Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Berowra for his question. We spent the immediate aftermath, as I have said, of the attack on 14 December making assessments based upon: how do we ensure that this isn't part of a cell, given ISIS's recognition that was identified very early on by these perpetrators? We wanted to make sure we put in place the measures that kept people safe. That was the first priority, as you would expect. We worked on the Sunday night. The national security committee met very early on the Monday morning. We met, as well, with New South Wales police in Sydney, and we continue to meet on a daily basis.

We established that we needed to have the Richardson review, which would look into the operations of the AFP, ASIO and ASIS as security agencies but also the way that they interacted with state agencies. We chose Mr Richardson as he's probably Australia's pre-eminent expert on foreign, international, and defence and security issues. At the same time, we were convening a process, and we announced what the principles would be in the legislation that we would bring before this parliament that was—

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