Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2025. Australia's intelligence agencies, including the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, ASIO, play a critical role in keeping the Australian community safe from harm. ASIO's ability to undertake its important work, including through the use of tools such as compulsory questioning, is essential to its ability to identify and pre-empt threats. But the powers that they have are significant, and I believe they should be subject to close and regular scrutiny to ensure that ASIO is undertaking its work in line with the expectations and needs of the day.

As a parliament, we have a responsibility to ensure that the powers with which we equip our security agencies are proportionate and necessary. This is why I take very seriously the opportunity to examine this bill. This bill proposes to considerably expand the compulsory questioning powers contained in the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979 and to make these powers permanent rather than subject to sunset every three years. The compulsory questioning framework was introduced in 2003 following the September 11 attacks, when many countries, including Australia, were faced with a new reality. We felt the imperative to ensure that our national security agencies had the tools they needed to collect intelligence to pre-empt and disrupt plans of terrorism. The compulsory questioning powers became an important part of our ability to do that. In light of the extraordinary nature of these powers, and to ensure that they were only used judiciously and sparingly, the parliament legislated a sunset period so the powers would be subject to regular review. Since that time, parliament has reviewed and extended the powers every three years. This bill proposes to go further now, removing the sunset provision entirely, and so making these powers permanent. It also expands the scope of adult questioning warrants to cover new grounds, including sabotage and threats to Australia's territorial or border integrity—a significant widening beyond the original focus on acts of espionage and terrorism.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation plays a very important role in upholding Australia's national security in identifying and disrupting threats and keeping Australians safe. ASIO's compulsory questioning powers are extremely important, and I should note that there is no suggestion that these powers have been used improperly or excessively in the more than 20 years that they have been in place. But it is not something we should take for granted. I honestly don't believe we should take a set-and-forget approach to the significant powers with which we entrust our national security agencies. These powers are extraordinary and should remain so. I urge the government to consider not making these powers permanent. I support the renewal of these powers, and more so than ever given the devastating terrorist attack in my own community. But, given how broad and powerful these powers are, I urge the government not to remove the sunset clause but to retain the sunset clause.

Compulsory questioning is something that I don't take lightly. Under these powers, ASIO has the ability to force someone to answer questions at risk of penalty, including if they're a minor. I take very seriously the submission of the Law Council of Australia regarding this legislation, which noted among other things that compulsory questioning was never intended to be made permanent and that a regular review is a critical protection. The passage of time alone should not transform an extraordinary power into an ordinary one. The sunset clause has functioned, I believe, very effectively until now as a safeguard against misuse, and I haven't yet been proposed a credible case to change this in this bill.

I support the amendments proposed by the member for Curtin, which would retain the sunset provision and make a review every three years by the PJCIS a mandatory rather than an optional safeguard of the legislation. Until such a time as the PJCIS has an Independent member, it is particularly important that the committee can be counted on to review significant legislation such as this bill as a matter of requirement, rather than according to the preference of the government of the day.

I also am concerned by the bill's failure to wind back the provision for ASIO to compulsorily question minors and support the amendments proposed by the member for Warringah to sunset the minor-questioning provision. Again, these are sunsets which I think are appropriate. I acknowledge the advice from ASIO and others that people are being radicalised younger than ever before—I recognise that threat—and that minors represent a substantial proportion of their case load, but the Law Council has raised that the ability to compulsorily question minors has the potential to significantly trespass on the human rights of a child. ASIO and the Department of Home Affairs have, themselves, accepted that there are less intrusive ways to collect intelligence from minors and that, by the time the minor's activities reach a threshold to warrant compulsory questioning, the matter is better dealt with by the police. Of course, the ideal scenario is that the young person would have been successfully deradicalised long before this point is reached, but that is a topic for another time.

The antisemitic terrorist attack on Bondi Beach tragically reminded us that radicalisation and extremism remain pervasive threats in our society. Bondi showed us that we cannot take for granted for a moment the safety of our community from terrorism. We need to do everything we can to stamp out terrorism and radicalisation while also preserving our social cohesion and civil liberties. This is a difficult balance to strike and something that we must regularly re-examine to ensure that we're getting the balance right.

By the nature of their work, ASIO operates in such a way that most Australians have little idea of what's going on behind the scenes to keep them safe, but the Australian people do deserve to have the confidence that the powers we equip the security agencies with are not being set on default mode. It's precisely because these powers are so extraordinary and because ordinary citizens have so little visibility of ASIO's work that I believe the powers should be subject to regular review by parliament. Really, what I'm urging the government to do is to retain a sunset provision—I think that is a really important part of this bill—and to accept, in particular, the amendments by the member for Curtin. Thank you.

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