Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

On the government's own admission, the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014 is a serious bill that alters the balance between government and individuals when it comes to their right to privacy. It also, on the government's own admission, gives new powers for collecting information in a way that it has not been collected before and to an extent that it has not been collected before to effectively be stored now in one place or in several places and then be able to be accessed by a range of organisations. And on the government's own admission it is important that this bill, according to them, passes this parliament. So, given how serious this is, and given that, according to the opposition—who apparently has done a backroom deal with the government that they are now deigning to let everyone else see—there are a number of significant concerns with the original bill that needed to be amended, and given in the light of that that we saw for the first time a handful of minutes ago 30 pages of amendments with 74 separate amendments, and given the seriousness of this bill and what it will mean for individuals, what it will mean for people who use their smartphone and the internet without being suspected of having committed any crime whatsoever, then I ask the minister: will he defer and adjourn this debate to allow the parliament enough time to consider 30 pages of 74 amendments that have been seen by other members of this chamber for the first time a handful of minutes ago? Or, will the minister insist that this be rushed through now, without the chance for members of the crossbench—and who knows who else has seen it within the other parties—having the opportunity to scrutinise it? Will the minister insist on these amendments being passed right now, even though we have had only a handful of minutes to look at them? I ask the minister: will you adjourn this debate to allow the parliament sufficient time to scrutinise these amendments? The minister may say, 'Well, some of these amendments came out of the PJCIS report, so they shouldn't be news to anyone.' I would say to this that it is up to the parliament, surely, to work out whether what is in here matches what is in that committee's report, and we should have the opportunity to do that. I ask the minister whether he will adjourn the debate to allow us time to do that.

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