Gordon Reid (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is an absolute pleasure to be speaking today on the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Modernisation) Bill 2022. This legislation contributes to the government's longstanding commitment to ensure that oversight of Australia's intelligence agencies is commensurate with their responsibilities and powers—that is, ensuring that oversight of the agencies is fit for purpose. Australia's intelligence agencies play a critical role in keeping the Australian people safe and ensuring that Australia's national interests are safeguarded. Therefore, effective oversight of these agencies is crucial, and it is vital to building and maintaining trust in Australia's intelligence agencies.

A crucial role is conducted by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, who oversees the activities of Australian intelligence agencies for legality and propriety and for consistency with human rights. This bill will amend the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act 1986 to make consequential amendments to related Commonwealth legislation to clarify and strengthen the Inspector-General's powers. It must be made known that a sizeable portion of these measures has been previously evaluated and unanimously supported by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.

This legislation will ensure that the Inspector-General's current legislative framework is adapted to contemporary circumstances and continues to facilitate effective oversight. In addition, it is important that IGIS officials have the ability to access information that is required for their oversight purposes. This will provide strong powers to the Inspector-General, including full and free access to information to make copies or take extracts from documents held by intelligence agencies and the power to enter and remain on any premises.

This bill, in amending the IGIS Act as well as other Commonwealth legislation, will ensure that people are not prevented from disclosing information to Inspector-General officials for the purpose of those officials performing their duties or exercising their powers. Moreover, it is essential that individuals within our national intelligence community are able to fully disclose information to the Inspector-General without fear of committing an offence or breaching privacy laws.

Recommendations 172 and 174 of the Comprehensive Review of the Legal Framework of the National Intelligence Community recommend the following changes to the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act: (1) they promote the independence of the IGIS and (2) they resolve an oversight gap to ensure that staff employed under the Office of National Intelligence Act 2018 have access to independent review of employment grievances. This bill would implement those recommendations by amending the act to prevent the head or deputy head of an agency within the IGIS jurisdiction from being appointed as the IGIS immediately after serving in that position and would allow the IGIS to consider employment grievances for staff employed under the Office of National Intelligence Act.

Important in enhancing Australia's integrity framework is robust information-sharing mechanisms, as they facilitate access to information required for oversight purposes. The bill introduces amendments to ensure that the IGIS is able to share information with other Commonwealth integrity bodies with appropriate safeguards. These amendments will support integrity bodies to obtain information available for oversight purposes and strengthen and also coordinate with other integrity bodies. It will also make a range of additional amendments to the IGIS Act, which was first introduced in 1986, to ensure that the legislation governing the IGIS is adapted to contemporary circumstances. This includes technical amendments to improve clarity and enhance the IGIS's oversight, functions and powers, such as (1) clarifying that the IGIS has the ability to inquire into human rights related issues in the absence of a referral from the Australian Human Rights Commission and (2) clarifying that the definition of 'IGIS official' includes staff acting in positions, contractors and secondees and enabling the IGIS to delegate their functions to assist the day-to-day functioning of the office of the IGIS. This bill would also make a number of amendments to modernise drafting expressions and remove redundant provisions.

This bill does not expand the jurisdiction of the IGIS in relation to additional national intelligence community or NIC agencies. Most measures in the bill were previously included in the Intelligence Oversight and Other Legislation Amendment (Integrity Measures) Bill 2020. The integrity measures bill was introduced into the House in December 2020 and referred to the PJCIS, which reviewed the integrity measures bill and handed down its report in February 2022. The bill lapsed with the dissolution of parliament on 11 April 2022. The integrity measures bill proposed amendments to expand the jurisdiction of the IGIS and the PJCIS to additional national intelligence community agencies. The complexity and significance of these matters warrant further consideration and consultation to develop an appropriate policy response. Therefore, they are not included in this bill. This bill focuses on amendments that are needed to modernise and enhance the IGIS's existing framework. Once again, just to reiterate, this piece of legislation really does contribute to the government's longstanding commitment to ensure oversight of Australia's intelligence agencies, especially in regard to their responsibilities and powers, and it ensures that oversight of the agencies is fit for purpose.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my role as the deputy chair of the PJCIS I have seen and worked relatively closely in recent times with members of our national intelligence community. Often in this place we recognise, as we should, our law enforcement agencies and we recognise our defence personnel, but rarely do we acknowledge the efforts and hard work of our DFAT staff. I have had the privilege—and I do call it a privilege—of spending some time with our DFAT team in Kabul. That was during the Afghanistan war. These men and women work away from home for long periods of time—up to two years. They don't often get home, and they live in relatively austere environments. When you join the military you expect to be living in austere environments on a regular basis, but we should be incredibly proud of the representation that our men and women provide to us from DFAT. In the many missions that I have visited across the world, they are exceptionally good and very intelligent human beings.

As the world enters into a very difficult period from a geostrategic perspective, it is right that we spend the sort of money that we are spending to deter and to shape our environment—to shape our environs in the Indo-Pacific. But we also need to ensure that our Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade teams are appropriately funded and resourced because we don't want to ever let a situation arise where diplomacy fails and, ultimately, the Defence Force has to kick in. Ultimately, that's a failure of good international relations. I'm getting a little bit off track because not only should we be thankful for our ADF, our law enforcement and our DFAT staff but no-one ever thinks about thanking our national intelligence community.

I suspect this is probably an issue that is near and dear to your heart, Mr Deputy Speaker Stevens, but in my short time on the PJCIS, I have worked with some exceptionally competent and capable men and women who keep us safe both here in Australia and abroad. A whole new world has been opened up to me in my role on the PJCIS. I had had no exposure prior to this to the intelligence community and what I said about our DFAT staff applies equally to our intelligence community. I want to take this opportunity to thank each and every member of our national intelligence community here tonight for the service, the dedication, the loyalty, the hard work that you provide to your fellow men and women. I really do want to say thank you on behalf of this parliament for the great work that you do.

It is very important that any sort of national intelligence community has appropriate oversight. In this country, we have the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, who provides an important oversight role of various agencies within our national intelligence community. I often say that protecting Australians and their interests at home and abroad is singularly the most important role of government and I will say that again tonight. It is not just for the executive government but also for every single member and senator in this place. Whether you are in government, in opposition or on the crossbench, we have been put here to represent our relevant constituencies but our fundamental and most important role is to ensure the safety of our fellow Australians. I know that you would agree with that, Mr Deputy Speaker Stevens, and I want to acknowledge your work in this space over many years.

In Australia, we are well served by six core intelligence agencies that comprise the Australian intelligence community. These agencies, with the support of the national intelligence community include the AFP, ASIC, Austrac and Border Force. These organisations work day and night to keep Australians at home and beyond our borders safe and their interests secure. Of the agencies that we do have, of course, most people would know of ASIO. That is the agency responsible for protecting Australians against espionage, foreign interference and terrorism. I recently had the privilege of seeing the director-general give his annual update at ASIO headquarters. We know that espionage is one of the greatest threats Australia is facing today. The threat level for espionage is greater today than it was at the height of the Cold War, such is the world that we currently live in. Our Australian Secret Intelligence Service, ASIS, is tasked with intelligence gathering, covert operations and counterintelligence as well as foreign corporations. The Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation collects, analyses and distributes geospatial intelligence, a field in which Australia leads the world. The Australian Signals Directorate handles foreign signals intelligence, cyberwarfare, cybersecurity and the security of information and critical infrastructure. The Office of National Intelligence is responsible for advising the Prime Minister and the National Security Committee for all source intelligence advice and for coordination in various areas of national intelligence. The Defence Intelligence Organisation collects and advises on strategic intelligence, such as military plans and technical intelligence such as the weaponry of foreign nations.

These agencies are comprised, as I said, of brave, talented and patriotic individuals who often give up a lot of time with family and friends to do their jobs. Their work often goes unnoticed, but, as I said earlier, I want to recognise their efforts tonight. When things go right in the national intelligence community that work is unseen. When things go wrong lives and livelihoods are sometimes lost. On behalf of the people of Australia, I want to say thank you to them for their hard work.

In relation to this bill, this bill in question amends the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act to modernise the legislation that provides for the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, the IGIS. The IGIS has jurisdiction over the use of network activity warrants by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission and the Australian Federal Police. The IGIS Act empowers the IGIS to conduct inquiries into alleged misconduct. It's responsible for compliance with laws, ministerial directions and guidelines; and consistency with Australia's many human rights obligations. Much like other statutory offices with investigative powers, the IGIS can make inquiries of its own volition in response to complaints raised, in response to disclosures of both the public and current former agency personnel or at the direction of ministers responsible, including the Prime Minister. These powers are not dissimilar from those afforded to royal commissions, including powers to issue summons, questions under oath, enter agency premises and access all information pertinent to an investigation.

So what does this bill do? The bill implements two recommendations of the Comprehensive Review of the Legal Framework of the National Intelligence Community, often referred to as the Richardson review. These two recommendations were agreed by the previous coalition government. To that end, this bill is another example of coalition policy finding its way into this chamber. I think Australians agree that this kind of bipartisanship that we always strive for in this place on intelligence and security is very, very important.

Recommendation 172 of the Richardson review—and ultimately in a spirit of bipartisanship—deals with the independence and eligibility of appointment to the role of Inspector-General. The IGIS is appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, who must first consult with the opposition leader. It is necessarily a bipartisan process. By guaranteeing a fixed term of appointment with limited grounds for termination, as well as conferring broad powers for investigations, the IGIS is able to act independently and without fear or favour. It's true that a candidate's character and approach to the role is the true determinant of independence in such an office; however, we agree that there ought to be some distance between the IGIS and someone who has previously held a leadership role in an agency which falls within the IGIS's remit. Even the perception of compromised independence would affect the IGIS's ability to perform their role effectively.

This bill doesn't go quite as far as the PJCIS's recommendations. It goes a little further than the Richardson review recommendation, because the Richardson review recommendation basically said that if you are a head or deputy head of a security agency you shouldn't be able to just leave that role and walk straight into the IGIS's role where you have a gamekeeper and a poacher environment. The PJCIS thought that this issue was significant enough that there should be an appropriate period of time between—let's face it, a head or a deputy head of an agency could leave that job, go back to the bar or go and work for another agency for a day, a week, a month, maybe even a year and—

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It being 6.30 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 192B. The debate is adjourned, and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting. The member for Fisher will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed on a future day.