Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I well understand that there's a central role for government to maintain our national security and public safety. Personally, the majority of my working life has been in uniform as a member of the regular army in intelligence services and in working for a large US defence contractor. However, in the case of the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (International Production Orders) Bill 2020 I do associate with the comments made by the member for Melbourne. I believe that this is no way to address such an important issue of national security, to rush it through after the parliament was due to rise this evening. Surely, this is a matter that needs to be considered in detail by the parliament with a full debate allowed. Remember, this is another piece of security legislation against the backdrop of what many people, including me, regard as excessive use of new security legislation in this country. I'm mindful that since 9/11 more than 80 piece of legislation have gone through this place to deal with national security and border protection, and you can add that number to the hundreds of pieces of legislation in the parliaments of the state and territory governments. So I suggest the best thing to do would be to park this bill tonight and to allow a long and detailed debate tomorrow to let all members ventilate the concerns that they might have. Then we can have a considered vote on it tomorrow. It shouldn't be effectively left to the Senate to deal with this. In the circumstances, I'm left with no option but to oppose it tonight. I suspect that I will join the member for Melbourne in calling a division, not necessarily because I oppose all of the provisions of the bill, but I do think there are issues and concerns that need to be addressed. I think we should debate it tomorrow in the light of day.

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