Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I thank all members for their contributions to the debate on the Strengthening Oversight of the National Intelligence Community Bill 2025. Our primary responsibility as a government and a parliament is to keep Australians safe. Against the backdrop of an increasingly challenging security environment, we have vested our intelligence agencies with significant powers to protect our national security interests. At the same time, the national intelligence community must continue to be subject to strong and holistic oversight. This will ensure the public continues to have confidence that intelligence agencies are acting lawfully, with propriety and in a way that is consistent with human rights.

In recent years, Australia's intelligence and security agencies have grown and become more interconnected as they are called upon to detect and confront threats of an increasingly complex and varied nature. While our intelligence enterprise has evolved, its oversight framework has not kept pace and is in need of reform. The bill will address this by expanding the jurisdictions of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, the IGIS, and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, the PJCIS, to ensure uniform and holistic oversight across the national intelligence community. It will also strengthen the relationship between the IGIS, the PJCIS and the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor and enhance existing oversight arrangements. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

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