David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move Greens amendment (2) on sheet 2055:

(2) Schedule 1, Part 6, page 11 (lines 1 to 17), to be opposed.

The bill, as drafted, significantly reduces oversight of ASIS, the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation, the Australian Signals Directorate, the Office of National Intelligence and the Defence Intelligence Organisation. It reduces that oversight by removing the Commonwealth Ombudsman's jurisdiction. We cannot see, as Greens, an argument for giving the Ombudsman less oversight in this space. There has never been a suggestion the Ombudsman was a security breach. There's never been a suggestion the Ombudsman's oversight has been excessive. Indeed, the Ombudsman provides a small measure of additional oversight of organisations that are only being given more power and more resources by the Albanese government. The only argument in favour of removing the ombudsman's jurisdiction is that somehow there's too much oversight of our national security industry. I don't think anyone could fairly review the space and agree with that argument. We move the amendment to protect the Commonwealth Ombudsman's jurisdiction and to ensure that we have at least that entity in government oversighting these bodies. We know that there are other more secretive oversight measures in place. We acknowledge that, but the ombudsman's oversight comes with the benefit of having whole-of-government oversight and won't treat the security apparatus as somehow this entirely special, separate entity. They have the benefit of oversighting the whole of the federal government and bring with that, I think, an essential perspective in oversighting these parts of the security apparatus in Australia. We commend the amendment to the Senate.