Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Defence Amendment (Safeguarding Australia's Military Secrets) Bill 2024 and the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill 2024 are important bills that are before the chamber. They are important in terms of what they individually stand for and also in terms of how they collectively form part of the way in which Australia addresses its responsibilities and commitments to our AUKUS partners.

I'm very proud to have been part of the government and to have played a role as finance minister when AUKUS was founded in 2021. It is an historical defence and security pact between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. This key partnership provided for Australia to take steps to acquire critical, word-leading defence capabilities—in particular, nuclear powered submarines as well as advanced defence and security technologies under the Pillar II stream of AUKUS. AUKUS is a multi-generational nation-building task. It is important to our national security; to ensuring that Australia's defence forces have the capabilities that equip them to operate with stealth and capacity across our region in defence of our nation and its interests; and to ensuring that, underpinning this, our defence industry, alongside our defence force, has the capability to supply and support our defence forces and our nation long into the future. Off of that, we can leverage the immense potential that can come from cooperation and the sharing of some of the world's most important and sensitive technologies, and Australian businesses can leverage other growth opportunities through that sharing of those technologies.

The coalition welcomes the fact that there has been bipartisan support for AUKUS and that, following the change of government in March of last year, the optimal pathway to acquiring nuclear powered submarines was announced, starting with the deployment of US and UK submarines to HMAS Stirling in 2027 as part of Submarine Rotational Force - West. We welcome the expectation of Australia acquiring its own Virginia class submarines from the US in the early 2030s and the important steps to build the new SSN AUKUS boats, which will be built in my home state of South Australia and come into operation during the 2040s. It is rare that we have the opportunity to talk about such long-term commitments in this place, and it's important that we recognise the continuity of commitment that will be necessary across governments to realise the full potential of AUKUS.

There has already been important legislation progressed to facilitate the implementation of AUKUS, including in naval nuclear energy regulation. These bills that the government seeks to have passage of—the Defence Amendment (Safeguarding Australia's Military Secrets) Bill 2024 and the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill 2024—enhance Australia's security and export framework to facilitate AUKUS and to demonstrate Australia's progress to both the United States and the United Kingdom and to show that we are acting in concert with them and that we are ensuring the regulatory frameworks for that sharing of the most sensitive of information and ensuring that that occurs in an environment of greater security and confidence.

To touch on the bills briefly themselves: firstly, the safeguarding Australia's military secrets bill amends the Defence Act 1903 to prevent former defence staff and Australian Defence Force members from working for and transferring sensitive information to foreign military, governments or government entities without authorisation from the Minister for Defence. It is safe to say that Australians were shocked when there were reports in the last couple of years that some former Defence Force members were providing training or potentially information to foreign governments and foreign militaries. We expect that those who have worn our uniform with pride and whose service we salute and rightly thank them for should equally carry with them the expectations of maintaining Australia's national interests and, in maintaining Australia's national interests, not sharing such knowledge or information with foreign governments—particularly not, of course, with any who could be potential adversaries in any way to Australia's national interest.

The SAMS bill ensures other Australian citizens or permanent residents would be prevented from providing training, techniques or procedures to foreign militaries, governments or government entities without authorisation. Where a person does undertake these activities without authorisation, the bill establishes significant penalties: a maximum penalty of up to 20 years of imprisonment, befitting the significance of potentially betraying your country and its security interests. We are committed to safeguarding our national military secrets and to working on a bipartisan basis with the government in terms of Australia's national security, and we support the passage of the SAMS bill to address these very rare but very serious instances or risks to our security and defence information acquired by individuals.

The second of these bills amends the Defence Trade Controls Act 2012. It seeks to strengthen Australia's defence exports framework and facilitate seamless transfer of technology as contemplated by the AUKUS agreement. Naturally, within this there are a couple of critical points. The first is that AUKUS requires that seamless transfer of technology and information. We are asking the United States to share its most sensitive defence technologies with Australia, only the second country with whom they ever will have shared technologies and information around their nuclear submarine capabilities. It is a big step, it is a big test of trust and it is important that we demonstrate the capacities to manage that information with great sensitivity.

Of course, we must also make sure that our defence industries who work with partners beyond the United States and the United Kingdom have confidence that they will be able to continue to do so wherever and whenever that is in the national interest for them to do so and where it can underpin their critical role in supporting a defence industrial capability in Australia that is essential for our future. This requires us to have not only a robust but also an administratively effective export-control regime to meet these different objectives. The United States and the United Kingdom have agreed to streamline the flow of defence trade and technology collaborations, including by establishing an export licence-free environment which will support industry, education and research sectors in all three nations. This is very significant. It's the huge potential upside of AUKUS and it goes beyond just the nuclear powered submarines and into the great realm of many pillar 2 opportunities that exist within AUKUS.

We welcome this, and it's critical that Australia fully embraces this potential to ensure that our industry sectors receive the best opportunities out of AUKUS, that they maximise those opportunities to feed into the supply chains of the US and the UK and seize opportunities way beyond those that would exist solely within Australia. To facilitate this, the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill will regulate the supply, through the Defence and Strategic Goods List, of military or dual-use technology to foreign persons within Australia. It will regulate the supply of certain Defence and Strategic Goods List military or dual-use goods and technology from a place outside of Australia to another place outside of Australia or to a foreign person. It will also regulate the provision of services in similar ways, and it will remove the requirement to obtain a permit for suppliers of certain goods and technology and the provision of certain services to those in the UK or the US.

The coalition wants to see swift passage of this bill and has always wanted to see swift passage of this bill to ensure that we can achieve the objectives under AUKUS. The government has indicated that, since the passing of the National Defence Authorisation Act in December of last year by the US Congress, the timetable for passing the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill needs to ensure that we meet a deadline by the end of this parliamentary sitting period. We have acknowledged that and the importance of Australia not falling behind in implementing AUKUS.

Legislation passed by the US Congress requires a certification from the US President to be satisfied of Australia's progress in implementing security and export frameworks as contemplated by these bills, and that should be done at 120-day intervals following the enactment of the legislation by the US Congress. The first certification date occurs between this week and the next sitting of our parliament, and 20 April 2024 is the first deadline, if you like, for that indication to be given by the US President. We don't wish to see any delay.

Importantly, though, this legislation establishes a regulatory framework through which each of the AUKUS partner jurisdictions then is contingent on ensuring their regulations are developed appropriately. We have, particularly through the work of the Senate Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee, ensured that there is strong engagement with industry and have been listening carefully to industry about the implications of this bill. It is critical to us that the way in which defence operates and develops the regulations envisaged under this bill is sensitive to the needs of industry.

We acknowledge that our support for the passage of these bills has been provided on the basis of the following step: enhancing the co-design of regulations for the defence export framework with recommended industry working group participants representing Australian sovereign, small and medium enterprises. This was an issue particularly championed by my colleague Senator David Fawcett, and I acknowledge his close working relationship with many of those SMEs in our defence industry sector and his right and correct insistence that those SMEs have a key role in the design of the regulations to ensure that they are workable and administratively manageable for those businesses.

We also welcome the agreement from the government to a statutory review time frame of three years from commencement to evaluate the function of the updated defence export legislation and its framework. We welcome the commitment from the Deputy Prime Minister to establish a new statutory parliamentary joint committee on defence as soon as possible. This will be a critical undertaking for AUKUS to ensure that, as a country, we have an appropriate oversight mechanism that can do the job that is necessary in a way that also maintains the confidence that is necessary in the AUKUS venture.

The coalition has indicated our expectation that this be completed by the winter break, and we welcome the acknowledgement from the DPM's office. He has stated on several occasions that that draft joint committee on defence legislation will be available within weeks, and we look forward to seeing that and to its swift progress. We have been calling for this since the change of government to ensure that there is appropriate oversight in an appropriately classified and protected space that can get transparency and accountability right while also ensuring that we can deliver confidence for this critical venture.

It's through this framework that we seek to be satisfied, and with the levels of consultation that Defence now undertakes around the regulation and with stakeholders on the bill, and with the government's commitments to regulatory co-design and consultation going forward. We're also informed that the government will propose a number of amendments to the bill to address academic and defence industry concerns raised during the Senate committee inquiry and otherwise during the course of consultation on these provisions. We, again, welcome that and acknowledge the bipartisan spirit with which the opposition and the government have been able to work through these important issues to ensure that concerns can be addressed in the legislation, as well as through the effective drafting of the regulations.

These are important mechanisms to ensure that a critical piece of our national security architecture progresses and is delivered upon. It requires the parties of government to act maturely and to work together, particularly in the face of the type of destructive and obstinate approach that we will no doubt hear from some on the crossbench shortly, who appear to be committed to a lengthy filibuster of these bills rather than to the prioritisation of our national defence and security interests, which is certainly what the opposition is doing through our constructive approach with the government.

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

It's unusual, but far from atypical, to see the coalition and Labor, the war parties, teaming up to cause self-harm to Australia. But, of course, that's what the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill 2024 actually will do. It's an act of collective destruction, particularly against Australia's scientific community, and it's designed to wall off the Australian scientific and research community from the great bulk of global science and research. To see it being proposed by the Labor Party and then aggressively supported by the coalition simply because it's got the word 'AUKUS' in it is quite an extraordinary prospect. This is part of a suite of AUKUS related legislation that the government says is designed to keep Australians safer, but this legislation, especially the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill, will actually make Australia less smart and, ultimately, less safe.

The purpose of the bill is to create a bubble between the US, the UK and Australia for the purposes of defence research and for the purposes, particularly, of weapons research. That's its purported purpose. It's meant to make it easier for us to receive US weapons and to exchange research on weapons and weapon systems, primarily with the US. The UK is in this as well, but most people would describe the UK as the sick man of Europe at the moment. The UK defence bubble is hardly a bubble you'd want to join, but the UK is in the bubble as well. Within that bubble, the idea is that there'll be an export licence-free exchange of military equipment, military related hardware and military related research. But that's a tiny bubble, and in a global world where the bulk of critical research on things like artificial intelligence, lasers and super conductors is not being done in the UK, the US or Australia, it's not happening in the bubble. What's happening outside of the bubble is vastly more important. And Australia's ability—Australian researchers, scientists and small and medium enterprises—to engage with economies and researchers outside of the bubble is what will keep us safe. The bulk of the global cutting-end research is going to occur outside of that bubble.

With this bill, if a researcher engages in AI research, maybe laser research, super conductor research or other research Defence thinks may cut across national security outside the bubble if they haven't got their pre-approved licence it's literally a 'go directly to jail, you have no defences' bill. The chill that that's already put through the research community, through the academies of sciences, through groups like Science and Technology Australia—if you follow the evidence we had in the Senate committee—and through pretty much every higher education institute in the country, the chill that it's already put across our economy and across our research sector, you would have thought would be a warning sign to Labor that maybe they've got this wrong. Maybe, actually, jumping in a little Anglosphere bubble and cutting the rest of the world off is not the way of making us safer.

You can understand why the coalition will always do whatever the US wants. That's what they reflexively do. And, of course, the US wants us to jump in a bubble with them and exclude the rest of the world. But why is Labor so keen to do that, to chop us off from the rest of the world simply to toady up to the US on AUKUS? It's probably because they've utterly sold out their principles over decades. It's probably why a bunch of former Labor prime ministers and senior ministers are appalled by the Albanese Labor government's supine surrender to AUKUS. But, in this case, it's industry and the higher education sector who have said, 'Don't do this. Don't rush into this. This is an act of collective self-harm against our research and technology industries. Just don't do it.'

What did we hear from the Senate inquiry into the Defence Trade Control Amendment Bill? We saw the government say, 'This is all about AUKUS. Please put all of your critical thinking in a box, seal it off and don't access that part of your brain, because it's about AUKUS.' That's the basic plan on AUKUS. 'Just carve all of your critical thinking out. Seal it in a zinc box. Put it to one side and get on and do what the US are asking us to do.' That's a neat summary of the Albanese government's plan on AUKUS.

The government will spend $370 billion on nuclear submarines, give $5 billion to the UK for Rolls-Royce. We're literally giving $5 billion of taxpayer money to Rolls-Royce, courtesy of the Albanese government, because everybody knows there's no chance at all of them developing AUKUS SSNs or doing the complex engineering for AUKUS SSNs in the current state of the UK industry. So the Albanese government was thinking, 'What will we do with $5 billion?' They decided to give it to Rolls-Royce—during a housing crisis and a climate crisis. That was Friday's great announcement from the Albanese government, and that's on top of $4.7 billion they're giving to US shipbuilding and US jobs.

In fact, if you just line up the $5 billion payments that Australia have made to overseas economies from which we have not obtained submarines, it's pretty extraordinary. We gave $5 billion to France to not get submarines. Now we've given $5 billion as a downpayment to the US almost certainly not to get submarines, and we just dropped $5 billion on Friday to the UK. How many submarines do we have from that $15 billion spend? The last time I checked, it was nought. For this decade, how many submarines are we going to have for that $15 billion spend to date? Nought. In the early 2030s how many are we going to have for that $15 billion spend? Let me think; I'm going through the optimal pathway—nought. And then we only might get some if Donald Trump says it's a good idea. That's the overall architecture which this bill lies under. That's the AUKUS 'please cease critical thinking' framework that Labor has. This is another part of that AUKUS bill.

The House of Commons research library when looking at this part of the AUKUS agreement, the bubble bit, said:

A key part of the AUKUS agreement is the pledge contained in the initial leaders' statement to deepen defence ties and enhance joint capabilities and interoperability between all three countries. This includes developing a range of advanced military capabilities that are collectively known as AUKUS pillar 2 activities …

I don't think anyone much outside their defence establishment understands that there are two pillars of AUKUS—both dodgy. The first pillar is the almost $400 billion for nuclear submarines we're not going to get. But this is second-pillar stuff. This is the cooperation on a range of advanced defence military capabilities. Late last year the US Congress passed legislation that exempts Australia and Britain from some of the US's stringent export control requirements under their International Traffic in Arms Regulations, ITAR, scheme but only on the condition that both the UK and Australia pass similarly stringent export control laws. That's what this bill is meant to be. But, of course, this bill should be rejected in full. It has been rushed through, despite significant concerns from business and academia. It fails to address the very real issues that exist already within the Australian defence export regime, and it will have devastating impacts on the research and technology sector if it's passed without radical changes.

To be clear, the Australian Greens here are joining with thousands of academics and the great bulk of people in the nation's advanced manufacturing and research sector who do not want this to go through. In a moment of genuine political irony, this bill, which is being touted as making Australia safer as a national security response to a less certain world, will, in fact, make Australia much less safe. It will stunt academic and economic growth. As Dr John Byron, the Principal Policy Adviser of QUT, said of the bill:

… this whole bill is Boolean: there's ones and zeros; there's nothing in between; it's 'who's in, who's out'. Okay, there's an attempt to create some special conditions with other countries: the Foreign Country List; the use of Five Eyes classification clearances—that kind of thing. But it's still basically about: 'Are you in the tent or outside the tent?'

That description, I think, highlights the issues with the bill. Australia needs to have strong relationships with the vast majority of the research and scientific world that sit outside that Anglosphere tent—that 19th- or 20th-century Anglosphere tent—that Labor and the coalition seem so keen to keep us in.

As Anna-Maria Arabia, the Chief Executive of the Australian Academy of Science, highlighted during the Senate hearing, this law will actually harm leading Australian researchers. The example of the President of the Australian Academy of Science, Professor Jagadish, was provided as follows:

He works in the area of nanotechnology and semiconductor research. He can place 20 lasers in one strand of your hair—and why would he want to do that? Working at that scale means that he can create technology to better diagnose treatment for Alzheimer's disease, which is terrific.

It goes on:

His fundamental research is almost always published, as far as I'm aware. That's what he intends to do all of the time. But before it's published he speaks to his colleagues, he goes to many conferences and he collaborates with 30 countries. He's a fellow of 14 academies across the world. His research group is made up entirely of international students.

…   …   …

The implications of this bill, unamended, are that his research would cease or he would need to set up a closed area of his research laboratory where such research could be undertaken. There would be a question mark as to whether he could maintain his current students and collaborators. He would certainly not be able to access the research workforce that he's able to access today.

That's what this bill will do—shut down that critical research. That concern was shared by Dr Nadia Court, the director of Semiconductor Sector Service Bureau, who said at the hearing:

We know that there are a large pool of workforces coming from places like India and South Korea, which are not on the foreign countries list, and other areas in south Asia. That's concerning. We have companies we've spoken to where 75 per cent of their workforce come from countries not on that foreign … list.

As Dr John Byron said:

People move very easily. We will lose people. We will not get people that we want. And some of that will be research that is directly applicable to national security.

The evidence we heard in the Senate inquiry paints a disturbing picture of a national research brain drain that would weaken Australia's national security if this bill proceeds. That's been swept aside by Labor and the coalition in some incredibly hurried amendments, which sat warm on the photocopier when they were rushed through the lower house, and this uncritical cheer leading for AUKUS. Bizarrely, the Department of Defence responded to all of that with some of the most unhinged evidence you could imagine.

While the university and research sectors are saying that, if this bill passes, there'll be tens of thousands of permits required, Defence, when I asked them, refused to provide to the committee their modelling or any details of their modelling on what the regulatory burden will be. We had the bizarre evidence from Defence that they thought that under this new regime there would only be dozens of additional permits required per year. When we tested them on that and asked them to give us details in questions on notice, we got a refusal to respond citing national security reasons. Let's be clear: if Defence is right, and this only produces dozens of permits a year, there is no way that it would satisfy the US's requirements under AUKUS—no way at all—and it could not possibly be approved by the US administration as being compliant with our pillar 2 capabilities.

So either Defence have no idea about the impact or they were misleading the committee or it's a mixture of the two. Of course we should not pass this bill. Of course we should not pass its little friend which is again just designed to beat up national security hysteria, the Defence Amendment (Safeguarding Australia's Military Secrets) Bill 2024 either. I look forward to further discussion in committee.

Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wanted to rise this morning to add my contribution to the Senate's consideration of the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill 2024. The overriding purpose of this bill is, as the bill states, to strengthen Australia's national security and protect sensitive defence goods and technology by enhancing Australia's defence export control system amid unprecedented global challenges. At the same time, the bill facilitates international trade and research collaboration as part of the AUKUS agreement.

On 30 November last year, the Senate referred the bill to the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee for inquiry. As part of that inquiry, which I chaired, the committee received 24 submissions and heard from witnesses in a public hearing on 1 March this year. I want to thank everyone who appeared before the inquiry.

It is very important that this bill be passed in a timely way. That is why, as a committee, we endeavoured to complete our work ahead of the scheduled reporting date of 30 April 2024 to allow this Senate ample time to consider the recommendations in the report before it would come to the floor today. So, I am very grateful that the government has also provided its response to the recommendations that were made in the committee's final report in a manner that is equally as timely.

While the purpose of the proposed legislation is to boost Australia's defence export control framework and align it with that of the United States, Australia's defence export regime should also be tailored to our nation's own unique circumstances. That is sometimes overlooked in the debate. This is a very important balance that must be found. Doing so is not an easy task, as the inquiry well demonstrated. Despite some concerns that were raised by sections of business and academia on the possible effects that the bill might have, the committee found that there was in-principle support for the proposed forms and the new layer of security that it presents.

My view and that of the committee is that the bill will support and strengthen the objectives of the AUKUS partnership with the United States and the United Kingdom, allowing for greater opportunities for both industry and individuals engaging in regulated defence articles and services, as well as building a much more robust industrial base. Despite the benefits, the committee accepted the degree of concern and confusion that exists—and I was pleased to read in the government's response an acknowledgement of this need for clarity—and welcomed Defence's proposal to create some more information that will be available on its website and distributed to the various stakeholders that were impacted, providing necessary information on the legislative changes.

I was also pleased by the government's willingness to continue further consultation with sectors of the industry, particularly those in the higher education research sectors. One of the particular aspects of concern that the committee heard from several inquiry participants was the need for a much more comprehensive definition of the term 'fundamental research', as well as the view that this definition should be included in the bill itself to provide legislative certainty. This was a view shared by the committee, so it became a recommendation of the report that the bill be amended in such terms. I am pleased also to see that the government has agreed with this recommendation and is moving such amendments.

The committee agreed with the need for additional support for small and medium-sized enterprises and recommended that additional representation include relevant Australian defence industry SMEs. That Defence has been instructed by the minister to increase the membership of the working groups to support this expansion shows that there is a genuine willingness on behalf of government to work with our industry partners to ensure that these changes are as manageable as they can be. Indeed, I think it's fair to say that the committee is encouraged by Defence's willingness to address the issues identified in the inquiry and remains confident of the collaborative processes by which the stakeholders in business and academia will resolve the outstanding issues or confusion.

I am pleased that the government has agreed with the recommendations that we as a committee made. It shows how the Senate committee system should be: a considered inquiry, a considered response and better legislation. Taking into consideration the recommendations listed in the report, the committee supports the passage of this bill without delay, and I thank the government for its meaningful response to the recommendations made in the final report. I'd like to thank those who participated in the inquiry. The committee was very grateful for the valuable contributions it received and is satisfied that the proposed legislation has the in-principle support required to back its passage through this place. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

These bills seek to tighten Australian security in the context of the AUKUS defence partnership and increasing foreign intelligence threats. The Defence Amendment (Safeguarding Australia's Military Secrets) Bill 2024 amends the Defence Act 1903 to regulate work that former Australian Defence Force personnel and former defence department staff may perform for or with foreign militaries and governments. The Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill 2024 amends the Defence Trade Control Act 2012 to give effect to possible technology sharing between the AUKUS partners with appropriate levels of security.

My remarks today focus on the first bill, which deals with military secrets. The bill creates new offences for foreign work restricted individuals—former ADF personnel and defence department staff who work for, or train, foreign militaries, government bodies or other entities—unless they have ministerial authorisation. There are exemptions for humanitarian work or for the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross. The penalties for an offence are severe: a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment. I support the purpose of this bill. It's surprising that such a measure wasn't put on the books years ago. But, as usual in here, better late than never.

This legislation was initiated following reports in October 2022 that the Chinese government had approached former ADF pilots to train or advise Chinese military pilots. This is a regulatory change, not prohibition. The bill creates a framework through which work with foreign militaries can be approved. You would expect that work with Australia's allies will be readily approved; however, a foreign work authorisation may be refused if the minister reasonably believes that the work or training would prejudice the security, defence or international relations of Australia.

The legislation is quite random in its scope. It's focus on former ADF and defence department personnel is too narrow and the product of a piecemeal approach to national security. For example, a former officer of the Australian Government Security Vetting Agency, part of the defence department, would need ministerial authorisation to provide training to South Korea's National Police Agency but a former Australian Federal Police officer or a former Australian Security Intelligence Organisation employee would not need ministerial authorisation to provide training to China's Ministry of Public Security. Just for once, it would be nice to get a bill in here that's done properly; something that is consistent for our national security.

This weakness was also recognised by ASIO, which, in its submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, emphasised:

… the employees of a much wider range of government agencies and departments have access to secrets and expertise that are of great interest to our adversaries.

ASIO had recommended the new regulatory regime cover all of our national intelligence agencies, not just the Defence portfolio. Why do we bother doing these committees? We obviously do not listen to them—still!

The PJCIS recognised this concern but failed to press the issue, so the scope of the bill remains unchanged. The PJCIS failed to get the job done. Imagine that! You guys talk big on national security in here. You've got to be kidding me! I have to be honest with you: if it's not dealt with now, it probably won't be dealt with in this parliament because you lack the courage to deal with it.

There's another group that needs to be brought into the picture. Last month, the ASIO Director-General threw a cat among the pigeons when he revealed that a former MP or senator had been recruited by a foreign intelligence service and they had worked for those spies while they were a member of this parliament. We had a traitor amongst us—a traitor in this house—but they won't tell us who. Senators should be asking themselves whether we should be exempt from laws and rules that apply to others in the interests of national security. Apparently, it's only a national security interest when it's on other people, but never on the integrity of this parliament. Never! And, of course, both the major parties would agree with this, wouldn't they? 'Oh, nothing to see here. We don't want to talk about that.'

If we're going to impose an additional regulatory burden on men and women who have served in our Australian Defence Force, which is exactly what you're doing, who have sworn to defend our country, and many have put their lives on the line, then members of this parliament should at least be prepared to impose the same obligations on those of us who have been given access to our nation's highest secrets. You forgot a whole group of people over here, and you want us to take you seriously when it comes to national security? You are kidding me, right? You must be kidding us all!

At the very least the definition of 'foreign work restricted individuals' should be extended to include all former members of the National Security Committee of cabinet and all MPs and senators who have served on the PJCIS—and that should be the minimum. It's worth noting that not one of those former or current ministers, MPs and senators got a security check. That's right, Australians; no security checks done up here because you're supposed to trust us! Yes, I'll bet you're laughing. So am I. And it's only Monday!

Former senator Rex Patrick proposed to remedy that security gap with his Ministers of State (Checks for Security Purposes) Bill 2019, but—guess what—both of the major parties weren't keen on their own people getting security passes up here. Geez! I think, given ASIO's recent revelations, we should revisit Rex Patrick's bill. That's what you should do. If you had the courage, that's exactly what you'd be doing. You would be putting these constraints on yourselves because you would be leading by example. This is why you're losing elections. You're still not listening to the Australian people. You just keep going because we've got 15 or 16 months until the next election. You just keep going down the path you are on—not putting these obligations on yourselves in both these chambers. This is what people have had enough of.

No former National Security Committee minister should be allowed to work for a foreign government without authorisation from the current prime minister. We should be setting the highest security standards at the very top of government, not leaving doors open on the basis of trust. I don't know how you trust each other in here, because Australians don't trust us. If that doesn't give you an indication, I don't know what will. We're making an absolute mockery of all the measures we impose further down, whether in relation to security vetting, restrictions on overseas training or implementation of defence trade controls.

This legislation will impose new restrictions on former ADF and defence department personnel. This may well be necessary, and I do not argue with that in principle, but the bill also reflects a piecemeal, hypocritical and deficient approach to national security. The government needs to do much better than they're doing right now. I tell you: when it comes to national security, once again, you're as weak as water. If you want people to be involved, put yourselves under the same restrictions. Lead by example in here. You've got people up this end of the chamber trying to get Australians to trust us, and you guys are knocking us all down. That's what the major parties are doing to us in this country, and it's so unfair. Start leading in here!

Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Defence Amendment (Safeguarding Australia's Military Secrets) Bill 2024 and the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill 2024. These bills are a significant and important step in ensuring that Australia and the ADF are ready for the next step of the AUKUS security partnership between Australia, the US and the UK.

AUKUS is arguably the most significant step taken in the defence of Australia in the postwar era. It was the coalition government that founded AUKUS in 2021 with our two most important security partners. AUKUS will provide the foundation for Australia's underwater military capability well into the 21st century as well as support a multitude of other facets of our military capability.

As announced last year, AUKUS will see the deployment of US Navy and Royal Navy nuclear powered attack submarines to HMAS Stirling in Western Australia. Early next decade, the Royal Australian Navy will acquire Virginia class attack submarines from the US, representing, as noted, the most significant advancement in Australia's military capability in the postwar era. In the 2040s, Australia will build and acquire AUKUS SSN in conjunction with the UK. Built in Adelaide, these will be the first Australian-built nuclear powered submarines in history.

Developed under a coalition government and continuing today under a Labor government, AUKUS represents the work of this chamber, and the other place, at its very best: bipartisan governance in Australia's best interests. This monumental leap in our defence capability has its detractors, but it is essential that this capability is achieved, not only for the defence of our country but also for the defence of the liberal democratic free world and the rules based international order. There are those who take a different approach: that Australia should throw away its principles in favour of serving authoritarian regimes. I do not subscribe to that philosophy. Australia must stand and continue to stand with our liberal democratic friends around the world, especially those under occupation or threat of occupation. Australia, alongside other liberal democracies, has a responsibility to protect those who cannot protect themselves. The rules based international order has delivered remarkable levels of relative peace throughout the world, particularly in states that share its ideals.

In October of last year, I had the opportunity and the privilege to spend a few days at RAAF Base Amberley in Queensland. Two things became very clear to me very quickly. The first was the extraordinary commitment, service and sacrifices of our defence personnel in keeping us safe. What they do to keep us safe puts them at risk, and we must never forget that. The second was that we need greater investment in our defence personnel and in our defence systems. We cannot protect our nations and our freedoms without that investment. The situations playing out globally, including in Ukraine, are a clear signal of the risks that we could face here in the Indo-Pacific. We face legitimate and serious geopolitical risks, and we must be prepared for the fact that the peace we have enjoyed for decades has only been the product of a strong liberal democratic order and that it cannot be taken for granted. AUKUS will only enhance our position in this respect. AUKUS will enable us to have one of the most credible defences available to conventional forces.

As the founders of AUKUS, the coalition will support the implementation of AUKUS by supporting the bills on a bipartisan basis. The SAMS bill has been considered and is supported by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, and an advisory report has been produced, including recommendations. The DTCA Bill has been considered, albeit on an expedited basis, by the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee. On the basis of key concessions and additional recommendations secured by the coalition, the coalition is supportive of the final report and recommendations, which were tabled last week. Support for expedited passage of DTCA and SAMS has also been provided based on a statutory review time frame of three years from commencement to evaluate the functioning of the updated defence export legislation framework and a commitment from the Deputy Prime Minister to establish a new statutory parliamentary joint committee on defence, JCD, as soon as possible. The coalition has indicated its expectation that this be completed by the winter break, and the DPM's office has, on several occasions, stated that the draft JCD legislation will be available within weeks.

The opposition can be satisfied both with the level of consultation with the defence industry and other stakeholders on the bills to date and with government commitments to regulatory co-design and consultation going forward, including through the establishment of the new JCD and the legislative review period. The opposition is informed that the government will propose a range of amendments to the DTCA Bill to address academic and defence industry concerns raised during the Senate committee inquiry and otherwise in the course of the consultation on the provisions. Representatives from academic and defence industry working groups are aware of the expedited time frames for passing the bills and recognise the importance of the parliament not letting Australia fall behind in implementing AUKUS.

Importantly, the government's commitment to establishing the new JCD provides industry and academic stakeholders with confidence that there will be a new specialised forum for consulting with parliament, government and Defence. JCD will be governed like the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, composed of the two major parties of government and bound by the secrecy and other provisions that facilitate improved scrutiny and oversight of Defence and the government, including over implementation of the bills going forward. The new joint statutory committee on defence will bring rigorous parliamentary oversight to Australia's defence agencies and the Australian Defence Force and facilitate confidential discussions and briefings. The government's commitment to granting the opposition's conditions of establishing the JCD and accommodating the opposition's recommendations for DTCA regulatory co-design and consultation should mitigate any concerns amongst stakeholders about the expedited passage of the bills.

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

The Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill 2024, as part of a suite of AUKUS related legislation by the Albanese government, is intended to align Australia's scientific community, national security controls and military with the United States of America. This is a precondition for Australia to receive nuclear submarines under AUKUS Pillar I and to have greater access to US military technology under AUKUS Pillar II. In short, the bill is intended to make it easier to exchange scientific ideas and technology with the US and the United Kingdom while putting in place fresh barriers for these exchanges with everyone else on this planet. As the House of Commons research library says and is quoted in Senator Shoebridge's dissenting report to this legislation:

A key part of the AUKUS agreement is the pledge contained in the initial leaders' statement to deepen defence ties and enhance joint capabilities and interoperability between all three countries. This includes developing a range of advanced military capabilities that are collectively known as AUKUS pillar 2 activities …

Now, late last year, US Congress passed legislation that exempts Australia and Britain from some of the stringent export control requirements under the US International Traffic in Arms Regulations—what's known as ITAR—scheme but only on the condition that both countries implement similarly stringent export control laws domestically. This bill is intended as Australia's response to this demand from Washington. The bill should be rejected in full. It's been rushed through despite significant concerns from businesses and academia. Senator Shoebridge earlier showed me the nine pages of substantive amendments—not second readers—for the committee stage just from the government. I'm not sure I've seen nine pages of amendments for a piece of a government's own legislation before. It certainly suggests that this has been rushed. It fails to address the existing very real issues with the Australian defence export regime and will have devastating impacts on the Australian research and technology sector if passed without radical changes.

To be clear, the Australian Greens join with thousands of academics and many in the nation's advanced manufacturing and research sector not to support the recommendation in the interim report that the Defence Capability Assurance and Oversight Bill 2024 be passed. In a moment of general political irony, this bill, which is touted as part of Australia's national security response to a less certain world, will, in fact, make Australia less safe and will stunt academic and economic growth.

Here are a couple of additional key points. Very simply, this is part of AUKUS related legislation to ensure Australia's military export system is aligned with the United States. It will cut Australia off from the rest of the world and tie us to the United States of America. I want to come back to that point shortly given some of the storm clouds brewing in the United States at the moment. This is a precondition for Australia to receive nuclear submarines—in itself a very controversial issue here in Australia. This bill will effectively create an export-free licence bubble between the US and the UK. However, it also means Australia will be effectively cut off from the rest of the world, with harsher and expanded restrictions on working with people outside what we call the Anglo bubble. If this bill passes in its current state, researchers and businesses working with people from countries like South Korea or India on technology or research that is dual use would have to stop, get approval from the minister or risk 10 years imprisonment. Industry and the higher education sector have raised real concerns, as I mentioned, and this bill will lead them to apply for thousands new permits to do basic new research and product development. This bill has drawn widespread criticism, as the bill risks creating a significant disincentive for most of the world to work with Australian researchers and trade critical technology.

The Defence Amendment (Safeguarding Australia's Military Secrets) Bill 2024, specifically, seeks to introduce harsher punishments and more ministerial powers to punish ADF personnel who train or work with certain foreign militaries and government entities. It is already illegal for defence personnel to disclose military secrets; however, this will require defence personnel and public servants to obtain authorisation before working for another government entity. I note that Five Eyes nations are not included in that.

It's all part of a push to integrate regulation with the United States as part of the AUKUS and concerns over Australia not being able to keep its nuclear secrets. So we are getting told what legislation to pass and when from Washington. Both bills are needed for the US to allow AUKUS to proceed, and they are designed to integrate Australian regulation with US regulation. That is plain and simple to see. But AUKUS is sinking, and, if the ALP and coalition continue down this path, we're all going to sink with it. The Albanese government is making Australia the US's 51st state, turning the country into an arm of the US military.

We will likely not even get Australian owned nuclear submarines, but Australia will spend $365 billion, destabilise the region, become a parking lot and dumping ground for US and UK nuclear submarines, and paint a big target on ourselves. I note I bumped into the ex-member for Fremantle this morning in the coffee shop, Melissa Parke, who's here in parliament today and has an event on tonight to talk about antinuclear prohibition. I know there are a lot of people in this building that are still very concerned that we're not doing enough to phase out the nuclear weapons, and here we are buying nuclear submarines.

The Albanese Labor government has already promised to give nearly $10 billion to the US and UK militaries as part of AUKUS. We are literally funnelling Australian public funds into foreign military industries. The $4.7 billion going to US submarine manufacturing is not just for conventionally armed submarines but also to train and equip the workforce to make nuclear armed submarines. Eighty per cent of Australians don't want our primary ally to be the United States of America; AUKUS ensures this will happen. It locks us into this. AUKUS stops us from engaging with the world independently. The US and UK see Australia as a sucker who will give their militaries money and allow them to keep their nuclear submarines here—half parking lot, half nuclear dump—under the guise of AUKUS.

I'm sure I'm not the only member of parliament who woke up on 7 January a few years ago to see people being shot inside a senate chamber in the United States with a full-scale insurrection following the democratic result that elected President Joe Biden to the presidency. We've seen a growing storm cloud over US politics as Donald Trump is running again for the presidency. We've seen comments in recent weeks that he's made about throwing out the Australian Ambassador to the United States—

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

As if it were his choice.

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

as if it were his choice. Are we really hitching our wagon to this country? We need to have this honest discussion. We can talk about strategic issues in our region, and we can talk about threats to Australia's sovereignty and to our nation, but why aren't we being more independent of the United States? I do not think this is a good time for us to be going further down this rabbit hole of selling out our independence to the US at a time when I have grave concerns over the state of their democracy and their institutions in the years to come.

There are a lot of good people in the US Senate and the US Congress, and he gave me a lot of hope, to go over there last year and meet with some of these people and see the progressive caucus. I'm exasperated as to why we don't see more of them in our media—why we see these two old white men in US politics all the time—when there are so many good people coming through the US system. So I did want to say I do have some hope for the democracy in the United States. There are a lot of good people there.

But I'm particularly concerned—I wanted to finish on this note today—and I know my colleagues are also particularly concerned, as are many people in this Senate chamber and in the other place, about the treatment of Walkley Award winning journalist Julian Assange by the US Department of Justice, an extraterritorial overreach that I believe is one of the biggest abuses of power of our time. This is our friend and ally, trying to extradite for the first time ever on espionage charges, political charges, an Australian journalist for doing their job in a foreign jurisdiction. This has never happened before—never. They couldn't do it to a US journalist, because it would be a breach of the first amendment, but they are going to try and extradite an Australian journalist to spend 175 years in jail for disclosing their secrets, their war crimes, their corruption, for WikiLeaks.

While our delegation—and Senator Shoebridge was with me in that delegation—had very constructive meetings with the Department of Justice and others, what kind of friend would do that to an Australian citizen, especially an Australian that is a hero to many people in this country, probably the only person who exposed what happened in the Iraq War? No-one else has been brought to justice for that illegal and immoral war and that conflict that dragged our country and other nations into the so-called 'coalition of the willing'. We saw instability across the region for decades and, based on different estimates, millions of civilian casualties. We see horrific images coming out of Gaza now, but we didn't see many images out of the Iraq War around these hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of innocent civilian casualties. WikiLeaks and Julian Assange were the truth-tellers of that war, thanks to whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning and others who blew the whistle and provided those documents, which were published by WikiLeaks and, may I say, by all the major media institutions around the world. Some of them are also winning awards for their coverage of some of these key leaks, like the rules of engagement leaks and others.

Julian Assange is in a maximum-security prison in the UK waiting to be extradited. He still hasn't been charged with anything by the UK, and the US is seeking to extradite him as a political prisoner. We know surveys in Australia show that more than 80 per cent of Australians find that completely unacceptable. Our House passed a motion just two weeks ago, which the Prime Minister spoke on, calling for his extradition to end. I know our ambassador over there, Kevin Rudd, is working to see his extradition come to an end, as are Julian's family, his legal team and many, many good people. Yet the US continues to push ahead with this. I'd recommend to all Australians who want to know more about this issue to go and see the movie The Trust Fall, which is showing at Village Cinemas around the country. I guarantee you that you will not walk out of that cinema unchanged and not feel this injustice and this anger towards our key ally, the United States.

So, while we're hitching our wagon to AUKUS and spending hundreds of billions of dollars that we could be spending on so much more in this country where it's needed, just remember what they're doing to Julian Assange. Are they the kind of friend and ally we want to be tying 100 per cent of our defence future to? I know I'm not the only one who has grave concerns about this. I thank Senator Shoebridge for the work that he has done on this bill.

Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill 2024 and the Defence Amendment (Safeguarding Australia's Military Secrets) Bill 2024. The Greens oppose these bills in their entirety and for good reason: these bills are part of a suite of AUKUS related bills. In pursuing AUKUS, the government has ended even the pretence of an independent foreign policy. The AUKUS agreement is driven by imperialism and represents the racist and colonial ideas of the Anglosphere, different from the rest of the world. Military expansionism and warmongering should not be our future when the world desperately needs peace, yet AUKUS locks us into ugly partnerships with the war-hungry United States and the UK. Australia should not be supporting the United States to make and trade even more killing machines, nor to escalate a global arms race. Australia should be pursuing an independent foreign policy and fulfilling our responsibility to promote disarmament, justice and decolonisation around the world.

AUKUS is anything but good for Australia. Not only is our foreign policy totally beholden to a warmongering United States, the resources that we are pouring into AUKUS could be used so much better right here. We are in a cost-of-living crisis and, instead of funding critical public services and ensuring people can afford the very basics, the Labor government is spending $368 billion to build dirty nuclear submarines. Just imagine all the things that we could do with $368 billion. We could wipe student debt and make TAFE and uni free. We could put dental into Medicare and provide free universal child care for all. We could cap rents, build hundreds of thousands of public homes and end the wait list for social housing. We could make public transport free and build the clean energy systems our planet needs. The Labor government needs to get its priorities right and, instead of pouring more than half a trillion dollars into building into dirty war machines and stage 3 tax cuts for the rich, put people first, not profits and war, and ensure a socially, economically and environmentally just society for everyone.

In their single-minded pursuit of the AUKUS agreement, governments of both stripes have shown their myopic vision, one that is dominated by aggression and further militarisation of our already hawkish foreign policy. The Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill is just the latest example of the government willing to do the United States' bidding and, in doing that, is putting Australia's research sector at risk.

As Greens spokesperson for higher education, my contribution today will focus on the damaging effects of the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill on Australia's university and research sector. The Greens proudly support an independent, fully-funded research sector where researchers have the freedom to collaborate with international research partners and feel valued and respected for their excellent contributions to the public good yet, alarmingly, this bill risks freezing a wide range of international research collaboration outside of the AUKUS bubble, cutting Australian research off from the rest of the world and exposing researchers to penalties of up to 10 years in prison.

Australia's excellent research sector does have an outsized impact. We have 0.3 per cent of the world's population yet we produce four per cent of global science. Across disciplines, it's clear that our research success depends on international collaboration. Indeed, international research collaboration is an explicit object of the Australian Research Council, the major funder of research in this country, and is supported by a range of bilateral agreements such as with the European Union.

The Academy of Science, during the inquiry on this bill, said:

We need to collaborate to get access to knowledge that we need to solve unique Australian problems. Most of the knowledge is generated elsewhere. The only way we get to use it, to see it and to do it is to participate in it and to help make the decisions that take us in the direction we want to go.

Yet this bill threatens to restrict this international collaboration and undermine our research sector.

The bill makes it an offence, unless a permit is obtained, for researchers to collaborate with non-AUKUS researchers, even those in their own institutions in Australia, on the development of dual-use technology. The list of dual-use technologies is extensive, including materials and infrastructure that almost all scientific and engineering researchers use, such as supercomputers, semiconductors and sonar scanners. Harsh penalties of up to 10 years imprisonment apply for failure to obtain or comply with a permit. Researchers have rightly raised serious concerns that the bill will have a chilling effect on international research collaboration and the employment of visiting researchers. A large proportion of Australia's research workforce is from overseas, and some research teams would need permits to carry on the entirety of their research, without which their continued collaboration could see them jailed. This really does ring alarm bells and has, rightly, drawn widespread criticism.

The chilling effect on Australian research of this bill is a very real likelihood. The Australian Academy of Technology Sciences and Engineering has warned that, where researchers and institutions are concerned about criminal sanctions, they are likely to stay clear of a research project rather than take the risk, which could leave Australia out of crucial international research efforts. And, as stated by the University of Melbourne in the inquiry into this bill, the bill would, perversely, make it harder for any individual to collaborate with an Australian research organisation if the individual is in Australia than if they are in the US or UK. In the research sector, where global mobility is essential, such a disadvantage could discourage global talent from working in Australia and create a push factor for them to leave. So the bill risks Australia losing many skilled researchers, which will undermine Australia's research capability across a large range of areas, including in national security, as some observed in the inquiry into the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill. In a disturbing irony, despite this bill purporting to improve our national interest, instead it risks a brain drain on our diverse and international academic sector and an undermining of research capability.

The bill makes an exemption to the permit system for research collaboration on dual-use technology with the United States and the United Kingdom. While this may make collaboration with these Western countries easier, the bill risks cutting off many of the critical research connections that Australia shares with other parts of the world. Universities and researchers have called for an expansion of the countries for which Australian researchers don't require permits to include many of our current and long-term research collaborators across Europe, South-East Asia, Oceania and the Americas. In the area of semiconductor development, for example, evidence was given in the inquiry into this bill that some Australian teams have 75 per cent of their workforce coming from non-AUKUS countries, including India and South Korea, where research would be disrupted. The National Tertiary Education Union has raised concerns that the AUKUS exception to research permits could lead to preferential treatment of UK and US researchers and increase discrimination against researchers from other parts of the world. So it is concerning that this bill imposes additional burdens on researchers and research students from other countries. Most will be people of colour who will be subject to greater scrutiny, suspicion and the burden of another onerous application process—as if they don't have enough to deal with already.

Researchers, universities and industry bodies have raised concerns about the significant regulatory burdens imposed by the bill. They have raised concerns about the lack of clarity around the permit application process, including how long it will take for a permit to be issued. As reported in the leading science journal Nature, there have already been delays under the current permit system. Vanessa Teague, a cryptographer at ANU, said:

On multiple occasions, although we had applied for permit renewal well in advance, the reissue was delayed so long as to leave a few weeks' gap, during which we were not permitted to continue normal research communication with overseas colleagues.

The article also states that on another occasion, a permit was granted but restricted her to communicating with only some of her colleagues in certain countries. Despite these significant risks, the sheer lack of consultation on this bill is deeply concerning and alarming but, I have to say, not surprising given the government's insistence on pushing ahead with AUKUS. An exposure draft of the bill had written consultation open for effectively only five working days back in November 2023. As was revealed in my estimates questioning last month, key research stakeholders such as the Australian Research Council, a major funder of research, did not make detailed submissions on the bill.

Meanwhile, there has been a separate independent review of the Defence Trade Controls Act announced in August 2023, with submissions closing in October 2023. But the progress and outcome of that review is unknown, and the bill's explanatory memorandum makes no mention of the review's findings being incorporated into this bill. This lack of transparency is completely and utterly unacceptable, and it smacks of lip service to consultation. While the committee said they were reassured by the department's evidence in the inquiry that peak bodies and companies were engaged with prior to the legislation being introduced into parliament, it is very concerning that researchers and universities were not mentioned and consulted more deeply.

The major parties have nevertheless teamed up to rush through this flawed legislation. At the very least the bill needs clear transitional arrangements for researchers and research students whose work could be affected. Those whose livelihoods and careers are already built around research on technologies that may now require permits under this bill ought to be considered and supported. As my colleagues in this chamber know, the Greens proudly support a university sector that acts for the public good, not for warmongering and not for political interests. I've been saying this for years, and, as a former academic, an independent research sector acting in the public interest is a deeply important and personal issue for me.

Last year the Labor government funded 4,000 Commonwealth supported places to enable skill-building for nuclear powered submarines under the AUKUS agreement. The National Union of Students at that time saw the folly of this AUKUS submarines program and called on the tertiary education sector to boycott the provision of training and technology for AUKUS submarines. We all understand that extra uni places for STEM disciplines are necessary, but creating these places to support AUKUS and warmongering is just gross. Unis should be contributing to peace, not war, and should play no part in weapons manufacturing. Just last week Labor finally agreed to pass legislation that substantially gave effect to my bill from five years ago to remove the ministerial veto power on Australian Research Council funding. Yet, worryingly, unlike my bill, the legislation retains a ministerial veto for reasons of security, defence and international relations. While Labor has ignored concerns from researchers and Australia's leading academies, and rejected my amendment to narrow this power, I did at least secure an independent review of the ARC board. This will hopefully provide some oversight to ensure ministerial powers are not exploited under the guise of security, defence and international relations. We need an independent research sector striving to act in the public good, not one that is helping to build dirty war machines at the whim of political interests.

The Greens will keep fighting for this. The Greens oppose this bill, which undermines international collaboration that is so essential for our research sector. This bill is just the latest example in a long list of both the Labor and Liberal parties blindly doing the bidding of the United States. Australia should be pursuing an independent foreign policy and fulfilling its role to create a world of disarmament, decolonisation and justice.

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

I rise, along with my colleagues, to contribute to the debate on these two bills: the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill 2024 and the Defence Amendment (Safeguarding Australia's Military Secrets) Bill 2024. I'd like to commend my colleagues for the excellent contributions that they've made so far, including Senator Faruqi, who just detailed the truly scary impacts on our research sector that this bill might have, this bill from a Labor government who is meant to be championing the interests of researchers and who is meant to be on the side of our tertiary sector. I'm going to go into more detail later, but I echo and endorse the remarks that Senator Faruqi made about the shivers that this should be sending down the spine of our research sector.

It's not just an attack on our research sector; it's an attack on any semblance or chance of this nation having an independent foreign policy, one that shamelessly puts Australia's interests first. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that we see this absolute capitulation by this Labor government to the demands of Washington, but I remain incredibly disappointed that that is the case.

These two bills are a part of a suite of AUKUS related legislation, and the object of those bills is to align very closely Australia's military export system with the US. The effect of that would be to restrict Australia and cut us off from the rest of the world, which my colleagues have also gone through, and to tie us to the US. This is on the eve of Trump becoming president again. Really? You want to pick this time in history to more closely align us with the US? Honestly, any ordinary person would have their jaw on the floor that this is a proposition from our current government. The reason for these two bills is that they're a precondition for Australia to receive nuclear submarines, another questionable decision, which, frankly, I don't think the vast majority of community members are on board with either.

These two bills would effectively create an export licence-free bubble between the US and the UK pertaining to military and dual-use goods. But the effect of that is that Australia will be effectively cut off from the rest of the world with harsher and expanded restrictions on working with people outside that US and UK Anglo bubble. We talk a lot about structural racism—I might clarify; the Greens talk a lot about structural racism—and here we go again, aligning ourselves with these Anglo-bubble countries with the effect that we will seriously disbenefit research work being conducted in other non-Anglo nations. If this bill were to pass in its current state, researchers and businesses working with folk in countries like South Korea or India on the technology of research that is dual-use would have to stop. They'd have to get approval from the minister or risk ten years imprisonment. Seriously, the proportionality of this is just outlandish.

The industry and higher ed sector have rightly raised some serious concerns that this new bill would need them to apply for thousands of new permits to do basic research and product development. This has, of course, drawn widespread criticism because the bill risks creating a significant disincentive for most of the world to work with Australian researchers and to trade critical technology. We have been, at times in our history, on the forefront of cutting-edge research. We then had a period of Liberal government where funding for research was slashed and only industry driven research was considered permissible or legitimate. But we risk, with this bill, further isolating ourselves from that pool of knowledge. I think that's a very disappointing, very sad and, frankly, really dangerous course of action, in particular given the state of global politics at the very minute.

The second bill that we're debating, in a conjoined fashion today, the safeguarding Australia's military secrets bill, seeks to introduce harsher punishments and more ministerial powers to punish ADF personnel who train or work with certain foreign militaries and government entities. It's already illegal for defence personnel to disclose military secrets. But this bill would require defence personnel and public servants to obtain authorisation before they work with another government entity, not including Five Eyes nations. This is all part of a push to integrate Australian regulation with that of the US as part of AUKUS because there are concerns about Australia not being able to keep nuclear secrets. Well, how very ironic that we're currently in a faux debate where the opposition is once again trying to champion nuclear as some alleged energy security proposition when we are at quite an imperilled status of global relations.

I think my main objection to these bills is that we keep getting told what to do by the US, by Washington, we keep getting our instructions, and this government says: 'Oh, you want us to jump? Well, how high would you like us to Trump—to jump?' No pun intended there. I just misspoke and said, 'How high would you like us to Trump?' That's quite apposite really, considering what we're staring down the barrel of.

Both of these bills will be needed for AUKUS to proceed, and they are designed to more closely align us with the US. But AUKUS is sinking, and if the Labor government and the coalition continue down this path, we're all going to sink with it. The Albanese government is effectively turning Australia into a US state, and it's turning us into an arm of the US military.

Now, my colleague, Senator Whish-Wilson, spoke about the litany of ills that the US military has perpetrated on whistleblowers, in particular on Julian Assange, and I'd like to associate myself with his remarks. This is a very dangerous course of action that this government is proposing to take our country down the path of. And it's kind of ironic because we're likely not even going to get Australian owned nuclear submarines, but we're going to be spending $365 billion of public money to destabilise our region, to become at once a parking lot and a dumping ground for US and UK nuclear subs. This will make us less safe in the process; it will paint an even bigger target on us.

The Albanese Labor government has already promised to give nearly $10 billion to the US and the UK militaries as part of AUKUS. We are literally funnelling Australian public money, taxpayer dollars, into a foreign military industry. And the $4.7 billion that's going to the US submarine manufacturing industry is not just for conventionally armed submarines, it's also to train and equip the workforce to make nuclear armed submarines. Is it any wonder that 80 per cent of Australians don't want our primary ally to be the US, and yet AUKUS ensures that that is what would happen. AUKUS stops us from engaging with the world independently.

The US and the UK see Australia as a sucker who will give their militaries money, and who will allow them to keep their nuclear submarines here under the guise of AUKUS. We could do so much better. The sheer volume of public money that's being spent on this just baffles me. The $3.68 billion on nuclear submarines will make us less safe, will stir tensions in our region and is not in our interests. Every time I hear the volume of this, I'm floored. We quibble about funding housing. We quibble about funding frontline domestic and family violence services. We're always urging the government to fund things that will actually help people, and we're often told that we're too broke to do that—'the country's too broke to do that'. Well, $368 billion—you don't bat an eyelid when it comes to giving away that amount of money, and it is absolutely shameful. It is effectively a raid, a $368 billion raid on money that could go on public education, on health, on housing, on climate action, on First Nations justice, on income support for ordinary Australians who are in a cost-of-living crisis. It is obscene that this government is dedicating $368 billion to nuclear submarines to hitch us closer to the US right on the eve of another Trump presidency, when Australians are genuinely struggling and deserve so much better from their government. They voted for a change and they're not getting the change, and so they're scratching their heads. Is it any wonder that the vote for smaller parties and Independents is on the rise, because they're sick of the Coles and Woolies of politics agreeing on everything. You just put the words 'national security' on it and the capitulation to each other is complete. You might as well just merge and be done with the pretence.

When people are living in tents and when rent rises and mortgage increases are pushing people closer and closer to homelessness, families closer and closer to homelessness, it is just obscene that you are giving $368 billion of money to nuclear powered submarines. People can't find a bulk-billing GP, and yet we're going to be spending money on nuclear submarines. They can't afford mental health or dental health care, and yet this government is choosing to spend $368 billion on submarines. Young people are deciding not to do further study and go to university because they can't afford to, and yet this government is spending $368 billion on nuclear submarines.

As a more recent example, just last week the government said, 'Yes, we're going to pay superannuation on paid parental leave,' which I take an interest in as the Greens spokesperson for women. 'Yes, okay, we'll give you superannuation on paid parental leave as the last remaining workplace entitlement that doesn't already have super paid on it, but you're going to have to wait because we can't find the measly few hundred million dollars to spend on mostly women—on new parents. We can't find that money to pay super on paid parental leave. You're going to have to wait until the year after because we're too poor to do the right thing.' Maybe it's because you're giving $368 billion of money to nuclear powered submarines and hitching our wagon even more closely to the US.

It is such an affront to decency, and it is an insult to anyone who voted for this government in the hope of change and in the hope of a different policy approach. Where is your courage? Where is your conviction? Where are you listening to the community's pleas and protestations that they're really in strife? We are in a genuine cost-of-living crisis, and they don't want these pitiful changes around the margins. They want some serious systemic reform that addresses the wealth inequality and the underfunding of universal services that have plagued us for decades now. Those are the issue that they want their government to be working on, not buddying up to a future Trump-led US and wasting $368 billion on nuclear submarines. It beggars belief that we are here having to point this out, and yet the bipartisan approach to anything that's just got the words 'national security' in it—you just wave a little sign over it that says 'national security', and then no-one is prepared to touch it. Well, we're calling it out, and we think that there are any number of better ways to spend $368 billion.

You could fully fund frontline family and domestic violence services. The women's safety sector have been begging for double the amount of funding that they have been receiving under this government to help everyone who seeks them. They're not-for-profit services; they're not pocketing that profit. They're simply wanting to help people who reach out for their help. There are not enough beds. There's not enough legal support. There's not enough crisis support. There's not enough counselling, because this government is underfunding women. It's underfunding frontline family and domestic violence services, and yet it can find all of this dough for nuclear submarines. Likewise, maternity and termination services—women are struggling to get basic health care, and yet this government is too broke to fix hospitals. It's too broke to fund women's health because it's wasting $368 billion on nuclear submarines.

This government is too broke to build a serious amount of public housing and to freeze rents in the way that it should to seriously address the housing crisis that is at stratospheric levels and is now touching all corners of the community. You're too broke to do that because you're wasting $368 billion on nuclear submarines. Abolishing student debt—a seriously important cost-of-living measure that would also have the benefit of encouraging more students to undertake tertiary study—no, we can't afford to do that. We're too poor. But we've got your $368 billion for nuclear submarines.

I see there's some talk about maybe making child care $10 a day. The Greens' proposal has been for early childhood education to be provided free, in a not-for-profit manner, subsidised by the government. It is a public good that both helps children and helps parents get back into the workforce. It is a good investment, and yet this government is too broke to do that. It doesn't want to do that, because it's spending $368 billion on nuclear submarines. University and TAFE could be free like they used to be. Some of the folk in this chamber got it for free, and now we are putting it as a hurdle in the way of students because this government says that it's too broke to make uni and TAFE free because it's wasting it on nuclear submarines. What a disappointment this government is turning out to be. For shame!

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Defence Amendment (Safeguarding Australia's Military Secrets) Bill 2024 and the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill 2024—another Greens senator standing up in this place, because this is an incredibly important bit of legislation. It is sending Australia in totally the wrong direction. It is hitching our wagon to an unstable US. It is consolidating that relationship with that unstable US—colonialist, imperialist US—and we are spending an absolute fortune on it. We are spending $368 billion, a mind-boggling amount of money, to head us in the wrong direction.

Trying to get your head around how much $368 billion is actually quite difficult. My colleague Senator Waters outlined some of the programs, projects and actions that we could be spending that money on that would actually improve the lives of all Australians, to give you some idea of the significance of $368 billion. Another way of looking at it is you could spend $368 billion by giving $1 million to every resident of Hobart, for example. You could have everybody in Hobart being a millionaire. I'm not saying that that would be a sensible way to spend $368 billion, but it gives you an indication of how much money is being spent on these AUKUS submarines.

The bills that we are debating today are part of a suite of AUKUS related legislation. We have the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill 2024, which is ensuring our military export system is aligned with the US—which rings alarm bells for me, to begin with. A precondition for Australia to receive nuclear submarines was that we have to make sure that we are totally aligned with the US. When you look at US and the potential of a Trump presidency, the idea of being totally aligned with US military absolutely send shivers down my spine. I thought we were an independent nation. I thought that we should have an independent foreign policy. If you look at the regional conflicts and the potential for global conflicts and the war at the moment, I think the way for Australia to be safest and the way for us to play our role in trying to support peace, to support nonviolent resolution of conflict, to support diplomacy and to work effectively and multilaterally with the 160 countries in the world would be to have an independent foreign policy, not to slavishly go even further with aligning our interests with US military interests.

This bill will effectively create an export licence free bubble between the US and the UK concerning military and dual-use goods. The dual-use goods are pretty interesting because they cover a vast array of different goods which potentially could be used for military purposes. So it's not just our defence industries; it's other industries that will have restrictions on where we can be procuring from and where we can be exporting goods to. It would mean that Australia is effectively cut off from the rest of the world, with harsher and expanded restrictions on working with people outside the Anglo bubble.

I've got a newsflash for people: this country of Australia in fact never was people just of Anglo descent. We're a First Nations country. The First Nations people of this land have been here for 60,000 years. In the last 200 years, migration from all corners of the world has meant that over a third of Australians now were born overseas, and I think two-thirds have a parent that was born overseas. We are a multiracial, multicultural country. We are not just all aligned with the US and the UK. Many Australians have strong connections with countries, institutions, universities and communities outside that Anglo bubble. To have those harsh restrictions on working with people outside the Anglo bubble imposed on us because of this legislation will have really profound consequences.

Industry and the higher education sector have raised real and pressing concerns that this bill will lead them to have to apply for thousands of new permits just to do basic research and product development. One of the refrains we hear in this place is that we need to be getting rid of red tape. We need to be streamlining the ability of organisations to do effective work. But adding an incredibly intense permit process into what should be straightforward research is just going to hamper and hamstring a lot of research. My colleague Senator Faruqi went through the implications for research, and I want to associate myself with her remarks. The bill has, therefore, drawn widespread criticism, as it risks creating a significant disincentive for most of the world to work with Australian researchers and trade critical technology.

Another news flash is that, in the globalised world that we're in at the moment, researchers and people move. They move from one country to another. This means that if Australia does not create a supportive environment for that research to occur in, they just won't come here. That will be to the detriment of Australian society. That will be to the detriment of our ability to be using the products of research to be at the forefront of scientific research, where we should be. We have got the skills, ability, resources and responsibility to be at the forefront of scientific research, but this bill means that some of the best researchers in the world will say, 'Why would I come to Australia?' Given the limitations on being able to do the research that they want to do, they'll decide that they want to go somewhere else.

We've got another bill that's being debated today: the Defence Amendment (Safeguarding Australia's Military Secrets) Bill 2024. That's another insidious piece of legislation, aligning us closer to the US. It seeks to introduce harsher punishments and more ministerial powers to punish ADF personnel who train or work with certain foreign militaries and government entities. It's already illegal for defence personnel to disclose military secrets. However, this will require defence personnel and public servants to obtain authorisation before working for another government entity. Again, this is all part of a push to integrate Australian regulation with that of the US as part of the AUKUS deal and concerns that Australia won't be able to keep the US's nuclear secrets. The chilling effect of this second bit of legislation is just as concerning and should be ringing alarm bells for every Australian. Again, if we are concerned about our standing as an independent nation, not just being a lackey of the US, then we need to be making these decisions for ourselves and not just do what the US is telling us to do.

This is all for AUKUS, particularly the $368 billion on submarines. What are the benefits? We've got all of these problems with it and all of these costs. Why are we doing it? If somebody were able to say: 'Well, you've got this incredibly beneficial reason for investing this amount of money. You've got these drawbacks, but AUKUS is going to really deliver the goods', then maybe we would sit down and listen. But from what you can see about AUKUS, it's actually not about defending Australia. It's about projecting force in the South China Sea and tying us to the war-making ambitions of the US and the UK. It's dangerous. AUKUS is a dangerous move that's going to make us less safe, and it compromises our sovereignty. Accessing these nuclear submarines comes at the price of having to unconditionally follow the US into its next war. The Albanese government's making Australia the US's 51st state effectively, turning the country into an arm of the US military. We're likely to not even get Australian owned nuclear submarines, but we're going to spend $368 billion destabilising the region and being a dumping ground for US and UK nuclear submarines. As part of doing that, we'll be painting a big target on ourselves.

The Albanese Labor government has already promised to give nearly $10 billion to the US and the UK military as part of AUKUS. We are literally funnelling Australian funds into foreign military industry. The $4.7 billion going to US submarine manufacturing is not just for conventionally armed submarines but to also train and equip the workforce to make nuclear armed submarines. That's what our money is going towards: nuclear armed submarines. So not only are we spending this money on the nuclear powered submarines, we are spending money to make nuclear war, nuclear proliferation, even more likely.

AUKUS only leaves Australians worse off. We are giving up our ability to exercise independent foreign policy, risking destabilising the region and losing an exorbitant amount of public money on unnecessary nuclear submarines. Is it because the Australian public want this? No. Eighty per cent of Australians don't want our primary ally to be the US, but AUKUS ensures that this will happen. AUKUS stops us from engaging with the world independently. Why is our government letting the US dictate our legislative agenda? Why is our government effectively making us, when it comes to our military and defence operations, the 51st state of the US?

And then you get to the $368 billion and think about the opportunity cost. Politics and government are about choices, and this government is choosing to spend $368 billion on AUKUS rather than on so many other things that would actually make Australia better off. I want to focus on income support because, when it comes to income support and raising the rate of income support to above the poverty line, we've been told by this government over and over again: 'Look, we'd like to be able to do that but we just can't afford it. We look at the budget. We've got to cut our cloth to suit the circumstances. Sorry.' And so we got a measly $4 a day in the last budget, which doesn't come anywhere near lifting people out of poverty. It leaves people living in tents, living in cars with their kids. It leads them unable to afford more than a meal a day. It leaves them unable to afford their medications. It leaves them homeless. It leaves their kids unable to go on school excursions, unable to afford equipment. This is what the reality of living in poverty means, and yet this government is making a choice. We are choosing to spend an obscene amount of money on useless military equipment, on useless nuclear submarines, and we are choosing to leave people in poverty.

I want to share a story that I received late last year. Aeryn, who is a JobSeeker recipient, shared with me their devastating story about struggling to survive on JobSeeker. I'm sharing this because, as I said, this debate is about choices. This is about a choice that this government is making to spend $368 billion on submarines rather than to raise the rate of income support above the poverty line. If we weren't spending this money, we'd be able to help people like Aeryn. Aeryn told me:

I have been reliant on income support for nearly sixteen years. Currently I receive Jobseeker Allowance, as I have done since I finished university in October 2016. … Groceries take up half my net payment, and bills take up the rest.

I am also disabled—one of the more than 40% of people on Jobseeker with a disability. I'm autistic, I have depression and social anxiety disorder, and I experience migraines. I also use either a cane or crutches for mobility. But because specialist appointments are expensive, I've been locked out of the Disability Support Pension simply because I can't afford to pay or save for them. I need to see a psychiatrist or a clinical psychologist as part of applying for the DSP, but I don't have the money for it. I've been asked if I would consider crowdfunding, but I'm uncomfortable with the idea and see it as a last resort.

For whatever reason, whether my disabilities or my lack of work experience, I have found it impossible to find a permanent job. My only jobs have all been temporary. My Bachelor's degree is gathering dust because no employer will give me a chance. If any of the employers I've applied to work for wanted me as an employee, they would have hired me seven years ago. I can only assume, therefore, that I'm unemployable.

Because I'm a Jobseeker recipient, I'm required to engage with an employment service provider. Every single provider I've been a client of, all six of them, has been utterly awful to deal with. I've been abused, I've been "parked" and not given the help I need to find suitable work, and most recently I've been forced into "resilience training" that caused me to become suicidal.

…   …   …

Prime Minister Albanese promised when he was elected that nobody would be left behind. People on income support are clearly nobody, because guess what? You are leaving us behind.

And Aeryn's story is not unique, very sadly. There are millions of Australians who are suffering, yet this government is choosing to spend $368 billion on nuclear submarines.

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Defence Amendment (Safeguarding Australia's Military Secrets) Bill 2024 and the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill 2024. I wish to echo and associate myself with comments of senators in my team, particularly Senator Shoebridge but also Senators Rice, Waters and Faruqi, and others who also have been on their feet talking about these bills today. These bills are in fact definitely part of the AUKUS deal. They are the legislative changes that are needed to ensure Australia's military systems are aligned with the US.

I want to preface this by reiterating what Senator Rice just talked about: 80 per cent of Australians do not want our primary ally to be the US, but this agreement ensures that that will be the case. We are being cemented into that place. AUKUS stops us as Australians from making decisions about who we engage with and, in fact, on what terms we engage with them. It's exactly as Senator Rice talked about. No longer an Anglo nation in the Asia-Pacific, our region, we're a multiracial, multicultural and multinational country. We're a country that should be proud of our links across our region, and not be looking to a primary ally to make all the decisions for us. We lose complete control of that through this deal, which prevents us from operating independently. This is just some of the legislation that we are seeing that is at the request of Washington. You might as well rub out the stamp on the top of the documentation, as it's coming direct out of Washington via the ambassador or whoever else their representative is over there. In this deal we are being told what to do by the US and the UK in tandem. When the UK says things to us like, 'Give $5 billion over to Rolls-Royce,' the Australian government roll over and get their bellies scratched. We roll over and hand over $5 billion, at the request of the UK government, to Rolls-Royce. That's a disgrace. The magic number here for this deal is $368 billion. Don't forget that number: $368 billion. In the middle of the housing crisis and a cost-of-living crisis—which the opposition will ask questions about during question time and the government will stand and do their dixers about the cost of living and what they're doing for every Australian—the government have $368 billion to give away for submarines. It's like kids with Tonka trucks in a sandpit. This government's priority is giving money away in sham deals like AUKUS. It's absolutely shameful.

AUKUS, in fact, is a shambles. We've spent billions of dollars ending deals, changing governments and entering into new deals. We've done this over and over again. It's actually the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome—but there is not. We see this same old thing being rolled out by the two major parties in this place. We are making legislative changes in this place to align our regulation with the US, effectively, as has already been said, making Australia the 51st state of the US.

How many submarines have we received so far? Can anyone count them? Zero. We have got none. There's even serious doubt—and I've heard this repeated constantly in all the news coverage that I've heard about this deal—that we'll ever receive any. The cold, hard facts about this is that the technology will be so old by the time they're delivered that they'll be useless. We've parted with $368 billion for old technology that you are signing us up to. You are signing the cheque to make sure that we get old stuff that's been passed along—dumped, in fact. We're like a vacant car lot down here.

People in my home state of Western Australia have been promised jobs. Every minister, including the defence minister and the Minister for Resources, who's the local member there—they all come out and want to cut a ribbon and talk about jobs and how great it is. 'We're going to build stuff.' It's all part of this deal, whether you're in South Australia, Western Australia or in Senator Shoebridge's home state of New South Wales. These are all the wonderful promises that this is what's going to happen, and, ultimately, it will be the taxpayers and the workers who will end up getting the raw deal out of this. They will get the absolute end of it, and they have just lost out on $368 billion if we continue down this path.

The Greens knew this was a bad deal from the start, and we're on record continuing to say that AUKUS is not the right move. The deal is sinking. The major parties continue this little banter between them and are so stubborn to continue this support. There's hardly sunlight between them right now. This deal will actually sink alongside all of us, because they're continuing down this pathway. It's absolutely ridiculous. In real time, we will see the destabilising of our region—the dumping ground and parking lot for UK and US nuclear submarines. We'll be painting a massive target on our backs. There's already been reports about the west coast of Australia, my home state of Western Australia, not having enough coverage. We are already a target—hello!—in the region. You go from Exmouth down to Garden Island, and there's nothing in between helping us to have any protection from what the government and the opposition are sitting together holding hands about.

We've already agreed—it's nothing new—to give $10 billion to the US and UK militaries as part of AUKUS. We've already seen that fly out the door. This is literally funnelling our taxpayer dollars to the UK and the US military. We're already doing that in real time. You will watch Senator Shoebridge do an amazing job during Defence estimates, trying to get the answers. Unfortunately, it is like question time minus the answers, Senator Shoebridge, but we continue to ask these questions.

Just last week, the US Congress passed an $825 billion defence budget. This wasn't a budget just for a singular approach. This is more than the budget of 10 countries combined, not just one. So I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that the US don't need any more money at all, and they certainly don't need our money for their defence budget. They don't need to be bankrolled by the Australian taxpayer, okay?

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

Those poor US defence contractors! The poor people at Rolls-Royce!

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Absolutely. It's ridiculous that we are to see the sending of billions of our dollars overseas to the US and to the UK when we've got people in this country sleeping in cars, who can't afford medications, who have to choose between paying their bills or eating. That's in a developed nation like Australia, and we go, 'Hey, let's just palm off a whole lot of billions of dollars to other militaries in the US and the UK.' It's ridiculous.

The Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill 2024 is also a precondition for Australia to receive nuclear submarines. In effect, it creates a bubble, allowing licence free exports for military and dual-use goods. Isn't that amazing? Fundamentally, this will cut us off. It will cut us off from the rest of the world, as there will be harsher restrictions on working with people outside of that bubble. If you create a bubble, you've got to stay in it. You can't just step outside of it when you feel like it and you will have harsher restrictions. This will, in fact, align Australia's scientific community, national security controls and military with the US. It will do all of those things, and it will be the people again who will suffer because of the bad choices of this government.

This bill, in its current state, would absolutely force researchers and businesses from countries like South Korea and India who've been working on technology that's deemed 'dual use' to stop and get approval from the minister or risk being thrown into prison for 10 years. You're going to go to prison because of the restrictions that are going to be put into this bill. That's ridiculous. And it will certainly and absolutely see certain sectors have to obtain permits just to do basic research. It's putting an unworkable burden on the higher education sector—I know my colleague Senator Faruqi has already talked about that—and on industry. In some cases, they are already struggling to keep up with the need to constantly apply for grants to keep up funding for their research. As the previous portfolio holder for science, I heard this directly from researchers. They don't have time to keep up with the grants, but now we're putting an extra burden on them by asking them to apply for additional permits.

The Department of Defence is unable to provide any clarity on the impact of this bill, what it might actually do and what they're going to do to mitigate any of the impacts. It's the same old thing from the Department of Defence. Indeed, the Department of Defence has also made some contradictory statements about the number of permits that may be impacted, required or exempt under this new framework. So again they continue their wonderful pattern of behaviour of not answering any questions and just sidestepping. We just needed a figure. We simply don't know to what extent this bill will impact the sector but it will impact mostly on our research and higher education sectors, which are already under stress. We know that. We are already seeing the impacts of brain drain. We are already struggling to keep our talent here because of the state of those sectors. It is competitive, and they are going overseas because of it. Now this will act as one of the biggest disincentives for most of the world to work with our Australian researchers.

The military secrets bill seeks to create an offence which, in fact, already exists. This bill seeks to introduce harsher penalties and more ministerial power—like they need any more power; they're already power drunk—to punish members of the ADF who train or work with certain foreign militaries or government entities. It's already an offence to disclose military secrets, but we want to give more power to them. This change will require Defence personnel and public servants to obtain authorisation before working with any other government entity, with a handy exemption for the Five Eyes nations of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the US. This again ensures that Australia's regime is aligned with the US. God knows how many times I've been in this chamber and heard people talk about Australian sovereignty. Australia's sovereignty is under threat under this agreement. We will never be able to make decisions for ourselves if we continue down this path.

The Australian Greens absolutely don't support this bill. It's been rushed through despite all of the significant concerns, particularly from academia and from businesses. It fails to address the very real issues with our defence export regime. It will have the most devastating impacts on Australian research and technology sectors if it is rubberstamped and passed without any scrutiny and without any change. As a place of scrutiny of legislation, we should be doing at least that.

Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to associate myself with the comments made by the other members of the Greens Senate team, Senator Shoebridge, Senator Cox and others who have spoken today on this legislation, the Defence Amendment (Safeguarding Australia's Military Secrets) Bill 2024 and the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill 2024. I stand here proudly as a member of a party that is committed to peace and nuclear nonproliferation, unlike the Labor government and the coalition, who are standing together to increase our participation in the military industrial complex. I think I stand here on behalf of the majority of Australians, who do not want to see us go down the path of committing ourselves to war rather than working for peace.

It's a great shame that we're being told what legislation to pass and when by a foreign government. As my colleagues have said, this legislation will enmesh Australia further into the US regulatory system. Already the cost of AUKUS sits at an eye-watering $368 billion—a figure, I might note, that seems to increase every time we get an update. These are public funds that are being funnelled into foreign military industries. To date, the failure of AUKUS has been profound. We are giving billions of dollars to the US and the UK; we have abandoned an independent foreign policy; and, as Senator Cox has said, we are simply turning Australia into a parking lot for US weapons. For what? For nothing.

The United States has shown little interest in maintaining their end of the deal. The legislation that was passed by the US in Congress doesn't even guarantee Australia the sale of nuclear-powered submarines and, as Senator Cox has said, it's questionable whether we'll ever get them. Given the US currently can't build enough nuclear submarines to meet its own needs, let alone Australia's, this surely has to be a poison pill for the AUKUS deal. I think the United States is taking Australia for a ride, and I'm amazed that the coalition and the Labor government cannot see that.

In the same week that Labor are trying to ram through legislation written by the gas industry, they're also doing the bidding of the US military establishment. So much for governing for the people! These bills tie us to the United States for good. We hear a lot of talk in this chamber about how we have to make decisions for future generations. I question whether our future generations want to be tied to the United States. Think about what that means. Think about what that might mean being tied to. We can either have an independent foreign policy or nuclear submarines from the US but we are in the going to get both. The ALP's own backyard is crying out against AUKUS, with one Labor group calling for a freeze on AUKUS so as to stop 'underwriting the US Navy industrial shipyards'.

My colleagues have also talked about the fact that, in terms of research, as part of this AUKUS package, the bills that are before us today are going to cut Australia off from the rest of the world. This will make it easier to exchange scientific ideas and technology with the US and the UK, but it's going to put up barriers against us doing that with every other country. If this legislation is passed in its current state, researchers and businesses working with people from countries like South Korea or India on technology and research that does have a dual use, they'll have to stop and will have to get approval from the minister. Do we really want that to happen? Do we really think that that is going to improve the research output of this country?

We hear a lot of talk about how we want to revive manufacturing and we want to be the country that starts to really take control of the way we look at industry, and here we are signing ourselves up to a situation where, if it's not with the US and the UK, the minister gets to decide if it's going to be a problem. This has rightly drawn widespread criticism from industry and the higher education sector. They have raised real concerns that this bill will force them to apply for thousands of new permits to do basic research and product development. It hardly seems a way to improve our economy.

It's a moment of political irony that this bill is touted as part of Australia's national security response yet, in fact, will make Australians less safe while stunting both our academic and economic growth. In a time of global multifaceted problems facing society, locking down research works against our best interests. Australia should be doing everything in our power to seek out strong scientific and research relationships with the rest of the world, not cutting them off. The inquiry into this bill painted a disturbing picture of the national research brain drain that will follow if these bills proceed. All of these concerns are being swept aside by Labor and the coalition with their uncritical cheerleading for AUKUS.

AUKUS, all round, is a bad deal for Australia. We are giving billions of dollars to foreign militaries and the defence contractors and the lobbyists and the consultants that circle around them. We are ploughing ahead with a defence policy conceived in the boardrooms of the defence industry in Washington. We should ask ourselves why Labor and coalition politicians are queueing up to kiss the hands of foreign defence industries. Could it have something to do with the soft landing that many of them and their staff take with these firms when they leave politics?

Thank you, Senator Shoebridge. On the other side of the world, our future and our best interests barely register on the radar of US and UK defence establishments. We are kidding ourselves if we think that they are sitting over there worried about us. We are pursuing a jingoistic defence strategy without a clear-headed idea of where this ultimately leads. Again, I repeat, research shows us that the majority of Australians do not want our primary ally to be the United States. AUKUS carves our relationship with the US into stone. It locks us in permanently with a foreign power that will walk away from us the moment it is politically expedient to do so.

In the past few weeks we have discovered that not only are we on the hook for the $368 billion; we are now going to prop up the flailing British defence industry with a $5 billion subsidy. Let me say that again: $5 billion—dropped like we found it down the back of the couch. The United Kingdom barely had to flex their diplomatic muscles for our government to fall over itself to throw money at BAE. This is the same British defence company that has blown out the build of the Hunter class frigates by $20 billion. So let's not pretend that they are not going to come back with their hands out again in another six months.

AUKUS is a bad deal all round, and the Australian government is getting fleeced from both directions. It also goes beyond just being a bad deal. The pursuit of AUKUS is actively against our best interests as a nation. We are allowing ourselves to be treated as pawns in a geopolitical game. We have our own interests, our own beliefs and our own future. We have seen the United States uncritically backing Israel's war in Gaza, pouring billions into Israel while threatening to sanction the international bodies who govern our rules based system. It's an incredibly risky time to be tying ourselves forever to the United States. The US government has rejected and in some cases threatened the existence of the international institutions that are working towards peace. The actions of the United States in supporting the Israeli government in this time of escalating humanitarian catastrophe, while we see war crime after war crime after war crime broadcast from Gaza, risk destabilising Australia. It is well past due to examine what exactly our shared interests with the United States are in our defence strategy. We should be even more critical, as we head into a possible change of the US presidency, of who we are being tied to. We are at genuine risk of being stuck at the end of a bad deal with an unstable authoritarian US commander-in-chief pulling our strings.

We are escalating tensions in the Asia Pacific rather than diffusing them. The world is facing an unprecedented climate crisis and rapidly expanding wealth inequality, and the solutions to these rely on global cooperation. We should be focusing on the true existential threat to the future of this planet—global boiling. Rather than building up an industry for weapons, we should be fostering our renewables industry. And we should be going out to our neighbours and doing everything that we can to help bring down global emissions. That is our real moral obligation to the region and to our neighbours.

These bills lock Australia into the whims of foreign governments in the United States and the United Kingdom, and the Greens oppose them. It is disgraceful that this is what the Labor government has decided to prioritise. And, as Senator Rice said, this is about choices. We currently have a situation where nearly every single public school in this country remains underfunded. Kids cannot get the resources that they need to reach their potential. We also have people in our community who are being punished and kicked down by a punitive welfare system. We have people who can't afford to put food on the table, to pay their rent, to buy their kids the stuff they need for school. And we have renters facing exorbitant rent increases and people right across the country in housing stress.

My office is below the department of housing in Gladstone. Every day we have people coming into our office, who've been told there is nowhere for them, who are an incredible distress. These are the things this government is choosing not to spend money on, instead giving that money to the UK and the US for nuclear submarines—presuming we get some. Why is it that this is what the Labor government treats as an urgent priority, signing over our research, our regulatory systems and just more money to the US government.

At the end of this fruitless exercise is a wasteful AUKUS deal. AUKUS is a self-fulfilling prophecy of antagonism and conflict. It is not a recipe for cooperation and peace. It is throwing in the towel to build constructive relationships with our neighbours. We are seeing, increasingly, around the world people taking to the streets. They are speaking up against the war preparation economy, the military industrial complex. They are starting to question why governments continue to prioritise and funnel money into defence while people in the community need government help and support. The Greens are proud to stand with every single person who is against the AUKUS deal and who wants our government to work for peace. We reject the wasteful AUKUS plan and we reject these bills today.

Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Defence Amendment (Safeguarding Australia's Military Secrets) Bill and the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill, and I associate myself with the comments of my colleagues Senators Shoebridge, Cox, Rice, Whish-Wilson and Allman-Payne.

The safeguarding military secrets bill seeks to introduce harsher punishments and more ministerial powers to punish ADF personnel who train or work with certain foreign militaries and government entities. It is already illegal for defence personnel to disclose military secrets; however, this will require defence personnel and public servants to obtain authorisation before working for another government entity. Five Eyes nations are exempt.

The Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill 2024 is intended by the Albanese government as part of a suite of AUKUS related legislation to align Australia's scientific community, national security controls and military with the US. This is a precondition for Australia to receive nuclear submarines under AUKUS Pillar I and to have greater access to US military technology under AUKUS Pillar II. Both bills are needed for the US to allow AUKUS to proceed. They are designed to integrate Australian regulation with US regulation. They have very important implications for the conduct of research and the independent work of so many Australian scientists.

The bill does not deal at all with a critical safeguard issue—that is, the tracking or potential regulation punishment of ADF personnel who take ADF information as they move to big consulting firms. Nothing is said about this issue. A hundred ex-ADF personnel have done so in the last five years, moving to KPMG specifically—100 of them! There is no tracking of what material they take and what their activities are after they leave Defence, as we affirmed in the recent round of estimates. As Mr Yannopoulos said to me in response to questions about this issue, Defence do not track staff once they leave Defence. All staff who hold a security clearance remain subject to individual responsibility requirements associated with holding a security clearance, including the Defence Security Principles Framework. What we have here is the possibility of a really significant use of materials which is unknown, untracked and unregulated by the Department of Defence. So there's a lot that we should be doing that we're not doing.

This bill is to enable AUKUS. However, as we have heard, AUKUS is all wrong, and it is a long way from being an assured reality. AUKUS makes us less safe. It should be opposed. Citizens want us to pay attention and get our defence right, and we Greens have opposed this all the way. It is a deal which makes us less safe. It was rushed through by the then PM Morrison and signed up to overnight by Labor. When AUKUS was announced, we Greens recognised it for what it is—a $365 billion nuclear powered raid on public education, on health, on housing, on First Nations justice and on the response to the climate crisis that will starve those core services for decades to come. As other senators have commented on in this debate, $365 billion is enough funds to solve any of the major crises that we currently face—any one of them. It's an enormous amount of money. It won't solve everything but it would allow us to have a front-footed response to the climate crisis. It would allow us to do the things that we need to do in our education and health systems. Instead, we are putting it into nuclear powered submarines.

And, needless to say, the big consultant spruikers are at the table, monetising every opportunity—KPMG, EY, PwC and Deloitte. Former politicians Christopher Pyne, Downer and Morrison are all at this table as well—or, in the case of Morrison, have tried very hard to get to it.

The list of what is wrong with AUKUS is long. It includes at the beginning that very, very big spend—$365 billion. This will crowd out spending on the things we need for decades ahead. For 40 years ahead, it will mean we'll hear 'no' to the pressing issues of raising the level of income support, for example, to the millions of Australians who live on it.

Secondly, there's the very significant question of sovereignty. The AUKUS deal hitches our defence more tightly to the US. It pivots us from our defence of our nation to an offensive posture in the region, and it escalates the chances of war. Every parent must quake at its possibilities for the children of our future.

Thirdly, it doesn't give citizens a say. It hasn't given our citizens a say. Australian citizens have not been presented with options, possibilities and full information about the AUKUS deal. They were presented with a hugely expensive submarine pathway. What are the alternatives, and why haven't Australians had the full opportunity to think about them, to respond to them and to have a say?

Fourthly, there's the question of technology. Today's technologies of war are not built for 40 years hence any more than our phones of today will look in 10 years time like they look today. We are locking in last century's submarines for 21st-century defence. This is a serious error, and many commentators point to it.

Fifthly, there's the question of jobs. We in South Australia have heard it all before. We have heard a promise of jobs out of defence projects which have come too late, too little and at great expense. We need investment in the clean, green jobs of our future, not the crumbs falling from the table of our greater integration in the US military industrial complex. These will be, if they come to fruition, the most expensive public jobs on the planet. We could create many more jobs which would help us deal with the crises in our health, education, and climate. These would be jobs that are much more socially useful, and we could develop the skills we need for the future for a lot less money. South Australians are appropriately cynical about the job offerings they have been promised, and they are right to be.

Sixthly, there is the question of waste. The nuke-spruikers are hard at work amongst us, already in the corridors of government and business, telling us, 'Nuclear waste is not a problem.' They are also selling a greater fantasy—that we could take the world's nuclear submarine waste and make money out of it. There is in fact no solution to the waste out of nuclear powered submarines anywhere on the planet. Australians have said no again and again to attempting to bury nuclear waste, and we say no again now. Nowhere on the planet is submarine waste permanently and safely disposed of.

Finally, there is the question of First Nations voice. Free, prior, informed consent for First Nations people around where waste is placed is vital, especially in South Australia, with our history of nuclear weapons testing at Maralinga and Emu Fields, and all of the intergenerational consequences and tragedies that it has imposed on First Nations people in our state. South Australia's First Nations people deserve a clear voice around waste disposal, the right to full information and the right to a veto around the placement of nuclear waste, which has been so damaging to those First Nations people in our history.

In the fine print of the AUKUS agreement the Australian government has agreed to manage the radioactive waste from nuclear submarine sources from the UK and the US. The truth about our nuclear waste disposal systems is that finding a permanent solution for the safe storage of the world's nuclear waste remains a big, dangerous challenge everywhere. It is a very expensive problem and challenge. The UK has 70 years worth of waste from its nuclear power plants, 260,000 tonnes of it, in unsafe temporary storage. It is a major problem for their government and their citizens. In the US, nuclear disposal has plagued by dangerous leaks and failures. No long-term solution exists in the US, not for waste from power generation or from nuclear powered submarines. No country on earth has safely disposed of its high-level nuclear waste for the long term. After many decades, Finland is approaching completion of its waste proposal. But the process there has been long and complex, and it is still not operating. Any senator in this place who wants to propose anything nuclear, including nuclear powered submarines, has to give citizens a proposal for waste disposal. They cannot kick the can down the road to future generations and budgets, and they need to not leave highly toxic waste in dangerous temporary storage, often against the wishes of local communities, including First Nations communities.

The AUKUS submarine deal, if it went ahead, would take us to a whole new country. It would lock Australia into managing large quantities of high-level radioactive waste. The fuel from decommissioned submarines is nuclear weapons grade. It would require military security, and it must be safely stored, not for 300 years, not for 10,000 years, but for at least 100,000 years. Neither the UK nor the US have been able to find permanent storage solutions for their submarine waste. Given successive governments have continuously failed to manage much less dangerous radioactive waste in Australia—low-level waste, medium-level waste—any government will find it very hard to find a solution to dispose of nuclear waste arising from the AUKUS submarines.

Traditional owners of any future site should have a say and a veto about any such proposal. That is a basic requirement if there is to be a true voice for First Nations people around this incredible deal. The AUKUS deal has sparked a new conversation about nuclear waste storage, and this is a threshold issue that the AUKUS deal must deal with if it is going to proceed.

The long and devastating history behind the proposal for a nuclear waste dump in my own state is well known. We cannot forget the impacts of the nine devastating British atomic tests at Maralinga and Emu Field in the 1950s. Those impacts still persist, and we're coming up to the 70th anniversary of the tests. It wasn't our enemies who let off those bombs; it was our allies. Atomic bombs were tested on the Aboriginal land of the Anangu people, many of whom were forcibly removed from their traditional lands in the lead-up to the tests. However, about 1,200 First Nations people were exposed to radiation during the testing, and the explosion and radioactive fallout caused incredible long-term consequences to their bodies, to their children and to subsequent generations. It certainly led to the deaths of entire families.

Veterans of the nuclear tests and First Nations people living near the sites suffer high cancer mortality rates and more cancers than the general population. The Royal Commission into the British Nuclear Tests in Australia found that attempts to ensure the safety of Aboriginal people were riddled with ignorance, incompetence and cynicism. It is no wonder that so many South Australians are asking: What is the solution for AUKUS around the disposal of nuclear waste? How do we manage something which no other country has been able to manage? How do we assure our First Nations communities that they will be safe and that they will truly have informed consent?

South Australians spoke loudly and clearly when they opposed South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill's proposed nuclear dump in 2017, and I'm proud to have been part of the group of economists and community members who contributed to the discussion around that dump and addressed the citizens' jury. However, attempts at nuclear colonisation persist in South Australia. For the fourth time in 23 years, South Australia was targeted for a nuclear waste dump—this time at Napandee, a property near Kimba on the Eyre Peninsula. The Barngarla people spoke loudly and firmly. They are not to be messed with. They said no. They opposed the dump, and they won their challenge in the Federal Court last year, with a court ruling that the Barngarla people were not properly consulted. So the push towards AUKUS must deal with the reality of disposal of waste and appropriate, respectful treatment of First Nations people.

AUKUS ensures a greater primary alliance and dependence on the US and its technology, and many Australians are concerned about that dependence. Hitching our wagon to the US will drag us into their future wars and result in bad political decisions, as our past defence policy has at times. AUKUS is a whole new ball game. Engaging in AUKUS and strengthening our defence, research and technology ties with the US buys a future with more of that dependence. The US and the UK see Australia as a sucker who will give them their military's money and allow them to keep their nuclear submarines here—half parking lot and half nuclear dump, under the guise of AUKUS. Just look at the $5 billion so recently given directly to Rolls-Royce. What a scandal!

There is a long list of reasons why AUKUS is a bad idea. Most important amongst them is that there is no sensible solution for waste, and this is not a small problem. The bill currently before parliament is part of a suite of AUKUS related legislation to ensure Australia's military export systems align with the US. It will cut Australia off from the rest of the world and tie us to the US. The Greens will not support it.

Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the debate so far on the Defence Amendment (Safeguarding Australia's Military Secrets) Bill 2024 and the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Bill 2024, you've heard from the Greens team the type of measured, intellectually engaged, mature analysis in relation to AUKUS that the Australian community expect about critical engagement with a massive proposal put to the parliament without a vote of the community and without an opportunity to go to an election on it because both sides of politics—the Labor Party and the Liberal Party—decided to back each other in. In relation to AUKUS, you've heard from Senator Cox about the implications for First Nations people, from Senator Pocock the implications for South Australia and from Senator Shoebridge the defence implications particularly. I want to add to that by directing my contribution to the diplomatic and foreign policy implications of the AUKUS pact, and it's right to do this in relation to this piece of legislation because it is a key enabler of the AUKUS political pact.

The Australian public expect that their foreign policy, the foreign policy conducted on their behalf by their government in their name, is independent in its nature, meeting the needs of the Australian community. Yet the AUKUS political pact, supported by both sides in this place, makes Australia's foreign policy subservient to that of the United States and the United Kingdom. The Australian community are very clear. We understand all too well the implications and the impact of letting Washington or London set the foreign policy agenda of this nation. We understand it because we watched as John Howard and George Bush took the Australian community to war in Iraq and Afghanistan against the overwhelming opposition of the Australian community—and the global community, in fact. Humanity united as it had never quite been in the history of our species to oppose the act of invasion, of illegal warfare, which was the invasion of Iraq. The catchcry of that movement was that we did not want to see men and women go to war, sent overseas to kill their fellow human beings because that would help the bottom lines of American oil corporations and help the domestic political dynamic of the Bush administration, of the Blair administration and of Howard here at home. We said together no to war, and we were right to do so.

It is in my mind, as I contribute to this debate, that we have only just learned, 20 years later, that in fact the suspicions of the antiwar movement at the time—that US political interests and the interests of US oil companies were driving the push for the war in Iraq and the Howard government's response to it—were in fact correct, because the cabinet papers spelt it out in black and white. And 20 years on from that disaster, only a couple of years out of ending the debacle of the war in Afghanistan, this parliament has brought before it a bill, under the name of a Labor government, which would seek to bind us in perpetuity to the foreign policy of the United States of America.

This pact makes no sense. It puts us at risk. It undermines the independence of our foreign policy and prevents us from playing a key role in our region, in addressing and engaging authentically with the actual needs of the region and of the community here in Australia to tackle climate change, to improve public health, to invest in education, to strengthen social services, to support human rights. All of these are the needs and demands of the Asia-Pacific community, of the Pacific Islands community, of people here in Australia. It is all being subsumed and undermined by this thoughtless charge into a closer alliance with the United States.

So the Greens will continue to oppose it, and we will continue to work with those in the antiwar and the pro-peace movement to oppose it. We join with those in the Australian community, the 80 per cent of the Australian community, who do not want to see a closer alliance with the United States, particularly a United States led by Donald Trump. We look at that prospect, another 20 years of following the US into regime change war after regime change war, and we say no. We proudly place our opposition on the record, and challenge those who would support that idea to cite a single instance, a single instance in the postwar period—

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Steele-John, it's now 1.30 pm. We'll move to two-minute statements.