Natasha Stott Despoja (SA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

The annual report on the Telecommunications (Interception) Act and the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s report to the Attorney-General on the results of inspections of records under the Surveillance Devices Act 2004, which was the previous report, reveal what I consider a disturbing trend under this particular government, that is, a preoccupation with understanding our every move.

I know that the government is claiming that its results in the telecommunications annual report highlight the effectiveness of telecommunications interception. In fact, these two reports reveal a government that is increasingly at ease with the notion of eavesdropping on private conversations, watching its private citizens and encroaching on civil liberties.

Last year, the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee, in its report into the Telecommunications (Interception) Amendment Bill, cited a calculation that, by comparison with the US for 2003-04, Australia issues 75 per cent more warrants than the total number of US wiretaps warrants, and that this represented 26 times the rate on a per capita basis. So prolific is snooping activity that the Victorian Law Reform Commission is investigating surveillance in public places, and there is work at the Council of Attorneys-General level for a CCTV code, which will surely lay the infrastructure for blanket surveillance.

I have looked at this year’s Attorney-General’s media release that states in the 12-month reporting period the Commonwealth got to almost 1,500 convictions. Last year, there were more than 1,533 convictions in which lawfully obtained intercepted information was given in evidence; as if 1,500 is the magical number by which to justify interception powers. Absent from the media release is the number of warrants issued and interceptions undertaken in the past year which were not of any forensic value. That figure, I am sure, is in the thousands. Absent also is the volume of information which is being produced as a consequence of this interception, which incidentally is likely to have swollen as a result of shameless amendments last year to interception law, which has provided for the interception of ‘B-party’ communications; that is, communications of persons not themselves under suspicion but in contact with a suspect. Perhaps this explains why the government has been forced to inject $65.2 million over five years to upgrade the AFP’s operational and intelligence systems and existing technical infrastructure to cope with all this additional surveillance material of innocent Australians.

Another interesting issue highlighted in these reports is the broad powers the AFP and Australia’s intelligence agencies have to obtain information without a warrant and without any reporting. I wonder—I am happy to put this on notice for the government—how much information has been obtained without a warrant.

I recall in 2005 the AFP being given new ‘notice to produce’ powers which provide them with a means of access to information without a search warrant when investigating any serious offence, not just terrorism. Significantly, that power overrides not only privacy laws but also legal professional privilege, duties of confidence and other public interest, and also prevents someone served with a ‘notice to produce’ from informing another person, other than those involved in responding and the person’s own legal advisers.

So the picture that these reports paint is one in which the government is creating a climate of fear through broader use of interception and surveillance powers, dobbing on neighbours through additional funding this year for its terrorism hotline, plus plans for an identity card in the form of the access card.

I call on the government to have a look at its own reports and, as a matter of priority, commission urgent independent research into the state of surveillance in this country, to judge whether or not the potential intrusion into people’s privacy is outweighed by its benefits. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.