Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy President, I thank you for your indulgence and I do seek leave, even though I know it is slightly out of order, to take note of the annual report of the Surveillance Devices Act 2004. I believe I need to now do that by leave?

Leave granted.

I thank the Senate. I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

This annual report into the Surveillance Devices Act 2004, as well as another report tabled today, the annual report into the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979, demonstrate clearly the dangerous path that this country is on. In the last 20 years, we've had over 200 pieces of legislation come through state, territory and this Commonwealth parliament, all of which erode fundamental rights, freedoms and liberties in this country. These rights and freedoms are amongst those that we used to send Australians overseas to fight—and in some cases, tragically, to die—to defend. We are now giving away these rights and freedoms, hand over fist, as rapidly as possible because the current federal government has done everything it can to scare the Australian people.

In giving away those fundamental rights and freedoms, we are sleep-walking down the dangerous path to an authoritarian police state in Australia. Make no mistake, that is the ultimate destination of the journey that we are on—becoming a surveillance state, becoming a police state and becoming subject as citizens to invasions of our privacy and, ultimately, to Australia becoming an authoritarian regime. We so desperately need a charter of rights in this country so we can protect and enshrine those fundamental rights and freedoms that actually are amongst those things that make Australia such a great country. Those rights and freedoms that so many of us take for granted are now being taken away, hand over fist, by a combination of the major political parties in this place, the LNP and the ALP. They do that because they stitch up cosy deals behind the closed doors of the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence and Security, a committee that operates often in total secret, without public scrutiny and which denies any crossbench representation and input into its decision-making process. What we get because of that collusion is the ongoing giving away of fundamental rights and freedoms in Australia.

The crossbench should be on the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence and Security; there's no doubt about that. I want to give a couple of examples of issues that have arisen in the last year or so in Australia. Firstly, the leaking, which I have no doubt came either from Minister Dutton or from his office to Simon Benson, to a journalist at The Australian, of classified ASIO information, a leak which was condemned by Mr Lewis, the head of ASIO, when it happened but which inexplicably the Australian Federal Police have declined to investigate. When you superimpose that onto the recent raids by the Australian Federal Police of prominent media outlets in this country, including News Corp and the ABC, you can understand why there is nervousness starting to emerge amongst our media, amongst journalists about the intimidatory nature of those raids.

I say to our media that in fact the issue here is far broader than just press and media freedom; it's about the freedoms of ordinary Australians to go about their day-to-day business without unnecessary spying and intrusion into their personal privacy by intelligence agencies in this country. It's time we had a charter of rights to protect a broad range of rights, including our rights to privacy. It's time that we had an informed conversation in this country about the ongoing erosion of rights and freedoms in the name of national security and an informed debate about whether or not giving away those rights and freedoms is necessary or, indeed, whether giving them away makes us any safer at all from the threats that no doubt exist today. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned