Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I endorse the comments of the chair and thank him for his acknowledgement of the professional staff and the assistance they give to us. I have always found our intelligence agencies professional, and they act with great probity. The Australian public might find that difficult to understand because of the nature of the work that these agencies have to undertake. The work is often covert, and it is extremely difficult to independently review those matters. It is equally difficult for a committee to comment on matters that might compromise their operations but which it would be helpful for the government to be aware of. These are matters of potential concern.

In discussing this report, I take the opportunity to identify some of the difficulties under which the agencies are operating. You will find these in the report if you look closely. For instance, under human resources, agencies have been growing to meet needs. One of the difficulties they have in ensuring their professionalism and their probity is to recruit people who are sufficiently talented and appropriate for those tasks. One of the comments made in the report is that ASIO had aimed for growth but did not meet ambitious recruitment targets while recruitment remains a high priority. I think there is a signal there for the government.

If you look at security issues, the agencies are having to address a wider range of issues. We always thought they only dealt with counterespionage. In fact, the broadening of their activities to include counterterrorism and more recently cybersecurity have put the organisations very much at the focus of protecting our national interest under enormous pressure. Coupled with that is pressure they really do not need: the security assessments that have to be undertaken on people who come to Australia. While refugee and asylum seeker advocacy groups have raised issues, let me say that it is absolutely essential that these inquiries are undertaken. We know that there have been adverse security assessments. Look at the increase in the numbers of people who have to be seen. In terms of Christmas Island, from 2008-09 there were 200 assessments needed. In 2009-10 nearly 3,000 assessments had to be made. This is having very significant impact on the re-allocation of resources to a function we should not have to be doing, away from those that are absolutely essential.

There is difficulty undertaking this task when the people that you have to see actually dispose of documents that might help even understanding where they are from and who they are. Yet all of our agencies, including IGIS, the independent security intelligence review agency, have seen a significant increase in their workload. The complaints that IGIS receives have gone from 153 in 2008-09 to 1,015. We have the advocacy group saying that there ought to be a whole lot of new procedures put in place for review. Where is this going to lead to in terms of the ability and the capacity of these organisations to do their essential work?

Then we come to the unforeseen elephant in the room that my colleague mentioned: the impact of efficiency dividends. We are not able to talk about the potential of the impact of efficiency dividends but we know that the impact on small agencies—and these are relatively small agencies—can be extraordinarily significant. The committee has recommended the government review the potential adverse impact on the efficiency dividend on intelligence agencies. It would be very reprehensible if their activities were to be compromised because of the unforeseen impact of a measure of that type.

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