Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the explanatory memorandum and move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

TELECOMMUNICATIONS AMENDMENT (GET A WARRANT) BILL 2013

This Bill strengthens the rules about collecting data about Australians. It returns us to the normal warrant procedures whee a law enforcement agency is required to obtain a warrant before accessing a person's private data.

Currently Australian law enforcement agencies (other than ASIO) are able to access vast amounts of private data without getting a warrant. This information includes data about telephone calls that you have made, emails you have sent, information that you have accessed online, and detailed information about the location of your mobile telephone.

According to the Telecommunications Interceptions and Access Act (TIA) Annual report 2011-12, Australian law enforcement agencies were granted access to personal information about Australians 293,501 times throughout the 2011-12 year, without obtaining a warrant or having any judicial oversight.

This Bill does not prevent law enforcement and intelligence from accessing material in order to carry out their functions; it simply requires that law enforcement agencies obtain a warrant prior to accessing the information.

A member of the judiciary, a recognised cornerstone of democracy and the rule of law, will be required to provide independent and informed oversight of the use of coercive or invasive powers. Requests by ASIO will be required to obtain a warrant from the Attorney General.

Warrants not only protect citizens from the abuse of power by the State, they also provide legitimacy and authority to police or intelligence agencies carrying out their functions by ensuing that their actions are both necessary and proportional.

While it is the government's role to promote collective protection against identity theft, online crime and acts of political violence, Australian citizens have a legitimate expectation that the government will defend their democratic right to privacy, freedom of expression and freedom from arbitrary acts of state surveillance or coercion.

The Greens believe that changes made to the Telecommunications Act and the Telecommunications Interception and Access Act (TIA) in 2007 to normalise warrantless surveillance, radically and unnecessarily privileged national security concerns over the privacy and civil liberties of Australians. This Bill reinstates the balance between national security and privacy and treats Australians as citizens first with basic rights and protections, and not merely suspects.

In May 2013 the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor concluded that several of the 80 hastily made changes to Australian law after the events of September 11 were not effective, appropriate or necessary. The scope and reach of the laws were unprecedented, and included extraordinary powers of surveillance, detention and restriction and censorship on speech.

Citizen's human rights are protected when laws are transparently made, independently adjudicated, equally enforced and fairly applied. Among the rights recognised in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the "freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers," which is contained in Article 19 of that Declaration.

In June 2012, the UN Human Rights Council affirmed in resolution A/​HRC/​20/​L.13 that, "the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, in particular freedom of expression, which is applicable regardless of frontiers and through any media of one's choice, in accordance with Articles 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights"

The online and offline human rights of Australians are being compromised when safeguards and privacy protections are insufficient to prevent widespread warrantless surveillance.

Given that Australia's security agencies and police forces have been deployed against targets that fall well beyond threats to national security such as climate change demonstrators, the occupy movement, anti-whaling campaigners and supporters of the WikiLeaks publishing organization, the lines between terrorism, civil disobedience and healthy dissent are being routinely blurred. This Bill seeks to ensure that Australians are protected from indiscriminate monitoring by law enforcement agencies.

The Australian Greens strongly support the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) recommendation that the Telecommunications Interception and Access Act (TIA) be reviewed in its entirety.

Until an Australian government has the sense to implement the ALRC's recommendation, the TIA must be amended piecemeal, such as with this Bill, in an effort to return Australian law enforcement procedures to protecting the hard-won rights fundamental to a liberal democracy.

I commend this Bill to the Senate.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.