Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to speak on this bill, the Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence) Bill 2025, which is coming before the parliament. It's very similar to a bill that we put forward in the last parliament, and I'm pleased that it's coming to the parliament again.

This bill is about establishing the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence, the PJCD. People who come in halfway through this will have little idea what we're talking about, I suspect, in these debates. But it's modelled on a committee we already have, which is the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. This one will provide a mechanism for classified parliamentary oversight of defence, and I want to talk about why it's needed before I get to exactly what it is.

We know that Australia faces an increasingly complex and constantly evolving strategic set of circumstances, and they're challenges. The new Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence will allow an enhanced transparency, an enhanced accountability, and a better oversight of defence decisions, capability, development and strategic planning. It really fills a gap in the current committee structure and oversight framework that we have, by allowing scrutiny of classified matters in a really secure setting. This is something that the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security already does for those matters.

I want to go into some of the journey I've had for the government to get to this point. It's been really worthwhile, being part of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, and the Defence Subcommittee, which did an inquiry, in our last term of government, into a range of matters relating to accountability and transparency, which were triggered by a desire to really look at war powers and what war powers—what the processes were; how they could work differently. In the course of that, one of the things that became clear was that there were some gaps that could be dealt with. I really want to pay tribute to the member for Bruce, who was the chair of that inquiry and thought very carefully about the recommendations that our committee put together as a result of the evidence that we took.

Things we learned led us to recommend that this sort of committee be established. We looked at the existing committees that were there: the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade; the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade; plus the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security. They all have different functions, but none of those committees were specifically empowered to examine matters relating to major armed conflicts or war, or warlike operations, and neither of the two defence-portfolio-related committees were empowered or equipped to receive classified information. Instead, those committees are currently confined to examinations of the Defence portfolio via inquiries or consideration of the department's annual report, and, of course, via Senate estimates. So that was where we found ourselves.

We looked at the model that the PJCIS provides, which really is: how to ensure a balance of providing oversight and accountability while maintaining appropriate controls on sensitive material. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security has a particular composition and functions that are laid out in legislation, just as this committee's will be, and it establishes limits to the committee's roles and powers. For instance, unlike most parliamentary committees, the PJCIS's enabling legislation does permit the release of classified information to its members in order to fulfil its legislated mandate, but it does place restrictions on members and secretariat staff regarding disclosure or publication of that information. Breaches of those restrictions are liable to attract a penalty of up to two years of imprisonment. That's the level of detail it has, and you'll see that it provides a model for how the government is moving forward with this this new Defence committee.

During the inquiry, a range of advantages and benefits which would flow from having something similar for the defence space were highlighted to us in the evidence that we took: improving parliamentary oversight of Defence related matters, which was a key benefit; providing a venue for Defence to provide and give classified briefings to the parliament, where it was required and appropriate; and an increasingly informed accountability and scrutiny by the parliament over Defence related matters, particularly by committee members, through the ability to interrogate issues which are otherwise difficult due to classification issues.

The subcommittee report put forward took this as a proposal and noted the importance of Defence oversight by parliamentary committees. One of the things we need to keep in mind is that, when the community is confident that there is deep scrutiny and transparency, it actually provides much greater support for the work that that agency or organisation is doing—so we see this as a really positive thing for the important work that our Defence Force does. There are things already that I learn in committee—which I obviously can't share with people—that give me confidence, and there are things that I want to ask more about, but there is only a certain layer that we can go to. All round, from the more transparency and the greater accountability we have comes greater confidence from not only parliamentarians but the constituents who we represent.

I should say that during our inquiry we absolutely recognised, respected and accepted that there are certain Defence operational, intelligence and security matters that should be classified and should have very reduced public disclosure. There is embedded into the way this committee has been designed an absolute recognition of that, for a whole lot of reasons, there are things that cannot be publicly aired.

This new committee we're putting forward, which I really hope will have the support of the parliament in this term of government—unlike the last time we put forward the proposal—creates a committee which will oversee the Australian Defence Force, the Department of Defence, the Department of Veterans' Affairs and key Defence portfolio agencies including the Australian Submarine Agency, Defence Housing Australia and the Australian War Memorial. In terms of the functions of the committee, it includes the oversight of administration and expenditure; strategy; planning; capability development and personnel; war, warlike or major non-conflict operations; responses to royal commissions relating to Defence; and the performance of key statutory roles including the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force and the Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Regulator. The committee will not have oversight on certain things. It will not have oversight of intelligence agencies in the Defence portfolio, which already full under the functions of the PJCIS.

It's also important to think about what the committee will be able to do. What does all that mean? What will the committee be able to do? It will be able to consider publicly released documents dealing with Australian Defence tragedies, and planning and contingencies such as the biennial national defence strategy. It will be able to scrutinise Australia's defence capability—that includes acquisitions and sustainment—on things like the Integrated Investment Program. It will be able to examine and be apprised of war or warlike operations and ongoing conflicts in the event of a decision by the executive to enter into armed conflict. It will also be able to monitor the involvement of Australian defence agencies in significant non-conflict operations both at home and abroad.

Obviously receiving access to classified information is crucial to carrying out these new functions and these oversight functions. Along with the opportunity to access information obviously come huge responsibilities for the members of that committee. Similar to the PJCIS, the Prime Minister, in consultation with the Leader of the Opposition, will appoint 13 members to the committee. That will be seven government members and six non-government numbers from both the House and the Senate. This gives the government the flexibility to appoint crossbenchers should it wish to do so. That was certainly a sticking point for the opposition in the last parliament, when this legislation last came to the parliament. I hope that they have moved on from their opposition to that, because that's what we would like to see in this bill.

As I mentioned, there will be strong protections on the information that parliamentarians receive, as it should be. The bill includes strict criminal offences for unauthorised disclosure of protected information, including operationally sensitive material and information that could prejudice national security or Defence operations. These provisions apply to committee members, their staff and any other individuals involved in the committee's work. Disclosure of such information—even for it be disclosed to the PJCD—will require ministerial authorisation, and the minister may issue binding certificates to prevent its release during committee proceedings. To uphold confidentiality and integrity, the bill introduces criminal offences for unauthorised use or disclosure of protected information. That applies to committee members, staff and attending members of parliament. These provisions will be modelled on the Intelligence Services Act 2001.

This is a really significant piece of legislation. Some people might go, 'Oh, it's just a committee,' but in fact the way our committees work in parliament is that we work across the parliament, often in an absolutely bipartisan or multipartisan way, as we're exploring issues and trying to understand what is really happening. You don't see in these committees what you see on the floor of the parliament in question time. These are not performance spaces; these are spaces where we diligently work through—

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