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6 <strong>SENATE</strong> Thursday, 13 October 2016 or are proposed to be undertaken by any of our agencies. It is not entitled to review information provided by an agency of a foreign government where that government does not consent to the disclosure of the information. It is not allowed to review aspects of the activities of ASIO, ASIS, AGO, DIO, ASD or the Office of National Assessments that do not affect an Australian person. It is not allowed to review rules relating to the protection of privacy of Australians. It is not allowed to look at individual complaints about the activities of any of our agencies. It is not able to review the content of or conclusions reached in assessments or reports made by DIO or ONA, or to review sources of information on which such assessments are based. It does not need me to go through and explain why the act that was passed several years ago made those prohibitions, because the last thing we want is individuals coming forward with a complaint which may or may not be genuine and then dragging our often secret intelligence agencies before a public parliamentary committee to respond to what may well be a frivolous complaint. I could give examples in relation to every one of those prohibitions, but I do not think it needs me to do that. Anyone who follows this area of law would understand the reasons for those prohibitions being put in place. I will indicate—I think Senator Farrell made the same observation, but perhaps not with directly the same words—the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence Services has always been one of the most successful examples of effective bipartisanship throughout successive Australian parliaments and it has an excellent track record of conducting insightful and thorough investigations. I emphasise that it is a bipartisan committee. When it comes to the safety of Australians and our nation, politics does not enter into it. It does not matter which political party you are involved in. I would say with absolute confidence that there is no politicking and no partisan approach to the way our security agencies operate, because the job they are doing is to protect all of us. As I said earlier, it is essential that they have every power to do that. This amending bill that we are dealing with today does a number of things. It expands the powers and the functions of the committee by allowing the committee to conduct a review into operational activities of the intelligence agencies and the Australian Federal Police. I shudder to think that any parliamentary committee would be asking our secret service people to explain their methods of operations: why they did things, the judgements they made or the secret information they get from other agencies from other nations with whom we have very close arrangements. It would just be a difficult constraint on those agencies. Remember, I said before— I was to emphasise this—the bad guys, the terrorists and the criminals have no constraints. They can do what they like and they are not answerable to anyone. Whilst our agencies act within the law, and the laws are made so that they do act appropriately and properly, having the agencies before a parliamentary committee to explain in detail every element of their operations, I think, would curtail them and would not only make their operations more difficult in the future but perhaps lessen their enthusiasm for protecting us properly in the case where they knew they would have to come and publicly explain their operations. The bill also seeks to provide the committee with powers including operational oversight and presunset legislative review which would duplicate and overlap those of the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor and the IGIS—the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. These agencies are subject to oversight by these two statutory organisations. What this bill seeks to do is to give the committee its own powers to almost oversee the overseers, and that seems to be inappropriate. The bill does not provide adequate protection of operational activities, including methods and sources, to ensure that any reviews the committee conducts or any reports that either of the inspectors-general might be required to provide to the committee do not prejudice the operational activities of agencies and international relations—and that is very important as well. If I could just perhaps elaborate a little further on some of those objections: the existing divide between the parliamentary committee and these independent agencies with oversight would compromise the independence of those two overseeing bodies by proposing that the committee receive direct reports from the IGIS on operational activities and could then commence its own inquiries. This would seem to be hugely double-guessing the existing agencies that are in place to oversee our security services. The longstanding position in Australia is that operational oversight of the intelligence, security and law enforcement agencies is conducted by independent statutory oversight rather than by parliament. That has been around for some time. Currently, the IGIS, which serves a crucial role in overseeing and ensuring accountability for all operational activities, reports only to the minister, as I think is appropriate. I mentioned the Flood inquiry before and I will just quote from something that the inquiry found in its 2004 investigation: Just as the advice that officials provide to ministers is not disclosed in Senate Legislation Committee hearings, the judgments of assessment agencies should not be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. Opening assessments to scrutiny by parliament would also weaken the instinct amongst assessors to provide forthright advice for government, which is vital for good assessment. That is what the Flood inquiry reported and advised the parliament, following a very extensive inquiry back in 2004. CHAMBER
Thursday, 13 October 2016 <strong>SENATE</strong> 7 This bill, if it were passed, would enable the committee to conduct inquiries into legislation prior to a sunset date. This is an unnecessary duplication of the role of the INSLM, who has been granted powers that are tailored specifically to reviewing the operations, effectiveness and implications of Australia's national security agencies. The amending bill also would enable the committee to conduct its own review into the activities of ASIO, ASIS, AGO, DIO, ASD and ONA, provided the PJC—the committee—has first consulted with the responsible minister. As I said, this is an unnecessary duplication of the role of the Inspector-General of Intelligence Services. In 2014-15, under the coalition government, the Inspector-General received an increase of $840,000 in ongoing funding, allowing for the recruitment of additional staff to ensure effective oversight. So, the government has given these independent statutory officers all the resources necessary to properly oversee our security agencies— to make sure that they are doing the right thing. I think that is a system that works very well. Of course, I do not know about—I am not privy to—the work of ASIO, or ASIS or any of the intelligence agencies, although as chair, once, of the parliamentary committee with oversight of the Australian Crime Commission I did get some limited insight into the work that is done by that agency and, indeed, others. But I have the highest regard for the professionalism and integrity of our services—particularly as they are overseen by independent statutory officers, in whom I think I can say confidently everyone in this parliament has confidence. So, as I said, whilst I listened to the arguments and I understand the sentiments of the bill I think it is unnecessary. I think the system works well as it is at the present time and I would urge the chamber not to support the amending bill. Senator McKIM (Tasmania) (10:27): I thank the opposition for bringing this Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security Amendment Bill 2015 on for debate. I want to start my contribution by just reflecting on the context—the global security environment within which we are having this discussion. It is certainly true to say that at the moment we are facing on a global scale a very complex and rapidlyevolving security environment. It is one that brings with it specific and, to date in human history, unique challenges. That is why the Greens believe it is important that there is proper scrutiny through this parliament of Australia's security agencies. But, more importantly in that context, it is why we believe that we need a more strategic approach to law-making in this country around issues like intelligence gathering, data collection and the way that our security agencies operate. I want to make the point up-front that in fact the Australian Greens do not believe that we are taking a strategic enough approach to making laws in this area. Of course, what we have seen in recent times—particularly in the last 15 years, since 2001-2002—is an ever-changing landscape of laws that the Australian people are told is there to protect us against some of the threats that I have just spoken about. We have seen a large volume of legislative change that has been made in the name of counterterrorism and national security, and I think it is beyond argument that the majority of those legislative changes have in fact eroded some fundamental civil rights and human rights that have existed in this country for many years. In many cases, these are civil and human rights that our ancestors fought for and in some cases tragically died to protect. We are now seeing some of these rights eroded away in the name of counterterrorism and national security. I think that is an unarguable statement. Where discussion and, potentially, contention comes into this is: are those trade-offs worth making in terms of the advances that they bring protecting the Australian people? That is a discussion we want to place front and centre in this parliament and in the public conversation in this country. We urge both the coalition, currently in government, and the Labor Party, currently in opposition, to think very carefully about whether they would be prepared to support a more strategic approach around the way we are seeing our civil liberties eroded in the name of counterterrorism and national security. I want to be clear that the Australian Greens genuinely believe it is time for a white-paper-style assessment— call it a blue paper if you like—of whether or not the legal changes that have occurred in the name of counterterrorism and national security have in fact made Australia safer, as we are told they were designed to do and, more specifically, whether that reduction in our civil liberties in this country has been worth any advance in national security and counterterrorism. As I said up-front, we are facing a very complex and rapidly-evolving security scenario around the world. The danger with taking a white paper approach is that it is a snapshot in time and then the world moves on, rendering all the work that had been done to generate a white paper less relevant than it otherwise would have been. We believe that it is well within the competence of our policy makers and our security agencies to design a living white paper—one that is capable of evolving in very close to real time to respond to changes in the global security environment. We do not think this is a contentious idea. We see white papers in, for example, the Defence portfolio. We would pose the question: why don't we have a white paper process in the counterterrorism space and the national security space? There is nothing wrong with a strategic approach in this environment. We CHAMBER
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