Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is a very interesting and timely debate, and in my contribution I would like to focus on where personal responsibilities lie in terms of the Australian Greens proposition that existing and proposed government efforts threaten Australia's rights to privacy and freedom of the individual. As I say, it is a very timely debate. This week the Melbourne Age is featuring the privacy issue, canvassing some of the issues raised in the submissions to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security's inquiry. As a member of the inquiry I want to make a few comments—although I note that Senator Bilyk did respond to much of the misinformation that is around about the considerations before the committee at the moment. It is a healthy debate and one that I really welcome. The events of this week and last, triggered by that miserable, low-budget, moronic video, The innocence of Muslims, frames the debate today in a very interesting way. I think we would be talking about a different issue if this had not occurred.

What we have here is a series of events that go to the heart of the concerns being expressed in some of the submissions. To provide a bit of context, let me backtrack. In May 2008, the Australian Law Reform Commission concluded its inquiry of more than two years into the effectiveness of the Privacy Act 1988 and made significant recommendations—295 recommendations—for reform in a range of areas, including telecommunications, credit reporting information, health records, and privacy protections generally. As Senator Bilyk outlined, the government has responded significantly this week with the bill that has just passed through the House and will be here soon.

One of the ALRC's recommendations was that the most serious invasions of privacy could best be addressed through the introduction of a statutory cause of action for privacy. The Victorian and New South Wales law reform commissions have also recommended a statutory cause of action for privacy. The considerations that have occurred since that time have been around that fundamental question. I would suggest that we cannot simply consider whether action is desirable without also working out how best to do it.

As Senator Ludlam posed the question in his opening comments in this debate and Senator Bilyk also responded in terms of some of the issues raised in the security inquiry, I do not want to go into too much depth about the range of suggestions being tested in the Attorney General's Department's consultation paper, except to say that the overwhelming concerns expressed by submitters to date have been around the protections of privacy. Those submissions are on the committee's website and are there for most to see. There are some protected submissions which contain details of national security, but most of the submissions are there and are a very honest attempt to actually deal with the complexity of balancing national security and national interests, and issues of encryption and storing data.

On the issue of the data retention myth that is being perpetuated, it is true that the existing Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act allows the police and ASIO to access what is called metadata. Metadata includes things like the time an email is sent and who it is sent to. They do not have the power to actually access the content.