Mr McCLELLAND (Barton) (11.19 a.m.)—The opposition fully supports the second reading. The Attorney-General in his second reading speech outlined the essential substance of the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Telecommunications Interception and Other Measures) Bill 2005. Those measures are obviously important and fully supported. My contribution will be less extensive and will focus primarily on those areas that were the subject of some controversy. As the Attorney-General has outlined, the bill establishes a more sophisticated regime for the lawful interception of telecommunications in Australia by our law enforcement agencies. This is an important piece of legislation that sets out a workable and sensible regime to allow communications to and from emergency service facilities to be recorded, whilst protecting the privacy of those who use the Australian telecommunications system by making it an offence to intercept communications passing over a telecommunications system other than as permitted by the Telecommunications (Interception) Act.

From the outset, the opposition have agreed to the need to secure the expeditious passage of this bill in the national interest. At the same time we wanted to ensure that the bill incorporated sensible safeguards to protect the Australian people from the potential overreach of interception technology. Over the course of negotiations with the government several issues were raised concerning the adequacy of the safeguards incorporated in the bill. Of primary concern was the extent to which calls made to and from an emergency services facility that are not for the purpose of communicating information about an emergency could legitimately fall under the ambit of the bill. As originally introduced, this would allow any communications by an employee or volunteer at an emergency service facility, including personal mobile phone calls, email and SMS messages, to be intercepted without warrant under the act. As agreed by the government during subsequent discussions, this would have extended the operation of the bill beyond its originally intended purpose.

A further significant issue was that, as initially proposed, those emergency service facilities through which communications could be intercepted without warrant would have only been declared by the Attorney-General’s written declarations. These would not have been legislative instruments for the purposes of the Legislative Instruments Act and thus would not have been the subject of parliamentary scrutiny and potential disallowance. Furthermore, there was no readily apparent limit to the number of agencies, under proposed amendments to the Criminal Code Act, who would be exempted from the prohibition against intercepting telecommunications. As a result of these issues being identified, the opposition referred the bill to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee for inquiry and report. On the whole, the submissions and evidence received by the committee were supportive of the bill and its purposes. However, some submissions noted the need for caution in this area, and I think both sides of parliament recognise that caution is appropriate. For instance, the Law Council of Australia commented on the wide range of communications that could now be captured by the bill:

This issue has been addressed, as I will indicate. The Senate committee recommended that emergency service interceptions from emergency service facilities would occur lawfully in the course of an employee’s duties and that the list of those deemed to be law enforcement officers should be clarified. The effect of this recommendation resolves the concern the opposition held as to the overreach of the bill in capturing communications not envisaged by the bill. The sensible operation of the bill has also been enhanced by the government proposing that the regime for intercepting calls made to and from emergency service facilities only applies where there is a notice at all entrances to such facilities advising personnel and volunteers of the recording of communications in those facilities. That is a sensible proposal, one which I think employees and volunteers in those facilities would appreciate. The Law Council of Australia also submitted that emergency service facilities should be declared by legislative instrument, to enhance parliamentary scrutiny of the extent of those bodies that can lawfully intercept communications.

The committee recommended that any declaration deeming an emergency service facility should be by legislative instrument for the purposes of the Legislative Instruments Act, to allow full and proper scrutiny by parliament and, potentially, disallowance. To protect the interests of vital infrastructure, and indeed to protect those working within facilities from potentially being targeted in the event of an emergency or even perhaps a terrorist attack, the committee rightly considered, in the opposition’s view, that the bill should provide that there is no requirement for the information provided to parliament to detail the specific location of the emergency service facility. This was an original concern of the government in providing for the declaration mechanism, as opposed to the legislative instrument mechanism. So information contained in the relevant legislative instrument should only include identification of the town or city, the region, and the state or territory in which the emergency service facility is located. Specification of the facility and the service concerned in general terms without identification of the location would not, in the committee’s or the opposition’s view, compromise the security of such facilities but would enable appropriate parliamentary scrutiny of this ministerial power.

The committee also made a recommendation to improve the reporting requirements to parliament under the bill, a recommendation the opposition fully support to improve accountability. From day one, the opposition have agreed to the need to secure the expeditious passage of this bill in the national interest but have felt additional safeguards were necessary to protect the Australian people from the potential misuse of the powers contained in the bill. That is not to say that there would necessarily be any deliberate intention for those powers to be misused, but misuse occurring through error, for instance, was something that we wanted to avoid. The government has appropriately moved amendments that adopt all of the recommendations of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee to improve the operation of the bill. The work of the committee must be commended. We respect the government for its openness in accepting the committee’s recommendations. The adoption of the recommendations of the committee again highlights what we believe is the valuable work of the committee system of the parliament.

The opposition fully support the amendments that the government has put in place to accommodate these recommendations of the committee. Because of these amendments, we now have a legislative framework that sets out a workable and sensible regime to allow communications to emergency service facilities to be recorded for law enforcement purposes while protecting the privacy of those who use the Australian telecommunications system. Additional safeguards incorporated in the bill require the Attorney-General to provide in the Attorney General’s annual report statistics relating to the number and type of emergency service facilities that have been declared each year. They require particulars of any deficiencies identified in the operation of the bill to be reported in the annual report. Today, through a sensible and constructive legislative approach taken with the government—and with the government’s cooperation—the Australian public has a far better piece of legislation that not only enhances the operation of our law enforcement agencies but also establishes a regime to protect privacy and ensure a greater degree of parliamentary accountability. The opposition fully support the passage of this important legislation.