development in this nation at a time when our intelligence agencies are warning us that we need to take action on climate change and, at a minimum, to take this very, very seriously? That is just one example.

There are some positive changes in this bill, which my colleague Senator Shoebridge has already gone through. As a result of the comprehensive review of the legal framework of the national intelligence committee undertaken by the Attorney-General's office, there are some changes to the composition of the PJCIS to extend the number of members from 11 to provide that the PJCIS consist of 13 members, comprised of at least two government senators, two government members of the House of Representatives, two non-government senators and two non-government members of the House of Representatives. A consequential amendment would also be made to clause 18 of schedule 1 to raise the number constituting a quorum from six to seven members. The bill would also amend the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act 1986 to require the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, IGIS, to report annually on public interest disclosures received by and complaints made to the IGIS. That is recommendation 145 of the compressive review.

There's something else I'd like to comment on while I remember it in relation to Senator McKenzie's extraordinary contribution in here, arguing for more secrecy. There has been a non-Labor member and non-Liberal Party member on the PJCIS already, and that was the member for Clark. Andrew Wilkie sat on this committee. Did the sky fall in? No, it didn't. Let's remind the chamber, Andrew Wilkie, a member in the other place, the member for Clark, was a whistleblower when he was in intelligence. Yes! You nod, Senator Paterson. He called out the liars and the spin of the Howard government, arguing that the existence of weapons of mass destruction was a good reason for Australia to be involved in the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq. Look how well that turned out! That was because of the closed shop on national security we have in this Australian parliament.

It didn't take long for everybody to work out that this weapons of mass destruction lie and deception was a crock of the proverbial. Andrew Wilkie was vindicated because it didn't take us long to work out that we went to that war on the basis of a lie, a shameless lie. That conflict triggered the civil war in Syria, the rise of ISIS, tens of millions of refugees fleeing across Europe in a wave of human misery, more than a million people, most of them innocent civilians, killed. What was achieved? I don't think there's anyone—including in the US, our ally, who egged us on in this coalition of the willing—who looks back on that period of history and thinks it was the right thing to do. It was a bloody disaster, not to mention the fact it cost trillions of dollars, which might have been great for the weapons companies, and it created a lot of work for our intelligence services. But, honestly? All that's because we have a closed shop on national security in this building. It's not just on matters relating to the intelligence services. It's the same thing when it comes to the billions of dollars—the tens of billions, the hundreds of billions of dollars—we're spending on procurements and on military hardware. It's gone on for too long. It's not representative of the Australian public, and it's not representative of this parliament. If you love democracy, you have nothing to fear from having the Greens or crossbenchers on this committee. It should be so.

The Greens support increasing the public reporting and accountability in this bill. The bill also removes the ability of the Attorney-General to delegate powers under the ASIO Act and TIA Act and prohibits conferral of the Attorney-General's powers under the ASIO Act and TIA Act upon another minister, except by legislative amendment or a substituted reference order made by the Governor-General in exceptional circumstances. Ensuring these powers are exercised by the Attorney-General is only appropriate. But there are things we are concerned about in this bill. I won't go into detail because my colleagues have already, but in particular we're concerned about the expansion of exclusions in the spent convictions scheme to enable ASIO to use, record or disclose spent convictions information. It was raised by the human rights committee inquiry into this bill, and it needs to be amended. The bill also reduces oversight by excluding ASIS, the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation, the Australian Signals Directorate, the Office of National Intelligence and the Defence Intelligence Organisation from the Commonwealth Ombudsman's jurisdiction. Why would we do that? Why would we remove the very, very limited oversight that this parallel universe already has? It has virtually none. It has virtually no oversight. So we don't support those changes and we will be working hard to amend them.

In the one minute I have left I want finish by saying that I haven't been deeply involved in this kind of legislation—I've had some fantastic colleagues who have been involved over many years—but what I have seen in relation to the persecution Witness K and Bernard Collaery over a significant matter of public interest, and I would say a public interest disclosure, in relation to what happened at Timor-Leste and the way they were persecuted through the courts for blowing the whistle, what we're seeing in relation to the Afghanistan war crimes committed and what we're seeing in relation to Julian Assange, I do have grave concerns over the lack of scrutiny of our intelligence services. This is a significant matter of public interest. The very least you can do is give democratic representation on this committee. If you're worried about leaks—Senator McKenzie said that you can't trust the Greens—that's very offensive—then I will highlight what Senator McKim said, 'We are not the party that leaks things to the media; the Labor and Liberal parties are.' The minimum we can do is get the Greens and crossbench on this committee.

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Security Legislation Amendment (Comprehensive Review and Other Measures No. 2) Bill 2023. I do so in order to call out the veil of secrecy that descends whenever the label of 'national security' is applied to anything. You just have to say that term 'national security' and you're not allowed to talk about it. You're certainly not allowed to disagree about fundamental issues. You're just expected to keep it quiet and tow the line.

National security laws and outcomes are far too important to be done as a gentlemen's agreement between the political duopoly. Yes, the public expects that we deal sensitively with security and intelligence matters, and they want us to deal with it with integrity and rigour, but they don't want the two big parties to play footsies over these crucial safety issues and these crucial spending issues. I highlight that we've got—is it $368 billion we're up to for nuclear submarines? What a waste of money. And yet you're not allowed to say that. It would be very unpatriotic to call out the obscene overspend in defence and national security matters when we have people starving and living in their cars and tents. For some reason we're all meant to be fine with wasting almost $370 billion on machines of war—and the machine of war is always hungry; it'll always have it's hand out for more money. Too much work in this space is done secretly and does not have the benefit of scrutiny from the media. It doesn't inform the community. It doesn't even get debated in parliament.

There are some good features of this bill, including adding crossbench members to the PJCIS and to make that membership slightly more representative, but there are some serious concerns in this bill that we will seek to amend, and my colleague Senator Shoebridge will do that shortly. It's pretty clear that the constitution of the PJCIS is not only unrepresentative, but it's potentially also unlawful according to the actual letter of the relevant intelligence act. So we're welcoming the expansion of the composition of the PJCIS to include a crossbencher on it, and I also note that another positive feature is to require an annual report on public interest disclosures received by and complaints made to the IGIS, as my colleague mentioned. That's a positive increase in public reporting and accountability. However, this bill also has a whole lot of very concerning provisions in it, including an expansion of the exclusions in the Spent Convictions Scheme, which, of course, enables ASIO to use, record and disclose spent convictions information. The inquiry of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security into this bill was right to be very concerned about those provisions. Yet, again, the bill is just meant to sail through without debate or consideration in this chamber, apparently.

The other extremely concerning facet of this bill is a further reduction in oversight and transparency of our national security agencies, who already are under a veil of secrecy, by ensuring that the Ombudsman no longer has jurisdiction over ASIS, the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation, the Australian Signals Directorate, the Office of National Intelligence and the Defence Intelligence Organisation. I don't know who thought that was a good idea. Perhaps it's because the Ombudsman has done really good work in revealing embarrassing government-of-the-day missteps in other areas. It is crucial that that oversight remain, and it is shameful that this bill proposes to remove the Ombudsman's jurisdiction over those agencies. We do not support those changes, and we'll be moving amendments to the bill to retain the Ombudsman's oversight and to remove what we believe is the inappropriate use of spent convictions.

It's pretty clear that there's no transparency in national security. There's currently no crossbencher on the PJCIS, and obviously this bill seeks to fix that small aspect. I might point out that, in the 17 years that the PJCIS have been colluding, they've only had one dissenting report—it's this little club of the two larger parties—and that report was about who gets to be in the club. It wasn't about any matters of substance or any genuine debate about national security or decent spend of public money and whether we're wasting that on weapons of war or whether we're feeding and housing people, as the Greens believe we should. There's no challenge to the military-industrial complex coming from either of the two large parties, and the community is horrified.

Speaking of the Department of Defence, perhaps they get to know. Given that they're in the club, maybe they get to know some of these things. I wonder if their consultants also get to know some of this information. We've just seen this morning, in the papers and in the press, that KPMG have been massively overcharging for their consultancy work. I had a quick look at the figures. KPMG have received about $1.8 billion in public money over the last 10 years in government contracts, mostly with Defence. I wonder how much their political donations have been in order to get that return. They've been about $1.9 million. That's $1.9 million in and $1.8 billion of public money out. That's a very good return on investment there. We've just had the KPMG whistleblowers say that, actually, they were overcharging. They were told to bill for internal work; they were billing Defence for it. What an absolute rort. This whole fiasco shows that we need more transparency in these areas, and we need a ban on people seeking government contracts from making political donations.

I've got a bill coming. If we had more funding for more drafters, then the crossbench and the Greens could have more bills sooner to fix up our flailing democracy. One of the bills that will be coming soon is a bill to say, 'If you're seeking government approval for a contract to perform either consultancy services or some other service, or if you're seeking approval for an environment proposal or some development that trashes the planet, you can't donate to political parties in the 12 months before or after you seek that approval or contract.' People out there think that it's legalised bribery. They think you can buy outcomes, and they think you can buy government contracts. They think that for a reason; look at the scoreboard. There were $1.9 million in KPMG political donations and $1.8 billion in contracts, including bloated overbilling, as has been revealed by some brave whistleblowers today.

We need more transparency in this space—not less. We need to clean up that slush fund of vested interests, contractors and people seeking government approval, stop them from being able to donate to whoever is in government or who might be after the next election and stop them buying outcomes. That's the kind of scrutiny and transparency that we should be debating. Instead, we're going to remove the ability of the Ombudsman to oversight some of these important national security agencies. Has the world gone mad? Anyway, here we are.

It seems like not a day goes by in this place where we don't see the big parties team up to avoid transparency. We got more Greens and crossbenchers elected because the public want to see decisions made in their interests—not in the interests of lobbyists or donors, or the vested interests of politicians, or of big donors. Trust in politicians and our democracy remains at an all-time low. We should be doing everything we can to make sure that parliament is more transparent. Part of that would be ending the exclusion of the crossbench from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, PJCIS, and that's one positive thing this bill does.

I might also add: as PwC is to many other government agencies, so is KPMG to Defence. The lack of security this bill is emblematic of is leading to and fuelling a very concerning culture of overcharging, duplication, contracts for mates and worse. Money should not be able to buy government contracts, development approvals, political access or political influence, yet it's clear what years of donations have been getting for organisations like PwC and the rest of the big four, and KPMG with their influence over Defence. Stopping donations effectively buying lucrative government contracts or approvals will encourage decisions to be made based on merit and will help restore that all-important trust in our political system. That trust is diminished and has been low for many years and is not improving, and part of the reason for that is the veil of secrecy and the lack of transparency around big spending measures particularly in the Defence portfolio. It is horrific that this bill is proposing to make that secrecy shroud even heavier, to remove the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman from these crucial and very powerful agencies.

I very much look forward to the committee stage, where we'll be moving some important amendments to try and fix this, to try and shed some light on the military industrial complex which is enabled by the duopoly on these matters and by the secrecy of this little club of who gets to know—and you definitely can't disagree in that club or you might get the boot. I very much look forward to the debate in the committee stage.

Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank my colleagues for their contributions to the debate on this bill, the National Security Legislation Amendment (Comprehensive Review and Other Measures No. 2) Bill 2023. The government is committed to ensuring that the legal framework governing the national intelligence community is fit for purpose. It's vital the responsibilities and powers of these agencies are underpinned by a rigorous legal framework and strong oversight mechanisms. The national intelligence community is essential in protecting Australia's sovereignty and security. The Australian community trusts our intelligence agencies are operating lawfully, with propriety and consistently with human rights. This great trust is built on an extensive and robust legal framework and reviews of this framework that underpins activities while also providing accountability and assurance.

This bill will continue to progress the important work of the Comprehensive review of the legal framework of the national intelligence community by implementing some of its recommendations, including those that will strengthen Australia's national security legislation. The measures in this bill support implementation and will provide increased assurance to the Australian community that intelligence agencies are operating in accordance with the law.

I thank the Senate, and I table an addendum to the explanatory memorandum relating to this bill. The addendum responds to matters raised by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and the Scrutiny of Bills Committee.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.