SENATE

8 SENATE Thursday, 13 October 2016
have seen white paper processes for tax, agriculture and defence. We have even seen a white paper for Northern
Australia. But we have not for some time seen a white paper around national security in the context of
counterterrorism.
Of course, a white paper process would involve the input of our security agencies, but it would also give a
range of other experts from a number of other fields the chance to have a meaningful say. It should and could
include an examination of the effectiveness of the dozens of legislative and administrative changes made since
2002. I will just place on the record that since that time we have seen new crimes created at least 12 times, legal
powers have been extended at least seven times, police have been granted new powers at least 16 times and
intelligence powers have been increased at least 12 times. In that period such laws have only been softened twice
and new oversight created just once. This erosion of fundamental civil liberties in our country is unprecedented in
Australia's peacetime history. We believe we owe it to our people, including the many Australians who have
fought and at times died to protect these liberties, to make sure that this erosion is actually justified by an increase
in the security of the Australian people.
I come now to this legislation. The bill seeks to amend a number of acts. Specifically, it seeks to amend the
Intelligence Services Act 2001 by removing some of the current constraints on the membership of the
Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. It would change it from the current six members
from the House of Representatives and five senators to one government member and one government senator and
one opposition member and one opposition senator, with the balance of the committee drawn from either
chamber. We have heard contributions from both the government and the opposition today. I want to make the
point that this committee is very much a closed shop; it is historically made up of members from the government
of the day and the opposition of the day.
We are facing a context now where one-quarter of Australians did not vote for the coalition or Labor in the
recent election—and that is a continuation of a declining trend in the vote of the political duopoly in this country.
So the Australian Greens have a view that it is time the membership of this committee provided for an opportunity
for a senator who is not from the government and not from the opposition to join in the role that this committee
plays in our parliamentary system and in our scrutiny system. So I flag now that in the committee stages of this
bill we will be moving an amendment which, if passed, will provide for a senator who is not a government or
opposition senator to become part of the membership of this committee.
We understand the responsibilities that this would entail, the responsibilities that this would place on whichever
member of the crossbench it is. I include the Australian Greens in that context, as members of the crossbench. We
understand it would place a heavy responsibility on whichever non-government and non-opposition senator were
appointed to fill a position on this committee, but we do believe that it is important that there be at least one voice
on this committee that does not reflect the political duopoly, because what we have seen in Australia, certainly in
the last decade to decade and a half, is a strong bipartisanship on national security matters.
My view is that the reason we have strong bipartisanship on national security matters actually owes more to
politics than it does to a robust examination of the legislation that underpins Australia's national security. Neither
party when in opposition want to appear weak on national security, so they fall into zombie lockstep with whoever
is in government at the time and develop a bipartisanship that means legislation which is continually brought into
this place—and we are facing more on the Notice Paper at the moment—and which erodes some of our
fundamental civil and human liberties in this country is not adequately scrutinised. We believe we need more
scrutiny; we believe there needs to be more justification put before the Australian people for this continued
erosion of their civil liberties in the name of counterterrorism and national security; and we believe a crossbench
senator, as a member of the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, could play that role or be part of
playing that role. This is a closed shop committee open only to members of the political duopoly in this country,
and frankly the Australian people deserve better.
I would like to respond briefly to some comments that were made by the previous speaker, Senator Macdonald.
He spoke about the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor and the role that he plays in scrutinising
national security legislation. Well, it is a crucial role that the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor
plays, but I do want to be clear that the Greens remain unconvinced that in fact the Independent National Security
Legislation Monitor is adequately funded, and we certainly believe the government is making more and more of a
habit of ignoring the recommendations that come from the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor. In
fact, the recommendations do not, as I understand it, currently even receive a response from government. That is
not good enough. The government should at least do the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor the
courtesy of providing a response to his recommendations. The monitor does a great job in examining a wide suite
of legislation. He does report to this parliament, but it is not good enough that the government does not provide a
response to his recommendations, which ought to be tabled in both houses of this parliament.
CHAMBER