David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Hansard source

I think that is right; that is correct. In your example, the CEO would have to be satisfied that the use to be made by the government of another country—the United States in your example—was within all the consideration thresholds of the CEO. He would ask, ‘What is this information for?’ The information would not be provided to the Volcker inquiry. The information would be provided to the government, and they would be required to specify what it was going to be used for. Bear in mind that it is intelligence and in all three systems we have talked about here—the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia—there is no evidentiary capacity in the foreign use of that information. It is purely intelligence. If all you had was the intelligence and you were unable to substantiate it with admissible adducible evidence, you would have very little.