Kerry Nettle (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I have a couple of things to follow up on from yesterday. I thank the minister and others for their comments. The issues raised about the CEO of AUSTRAC actually raise more concerns for me. Of course, I recognise that the minister was saying that ASIS is going to determine whether their request is appropriate and so is the CEO of AUSTRAC. I accept what you are saying. ASIS are going to want to proceed with their investigations and they are going to be rather supportive of what they are doing and put that forward. I have certainly not heard anything that has convinced me that the CEO of AUSTRAC is the best person to decide whether ASIS are doing their job or not. If there is anything else on that I would be happy to hear it.

The minister made some comments yesterday about IGIS, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, and responded to my comments in my speech on the second reading about them being underfunded and understaffed. I wonder if the minister is able to outline how many staff are now working for IGIS. I think the last time I asked that question it was four, and that included admin staff. Having an idea of the number of staff in ASIS compared to the number of staff in IGIS gives us some insight into the capacity for oversight of that issue.

The minister asked yesterday whether I could give an example of my concern. I want to put a specific example to the minister that has come to mind just now, which is of Australians who may be providing donations to family members who are in Tamil controlled areas of Sri Lanka. This is something we have talked about before in other arenas, whereby intelligence would be in AUSTRAC that there were Australians who were providing funding to organisations or individuals in Tamil controlled areas of Sri Lanka. The amendment being proposed here by the government is that ASIS be given access to that information and that they be able to pass that on to foreign governments, which in this case would be the intelligence services of Sri Lanka. I asked some questions yesterday about how we can make sure that that information is not used inappropriately. Of course, I am not suggesting that the Sri Lankan intelligence services or government can do anything about the people in Australia. But how do we make sure that when that information is passed over it does not lead to the detention, death or torture of people or other inappropriate violence or human rights abuses towards those family members who are being provided with money by Tamils in Australia or indeed the Australians themselves when they are in Sri Lanka?