SENATE

More documents

Recommendations

Info

14 <strong>SENATE</strong> Thursday, 13 October 2016 law, the US President is required to ensure the committee is kept 'fully and currently informed' of intelligence activities, including covert actions and any significant intelligence failure. Australia's intelligence agencies have long been deeply entwined with their US counterparts, and that is appropriate. It is time that we looked again at the greater extent of parliamentary scrutiny and oversight that characterises the intelligence system of our ally. This bill is a modest but important step in that direction. I am very pleased to lend my support, and that of my colleagues, to this bill, and I hope that this bill is passed in this place. Senator WATT (Queensland) (11:20): I rise to speak on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security Amendment Bill 2015. I note that this is not the first time that this bill has been debated in this place. It was restored to the Notice Paper after being introduced and debated in 2015. I want to acknowledge the contribution that other senators made to the debate of this bill in the last parliament. I also want to acknowledge the work of former senator John Faulkner in initiating the drafting of and consultation on this bill. Mr Faulkner's expertise and pursuit of the noble aims of this bill are well known. It is a pleasure and a privilege to speak on this bill, and in doing so I hope to help bring to fruition the task that former senator Faulkner set himself in bringing about these important reforms to the monitoring of the Australian intelligence community. This bill seeks to give this parliament a stronger mechanism of oversight over Australia's intelligence and security agencies to ensure that, while their powers are necessarily increased to keep up with the demands of current security threats, their accountability to this parliament is not diminished. As former Senator Faulkner explained: Parliament must strike a balance between our security imperatives and our liberties and freedoms. (The) Key to achieving this balance is strong and effective accountability. Enhanced powers demand enhanced safeguards. Public trust and confidence in our security and intelligence agencies can only be assured through strong and rigorous oversight and scrutiny. Since the terror attacks that occurred on American soil on 11 September, 2001 our modern world has unfortunately lived in an age where terror attacks not only are real and possible but seem to becoming more frequent. I well remember 11 September 2001. As a young lawyer, I was working in Townsville in North Queensland at the time, working on an unfair dismissal case. We managed in the afternoon of 11 September to secure our client a very good result, and so I went to the pub and celebrated with some friends of mine who lived in Townsville at the time. The night got quite late, and I remember the TV screens at Molly Malones, where we were celebrating, had all of sudden flicked across to what seemed to be pretty crazy events of planes crashing into buildings in New York. It brought a very sober end to the night. I remember on the way home from that, talking to one of my friends and saying, 'That was pretty serious, wasn't it?' And we agreed it was. Of course, the world has gone on to see how serious these kinds of events have become ever since. Since that time, countries like Australia, which value democracy and human rights, have watched in horror as terrorist incidents have unfolded around the world. These incidents have caused us to fear attacks on us, whether it be when we are travelling overseas or even potentially at home. One of the most unfortunate aspects of this, apart from the terrible loss of human life that occurs in these attacks, is that terrorist attacks have been leapt upon by some politicians both in Australia and overseas as reasons to become suspicious of particular communities and to attempt to divide us. That is extremely sad to see. These terrorist threats are not far off foreign problems that stop beyond Australia's borders. Just this week, as other speakers have noted, we paused to remember the anniversary of the Bali bombings, where terrorists attacked crowded nightspots in Kuta Beach and 88 Australians lost their lives. Unfortunately, since 2001, as I say, these attacks have become more frequent, yet they are no less shocking or ruthless in their execution. Just this year we witnessed horrific attacks take place in Nice, in France, in Brussels, in Istanbul and among many other places around the world. Australians, when overseas in these sorts of places, do face real threats and, unfortunately, there have been similar incidents on Australian soil, albeit nowhere near as destructive as what we have seen overseas. So these threats are real, and it is the responsibility of this parliament to protect our country and to protect our people. Parliament is therefore tasked with enacting strong laws and ensuring that our intelligence and security organisations are given the necessary powers and resources that they need to ensure the security and safety of our citizens. There really is no greater responsibility for our parliament to uphold and there really is nothing more precious to protect than our democracy and our human rights. But protecting our country and protecting our citizens to the utmost degree does create an uneasy balance between keeping our country secure and valuing the human rights and freedoms that our democracy guarantees. There is nothing more counter-productive that we could do in attempting to prevent terrorists who are trying to send a message about our way of life and there is nothing more destructive and nothing more counter-productive that we could do than to overreach in our response to those incidents in the powers that we give our intelligence agencies to monitor our people and any other restrictions that we place on Australian citizens in order to secure our safety. If all we do is overreach and introduce draconian CHAMBER
Thursday, 13 October 2016 <strong>SENATE</strong> 15 measures that restrict our population's freedoms and human rights then, in a sense, we have achieved what the terrorists themselves are seeking to achieve. So we do need to be extremely careful whenever we are considering increasing security precautions. This is because, as well as protecting our lives, this parliament's task is to provide protection to citizens which allow them to exercise their civil rights and liberties. In doing so, this parliament must act as a check and balance against the state itself. Parliament must also ensure that the public have full trust and confidence in our intelligence and security organisations and, as a result, that they have full trust and confidence in each Australian's ability to participate fully in an open and free democracy. So we must find a way to strike that balance—the right balance between creating laws that provide protection to Australians from terrorist threats but do not stifle core freedoms to the point where people have no protection from the state or its intelligence agencies. Today there are six intelligence agencies in the Australian intelligence community. These agencies are the keepers of strong powers, which include intelligence gathering and analysis. Four of these agencies undertake collection: ASIO, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, which is responsible to the Attorney-General; ASIS, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, which collects foreign intelligence from human sources and is responsible to the Minister for Foreign Affairs; the ASD, the Australian Signals Directorate, formerly the DSD, which collects foreign signals intelligence, largely outside Australia. The ASD was given a legislative footing in 2001 and is responsible to the Minister for Defence. The AGO, the Australian Geospatial Organisation, collects geospatial intelligence from satellite imagery and other sources and is responsible to the Minister for Defence. The other two agencies in the Australian intelligence community are analytical agencies. Firstly, the DIO, or the Defence Intelligence Organisation, which analyses the intelligence obtained by the Defence collection agencies and its overseas partners. And, secondly, the ONA, or the Office of National Assessments, which is established under its own act of parliament and is statutorily independent. Australia is very fortunate to have agencies like these that work incredibly hard to meet their responsibilities professionally, thoroughly and with the utmost respect for our laws and security. I acknowledge the work and commitment of those agencies and note that this bill does not seek to diminish the powers or ability of those agencies to perform the important work they do. In recent times the parliament has enacted laws that increase powers granted to these agencies, and this bill does not seek to curtail those powers. However, as former Senator Faulkner said: 'Enhanced powers demand enhanced safeguards.' Currently, a range of mechanisms are available to scrutinise the Australian intelligence community. At the heart of these arrangements are the three pillars of oversight: ministerial responsibility, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security is enshrined in the Intelligence Services Act 2001. That committee has a very important role. Its functions include: (a) to review the administration and expenditure of ASIO, ASIS, AGO, DIO, ASD and ONA, including the annual financial statements of those agencies; (b) to review any matter in relation to those agencies referred to the committee by the responsible minister or a resolution of either house of the parliament—and also their functions; and (c) to report the committee's comments and recommendations to each house of the parliament and to the responsible minister. There are a number of restrictions on the committee's ability to review the actual intelligence gathered and/or assessments made by the agencies. As my colleagues in this chamber have mentioned today, this committee has been incredibly successful and is a very good example of bipartisanship, because we know that the protection of national security is a job for all parliamentarians. What does this bill seek to do? At a time when the community is looking to the government and to the parliament to ensure that intelligence and security agencies have the powers they need, it is very important that the membership and functions of that parliamentary joint committee enable it to provide effective oversight. The purpose of this bill is to ensure that the adequacy and effectiveness of parliamentary oversight of intelligence and security agencies is in keeping with the development of the enhanced and additional powers we have afforded these agencies. The bill seeks to amend the Intelligence Services Act 2001, the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor Act 2010 and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act 1986 to change the membership, powers and functions of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. I wish to briefly go over the measures this bill seeks to introduce. The bill removes current constraints on the membership of the parliamentary joint committee to provide that, except for a minimum representation of one government member and a senator and one opposition member and senator, the balance of the 11-member parliamentary joint committee can be drawn from either chamber. Currently, the Intelligence Services Act 2001 CHAMBER
Page 1 and 2: COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA SENATE Ha
Page 3 and 4: FORTY-FIFTH PARLIAMENT FIRST SESSIO
Page 5 and 6: Senator State or Territory Term exp
Page 7 and 8: Title Minister Minister for Health
Page 9 and 10: Title Shadow Minister Deputy Manage
Page 11 and 12: CONTENTS—continued International
Page 13 and 14: Thursday, 13 October 2016 SENATE 1
Page 25: Thursday, 13 October 2016 SENATE 13
Page 77 and 78:
Thursday, 13 October 2016 SENATE 65
Page 79 and 80:
Page 81 and 82:
Page 83 and 84:
Page 85 and 86:
Page 87 and 88:
Page 89 and 90:
Page 91 and 92:
Page 93 and 94:
Page 95 and 96:
Page 97 and 98:
Page 99 and 100:
Page 101 and 102:
Page 103 and 104:
Page 105 and 106:
Page 107 and 108:
Page 109 and 110:
Page 111 and 112:
Page 113 and 114:
Page 115 and 116:
Page 117 and 118:
Page 119 and 120:
Page 121 and 122:
Page 123 and 124:
Page 125:
show all

SENATE

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?