SENATE

Thursday, 13 October 2016 SENATE 11
This is a very minor amendment to the existing legislation that we hope to win the support of the Senate for. It
is not opening up a whole avenue for placing at risk the very important and significant matter of national security.
In fact, it is trying to improve on that and lend greater support to those who have that onerous task of looking after
us and ensuring our nation is safe and that the agencies are resourced. It is critical that their recommendations are
taken up, but if they are not known then it is very difficult for those matters to be pursued—outside of the largesse
of the minister or his or her responsibilities.
The question of global security weighs on us on a constant basis. Again, I recall some years ago going to the
United States and to New York. People actually put money on the window sills of their houses so that people
would not break in. There was a sense of fear that gripped the nation at the time—and it has probably only been
enhanced by the terrorism acts that have taken place in America since my period there. The sense of fear is a very
corrosive element to the principles of democracy and freedom. That is something we need to guard against most
diligently whilst we balance the necessity for efficient and effective intelligence gathering and the capacity to
orchestrate the activities necessary to undertake tasks while not being curtailed by unnecessary bureaucracy and
management. It is getting both things right that is the challenge.
I think what we have tried to do on our side is suggest some minimal changes. They can be improved upon, I
have no doubt, but the intent is to ensure, through the membership proposals, that there is a role for the parliament
in a greater manner than there has been in the past. I think the capacity to look at sunset legislation is often
important, because there may well be amendments that could be made to improve it, or there could be matters that
are no longer relevant that ought to be removed as well.
The significant factor, I think, is community trust in its institutions. Primarily, citizens look to the parliament
for that to be exercised on their behalf. That is why they elect us. We are elected to make decisions. I appreciate
that sometimes those decisions are hard on people's senses of their own freedoms and their own sense of what and
how they ought to enjoy their democracy. But we all have to balance the competing rights of each other and the
diversity and differences that we bring to our wonderful democracy.
But if we do not appreciate that and if we do not bring those balances then we are simply allowing ourselves to
slip more and more into some form of totalitarian state—and I am not suggesting that these amendments have any
intention of doing that. We need to bring to the notice of the government and to the parliament the ways in which
democracy and its significant structures can be better made to reflect the trust that citizens place in us and to
ensure that agents that are brought into existence, that look after our security, are also held accountable. Senator
Macdonald's view about oversighting the oversighters is a point that I do not necessarily disagree with: But that is
not what we are talking about.
What we are talking about is that there has to be a balance of all the various accountabilities that are required in
a rather complex scenario of national security and intelligence gathering. If we can achieve that and improve upon
that without placing at risk the necessities for security, confidentiality and privacy—those sorts of issues which
are fundamental to good intelligence gathering and for good execution of activities to protect the nation—then that
has to be paramount. But I do not think that the amendments that we are proposing in any way hinder or impact on
that particular paramount goal.
I think this is a modest set of recommendations. They seek to get the balance right and to bring in a bigger role
for parliamentarians—not to usurp, in any manner, the role, function and authority of the agencies—in order to
bring some comfort, I think, to the public that security is not always a matter that has to wear a gun. Security is
also about: how do you cultivate friendships, freedom and trust with the others who you may not necessarily agree
with? It is a bit hard when you do not know who wants to blow you up. But if you do have good intelligence and
you do have good security measures, you can hopefully identify that better and you can accord to those people the
kind of matters of justice that are— (Time expired)
Senator XENOPHON (South Australia) (11:07): At the beginning of my remarks on this important bill, I
would like to pay tribute to the late Dr Des Ball, Professor at the Australian National University's Strategic and
Defence Studies Centre, who passed away yesterday after a lengthy illness. Professor Ball was a towering figure
in Australian strategic and defence policy and a pioneer over more than four decades in researching the activities
of the Australian intelligence community, most notably exposing decades of dissembling by successive
governments about the role of the United States-Australia joint defence facilities. Together with Professor Richard
Tanter, Professor Ball was earlier this year still publishing immensely detailed and scholarly papers providing new
insight into the role of the joint defence facility at Pine Gap, including details of its intimate involvement in
supporting US military operations and the global surveillance network run by the so-called Five Eyes intelligence
partners.
CHAMBER