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

At the request of Senator McKim, I move:

At the end of the motion, add:

"but, in respect of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2025, the provisions of the bill be referred immediately to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 28 October 2025".

The reason the Greens are moving this amendment is that we have already been contacted by multiple stakeholders who are deeply concerned about the expansion of Howard-era secret interrogation powers, on which the sun was meant to set in 2005, but which keep being renewed and renewed and renewed.

The expansion of these Howard-era secret interrogation powers that have been given to ASIO is now being proposed by the Albanese Labor government to cover a raft of broadly defined additional activities. The proposal that's come from the dark, smoke-filled clubroom of Labor and the coalition on national security and ASIO's powers—its secret detention powers—is that this bill should be reviewed by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, which normally sits in secret and has never seen a security power that it hasn't wanted to grab with both hands and double-down on. It's the secret committee for secret powers, which it loves to whack on steroids.

What have the government and the coalition decided to do with this proposed expansion of ASIO's powers? They've decided to send it off to a secret committee that's loved every single expansion of ASIO's powers and to then say to the public: 'Don't you worry about it. It will be fine. John Howard got it right and we just want to increase John Howard's laws. We want to double down on John Howard's secrecy provisions and the ability to secretly interrogate people about a whole raft of matters—literally pull people off the street, take them to a secret place to interrogate them in secret, and give them basically no rights.' The government and the coalition want to expand very significantly the existing raft of espionage and sabotage that forms the basis upon which they can do this, in very woolly terms that aren't properly defined.

Concerns about the promotion of communal violence can have you pulled off the street and interrogated in secret under this bill, as can concerns about Australia's territorial and border integrity. But what does 'border integrity' mean? Could a concern about border integrity that might be perceived by ASIO as a serious threat involve organising a protest at a detention centre? Would that be enough to get you pulled off the streets by ASIO, put into a secret facility and questioned in secret with basically no rights? Is that what's being proposed?

There are issues about the promotion of communal violence. Of course we're opposed to communal violence, but is ASIO to be the determiner of that if they don't like the fact that somebody is calling for the end of a genocide? Will the club come together to punish somebody who's calling for the end of a genocide—have them pulled off the streets and interrogated in secret? Well, the recent experience would suggest that the Labor-coalition club would be quite comfortable with actually punishing people for seeking to end a genocide.

So we say again to the Albanese government: why do you keep playing John Howard's games? Why do you keep dealing with the coalition and massively expanding secrecy provisions, massively expanding the security state and expanding the ability of organisations like ASIO to pull people off the street and interrogate them in secret? If you're going to play that game, why aren't you willing to do it in public? And why aren't you willing to expose these powers to a proper public inquiry before the legal and constitutional committee, rather than send it off to the secret club to secretly expand these secret powers yet again? That's why we've moved this amendment, and that's why we look to other members in this chamber to have the courage to say, 'These kinds of powers need close public scrutiny.'