Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I think it was Senator Fawcett who suggested that this is a question of getting the balance right. We agree with Senator Fawcett. This is a question of getting the balance right. We need to assess the need for privacy against the need to ensure that we keep our citizens safe. The reason that we are having this debate today is that we have got the balance wrong. We are not talking now about the activities of our intelligence agencies protecting Australian citizens; we are talking about our intelligence agencies being involved in activities with some of our poorest neighbours and trying to ensure that we get maximum financial advantage in negotiations with a nation that is—let us be clear about this—one of the poorest nations on earth, East Timor.

I was fortunate enough to be in East Timor only recently. Young children there cannot afford to get nets to prevent malaria. There is a huge incidence of malaria. They have an epidemic of HIV and an epidemic of TB in that nation. And here we are using the full force of our intelligence agencies to try and deprive them of an income to which they are absolutely entitled. In the bitter dispute that we had with them about the ownership of the gas reserves between our two nations, we employed our security agencies to try and get maximum financial advantage for the people of Australia. That is not what our intelligence agencies were set up to do. We have the balance very, very wrong.

In other parts of the world we have a situation where the issue of not just national intelligence agencies but a range of corporations being involved in surveillance of citizens has sparked outrage. In the US the National Security Agency was using the PRISM program to spy on customers using Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook et cetera, and it caused outrage, not just from the usual suspects, not just from people who are concerned about civil liberties, but from parliamentarians and leaders of nations, who called in US ambassadors to explain what was happening.

Here in Australia the response has been stony silence. We have seen almost a conspiracy of silence between the Labor Party and the Liberal Party on this issue. I wonder how much of this stems from the relationship that we have with the US. I think the sign of a mature relationship is when you can stand up on your own two feet and voice your own view of these important international issues. We do not want decisions that were once made for us in London to be made for us in Washington. We have a situation where the response to the debate has been: 'We don't comment on international security matters.' That is despite the fact that the NSA itself admits that there have been 15,000 violations of US law.

We know what happened about three weeks ago with the Guardian and the ABC, who broke the story about our government hacking the Indonesian President's phone and the phones of his wife and ministers. There were a number of commentators—and many members of this place—who challenged the legitimacy of those media outlets to raise what were very serious issues, not just serious moral issues but illegal activities under article 41 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which says very clearly:

Without prejudice to their privileges and immunities, it is the duty of all persons enjoying such privileges and immunities to respect the laws and regulations of the receiving State. They also have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State.

And yet here in this place people are challenging the legitimacy of the organisations who have reported this.

Thankfully, we have newspapers like the Guardian which are now doing the job that our parliamentarians should be doing. We have got, for example, the director of Big Brother Watch, Nick Pickles, who says that newspapers around the world, from the Guardian to the Washington Post and Der Spiegel, have done what our own parliamentary oversight committee and other oversight bodies failed to do. They have exposed unprecedented surveillance being undertaken without the knowledge or approval of our elected representatives. It is also important to note here that our own parliamentary oversight committee has not yet been established for this parliament. So while that is being offered here as a justification for how these matters should be dealt with, we do not yet have a parliamentary oversight committee.

A lot of the focus here has been on the role of the media. I note that in one exchange Mr Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian, was questioned by an MP, Mark Reckless. Mr Rusbridger was asked if he loved his country. I think a true patriot is one who defends the principles on which our nations are founded, the principles that mean that we live in a democratic country where individuals are free to communicate with each other without the fear of the overreach of the state. I think it is the definition of patriotism to stand up to state power, to stand up for the rights of the individual to express a view without fear of retribution from the powerful. In fact, it is absolutely an act of true patriotism to have done what those media outlets have been doing.

But this is not just about the impact it is having on the leadership of those nations; it is also about what it does to the relationships between governments and their citizens. The Greens have got some very constructive ways of dealing with this issue. The first thing I would like to draw the attention of this place to is the fact that, while briefings have been offered to the Leader of the Opposition as well as obviously the Prime Minister, the Greens have been denied a briefing from ASIO. Senator Scott Ludlam, who has been one of the most important voices in this national debate, has been denied a briefing from ASIO. At the very least, if both sides of politics want voices like the Greens to be satisfied that what is being done is being done in the national interest then surely the Greens should be entitled to a briefing from our foremost intelligence agency.

There are many other things that we can do. We can bring security agencies within the ambit of our Freedom of Information Act. Even the CIA and FBI do not enjoy the blanket protections that our intelligence agencies here enjoy. We should ensure security agencies are in the reporting requirements of the TIA Act. We think that the Greens 'get a warrant' bill should apply in the telecommunications space. I heard Senator Ludlam ask a question about the need to access data from some of our telecommunications companies. He was asked, 'Isn't it inconvenient that we should require a warrant to access telecommunication data?' Senator Ludlam said, in the way that only he can, 'That is the only thing that separates us from a police state.' That small inconvenience is what separates us from being a police state.

We can also make sure that we promptly make data breach notifications mandatory and make sure we can also require Australian companies and IT providers to advise customers if they have agreements with foreign or domestic governments. There are many other things. But what we need to do is to ensure that this issue is now seen not just through the prism of national security but the huge infringement on the liberties of individuals in this country.