Mr McCLELLAND (Barton) (7.05 p.m.) —I move amendments (1) to (3) as circulated in my name together:
1)Item 1, page 3 (lines 1-20) omit the item, substitute the following item:
1 Section 35 (paragraph (a) of the definition of prescribed administrative action)
Repeal the paragraph, substitute:
(a)action that relates to or affects:
(i)access by a person to any information or place access to which is controlled or limited on security grounds; or
(ii)a person's ability to perform an activity in relation to, or involving, a prescribed thing (other than information or a place) if that ability is controlled or limited on security grounds;
including action affecting the occupancy of any office or position under the Commonwealth or an authority of the Commonwealth or under a State or an authority of a State, or in the service of a Commonwealth contractor, the occupant of which has or may have any such access or ability;
(2)After item 1, page 3 (after line 20) insert the following item.
1A Section 35
Insert:
prescribed thing means a thing, including any substance that is prescribed by regulation under this Act.
(3)Item 3, page 3 (line 30) omit “a thing”,
substitute “a prescribed thing”.
These are simple amendments. I will be brief. I raised this issue in my contribution on the second reading, as did the member for Denison. It simply goes to a question of definition. As currently framed, the proposed amendments to existing sections 35 and 39 add to ASIO's power to provide security checks in respect to information or a place the term `thing (other than information or a place)'. We appreciate, as we acknowledged in our contributions, that that term is in turn restricted and limited by the existing wording in the legislation that the place, information or thing has to be controlled or limited on security grounds—in other words, referring to some other regulatory or legislative scheme of a state or territory or the Commonwealth. We recognise that at the outset. Nonetheless, we think `thing' is obviously extremely wide in its construction. Certainly, it is far wider than `place', which is arguably easier to define, and `information' as determined with respect to national security again tends to be more readily defined.
Our amendment is simply to replace the words `a thing' with the term `a prescribed thing' and then to propose a new definition in paragraph 1A of section 35 which simply reads:
prescribed thing means a thing, including any substance that is prescribed by regulation under this act.
In doing that our intention is, as the government's intention is, to keep that very broad but to give the Attorney-General a very broad discretion to prescribe what a thing may be. `Thing' could include a substance, whether it be ammonium nitrate, nuclear material or some other substance, and we say that the Attorney-General would still have a very broad discretion but that our change would retain some degree of parliamentary oversight through the disallowance process and would enable a debate—should either of the political parties decide it appropriate—to ensue following the listing of the particular substance or thing.
That is the intention of our amendment. Obviously it is relatively slight in its import and obviously we will not stand against the passage of the legislation, should our amendment be defeated. We put it forward in good faith, thinking that it actually improves the regime.