Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I sought leave to make a statement on behalf of the member for Canning, who chairs this committee so well, as my friend the member for Goldstein just said. I presented the report on behalf of the committee and spoke about the report in general, and I wanted to use a small amount of my time today to note the additional comments that the member for Goldstein, myself and Senator Abetz made in the context of this report.

This report was an unusual activity for the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. Most of our activities as a committee involve the examination of bills, often giving those bills quite a technical assessment, and making recommendations as to the parts of those bills that could be amended. This was an inquiry that was more traditional of other committees of which I've been involved on, and was more traditional of other committees in this parliament, which look at issues of broad public policy consideration. And so, instead of considering the minutia of particular bills, we were actually trying to chart a way forward for public policy.

Like the member for Goldstein and Senator Abetz, I don't dissent from any of the recommendations that have been made by the committee—in fact, I join with all members—but the three of us wanted to make a particular point in this inquiry of observing a trend about the issuing of warrants. In the particular circumstances that gave rise to the inquiry, warrants were issued to search the premises of Ms Annika Smethurst and the ABC by an issuing officer who was the registrar of the local court at Queanbeyan. The registrar of the local court at Queanbeyan has wide powers to issue warrants for everything from searches through to arrests—they are a very experienced officer. But, given that agencies were seeking to effectively search out the premises and the home of media organisations and given the important role that the media plays in our democracy, informing the Australian public of the activities of their government and critiquing those activities, it was thought in these instances, instances that involve warrants issued relating to journalists or media organisations, that those warrants should be issued by superior court judges, either Federal Court judges or judges of the Supreme Courts of the states, or the Attorney-General, in relation to some warrants that relate to ASIO powers.

For myself, I thought that this was a very important thing to do because it addressed the public concern about such a low-level official in our nation issuing a search warrant for an important democratic protector, which the press provide. But one of the things that we have been seeing on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security generally is a trend to the judicialisation of warrants, and I think that this is a worrying trend. The issuing of warrants, as the member for Goldstein pointed out, is an executive and not a judicial action, and in increasing the issuing of warrants to the judiciary rather than executive officers effectively what we're doing is changing the balance. We are losing the knowledge, the expertise, the balance that we've developed in those officers who are regularly used to issuing warrants. This, in many instances, may be a good thing, but we should be cautious in doing so because custom, tradition, codes of practice and knowledge of the balance may well be lost over time.

In our additional comments we make the point that, because this issue of who should issue warrants in which circumstance constantly comes up in different reports before our committee, the government should develop a principled approach to the appropriate authority for warrant issuing generally. And that is, I think, the key recommendation, because in committee hearing after committee hearing the issue of warrants arises and I don't think there's adequate justification for who should issue warrants in which particular circumstances.

The other point that the additional comments make is to note that the public interest advocate regime—which it's proposed to extend in this report from the journalist information warrant area to all areas that deal with warrants sought against media organisations or against journalists—as the report suggests, should apply whether it's the Attorney or whether it is a Supreme Court judge or a superior court judge, a Federal Court judge, issuing warrants. In relation to the Attorney, I think, as with the journalist information warrant, it provides a very helpful mechanism. But I wonder in relation to superior court judges, given that they are among the smartest and most experienced legal officers in the land and the most able to weigh up these competing concerns, whether the public interest advocate role in those circumstances is necessary.

Nonetheless, those comments aside, we completely concur on the recommendations of the report, and let me take this opportunity again to acknowledge the good work of the member for Canning, who is an outstanding chair of this committee, and all members of the committee for the good work that they do.

Debate adjourned.

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