Keith Wolahan (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

AN () (): Thank you to all of the speakers, from both sides, who have spoken about this. There is no more important task than to protect our nation's secrets. It's about keeping people alive. It's about protecting our national interest. The damage that can be done when our most sensitive secrets are leaked just can't be calculated. It is one of the most severe risks that we must address in this place and through the executive.

This Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill 2023 seeks to do a number of things that we support. It seeks, in the first instance, to modernise the top secret positive vet clearance with a stricter system, going from a TSPV to a TS-PA. This area is full of acronyms. For those who work in this area, they will no doubt have to come to grips with many more. For those who work in ASIO, I could think of no more important or suitable agency to coordinate this than the officers and members of ASIO. They do incredible work for our nation. Most of it goes unrecognised. Most of their work is evidenced in the fact that we are safe, day by day, and they do it, often, when often we are asleep. So we thank them for that.

I myself went through the process for a top secret positive vet clearance. It's a very intensive, long process. It's expensive. What struck me when I went through it was the professionalism of all the people who were involved in it—people who are psychologists, people who look into every aspect of your life, as they should, because, in the end, when we're talking about protecting our nation's secrets, we're dealing with humans, and humans are fallible. We may be perfect and suitable at a particular point in time, but that doesn't mean that that applies all of the time. So it's appropriate that this bill allows for a constant review of someone's suitability. If someone is suitable today, it doesn't mean they will be suitable in two years or five years or 10 years.

It was made quite clear by a previous speaker that one of our most important assets in defence is our people. It's true. Our people are at the core of our Defence Force. It's easy to get focused on the ships, planes, tanks and weapons, but all of those are operated by people. Our people are being asked to do extraordinary things and they're going to be asked to do very sensitive things, including all of the things that are required to deliver AUKUS. When I think of AUKUS, that is probably one of the best examples of where tightly-held secrets were controlled in a way that reinforced the national interest.

I remember the press release that went out saying there'd be an urgent announcement the next day. I tuned in to see what it was. Some people thought it might have been that there's evidence aliens have landed on earth, but it wasn't. It was a significant agreement, AUKUS, between three nations. What struck me was that the negotiation of that agreement was so tightly held. There wasn't one leak, and that was a credit to everyone involved.

In order to keep secrets like that tightly held, there are two limbs to that that are important. The first is the need-to-know principle. The need-to-know principle means that even if you have the required security clearance, if you don't need to know that secret then you shouldn't be told it. It's an important principle. The second limb is whether you have the proper security clearance, and that's what this is dealing with here. We must never forget that both of those limbs matter.

AUKUS was an incredible achievement in keeping our national secrets secure, and we are better for it. But the ongoing delivery of AUKUS is going to require that same level of discipline and appropriate sharing of information with people who need to know and are appropriately cleared. But it's not just in Defence and in our agencies. We also have a new agency that's about to launch in a few weeks, the National Anti-Corruption Commission. That National Anti-Corruption Commission will have extraordinary powers, as it should, and we fully support the NACC. But creating this agency, which will have many hundreds of staff, will require some of its members to have the highest levels of security clearances. We want those people to be ready and able to go to work straightaway.

So it's important that, if we are pushing so many people through this system to be cleared, we make sure that ASIO is properly resourced to do that task, because we don't want to have a situation where a year from now we are saying that elements of AUKUS are being held up because the security clearances are subject to delay. We don't want to see a situation a year from now where crucial NACC investigations are being held up because key staff are not able to be hired because they've been held up or delayed.

One of the things we know through the economy at the moment is that finding staff and talent is really hard. It's very competitive. So this is a challenging task for ASIO, and it's an important one that means they need to be properly resourced. That will require, I'm sure, a lot of hard work by the people of ASIO. A lot of it will be done in overtime and on weekends.

The other thing I would note here, which the member for Sturt pointed out, is that for those who already have a security clearance it's a very valuable thing, particularly for veterans in our community who seek employment in either a defence contracting company or another agency. That's a valuable ticket that they have that elevates them in the competitive recruitment process, and we must never forget that. Those employers who are doing defence contracting or any of the other agency work can't really look past veterans. They have proven themselves to be trustworthy, loyal and people of integrity, and it also saves a lot of time in the form filling that goes on with these security clearances.

The other thing I'd like to point out is that, whilst the people subject to these security clearances are human, so are the people making the assessments. When you go through someone's life history—all of their travel, all of their partners, all of their financial affairs and every secret of their life—sometimes something's taken out of context, and someone might be unfairly refused a security clearance. That might be someone who's devoted their whole life to working in an agency or in Defence, and their career prospects have the door slammed shut, and it may be because of a misunderstanding.

So it's very important that there's a merits review process here, because, again, the people making those decisions are human, and sometimes through a merits review process more context gets to be considered. I won't give the details of a particular person, but I know someone—in fact, more than one person—who went through a similar process, and on a merits review, on a further review, the context was shown to allow them to get their security clearance. So I'm pleased to see that that's a key element of this process here, because often the decision-makers aren't perfect or the decision-making process is not perfect. There must always be a right for review, because these are people's careers we're talking about, and it can be devastating for a person if that door is shut for them.

We are seeing the greatest increase in foreign interference threats and espionage. It is right and proper that we make sure that the process is fit for purpose, it is right and proper that we make sure it's coordinated through one agency, and it should be right and proper that we make sure that they are properly resourced to do that.

The member for Kingsford Smith also made the very good point that, as we see the development of AI and supercomputers and massive increases in availability of data, more than ever we require people who are appropriately cleared—people of trust, integrity and loyalty. They're easy words to say, but to actually find out if someone is a person of trust, integrity and loyalty, in the end, there has to be some risk taken with that person. For those who have engaged in recruitment of people in any walk of life, the best assessment of someone's future actions is their past actions. It's not perfect, but it's the best assessment. So that's what this security clearance process does. It takes a deep dive into someone's history. Through technology, that can be done online. Everyone leaves a footprint; we all accept that these days.

It is important and proper that we do that. Agencies require it, our Defence Force requires it, and that includes the upcoming National Anti-Corruption Commission. So we do support this bill. It has an important role to play as we deliver AUKUS. It's not an easy thing to do to make sure that AUKUS is ready to be delivered; it's going to be something that could be held up by many instances of delay. There's an old saying that often it's middle management that holds something up, and that can happen in defence. Very senior officers or senior politicians can agree that, yes, this is something that needs to occur, but when we wonder why something is 12 or 18 months late, it's often because of things like this—the person who was supposed to sign off on that report is six or 12 months behind getting their security clearance done, and that cascades through our executive government and causes enormous delay. So there's an imperative that we get this right. If we don't properly resource ASIO and it leads to delay, as the member for Sturt pointed out, it could cost us billions of dollars. But it's more than that. It's also about keeping people safe and alive. That is the duty we have in protecting our secrets.

Again I reflect on the time when I first applied to do this. I had been to Afghanistan twice, and I thought that was it, I was done, but there was an opportunity for a third tour, but it required a top secret positive vetting clearance. It happened with lightning speed, and I was very grateful for all of the staff who did that in such quick time. I can see why, because when I deployed in that particular task force it was a United States task force, and in order to work with our allies it is important that we have a security clearance that is recognised and appreciated by them, and that it's a comparable process. That's what these clearances seek to do. We have seen the recent footage of breaches of national security, and that can happen in any country. But it is important that we maintain best practice standards in making sure we are ready to face any threat, and that we are doing the best by our people who have been asked to protect our most secure secrets.

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