Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill 2023 and join with my colleague the chair of the PJCIS. National security is one of those things where it doesn't matter what side of the aisle you sit on; anybody and everybody in this place should be working together for the national security. Whilst we will have differences of opinions on things at times, I think that the Australian public should draw some comfort from the fact that there's an unwritten rule on the Intelligence and Security Joint Committee, that we leave our figurative guns at the door—that we leave our political guns at the door. I think I can speak safely for all current members of the committee that those members keep in the forefront of their minds the protection and security of Australians. That's very important, because government has no greater responsibility than the protection of its citizens. My short time on this committee of around 12 months—although I've worked with the Defence Subcommittee for a number of years—has really opened my eyes to the threat that Australia and Australians face from unprecedented attacks from foreign interference and espionage.

If I were sitting up in the gallery right now, I'd be thinking, 'What's this bloke on about?' When you come into this place, you're given—entrusted with—certain information. My time on the PJCIS has certainly opened my eyes to the risk and threat levels we face from espionage and foreign interference. In fact, in his national security threat assessment only in February, the director-general of security, Mike Burgess, said that the amount of espionage and threats from foreign interference exceeds today what we had at the height of the Cold War. We live in dangerous times: Europe has a full-scale kinetic war underway as we speak. Without justification and without any moral imperative, Russia has invaded a sovereign country, Ukraine, and the world is suddenly a dangerous place.

But we saw this coming. We have seen the level of foreign interference steadily rising in this country, particularly over the last five to seven years. That's something that this parliament, Australia, its previous government and this government are taking very seriously—as they should. We saw the previous government enter into a very important arrangement—a turning point arrangement—through AUKUS. That's a security arrangement between Australia, the UK and the US which, effectively, will see Australia equipped with conventionally-armed nuclear-powered submarines. This will change the dial around the national security of Australia from a kinetic perspective. It's very important that we recognise this is the first time since the 1950s that the US has shared its crown jewel technology—that is, nuclear propelled submarines—with another country. The only other time it has done that was in the 1950s, and it was with the United Kingdom.

As we enter into this new world of nuclear powered submarines, quantum computing, artificial intelligence and new weaponry, Australia has to increase significantly its own ability to manage its own defence materiel and to manage the secrets of our allies. To do that, we need a better security vetting system than what we have. The current security vetting system's highest level is top secret, TSPV.

I will. Top secret positive vetting. But there are five different agencies that are able to provide those TSPV clearances, and we have seen in the past that some of our intelligence agencies don't even recognise a TSPV issued by another agency. We have seen, particularly over the last couple of years, a fairly significant migration of people working for one agency moving to another, and this clunkiness of the current system prevents a seamless movement of personnel, as it does a seamless movement of personnel from our allies.

At the end of the day, in order for us to be able to take advantage of the weaponry and secrets that are being provided to us by the Brits and by the US, we will need to rely heavily upon experts from those countries to come to Australia. With the AUKUS submarines and, in fact, under the AUKUS arrangement, it's estimated that some 20,000 jobs will arise out of that. They won't all be local jobs. We will need to rely on experts coming from other countries, and we need to have a better streamlined approach to our top-secret vetting classification. It will now be called TOP SECRET-Privileged Access.

It's not just a change of name. Under the old TSPV system, those assessments were done at a point in time, when someone applies or when someone renews their application for a clearance. Under this new scheme it is ongoing, as it should be, because people's circumstances can change, sometimes very rapidly, and it's important that our security agencies can have confidence that the systems that we provide for these top secret clearances can at the very least keep pace with people's changes in circumstances. ASIO is the best placed organisation to be able to assess these arrangements. ASIO will have the central responsibility for administering these new TOP SECRET-Privileged Access clearances. Other agencies, including AGSVA, will still have the opportunity or the ability to manage the lower clearances, and that's appropriate.

The deputy chair spoke earlier about the importance of managing our nation's secrets whilst retaining a degree of openness and transparency, and that's really important. That's a situation that we have to deal with regularly in this place. We don't live in a totalitarian state, and most of us in this place wouldn't want to see that happen. It's very important that we get that balance right and that, when decisions are made about these top secret clearances, people have appropriate opportunities for reviews if they are aggrieved by those decisions—for instance, in a circumstance where someone may get knocked back for a TS-Privileged Access clearance. If they are a Commonwealth public servant or they are already the holder of an equivalent—say, a top secret positive vetting clearance—then they will have the opportunity to go for an internal review and, failing that, they will have an opportunity to have that decision reviewed in the AAT.

That is distinct from someone who is a new applicant, someone who is not a Commonwealth public servant or someone who doesn't currently hold a clearance. If they have an adverse decision they will have a right of review, but it will not be to the AAT; it will be by way of an internal reviewer appointed by the Attorney-General. I have some concerns around that, which I have raised with the committee, and I'm happy to see how it goes. Where you have the Attorney-General appointing an internal reviewer, that could create some issues around independence. We'll wait and see how that goes.

It's appropriate that people who are new applicants don't necessarily have all the review rights that could clog up the AAT and ASIO. The last thing we want to do is have ASIO's efforts hampered by continuous applications for review. ASIO's role is a very important one, in this process, and we need to make sure that whilst we get the balance right we always have at the forefront of our minds that national security is paramount.

What I would say to the government is it's incredibly important that, with these new reforms, ASIO is given the appropriate financial assistance to conduct its work. This suite of reforms will add a significant workload to ASIO. We would expect somewhere in the order of around 30,000 applications a year, and that will grow significantly as AUKUS ramps up. So they have to be financed appropriately. It's incumbent upon this government to ensure that ASIO has the appropriate funding to do its job. The last thing we want to see is TS privileged access clearances being gummed up for longer periods than necessary. The government needs to be very much on top of appropriately funding ASIO for that role.

In closing, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation—in fact, all our security agencies—does an incredible job for the security of our nation. It's rare that Australians will hear about our security agencies, and that is a very good thing. The work that they do is often clandestine, and if you don't hear about them then the work that they are doing is successful. Unfortunately, our national security agencies, unlike our military—we hold our military in great regard and that's wonderful, as we should, but we very rarely lift up the men and women of our national intelligence and security agencies.

These agencies do wonderful work, both here and abroad, sometimes in very dangerous situations, away from family and friends for long periods of time. I would like to place on the record my appreciation, and the appreciation of those in this House, for the wonderful work they do in keeping Australians safe.

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