Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Hansard source

Again, Senator Hanson-Young, your contribution just now makes a series of assertions that are simply wrong. This committee exists to augment the existing scrutiny arrangements that exist around defence. Many members of the Greens political party attend estimates and ask questions in public of Defence officials. There are also a range of oversight bodies which publish reports about their investigations into the activity of the agencies that sit within the Defence portfolio, including the ADF. This committee adds to those—augments them. It doesn't detract from any of those other functions.

What I will say is that it is often the case that there are sensitive questions that can't appropriately be discussed in public. There are good reasons for that. They go to our national security. They go to the safety of our personnel. Senator Hanson-Young, your party may think, may wish to make the case, that every operational detail about our servicemen and servicewomen in any environment should be spoken about publicly in this chamber or should be spoken about publicly at estimates, but that is not a position that our government accepts. Our government accepts that there are some things that do need to be treated as confidential and classified, because it is in our national interest for that to be so. It goes directly to the safety of our personnel in many cases.

What this committee does is allow members of this committee to engage with material that is secret or classified for some purpose and to do so in a secure environment. It puts the appropriate protections around that. In that, it does mirror the operations of PCIS. This is a difference of opinion between our party and yours. I've had the privilege of serving on PJCIS and I can tell you that the debate that occurred within that forum when I was a member, often in public, saw robust examination of important questions, supported by access to classified information that was provided in an appropriate secret environment.

On this, we do differ, because the Green political party, as far as I can tell, has never really acknowledged that there is any genuine threat to national security that requires a response from our national security community. I've never heard any of you say that in this chamber, and you're welcome to do so now if you think it to be the case. We take the security of Australia seriously. We consider that the bill before the parliament now, before this chamber, adds an important piece to the architecture of oversight that exists around the ADF and the broader agencies in the Defence portfolio. It's why we brought it forward. I look forward to the bill passing so that it may scrutinise key questions that, frankly, can't and shouldn't be scrutinised in a public environment.