Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I am happy to move to discussion of this amendment, but I foreshadow that, later in the debate, once the minister's response to the Scrutiny of Bills Committee is able to be read by people participating in this debate and if the minister has not to our satisfaction addressed the concerns that they have raised, we might revisit the issues even though we will obviously be in the clause-by-clause stage of the debate. I trust that the chair will allow for that to occur.

The reason the Greens have put forward this amendment is reasonably simple. Nearly all those who provided evidence to the joint committee on the bill noted a very wide loophole in the drafting in the way that a computer is defined. We are not seeking to amend that definition, but merely the way that ASIO's warranted intrusion powers would be interpreted. The simple interpretation is this: in expanding the definition of a computer to include a network or networks, you have effectively created an open-ended power for the exercise of a single warrant to, in theory, at least, to include anything connected to that device and anything connected to devices connected to that.

The internet obviously being a network of networks, I am not sure whether the government anticipates a maximum number of devices, for example, being mandated in these warrants. Is our reading of the drafting correct in that there is actually no upper limit to the number of devices that could be caught in the execution of a single warrant? If that is the case then that obviously justifies the purpose of this amendment. Firstly, if we could get the Attorney-General to explain whether there is an upper limit or whether that would be conceived of warrant by warrant, or exactly how open-ended this drafting is?