Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Justice. Will the minister inform the House of the importance of data retention to our law enforcement agencies in the fight against terrorism and other crimes?

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Page for that question. The House has already been updated today about our international efforts to combat the horror we are seeing in the Middle East, but this government has also been focused on what this means for Australia's domestic security. The main priority of this government is to keep the Australian people safe, and to do that we need to make sure that our law enforcement and intelligence communities have the resources and the tools they need to do their job.

It is impossible for us to overstate how important metadata is and what a valuable tool it is to our law enforcement community. Metadata provides law enforcement agencies with the invaluable intelligence to disrupt attacks and provides the evidence they need to prosecute perpetrators. As the Prime Minister said in his national security statement, 20 people have been arrested and charged as a result of six counterterrorism operations conducted within Australia within the past six months alone. This is one-third of all terror related arrests since 2001. Metadata has played a significant role in all of these investigations. I remind the House that metadata was used in the investigation that stopped a mass casualty attack at the MCG on grand final day in 2005.

The current situation is that Australia's internet service providers are not obliged retain metadata. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security has recognised that this is an enormous gap and that retaining the metadata for a period of two years is a necessary and a proportionate response to the terror threat that Australia faces.

We on this side of the House appreciate people's concerns about privacy, but I want to assure all Australians that protecting the security of our personal information is a key priority of the government—and we are taking steps to ensure that that is the case. Under this new regime, data can only be accessible on a lawful case-by-case basis. The number of agencies which access metadata, which currently stands at 80, will be reduced to around 20. The Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Privacy Commissioner will continue to assess industry's compliance with privacy principles and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security will continue to report back on ASIO's access to data. The government has listened to the report brought down by the committee—a unanimous and bipartisan report—and the parliamentary joint committee will be empowered to review the effectiveness of the data retention scheme.

I want to stress to everyone that this legislation does not provide our law enforcement or intelligence agencies with any extra power. This strikes the right balance between allowing them to access metadata to do their job and the right of all Australians to the privacy of their personal information.