Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I am right about that. That is because there is a need for appropriate legislation to be put in place. It is necessary that there be an improvement to the scheme to ensure proper handling of these types of cards, because, when the scheme is up and running in a short while and becomes effective, it will ensure improved security. That is why Labor fundamentally agree with the legislation: it is about improving the scheme.

What we have been critical of and will continue to be critical of is the government’s tardiness in tidying up some of the loose ends—its failure to do so at an earlier stage—and, overall, its slowness to act. It is difficult, I think, for the government to escape that criticism. My view is that the government should take it on the chin and get on with the job, quite frankly.

I had the opportunity to participate in the committee inquiry into this bill, and what struck me was that there was an overall desire to improve the scheme. By the range of issues that the government has picked up in its amendments (2), (3) and (8) on sheet PJ361, dealing with personal information, there is also a desire to improve the operation of the bill to ensure that it does handle things in an appropriate way.

There is a question that arises, though, where the government says that the information will be provided periodically. I know this might be out of order, but perhaps we can get some of the questions dealt with early. The point of it all is that, in our foreshadowed recommendation (9), the committee looked at the commitment to ‘provide periodic reports’. What I fail to understand is how AusCheck will ensure transparency and accountability—how it will ensure that, in meeting the necessary privacy principles, it will be able to provide periodic reports; where those reports will go; how they will be stored; how they will be able to be accessed by the opposition or other parties; whether they will be available through freedom of information legislation. We are not interested in the individual nature of those records, but, overall, we want to ensure that there are appropriate checks and that, in fact, these things do not go missing—that information is stored appropriately. We are interested in the types and range of information.

It is a framework bill. In the minister’s second reading contribution he talked about the difficulty with the number of departments that might access the information and with including those agencies in a bill. He indicated that he might deal with it by regulation, in a way whereby we can see which agencies can access it and which agencies can enter a memorandum of understanding, or that the information might be collected and held in such a way that there is reasonable opportunity for the opposition or other interested parties, not busybodies, to access it; that it is done in a way to ensure that information is kept appropriately and is available. I will pause at that point and give the minister an opportunity to respond.