House debates

Thursday, 19 March 2015

Bills

Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014; Consideration in Detail

12:28 pm

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

There you have it. You ask a couple of questions about amendments that you are given with a couple of minutes notice and it turns out that one of the issues raised by the PJCIS about location of data is not, in fact, dealt with in these amendments. The very serious question about whether all of this information that is collected is going to be stored in Australia under Australian laws or whether it is going to be stored somewhere else is not even dealt with. We have just been asked, not a few minutes ago, to be assured by the minister and the opposition representatives that everything that has been dealt with is covered in these amendments. I ask a couple of questions and it turns out that it is not. And who knows what else we would find out if we went through every one of these line by line. But we are not given the opportunity to do that because we are asked to vote on it straight away. But the very simple and serious question that people have been on notice about for a while, 'Where is this going to be stored and what are the protocols around it to ensure that it is stored safely?' is not even dealt with in here, despite us being assured a moment again that it will all be okay. And that is exactly why we are not willing, and nor should the parliament be willing, just to be a rubber stamp for a back-room deal that has been done, because who knows what else is in here.

In a similar vein, I ask the minister or anyone else who has been involved in the negotiations: what is there in these amendments or elsewhere about the destruction at the end of two years of this information that is being kept? What is the requirement that is going to be put on ISPs, and how will the government or the public be satisfied that this data has been destroyed at the end of the two years?

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