Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the following matter be referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee for inquiry and report by 21 February 2025:

The role of Australia's intelligence, diplomatic and law enforcement agencies, with particular reference to:

(a) the ability of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the Australian Federal Police to investigate former politicians who allegedly act against Australia's interests;

(b) the ability of these agencies to examine Australian university staff in relation to allegedly false claims, particularly in regard to the origins of COVID-19, which endanger national security and health infrastructure;

(c) the relationship between Australia's agencies and those of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America in dealing with false leads, and their ability to ensure that they are not sharing incorrect information, such as that passed by a former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom to United States intelligence about Donald Trump; and

(d) any other related matters.

I rise to speak to this very important motion—because I think it's time we applied greater scrutiny to our intelligence agencies. In particular, I'm extremely concerned by the lack of questioning and scrutiny of the statement made earlier this year by the head of ASIO, Mike Burgess, who referred to a politician who had sold Australia out. Apparently he sold out his party and his country. That to me seems a pretty straightforward statement that there was at some stage in this place or the other place a politician that did not act in Australia's best interests and that—I can only assume by the expression 'sold out'—received some sort of benefit to do the so-called sell-out.

I want to know why this former politician hasn't been prosecuted, because, as I pointed out in estimates, there is a section in the Criminal Code 1995, 142.2, that says that, if any public servant receives a benefit for themselves, they can be prosecuted. I think it's very important that we send a very strong signal to people who work for the government that they must serve in the best interests of the people.

For the life of me, I cannot understand—and there's more to this story—why ASIO did not refer this person to the AFP. They claim that there weren't any laws in place at the time to prosecute this person. I would disagree because, as I just quoted, section 142.2 of the Criminal Code Act 1995 was in place when this person committed the crime. Furthermore, both the AFP and ASIO have been contacted by barristers who advised ASIO and the AFP of the existence of this particular section of the Criminal Code.

It's very important that our law enforcement agencies actually enforce the law, and it's very important that they enforce the law in regard to loyalty to this great nation, not just because it's the right thing to do—it's their job—but because people are losing trust in the establishment and in the institutions.

They are constantly seeing people in positions of high places not being held to account. We see this all the time, where the bureaucracy and politicians will circle the wagons to defend their own rather than take a stand and defend the little guy. We are seeing our precious way of life—this country was built by the battler, and it effectively belongs to the battler—this great egalitarian way of life, slowly be eroded because we're now getting two classes of people in this country. There are those who work for the government and are associated with the government and those who are connected to big business, big media, big super funds and big government, and then there are those who don't fall within that net—that is, small-business people, our farmers, our workers; the little guy. They're constantly being trodden on by the big end of town. They're held to account. Can I say, it's an absolute disgrace. See someone like Richard Boyle, the ATO whistleblower that tried to blow the whistle on the bullying tactics of the ATO. He could face jail time for acting with good intent, in good faith, to expose the overreach of the Australian Tax Office. Mr Boyle may very well find himself in jail very soon for trying to do the right thing.

Yet, on the other hand, out there, we've got some politician that could still be on a defined benefit scheme that may or may not have been a minister and that may or may not have been a lobbyist out there. To the best of my knowledge, unless the AFP have started to do something in the last week or two, they aren't actually attempting to prosecute this person. I presume there's enough evidence there, or I doubt that Mr Burgess would have raised it in his annual assessment threat. I think that it's time that we really got to the nitty-gritty of what's going on with ASIO and our intelligence agencies because I think there's an obligation here to make sure that this particular former politician is held to account for his or her actions.

It doesn't end there. We've also got serious concerns—and I've raised this many times with ASIO and, to a lesser extent, the AFP in estimates—about gain-of-function research in this country and the actions taken by people in our own academia with regard to covering up the origins of COVID. ASIO claim that it is not their responsibility. I've been to the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, and they claim it's not their responsibility. The AFP claim that it's not their responsibility. Well, I say to you: whose responsibility is it? There's enough evidence out there, as we heard yesterday on Sky on Outsiders with Professor Angus Dalgleish, a professor in cancer, who said this, that there were six inserts in the COVID virus that were actually man-made. As he said, maybe one you could live with but not six in a row. To have 18 nucleotides all lined up amongst 29,000 nucleotides at the right spot where it feeds through, the right spot for the furin cleavage site to match up with the ACE receptor—the chances of that happening through Mother Nature are the equivalent of a 'big bang' in biological terms.

We know that we have people here in Australia who were working for the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, and these same people wrote a paper in the Lancet that completely debunked the idea that COVID was man-made or could have been man-made. Yet we now know that there is substantial evidence out there that proves that this idea was covered up and that there was a deliberate attempt to cover this up. I think it is incumbent upon our intelligence agencies, particularly given that some of these academics received millions of dollars in taxpayer funding through the National Health and Medical Research Council, to find out what exactly went on then and what's going on in the future with regard to the risks involved with gain-of-function research.

I know that it can happen anywhere in the world, but this research is conducted at something like 18 or 19 universities in Australia. There seems to be very little oversight of what's going on with this research.

It's research that, I might say, is extremely fascinating, but if it goes wrong it can have very serious consequences. After lodging this motion last week I was alerted to another incident that happened not far from here at the Double Drummer cafe. This cafe is next to a government intelligence building and was owned by the wife of a Chinese politician, and for some particular reason this was never really picked up at all. Yet again you have to ask yourself why on earth this was allowed to happen and why the intelligence agencies didn't get on to this sooner than they did.

Of course, we've had former ambassadors involved in giving information to US intelligence agencies about now-debunked claims of President-elect Donald Trump colluding with the Russians. Yet again we need to be asking ourselves what's going on when maybe fake information is being passed on and what we're doing to make sure that, even if it was done with the best of intentions, our intelligence agencies and our diplomats aren't involved in misinformation and disinformation. Indeed, today we've just had the Labor Party withdraw their own misinformation and disinformation bill. Maybe it's incumbent upon governments to look at their own bureaucrats and diplomats to make sure that they aren't engaging in misinformation and disinformation. Misinformation and disinformation, I may suggest, have had very, very important ramifications over the last four or five years. We've seen a lot of information be put out that, at the time, if you stuck your head up, you would get your head shot off. The so-called Russian collusion was considered the truth, and—not that this involves Australia—50 ex-CIA agents claimed that Donald Trump was colluding with the Russians. As to what brought that on, who knows? But we had our own Australian government employees tied up with this sort of information.

It's a time to reflect because the winds are changing. We've seen in the United States that people are sick of the deep state; they're sick of the swamp. They want to drain the swamp. And workers in intelligence agencies are government employees just like everyone else. We have estimates, and it's time that we took a closer look at the behaviour and actions of our intelligence agencies, because it's not right that they're allowed to put up the wall of silence because it's all secret squirrel stuff. A lot of this stuff isn't secret squirrel stuff. It's out there. It's known to the public, but the details are very scant.

If the intelligence agencies and the AFP can't make the effort to prosecute a former politician that, in ASIO's own words, sold Australia out, then who will they prosecute? They're going to go after Julian Assange, Richard Boyle, David McBride—people who acted in good faith to try and expose whatever they thought was important and in the national interest. These people could potentially be put behind bars—in the case of Richard Boyle, I don't think he's there yet, and hopefully he doesn't go behind bars. But there seem to be two sets of standards here—one for politicians. Like I said, we deserve to know who this former politician is, and I think this former politician, in particular, needs to be held to account for his or her actions. If we're not going to hold the elected representatives to account and if we're not going to hold bureaucrats who didn't act in the best interests of Australia to account, then it's going to undermine trust in our democratic systems, democratic processes and our public institutions.

It's not fair and it's hypocritical.

There are many good bureaucrats out there. I know I give the bureaucracy a bit of a hard time at times, and I call them out quite often. But, to be fair, we are never going to improve the bureaucracy if there is a culture of fear amongst the bureaucrats with integrity and with a sense of justice that, if they do speak out, they're going to lose their job or, even worse, be jailed and punished. I would recommend to the Senate—we are a house of review—to take this motion very seriously. If the Senate won't hold our intelligence agencies to account, who will they hold to account?

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that Senator Rennick's referral to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee be agreed to.