Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I will be as expeditious as possible, because I know there is a lot of material to get through. Last night in the chamber the Attorney was very clear that this legislation does not require anything more from telecommunications companies than the storage of their data. I do not have last night's Hansard in front of me, but in a recent ABC interview, the Attorney said

This law does not change the status quo. That's the first point to be made. Telecommunication companies have always retained this information. It has always been accessible to ASIO, to state and federal law enforcement authorities without warrant. At heart all this legislation does is to mandate the continuation of the status quo.

I think that is a fair summary of what the Attorney said last night. I hope it is not a misrepresentation of what was said in the chamber last night—I do not want it to be. Given that this amendment is about not allowing the definition of metadata to be changed unilaterally, so it is relevant to this amendment, in my view, what does the Attorney say about the comments made by Telstra's Chief Information Security Officer, Mike Burgess, who told a conference recently:

Telstra will be required to retain data under the legislation that it has no need to — and doesn't — retain today.

Mr Burgess said that at a Cisco Live panel on cybersecurity on Monday of last week. He says that more information is being sought to be retained by this legislation than they currently retain. I hope I have quoted the Attorney fairly. I believe I have quoted Mr Burgess fairly. I will quote directly what Mr Burgess said at the panel:

We're not saying 'give us the money because security is going to be an issue'. There is data required under this new law … that we do not collect today, that we have no reason to collect today, and we will be collecting it.

I am just trying to get clarification of that. The Attorney has been very consistent in his position in his statements to the ABC and to the chamber last night. Mr Burgess, as the Chief Information Security Officer for Telstra has said something quite different. I am just trying to understand where we are at in respect of that.