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

I was expecting a little bit more. I was anticipating that the minister might refer to section 133 of the AML legislation, which we talked about yesterday. What is contained in the existing legislation certainly does not satisfy me that we can be assured with respect to any intelligence that is passed on by ASIS, or indeed by the AFP or ASIO, to the Sri Lankan government—to use the specific example—or their intelligence organisations. It does not leave me confident that the relatives of Tamils in Australia will not have that information used inappropriately. The section in the act says:

(1)

The Director-General of Security may communicate AUSTRAC information to a foreign intelligence agency if the Director-General is satisfied that:

(a)

the foreign intelligence agency has given appropriate undertakings for:

(i)

protecting the confidentiality of the information; and

(ii)

controlling the use that will be made of it; and

(iii)

ensuring that the information will be used only for the purpose for which it is communicated to the foreign country; and

(b)

it is appropriate, in all the circumstances of the case, to do so.

I do not think that provides us with any assurances that it will not be used in that way. If you provide information to the Sri Lankan government, or an intelligence arm of the Sri Lankan government, about which Tamils are receiving support from their family members in Australia, does that provide us with a guarantee that that information will not be used to persecute those people? That is the history that we have seen. I am using this example because it is a current one, having regard to the 82 Sri Lankans sent to Nauru on the weekend. It is an example that Justice Dowd has spoken about in similar inquiries—that there are activities that provide support for family members or organisations in Tamil controlled areas of Sri Lanka, such as when Australians send money in order to support reconstruction after tsunamis and earthquakes in that region of the world. I do not want the parliament to be making it easier for the perpetrators of that persecution, be they the Sri Lankan government, militias or whomever, to be able to persecute individuals in Sri Lanka or Australian Tamils when they travel to Sri Lanka. That is the concern that I have.

We have already had a substantial debate on this matter. I want to make it clear that I have heard a lot of very useful information about how the system is going to work, and it concerns me that the CEO of AUSTRAC is going to decide whether or not ASIS are doing their job. I have not heard anything to say that that individual is in the best position to be able to do that. With respect to having systems in place to ensure that ASIS can have access to this information, obviously everyone wants to stop the financing of terrorism, but there are other systems in place whereby people need a warrant from a judicial officer, for example, to make sure that they are following proper procedure. That is not proposed here. What is proposed here is that the CEO of AUSTRAC will determine whether or not ASIS are doing their job.

If we did have a system which was about warrants, that would be great. That would be along the lines of acceptability to the Greens. But it is not what we have. All I have heard is that the CEO of AUSTRAC will decide if ASIS are doing their job. I know, because groups have been contacting me, that there is significant concern in the Australian community that this legislation seeks to increase the capacity for ASIS to spy on Australians, and the implications that has for Australians who are supporting their family members, be they in Palestine, Tamil controlled areas of Sri Lanka or various other parts of the world. This legislation, which exempts banks from the anti-discrimination legislation, is going to see racial profiling occur. We have heard police organisations talk about the danger in doing this.

What is proposed in this specific piece of legislation to increase the powers of ASIS has not been justified by the government. Some arguments have been put forward, but I think those arguments lead us to a view that any access, if at all, by ASIS should be far narrower than what is proposed in the legislation. It would be far more appropriate to have a system of requiring a warrant from an independent judicial officer—the kind of avenues that are followed elsewhere in other pieces of legislation. That is not contained in the legislation.

Whilst the Greens can accept that there may be some arguments for this proposal, they are not before us. So there is a need to start again and try to put in place a system that ensures that any information received by security agencies, be they ASIS or others, is for the purpose of preventing the financing of terrorism. That is what we want to do. Let us make sure that we introduce legislation that does that. This legislation does not. It does not provide appropriate safeguards. We have not had a justification from the government about why ASIS is to be given access, on top of the other 30 intelligence agencies that were given access in the previous legislation. We are just not in a position to support this proposal because the safeguards are not there. Yes, we all want to stop the financing of terrorism, but let us do that in the legislation instead of just throwing out the net and letting innocent people be caught by it.