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

Minister, I hear what you say. The problem I have is that what you've just told the Senate is starkly at odds with what the PJCIS has said. I'll read from their report.

The International Production Orders (IPO) framework in Schedule 1 … enables Australian law enforcement and national security agencies to obtain an IPO … where Australia has a designated international agreement with the foreign country—

and that's where they reference the Australia-US CLOUD Act Agreement.

This means that Australian law enforcement and national security agencies can ask communications service providers in the US to provide content or data to investigate or prosecute serious offences in Australia, and allows US law enforcement and security agencies to similarly request access to content or data held by Australian-based communication service providers to investigate or prosecute crimes in the US.

That's them describing the current arrangements. But they go on to say:

The bill seeks to amend Schedule 1 of the TIA Act to replace the term 'intercepting' with 'accessing' in relation to IPOs.279 The effect of this is to broaden when an IPO may be issued—an eligible judge or nominated administrative review tribunal member must consider the agency's 'access' to communications, messages, voice calls or video calls in relation to IPOs, rather than the technical method by which the information is captured, stored or retrieved.280

So is PJCIS right when it says it broadens when an IPO may be issued, or are you right when you say there's no change?