SENATE

10 SENATE Thursday, 13 October 2016
atrocities. Our maturity around the necessity for incursions into the freedoms, responsibilities and rights of
citizens was probably not weighed as heavily as it is today. I am not suggesting that it was not.
I can recall, as a young person, being detained by the police. It was not just being detained in the watch house;
he actually had a whip, which he threatened to use. He had no power to do this, but he had a whip and threatened
to use it. On the floor of the cell he showed us an iron circle to which people had been chained, or potentially
could be chained. So the notion of deprivation of liberty is a very important matter to me personally, but, I think,
for most Australians as well. But we do not like to be overencumbered by regulation and authoritarianism, or by
delegations, when we have a sense that our freedoms are being infringed.
On the other hand, we know that there are people who, as Senator Macdonald said, have no regard for any of
this, who have no regard for the sanctity and uniqueness and beauty of human life, and who are prepared to do
whatever it takes to achieve an ideological outcome—that is, fundamentally to destroy the principles of freedom
and democracy in a nation state, particularly in our country, Australia. It is sad that such things happen. As we
come to the parliament of Australia each day we notice outside the parliament officers with guns. When I first
started coming to the parliament to lobby in the old Parliament House that was a very rare sight. So the price of
our democracy is pretty significant. I do not think we ought to be cowed by those who want to threaten it.
Therefore, the necessity of a committee like the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security is a
critical matter. It is a critical function of the parliament, interfacing with the senior people who have the day-today
responsibilities of guaranteeing the freedom and safety of the citizens of this nation.
Really, this bill is trying to get that right. I heard Senator McKim, from the Greens, speak of getting the balance
of the membership right. I note that the bill proposes that the majority of the government will not be affected by
this amendment. It does allow for 11 other members to be nominated by the houses. That is a matter for political
movement, it would seem to me. People are capable of doing things in this place to ensure that the representation
is there. But I take the point that is being talked about, that there is pretty much a de facto presence on this very
important committee.
The responsibility that goes with that is of course paramount to how we deal with sensitive information that
comes from the other amendments that are being proposed to have access to information and advice given by the
national officer responsible for these matters. That access is not for the purposes of flaunting the information but
so that we as representatives of the parliament can be informed about where and what it is our nation has been
apprised of at the highest levels, whether it be at the ministerial level, the level of the security council or wherever
it is that these matters go to for decision making—ultimately, the executive of government.
The importance of that is also to deal with the question of our responsibility as elected representatives, to try
and get a balance between us as the elected representatives, who are accountable to the public and therefore have a
trust placed in us to ensure that their safety is looked after in the best possible manner, and the functionaries. I
have no doubt that that is what we seek to do and are doing to the best of our capacities. The bill is really about
how we can improve in a minor way some of the functional aspects of this. It is not seeking to overcome and
overtake the role and responsibility that the agencies have for our security, but it is trying to, I suppose, ensure
that the public is aware that we parliamentarians do not leave these things entirely in the hands of very capable
functionaries who account to a particular individual—a minister—and not necessarily to the parliament. That is a
complex matter, I understand and fully appreciate, and I am not suggesting that we ought to be overturning that.
What I am suggesting is support for the proposal that we are putting forward on our side to have the capacity to be
informed by reports on these matters and also to look towards initiating inquiries that are significant in this field,
to pursue a matter. I would think that you would only do that, given the practicalities of this, after a long period of
discussion—interacting with the relevant agencies and the minister responsible—and that it would not be just a
case of a rabbit running down a hole hoping to find something. It would actually have to be something of great
significance to do that.
We should recall also that intelligence gathering is not always left to those who are the specialists in the field.
Often we require and rely upon citizens to inform us about what is going on in particular places to make sure that
the eyes and ears, as it were, of the custodians of democracy and freedom that are in the hands of our citizens are
also utilised beyond those who are the specialists and the most efficiently trained. So the role for the public in
much of this is also critical.
It is about getting the right balance between trust, freedom, efficiencies and capacity to make decisions. No-one
is suggesting, through this bill, a frustration with any of that. We are talking about a capacity to be better informed
through the committee on national security so that the parliament itself is not just tangential to what takes place at
a higher level but is in fact integral to that in a very important way that underpins democracy. It is conditioned and
governed, obviously, by the existing tenants of the legislation, so is not something that is being proposed in a
vacuum here; it is being proposed in a context.
CHAMBER