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

I rise today to speak on the Strengthening Oversight of the National Intelligence Community Bill 2025. The coalition will support this bill. Australia currently faces real, emerging and serious threats to its national security. That fact was borne out in the recent despicable attacks on places linked to our Jewish community—the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne and the kosher Lewis' Continental Kitchen in Sydney.

The director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, ASIO, recently attributed at least two of those attacks to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC. This parliament has separately taken action, long called for by the coalition, to address state sponsored terrorism targeted at Australia by the ability to list foreign state entities as state sponsors of terrorism, with associated criminal offences and penalties. The coalition understands and believes that, to meet these real and ongoing national security threats, intelligence and security agencies must have the powers and resources necessary to protect Australian citizens and our national interests.

By way of overview, the national intelligence community comprises 10 agencies: the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, the ACIC; the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation, the AGO; the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, ASIS; the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, ASIO; the Australian Signals Directorate, ASD; the Defence Intelligence Organisation, DIO; the Office of National Intelligence, ONI; the Australian Federal Police; the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, AUSTRAC; and the Department of Home Affairs.

Given the importance of our democracy, the parliament must ensure that we deliver these agencies with the right tools to protect Australia's essential security and national interests while also safeguarding our essential rights and freedoms. An important way in which to do so is to ensure that we have strong and effective oversight of our national intelligence community. We know that public trust and confidence in our security and intelligence agencies can only continue to be assured through rigorous, effective oversight and, to the greatest extent possible, public accountability.

I turn now to an overview of the bill before the House. The Strengthening Oversight of the National Intelligence Community Bill 2025, commonly referred to in the intelligence community as the SONIC, amends the Intelligence Services Act, the IS Act, and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act 1986, the IGIS Act. It does so to ensure comprehensive oversight of all 10 agencies in Australia's national intelligence community. This improved oversight will occur through the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, the PJCIS, on which I've had the great honour of serving, and via the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, the IGIS.

The bill expands the jurisdictions of the IGIS and the PJCIS to include oversight of four additional agencies under their remit: the ACIC, and only the intelligence functions of the Australian Federal Police, AUSTRAC and Home Affairs. This is an appropriate recognition of the significant national security powers exercised by these agencies, as well as their regular, integral role in joint intelligence operations. The coalition considers this to be a prudent measure that would bring the oversight of these agencies in line with their national intelligence community counterparts.

The limited intelligence functions of the Department of Home Affairs pertain to the collection and analysis of intelligence for the purposes of immigration operations—namely, those of the Australian Border Force—some domestic cyber operations, and activities concerning countering foreign interference. Home Affairs also exercises coordination roles concerning counterterrorism operations, counter-foreign-interference operations and cyber incident responses that require access to and sharing of classified intelligence. The department's intelligence-collection functions and its use of intelligence for operational purposes has placed it within the NIC, the national intelligence community. It is also the basis for its work being subject to oversight by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security.

The bill also strengthens the relationship between the PJCIS, the IGIS and the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, the INSLM, and provides the PJCIS with a power to request the IGIS to conduct an inquiry, complementing the committee's existing ability to request that the INSLM undertake a review. The coalition welcomes the granting of the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor with the power to initiate reviews into the full suite of contemporary counterterrorism or national security legislation at the Commonwealth level rather than the current defined list of legislation. The bill, importantly, provides an own-motion power to the PJCIS to review certain legislation and a requirement that the IGIS and the Director-General of the Office of National Intelligence provide briefings to the committee. These are critical and measured reforms to ensure that the parliament, through the PJCIS, has oversight of intelligence and security matters across all the national intelligence community.

Turning to other specific aspects of the bill, schedule 1 would also require the inspector-general and the Director-General of the Office of National Intelligence to provide annual briefings to the PJCIS. It will also make a number of technical amendments to the Intelligence Services Act 2001 to modernise and clarify the provisions to ensure the PJCIS's enabling legislation is adapted to contemporary circumstances. It will remove the ACIC from the oversight jurisdiction of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement, the PJCLE, noting that the ACIC will be oversighted by the PJCIS in its entirety—I apologise for the acronyms in this speech! Schedule 1 will also make consequential amendments to ensure that information protected by secrecy offences under relevant legislation can be disclosed to IGIS officials performing duties or functions or exercising powers as IGIS officials.

These amendments would allow for the transfer of complaints regarding AUSTRAC and Home Affairs between the IGIS and other integrity bodies to facilitate effective consideration of those complaints by the appropriate body. It will also make consequential amendments to address overlap in jurisdiction between the IGIS and other relevant oversight bodies.

Schedule 2 of the bill would amend the review and access of ACIC criminal intelligence assessment records under the archives law. Schedule 3 of the bill would amend the Criminal Code to introduce an exemption from civil and criminal liability for Defence officials and others for certain computer related conduct connected to an effect outside Australia.

Schedule 4 of the bill would amend the meaning of 'counterterrorism and national security legislation' for the purposes of the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor Act 2010, the INSLM Act, to ensure the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor is able to review any Commonwealth legislation relating to counterterrorism or national security. Schedule 4 will also make a number of minor amendments to streamline and modernise provisions in the INSLM Act to ensure the INSLM's enabling legislation is adapted to contemporary circumstances. Finally, schedule 5 of the bill contains application and transitional provisions.

Turning now to the issue of ongoing oversight: as with the ever-present requirement to consider how best to protect and safeguard our national security, an ongoing obligation for this parliament and its successors will be to ensure that Australia's intelligence oversight legislation remains fit for purpose for how technology is likely to disrupt intelligence practices. In particular, the use of artificial intelligence will expand the capability and lower the barrier to entry for those departments and agencies, including those outside the NIC, wishing to undertake so-called open source intelligence collection—and that is information that is freely accessible.

Open source intelligence, OSIT, activities are increasingly being used by a wide range of government departments and agencies. The information that can be collected, as well as the analysis that can be performed on such information, can rival covert collection methods in some instances. The question of proper oversight of OSIT practices should be an ongoing consideration for the PJCIS, including whether it is the appropriate remit of the IGIS or whether other bodies should fulfil this function. Lawmakers should regularly consider if new intelligence oversight legislation is suitably future proofed in the face of how emerging technologies may interact with intelligence practices.

On the topic of proper oversight by the PJCIS, I am obliged to observe that we do have significant concerns about how the Albanese Labor government has handled consideration of a number of national security bills, with disregard for the proper work of the PJCIS. This is regrettably emblematic of this government's approach to national security matters in this parliament. The important oversight of intelligence and security matters performed by the PJCIS has been restricted and impeded by this government, including through truncated and rushed consideration of legislation. That must stop. The imposition of unrealistic timeframes places an unnecessary burden on stakeholders, secretariat staff and members of the PJCIS and, ultimately, more importantly, potentially leads to unintended consequences and/or poorer legislative outcomes for our national security. The coalition will continue to call out this government's perfunctory approach to parliament's vital oversight role and to national security matters.

I also want to acknowledge the work of the PJCIS in its inquiry into this bill. The committee's report recommended the bill be passed and set out 11 further recommendations to strengthen oversight of the national intelligence community. The government has advised that it will adopt several of these recommendations and move amendments accordingly. I have been provided just this morning with a number of those amendments, which I am still trying to get my head around. When those amendments are moved in this House, I will be speaking to them more closely.

The coalition will be constructive where we can, especially on important reforms to improve our national intelligence architecture. We recognise that this bill is an important strengthening of the oversight of our national intelligence community but we will continue to hold the government to account in relation to how it develops and implements these measures.

The Australian people deserve transparency wherever possible in relation to intelligence legislation. They deserve accountability and confidence that their parliament is doing its job. While we will support this bill as outlined, the coalition has misgivings about how the Albanese government approaches the parliament's oversight of national security matters, including in relation to this bill. We will continue to insist that the government allows proper legislative and parliamentary processes to run their course before seeking to ram legislation through this parliament so as to ensure we deliver the best national security legislation to protect the Australian people, their institutions and assets.

As is my want to do in this place when I am talking all things national security, I do acknowledge the efforts of all of those men and women in our national intelligence community. I am joined at the table by my good friend the shadow veterans' affairs minister and also the veterans' affairs minister. In this place we rightly acknowledge our men and women who serve this country in uniform, but not often enough do we acknowledge the efforts of our men and women of our national intelligence community, who often are placed in harm's way and often 27 million Australians will never know about it. These are men and women who serve this country with great pride, loyalty and passion across this country and across the world in what can be very difficult and dangerous circumstances. I want to use this opportunity at the dispatch box to encourage and ask all of the directors-general and secretaries of our national intelligence agencies to pass on the thanks of a grateful nation to those men and women who serve this country in our national intelligence community.

Australians expect nothing less of this place than to ensure that we uphold appropriate scrutiny of our national intelligence community and the intelligence legislation that comes before this House. I commend this bill to the House.

Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make my contribution to the debate on the Strengthening Oversight of the National Intelligence Community Bill 2025. The purpose of the legislation is to strengthen the oversight of the national intelligence community. The bill builds on two strong Labor legacies: the creation of the roles of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, the IGIS, and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, the PGCIS, among others. These agencies were established under the Hawke government in 1986 and 1988 respectively. The bill will ensure the oversight of the national intelligence community will be holistic and appropriate in relation to significant powers invested in these agencies. The bill was developed in consultation with agencies from across the government. The government is committed to strengthening Australia's security agencies and to ensuring they are subject to appropriate public and parliamentary oversight.

The national intelligence community is made up of the following agencies: the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Geospatial Intelligence Organisation, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, the Australian Signals Directorate, the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, the Defence Intelligence Organisation, the intelligence division of the Department of Home Affairs and the Office of National Intelligence. These agencies do important work, and they have significant powers. As a result, it is critical to maintain public trust and, to do this, effective oversight of these agencies is required. The work done by these agencies is of a covert nature, and work and decisions are rarely overseen by the courts; therefore, robust and independent oversight is essential and extremely important.

The bill implements recommendations made over the past several years that were failed to be implemented by the previous government. They include: recommendations from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security in its advisory report on the Intelligence Oversight and Other Legislation Amendment (Integrity Measures) Bill 2020; the comprehensive review of the legal framework of the national intelligence community, known as the Richardson review, conducted by Mr Dennis Richardson AC; and the 2017 and 2024 independent intelligence reviews. The bill includes measures proposed in bills introduced by colleagues in the other place, including the Intelligence and Security Legislation Amendment (Implementing Independence of the Intelligence Review) Bill 2020. This was introduced by Senator McAllister as the newest iteration of the 2015 bill introduced by Senator Wong, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security Amendment Bill. Further, the bill complements measures in a bill passed by both houses on 6 September 2023, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Modernisation) Bill 2022.

The bill amends several pieces of legislation, including the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act 1986, the Intelligence Services Act 2001 and the Criminal Code Act 1995. The bill will expand the jurisdiction of the PJCIS and the IGIS to include all the ACIC and intelligence functions of the AFP, AUSTRAC and the Department of Home Affairs. It will also provide the PJCIS with its own motion power and requirements for regular briefings.

One of the purposes of this bill is to strengthen the relationship between existing intelligence oversight bodies that supervise the national intelligence community, particularly the PJCIS, the IGIS and the INSLM. These bodies perform distinct yet complementary work in overseeing the NIC and its legislative framework. The three bodies require a strong, statutory relationship. This bill proposes to strengthen this relationship by amending the IGIS conduct with an inquiry into the legality and propriety of operational activities of the agencies within the jurisdiction and providing a report to the PJCIS and the relevant minister.

Furthermore, the bill will ensure that the PJCIS has a necessary and relevant context to support the extremely important work that it does by amending the IGIS Act and the Office of National Intelligence Act 2018 to require that the PJCIS be briefed annually by the IGIS and the Director-General of the Office of National Intelligence. The bill also amends the IS Act to add the INSLM to the list of people and agencies from which the PJCIS may request a briefing. In addition to these measures, the bill aims to expand the jurisdictions of the PJCIS and the IGIS. To do this, the bill will amend the IS Act to allow the PJCIS to review its own motion proposed reforms to counterterrorism and national security legislation.

The IGIS plays an extremely important role in assisting in the oversight and review of the activities of the agencies within the NIC, and for legality, propriety and consistency with human rights. The bill expands the jurisdictions of the IGIS and the PJCIS to the ACIC, in full, and the intelligence functions of the AFP, AUSTRAC and the Department of Home Affairs. These amendments will ensure that the whole of the NIC is subject to holistic and specialised intelligence oversight. Another primary purpose of this legislation is to minimise duplicate oversight jurisdictions where appropriate. The bill also includes technical amendments to modernise and enhance the efficiency of the PJCIS.

Lastly, the bill contains amendments to provide immunities for certain computer related acts carried out by intelligence and security agency officials. Amendments to the Criminal Code will provide defence officials, and others, with an exemption for civil and criminal liabilities for relevant conduct for computer related conduct engaged in Australia that cause an effect outside Australia. This will address recommendation No. 72 of the Richardson review and has been drafted on a similar basis to the existing immunities for officials of other agencies in the national intelligence community, specifically in relation to the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, the Australian Signals Directorate and the Australian Geospatial Intelligence Organisation.

The national intelligence community, and the PJCIS in particular, play a critical role in overseeing the national intelligence agencies and scrutinising national security legislation. An important function of these agencies is to ensure that national security legislation is necessary, proportionate and effective. Strong and effective oversight mechanisms for national security and intelligence agencies are an essential part of protecting and advancing Australia's national security interests. The measures in this bill will ensure that Australian intelligence and oversight bodies are well placed to provide the appropriate oversight of the NIC now and into the future. It also builds on the strong Labor legacies of providing strong and effective oversight of Australia's national security and intelligence agencies. I commend the bill to the House.

Claire Clutterham (Sturt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Strengthening Oversight of the National Intelligence Community Bill 2025. Earlier this year, the director-general of security delivered the annual threat assessment, which had a number of key messages, including the importance of looking forward; of anticipation; of identifying trends, patterns and fundamental long-term shifts in behaviour. The past and present are, of course, still relevant, but a future-facing outlook was described by the director-general as being critical at this junction in our security environment—as being necessary to be prepared to meet the varied, dynamic, unpredictable and constantly moving and changing risks and challenges that we face.

To do this, the director-general and his dedicated and committed team scrutinise open-source information, rely on subject matter experts, draw on expertise in analytical techniques and review and analyse classified intelligence. This painstaking and important work is done with a view to producing full, frank, indepth assessments about future trajectories and vulnerabilities, underpinned by data and evidence that has been verified and validated. This sort of knowledge helps us anticipate the security environment and, in turn, helps us prepare so Australians are kept safe. There can be no argument: there is no greater responsibility for a government than keeping Australians safe.

Intelligence and security agencies must be appropriately equipped and resourced, and the legislative framework must facilitate this without hindrance by prescribing specific powers that allow our intelligence and security agencies to detect, disrupt and respond to threats to the nation's security. Given the significance of these powers and their potential to infringe on individual rights and freedoms if not clearly and precisely defined, they must be balanced with proper and appropriate oversight to ensure public trust is maintained and the rule of law is upheld. This is especially critical given that the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated lockdowns and restrictions on freedoms have, in some settings, driven anti-authority and conspiracy messaging.

Our security and intelligence agencies conduct themselves not only with dedication and commitment but with integrity and propriety and within the bounds of the law. This is a critical strength. In Australia, we trust these agencies, and this trust allows them to carry out the difficult and complex work that they do, and I thank them for this difficult and complex work. As this work grows increasingly more complex and challenging, reforms must also adapt. In this respect, this bill will extend consistent statutory and parliamentary oversight to all agencies exercising intelligence capabilities. Public trust and confidence in our security and intelligence agencies can only be assured through rigorous and effective oversight and, to the extent possible, public accountability. It goes without saying that the greater the potential for the powers of agencies to infringe on individual freedoms and liberties, the greater the need for accountability in the exercise of that power.

This bill will operate to amend the Intelligence Services Act of 2001 and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act of 1986 to ensure holistic and robust oversight of all 10 national intelligence community agencies, which the member for Werriwa outlined in her remarks. Firstly, schedule 1 of the bill would expand the jurisdictions of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security to oversee the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission and the intelligence functions of AUSTRAC, the AFP and Home Affairs. Schedule 1 will also facilitate the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security to request that the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security conduct an inquiry into the legality and propriety of particular operational activities of the agencies within the IGIS's jurisdiction.

Schedule 2 of the bill would amend the review and access of a ACIC criminal intelligence assessment records under the archives law, and schedule 3 would amend the Criminal Code Act to introduce an exemption from civil and criminal liability for Defence officials and others for certain computer related conduct. Schedule 4 would amend the meaning of 'counterterrorism and national security legislation' for the purpose of the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor Act 2010 to ensure that that monitor is able to review any Commonwealth legislation relating to counterterrorism or national security. The expansion of this mandate is illustrative of the fact that legislation is moving beyond only terrorism related activity to address national security threats of a more varied, complex and interconnected nature.

The measures contained in the bill are designed to ensure that robust and holistic oversight of Australia's intelligence community is achieved. This is a bill that delivers on the commitments of the Albanese Labor government to maintain the trust and integrity of our institutions and, fundamentally, to keep Australian safe. This bill is also compatible with the human rights and freedoms recognised or declared in the international instruments listed in section 3 of the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Firstly, with respect to the right to humane treatment in detention, the inclusion in the bill of the IGIS's expanded remit over the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, which can detain persons under the Australian Crime Commission Act 2022 in limited circumstances, means the right to humane detention is promoted, because the effect of the bill is to enable independent oversight of places of detention.

Secondly, the right to a fair trial and a fair hearing is engaged by schedule 1 of the bill, which requires the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security to consult the head of an intelligence agency on whether the terms of a proposed response to the PJCIS would prejudice the fair trial of a person or the impartial adjudication of a matter. Prior to sharing ACIC examination material, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security will be required to consult with the CEO of the ACIC as to whether the sharing of that information could reasonably be expected to prejudice the fair trial of a relevant person. These consultation requirements therefore promote the right to a fair trial by ensuring there are safeguards for the disclosure of information in connection with that trial.

Thirdly, the prohibition on interference with privacy should be understood to comprise freedom from unwarranted and unreasonable intrusions into activities that society recognises as falling within the sphere of individual autonomy. It should also be understood that the right to privacy may be limited in the pursuit of a legitimate objective and where the limitation is rationally connected to the legitimate objective and is not arbitrary. Schedule 1 contains several measures that engage with the right to privacy, and each of these measures has a legitimate objective in that they are designed to ensure that the national intelligence community is holistically and appropriately overseen by oversight bodies. Each of the measures is proportionate in achieving the legitimate objectives outlined in the bill and is subject to safeguards.

Given the current dynamic security environment, underpinned by challenges that are unprecedented in number and nature and that point to unprecedented harm if not managed, there can be no argument that the nature and scale of the threats facing Australia are significant. Intelligence and security agencies need to be able to do the work required to anticipate and manage these threats but in an oversight environment that is appropriately robust and fair, driven towards ensuring that public trust and confidence are maintained to the highest standards. This bill strikes that balance. I stand with the Attorney-General and thank her for her work on this important bill, which I commend to the House.

Matt Gregg (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia faces an increasingly complex and challenging security environment. Both state and nonstate actors have shown increasing sophistication in the way they try to advance sometimes nefarious causes. We need a strong and robust intelligence framework, and our national intelligence community delivers that. There is no doubt our security agencies do a fantastic job of keeping Australians, individuals, businesses and communities safe. But we live in a democracy, so we need to make sure that, as with all government organisations, there is robust oversight and accountability and that our democratic system remains at the apex of our system.

This bill, the Strengthening Oversight of the National Intelligence Community Bill 2025, ensures two layers of protection. We have the expert oversight of the inspector-general as well as the democratic oversight of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. The joint committee is a very special part of our democratic system. It is a committee that has historically sat, and continues to sit, above partisan lines, where there is a genuine commitment from people all across the political spectrum to ensuring the safety and security of Australians, and good faith efforts to ensure that is the focus of that committee. It is well placed to provide that democratic oversight in a way that balances the need to ensure secrecy where required and subtlety when that's sufficient, and ensure there is nevertheless still robust oversight of the use of what are extraordinary powers of our intelligence organisations.

The member for Sturt gave the example of the compulsive powers of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission. That is one example of exceptional powers given to our intelligence organisations to enable them to do their jobs. But, for public trust and confidence to be safeguarded, we need to ensure that there is oversight and that members of the public can be confident those exceptional powers continue to be used appropriately, in the national interest and proportionately, and that their use is appropriately adapted to the threat environment we face.

This legislation is probably the most significant update to the oversight of our intelligence community since the royal commissions of the 1970s and 1980s—the Hope royal commissions. It is ensuring that there is a consistent framework for the oversight of the 10 agencies that sit within the national intelligence community and that there is a consistent, robust and democratically accountable framework for overseeing the important work they do. It strengthens democratic accountability and supports the effective and robust delivery of a modern intelligence suite of services. It ensures that, while oversight is there, we are still able to confidently empower those organisations to do the important work they need to do. It is an increasingly challenging, sophisticated and multipronged threat environment.

We know our intelligence organisations work incredibly well together, sharing intelligence where appropriate and ensuring they're coordinating with partners to the extent that that falls within their legal remit. That coordination is essential because criminal organisations and nefarious state actors don't follow the same rules we do. We need to ensure our framework enables flexibility for our security agencies to do their job well and to conduct themselves in a way that is consistent with the parliamentary democracy we find ourselves in and a society and culture that maintains respect for the rights and freedoms of individuals—and ensures that those rights, when they are limited through the right to privacy or the right not to participate in legal proceedings, are curtailed only to the extent necessary to protect human life or the essential interests of the country, and makes sure that we are always ensuring that the legal frameworks that sit around these things are proportionate and fair.

That is why we have independent oversight of national security legislation. We have a dedicated monitor that looks at our antiterrorism laws to ensure that they are not disproportionate, continue to meet the needs of intelligence organisations, continue to ensure it is possible for us to respond effectively to the threats and challenges faced by our country but at the same time not go overboard, and continue to ensure that Australians can remain confident that there is accountability, that our organisations do no more than is appropriate and reasonably adaptable to the important work they do, and that a mistrust that can sometimes develop from a lack of oversight and accountability can be addressed.

We know that, when things are kept secret, there's always more room for suspicion, more room for innuendo and more room for unfair assumptions to be made. We do need to ensure that, to the greatest extent possible, there is transparency about the way we do things and that the rules of the game are nice and clear, but that obviously doesn't mean that every single intelligence operation and every security threat is going to be openly disclosed to the public. Obviously that would adversely impact the important work the agencies do. So, while there needs to be a level of secrecy, Australians should be able to be confident that the rules of the game balance their rights and interests appropriately and that there are those two layers of oversight and checks, both from experts, such the inspector-general, and through their democratically representatives on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. This will ensure we can, as a people, remain confident that our security agencies are continuing to do the good and important work they're doing, that they're keeping Australians safe and that the frameworks we have in place will continue to enable them to appropriately respond to the environments they find themselves in.

I proudly commend this bill to the House and look forward to seeing its passage.

Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak to the Strengthening Oversight of the National Intelligence Community Bill 2025. It does not stand alone; rather, it is one of a series of steps the government has taken over the last 3½ years to create a more democratic system of effective oversight across the executive government.

When I spoke in this place on the Ministers of State Amendment Bill in 2023, I said that our system of government requires transparency, disclosures, checks and balances. On that occasion, we passed legislation to ensure that no future Australian Prime Minister would be able to take on ministries in secret. Prior to that time, no parliament conceived that such legislation would be necessary. Events proved otherwise, and the Albanese government took action.

I was a member of the Joint Select Committee on National Anti-Corruption Commission Legislation. The National Anti-Corruption Commission is an important part of our system of effective oversight and was already long overdue at the federal level when we passed the legislation in 2022. In 2024, I spoke on the Administrative Review Tribunal Bill. We inherited an AAT that was simply not working, beset with delay and inappropriate appointments. Without a solid system of administrative review there can be no public confidence in government. I'm pleased to see the government's reforms in this area are coming into effect—a legacy that the former attorney-general can be proud of.

The Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence) Bill is before the Senate—and not for the first time. That committee, once constituted, will act to enable this parliament to, in an appropriate way, more effectively monitor the Department of Defence and defence supply ecosystem. We've seen in recent days how necessary such oversight is. All of these examples and more are part of an underlying attitude on the part of the Albanese government that our institutions must be strong and that part of this strength is a formidable system of effective oversight that allows the parliament and the people to have sufficient knowledge that will engender trust in those institutions and in our democratic system as a whole.

Support for effective democratic oversight is, as I have said, a hallmark of the Albanese Labor government. I can say further that it is a significant feature of Labor governments generally. ASIO was established by the Chifley government, by executive action, in 1949. In 1974, the Whitlam government established the Hope royal commission, the Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security. That commission reported in 1977. In 1986 the Hawke government enacted the legislation for an inspector-general of intelligence and security, which had been a recommendation of the Hope royal commission. We passed legislation in 2023 to update and improve the Office of the IGIS, and it's fair to say that, today, that body has broad support across the parliament. In 1986, when the Office of the IGIS was established by the Hawke government, it was not supported by the coalition. There was a view that the intelligence agencies should not have their work disturbed by oversight. It was a James Bond-ish view of intelligence and security that perhaps we, as a society, have grown out of.

About 15 years ago, I was a principal policy adviser to WA Labor Premiers Gallop and Carpenter and Liberal Premier Barnett. I advised on security and emergency management. As part of my role I advised the premiers on WA's response to terrorism. I worked with my national counterparts and provided input to the COAG processes and decision-making with respect to the same. The fundamental importance of checks and balances and the role of oversight mechanisms such as IGIS was instilled in me then, and I have regard to this knowledge whenever I'm called to consider, debate and legislate on extraordinary powers that are largely carried out in secret.

The bill before us does a number of useful things and is the result of deliberations, reviews and committee inquiry over the past decade. As the Attorney-General stated in her second reading speech, the security threat environment is evolving and requires the intelligence community, which involves 10 agencies, to be increasingly interconnected in this work. Our oversight, therefore, needs to evolve likewise in order to ensure that both the parliament and the public have sufficient assurance that the work of the intelligence agencies proceeds appropriately and according to law.

The bill expands the role of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, particularly in relation to the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission and the intelligence functions of the Australian Federal Police and the Department of Home Affairs. The bill provides for expanded oversight by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, and I note that the government has budgeted $1.3 million over four years from 2023-24 and $0.3 million on going to support that expansion. The committee's expanded powers include greater capacity to review functions of the ACIC, the AFP, AUSTRAC and Home Affairs; the capacity to request an inquiry by the AGIS, which the AGIS, being independent, will consider, but it will not be compelled to inquire; and a greater scope for the requesting of briefings to the committee from relevant agencies, with heads of many agencies named and the list of agencies explicitly non-exhaustive. From my experience on that committee, these expanded powers will be helpful in providing for greater assurance.

The bill also brings a greater focus on security clearances for committee staff and underlines more explicitly the independence of the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, or INSLM. I have studied the work of INSLM's present and past and appreciate the frank and clear advice that they have provided. It's important for us to bolster and protect the independence of that office in whatever way we can. The bill also broadens the scope of the legislation that the INSLM may consider and review.

The PJCIS inquired into the bill, and its report has been taken into account. In the hearing for the inquiry, the Department of Home Affairs welcomed the bill. Mr James Robinson, First Assistant Secretary, Strategic Policy, said:

Oversight by the IGIS and the committee would enable the implementation of a consistent best-practice approach for managing proportionality, propriety and governance across our intelligence functions.

There is such a contrast between that statement and the statement of the Liberal member for Menzies back in 1986, the Hon. Neil Brown, who said:

… the very notion of having an Inspector-General to second guess an intelligence agency is utterly absurd and it is a severe restriction on its effectiveness.

Times and attitudes have changed, and the Office of the IGIS is broadly viewed and accepted as an integral part of our security architecture, as are the committee and the INSLM. This bill will make their functions more effective still, and I commend it to the House.

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to 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.