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

Isn't it extraordinary; the coalition is getting up here and complaining that there wasn't sufficient time for an inquiry into and proper scrutiny of the Royal Commissions Legislation Amendment (Protections for Providing Information) Bill 2026. This is the same party that resisted, objected to and voted against a proper inquiry into this bill by the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee. They say one thing in their contributions, but the reality is they voted to shut down and prevent a proper public inquiry into this bill. I want to be clear: the Greens supported a proper inquiry into this bill—not some sham, rushed job through the PJCIS, where only the so-called current parties of government sit, but a proper inquiry in a public and open space—so that we could see if these protections work.

What does this bill aim to do? It aims to provide protections to some people who provide information to royal commissions on a voluntary and a compulsory basis, where the information is subject to a limited set of the hundreds and hundreds of security provisions under federal law. The bill partially implements a handful of recommendations for reform from the interim report of the veterans royal commission.

What did the veterans royal commission find? The veterans royal commission found, when it was trying to get evidence from serving members and former members of the Australian Defence Force, that there was incredible reticence amongst the veteran community and the serving members of the Defence Force to come and give evidence to the royal commission because they feared they'd be put in jail for breach of secrecy provisions, just like David McBride has been put in jail for breach of Defence Force secrecy provisions.

The chilling effect of the prosecution of David McBride and other whistleblowers by the Commonwealth government, both by the Labor Party and the coalition, was clearly felt throughout the veterans royal commission. Commissioner Kaldas and his fellow commissioners called that out very early on in their interim report. They said they wouldn't be able to get the cooperation they needed and the evidence they needed to complete the royal commission with the degree of certainty that they would like to have unless two things were done. First of all, it needed to be made clear that anyone giving evidence to a royal commission would be protected from prosecution under any one of the raft of hundreds of Commonwealth secrecy provisions. The royal commission said, 'You'd need to workshop that through the security agencies, and you'd need to ensure you had faith that the royal commission would treat security information with appropriate care.' But the core thing was to ensure no witness could go to jail, be prosecuted or lose their job for giving evidence to a royal commission. What did the government do? Absolutely nothing—nothing to help the veterans royal commission and, until they were pressed and pushed, nothing to help the current royal commission.

The second thing the interim report said was that royal commissions can be limited in what use they can give to parliamentary reports, committee reports and parliamentary reports because the way that the parliamentary privilege is interpreted by the Australian Government Solicitor is that those reports are protected by parliamentary privilege, and, even though they would be incredibly useful and relevant to a royal commission if for no other reason than to point out that issues have been put before the executive government repeatedly and nothing done, the royal commission found itself really bound in how it could use multiple parliamentary reports—in the case of veterans, dozens that had identified the problem going back decades. The Australian Government Solicitor, at the direction of the Albanese Labor government, kept saying to the veterans' royal commission, 'You can't use any of these parliamentary reports, because they're protected by parliamentary privilege.' That's not my understanding of what parliamentary privilege is meant to do. Parliamentary privilege is not meant to stop parliamentary reports and committee reports being used by royal commissions to actually inform positive reforms. That's not my understanding, but that's what the Australian Government Solicitor has been pushing time after time after time.

The veterans' royal commission said: 'Fix these two things. Let people come and give frank evidence without fear of being put in jail under Commonwealth secrecy provisions, and let us use the reports and the recommendations of parliamentary committees and parliamentary inquiries.' As I said, the Labor government did none of that—not one bit of it. Now, they've commenced a royal commission into the security agencies and their response to the appalling antisemitic attacks at Bondi Beach, and, now, Commissioner Bell has said, 'Actually, look at the reports from the interim reports from the veterans royal commission.' Obviously, members of ASIO, of Home Affairs, of the Australian Federal Police and, if it's relevant, of the ADF need protection so that they can come and tell the truth about what went wrong inside those security agencies and between those security agencies. They obviously need protection from the hundreds of Commonwealth secrecy provisions that apply.

Only after pressure was put on them from my party and from commentary in the media—only after pressure has been put on them do they bring this half-baked bill in. This half-baked bill goes nowhere near giving the protections that the veterans royal commission said were necessary for royal commissions. First of all, it does nothing about the parliamentary privilege. The Greens will be supporting amendments drafted by Senator Lambie that go to that core issue. We hope that the government, having read the interim report from the veterans royal commission, will support those amendments to say that royal commissions can have access to parliamentary reports and can use parliamentary reports and committee reports to do the work they need to do. We'll support that amendment. It's well drafted, and I want to thank Senator Lambie for bringing it to the Senate.

What this bill also fails to do is live up to the spirit and the nature of the recommendation from the veterans' royal commission, because the proposal in this bill is—there's a general defence to, I think, six secrecy provisions of the hundreds and hundreds of secrecy provisions under federal statute. I refer members of the chamber to the INSLM report that pointed out so many secrecy provisions and what a danger that was to the free flow of information about the Commonwealth's operations. It provides a general immunity to six general secrecy provisions—it doesn't touch the hundreds of others—and then it says, in relation to security information and a subset of evidence basically wrapped around security and defence information, 'If the heads of different security agencies voluntarily enter into an arrangement with the royal commission that provides what information can be given, how the information can be given and how the information can be used and that if current or former members of those security agencies provide information that fits within those arrangements, then they won't be prosecuted under a number of security provisions.' What that does is gives a veto to the heads of the security agencies to decide the terms on which information can be given and the use that the royal commission can give to the information.

The security agencies obviously have a dog in this, a stake in this fight. Of course they don't want a royal commission roaming around and having a full and frank view of all of their potentially quite significant failures that led up to the shootings on Bondi Beach. Of course they have an interest to ensure that the information is narrow in scope and that the royal commission has limited basis upon which to use it. They have an interest to, potentially, make it incredibly difficult for current or former members of the security agencies to provide the information. It's almost as though the heads of the security agencies drafted this legislation; it's almost as though that's the case.

I rarely look to what the coalition says for some greater transparency in this space, But even the coalition, in their additional comments to the PJCIS inquiry, pointed out the potential need—I'd say it's the absolute need—for far greater protections for witnesses. Even the coalition can see the potential need for greater protections for witnesses, but the Labor Party seems to be in the pocket of the security agencies and is quite satisfied with giving the security agencies a complete veto over what and how information can be provided. The Labor Party seems to be satisfied not to provide the broad protections suggested by the veterans royal commissioner.

This bill goes a tiny bit—a tiny bit—of the way toward providing the protections that Commissioner Kaldas made clear that royal commissions need. Millions of Australians were horrified about what they saw on Bondi Beach and deeply concerned about potential failures and inadequacies between Home Affairs, the AFP, ASIO and state police. If you want public confidence in the outcomes of this royal commission, you need to make sure that every single current and former member of the security agencies feels absolutely free to come and tell truth to power, to come and tell the royal commission exactly what they knew and exactly what happened or what didn't happen in the lead-up to this. This bill goes nowhere near giving the protections needed.

I'll finish with this. The security agencies need to be under the pump in this royal commission. They need to be absolutely held to account. The coalition has made efforts today to keep Dennis Richardson enmeshed in the royal commission with all of his conflicts of interest as former ASIO head. He's been repeatedly used as the coalition and Labor's go-to man to write reports that remove any kind of criticism of Home Affairs, ASIO or any of those security agencies. The fact that he was appointed in the first place to do a review already creates a trust deficit with much of the public. I know it creates a trust deficit with many people inside the security agencies because it looked like Richardson was going to come in and just perform his usual: protect the government, protect his mates in the security agencies, protect the agencies and move the circus on.

We need to make sure that the royal commission isn't tainted by that, and we need to make sure that Commissioner Bell and the royal commission can see every single piece of evidence that they need. Every current and former member of the security agencies needs to feel confident that they can come and give evidence to the royal commission and not be put in jail, like David McBride, or prosecuted for breaches of security provisions. This bill goes nowhere near giving that level of protection.