Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Bear with me, Senator, whilst I deal with at least part of your question. Unfortunately, listening to the detail of your question and being advised on it is a challenging task at the moment. ASIO is required to periodically report to the minister. ASIO’s guideline 13.4, made under section 8A of the ASIO Act, requires ASIO to keep records of all requests made to access personal information and all personal information received in response to a request. ASIO also has internal policies and procedures made in consultation with the IGIS. All ASIO records can be inspected by the IGIS, who may consider issues of legality, compliance with ministerial directions and guidelines, internal policies and procedures, as well as the propriety of ASIO’s actions. Additionally, ASIO is required to keep the minister informed of its activities and provide regular reporting to the Attorney-General. In the light of the existing oversight and accountability mechanisms, a more specific requirement to report to the minister is not strongly justified. I suppose this takes us to the Greens proposed amendments in relation to ASIO’s annual report.

The ASIO Act already requires ASIO to report on the activities of the organisation during the year. This would clearly encompass ASIO’s activities under the cooperation and assistance provisions in proposed section 19A. The level of detail proposed in the Greens amendment would get it to ‘operational’ detail, which would not be appropriate for inclusion in the unclassified annual report. It would be open to the Attorney-General to issue a direction to ASIO, requiring ASIO to report to the Attorney on requests made under the proposed cooperation and assistance provisions. In the light of all the existing reporting mechanisms, safeguards and oversight mechanisms, a specific reporting requirement of the nature suggested by the Greens is, in the government’s view, not warranted. Senator Ludlam, I am not sure whether there is another element of your question that I have not covered. You may want to revisit that if that is the case.