It gives me great pleasure and is a great honour to talk on the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission Bill 2026 and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (National Policing Information Charges) Bill 2026. At the outset, I would like to say that we support these bills. These bills, I believe, were referred to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, where they did their job, which is to deep-dive and get briefs that are classified—the secret briefs, compartmental briefs—where they have interrogated these bills. The coalition can comfortably say that we support this.

These bills are intended to modernise the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission and better define its role. I think that it's very important, when you're talking about better defining roles, to ensure that not just the people that serve there but people that also want to understand more about what the role is are able to look in and see and understand. I think that's a good move.

The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission was created by the Turnbull government in 2016 to bring together criminal intelligence, policing data and technology into a single national body. I remember at the time, although I wasn't in parliament then, great contributions from not just the government members at the time but also the opposition. Making sure that we have the Criminal Intelligence Commission is a good thing. It's a smart way of bringing people together from different parts of sectors or professions and having the data and technology in a single body. I believe it streamlines their actions but also makes sure that that they can do their job more effectively. The goal was simple but important: give law enforcement a clearer national picture of serious and organised crime and improve operational responsiveness. This is good. I think having that whole national picture is the cornerstone when you're making legislation and when you're creating a body like the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission. It was not just guided by politicians who think they're doing a good job. It was guided by the experts, having the experts in law enforcement and intelligence agencies sitting around the table and talking about why setting up this commission and targeting organised crime and targeting those that do harm to the to people in our country was important and how having a dedicated body or commission for it made sense.

The coalition recognises the importance of a strong and effective national criminal intelligence capability. There are many different agencies that have many different intelligence roles. From my time on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security I learned more about what our intelligence framework is but also the importance of it. They all do different things, but they all link in together. To be able to have a commission that brings people in and brings all that in to get a really good picture of the national threat and to target those organised criminals is a good thing. We remain cognisant of and committed to the principles of making such an organisation as successful and effective as it can cohesively be. I think that that's really important.

The coalition want to do two things. We want to work constructively with the government on good legislation. We want to make sure that we're holding the government to account. But, when it matters, when it's keeping Australians safe, when it's making sure that our agencies or commissions have the ability to do their jobs or when there are changes that need to be made, the coalition is laser focused on ensuring that occurs. National security is a big cornerstone for the coalition, as it is for every government and every political party, I'm sure. The reason we like to put things to committees like the intelligence committee or, like with the previous bill that I read out, the defence committee is that, as is my belief, politicians aren't experts on anything. We're not. No good ideas come from politicians. They come from the experts. Our job is to create the healthy framework. Our job is to put the legislation, the rules and the laws in place so they can do their jobs. So holding hearings, interrogating bills and having the experts come in and guide us is extremely important and something that the coalition holds very close to its heart.

At first glance, many of the proposed changes in these bills appear reasonable and reflect findings from the 2023 Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission review and a 2024 independent intelligence review. Once again, the reviews coming in from the experts guide us to make sure that we are making policies, legislation and changes that reflect what they need. There are also various questions about how these reforms will work in practice. For that reason, the coalition supported them going to an inquiry. Once again, when we have legislation that is complex, is large and takes a lot of time to go through and dissect, sending bills to a committee, and a high-level committee—the intelligence committee, just like the newly established defence committee, runs under secret provisions, so what we're told in those meetings doesn't come out and what we're told by people stays there. That's good, because it helps guide these tough questions and the briefings they get. Because we put it to the intelligence committee, our representatives there were satisfied, from what they were able to hear and interrogate, that the coalition should support this bill.

This bill does a few things. The government says that the bill will reinforce the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission's work on collecting, analysing and sharing intelligence. It is always good to work with our partners in the intelligence world and share and work collaboratively, because if we're not sharing intelligence we see mistakes happen. We've seen in other countries where the left hand doesn't talk to the right hand, and we do not want to see that here in this nation. That's why having this commission and having the ability, with the minister making these changes, is something we support.

To providing national crime insights, running criminal history checks and intelligence assessments: you might think these are things that the commission have always done—which they have. We're just giving them a better ability to do this. We're preserving cohesive powers but under a new approval and oversight framework, providing an updated legal footing for covert intelligence operations and search warrants for intelligence purposes. This is another good step in the right direction. We're maintaining the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission's role in national policing information systems, introducing new secrecy, disclosure and accountability frameworks and authorising fees for national policing information services.

To the issues and concerns that the coalition has: the coalition supports strong and effective action against serious and organised crime. However, these reforms must get the balance right between intelligence disruption and coordination, and that is exactly what has been examined through the committee. In that context, there were several issues and questions that we originally thought deserved scrutiny. There were five in particular that were important for us. Firstly, loss of disruption capability. The bill removes the role of the commission in the operational disruption of criminal networks. This reverses the approach that the former coalition government had. We strengthened the disruption powers, especially through the identity and disruption initiatives of 2021. The government's position potentially shifts disruption responsibilities to the AFP; I don't have a problem with other agencies doing that work, but that was something we wanted to interrogate. We were concerned whether the AFP had the capacity, resourcing and funding to absorb this role without impacting other priorities. We have to remember that the Australian Federal Police are very busy; all our agencies are. We don't want to impact their ability to continue to do their role without either a significant funding increase or pretty much bringing them in and saying, 'What do you need to be able to do this?'

There was a major policy shift on how crime is disrupted. The former coalition government supported intelligence agencies playing an active role in this disruption of serious organised crime. The government's approach appears to separate intelligence from disruption. There was a question for us as to whether this would create gaps between intelligence collection and operational action. It is true that a more intelligence focused commission may generate more intelligence, but it needs to be clear on the process and mechanisms that will be established to ensure that this intelligence is used effectively in operation. Gathering intelligence is good, but how do we then ensure that that intelligence that is gathered is actioned, and in a timely manner, so that we are disrupting organised crime and other criminal networks in this country? This led to other important questions about how intelligence will be prioritised, as well as how it will be shared and acted upon across agencies. Talking about the sharing of information, which I think we addressed at the start, we want to make sure that that things happen quite quickly so that we're not seeing intelligence gathered and then intelligence being obsolete because of the time period between gathering and action.

These bills abolish the commission's board, which currently brings together police and intelligence leaders, and set priorities and authorise action. If the bills pass, this will be transferred to ministerial authorisation instead. The kinds of things that our intelligence committee would have deep-dived into—looking at that part, if I was reading the bills for the first time, that would have been one of the red flags that I would have seen: taking the experts from the board away and using ministerial intervention to determine what happens next. Ministers aren't experts in this area—it doesn't matter what colour shirt you wear. This may reduce the role of certain agencies and potentially weaken decision-making. The board currently provides a national coordination mechanism across jurisdictions, so it potentially also raises questions about how Commonwealth, state and territory governments will practically identify and pursue national priorities, because we're talking about a national body here.

On funding and capability risks, the government has made a claim that there will be minimal financial impact as a result of the introduction of these bills, but there is limited detail around this. That is a bit concerning, when there clearly should be. We should know how these changes are going to work. Do we need different funding to the commission? Not talking about funding doesn't mean it's not there. As a part of this, there is also a need for more clarity and more detail about how many more or less commission staff the government is proposed to fund and from where the new specialist intelligence analysts will be recruited. How's it going to work? These are questions that I think that most people would reasonably have.

In summary, after many months of scrutiny through the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, some of those questions that that we just heard have been resolved. Some—not all. But we, as the coalition, are comfortable in supporting the bills. The content of these bills is significant and complex. The bills reshape the role of the commission. They balance intelligence and disruption and national coordination mechanisms. The coalition's position is that we'll always recognise and support the importance of strong and effective national criminal intelligence capability. In the future, we will also work constructively to identify improvements where they are needed.

In a time of great uncertainty around the world, in a time where we've seen our nation change, having agencies working collaboratively with the correct amount of funding will ensure that they are getting the best intelligence that they need to do their job, to disrupt criminal networks and activities around the country and to provide strong and fearless feedback to the minister and to the government so, if changes need to be made, they can bring forward legislation. The coalition will work always constructively with the government on national security and intelligence. When it is complex, it is appropriate for it to be sent to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. That committee is set up for complex policy, complex legislation, that this parliament is looking at, so I do think that it is an appropriate form of action. Like I said at the start, the coalition's position is that we will be supporting these bills.

Debate adjourned.