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

I move:

That the bill be now read a third time.

James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Cyber Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to make a brief contribution on the third reading, because we are about to find out whether or not a deal has been done between the government and the Greens on membership of the PJCIS. The Greens just moved two amendments to this bill, which they said were important, and they have failed. Whether or not the Greens now support this bill through the chamber is a test of whether or not they were serious about the amendments they just moved or whether the prize of possible membership of the PJCIS for the Greens outweighs their concerns about the bill which they've just outlined. We're about to find out whether the government is willing to do a deal with the Greens on a matter of national security, because they are unwilling to negotiate and discuss their unilateral changes to PJCIS membership with the opposition. If this bill passes with the support of the Greens and the government, it will be clear that they have done a deal behind the scenes, without any public transparency, about the membership of the PJCIS, the parliament's most functional and bipartisan committee.

Hon. Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Cyber Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We will now know if the government is getting into bed with the Greens on national security. I suspect, given the strength of the response from the Greens just then, that they have done a deal with the government in secret—something that they just spent several hours outlining their concerns about. They said that this wasn't to happen and shouldn't happen on national security. This will be a test for the government and their apparent coalition partners, the Greens, when it comes to national security. Let the record show that the coalition has offered the government many pathways to resolving this issue in a bipartisan way. That option was available to them. If they've instead chosen a pathway with the Greens, let them be judged for it.

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We've always said that this was a balancing exercise for us. There are positive and negative elements in the bill. I want to say to the fevered imagination of Senator Paterson: just calm down, relax. I have made it clear on behalf of the Greens we take a bit of a Groucho Marx approach to this committee and that hasn't changed.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question before the Senate is that the bill be now read a third time.