Mr PORTER (Pearce—Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) (09:03): by leave—Today, the third repeal day, is another milestone in the government's commitment to rid the community of unnecessary and costly red tape. It is now more than a year since we started our concerted plan to reduce the regulatory burden on our society. We set about changing attitudes towards regulation in government, in business and in the community. For too long Australian society suffered poorly designed and excessive regulation. This imposed unnecessary costs on businesses, community organisations, families and individuals. It sabotaged the productivity of Australian businesses, deterred investment and undermined jobs and growth. Australia needed change and this government made a commitment to deliver that change—and we are. We are instituting a cultural shift in thinking about regulation.

There is no doubt that cutting red tape is a challenging task. The government's focus is now on striking the right balance between the necessary regulation that supports markets, innovation and investment in our economy, while protecting the community and removing the duplicated or unnecessary and excessively costly red tape. The red tape reduction program which the government has instituted has meant significant transformation across the Australian Public Service. Every cabinet submission must now be accompanied by a regulation impact statement to assess the costs and benefits of a variety of policy options.

Deregulation units—tasked with identifying and driving red tape reduction across the Commonwealth—now exist in every portfolio. The Australian government guide to regulation and a regulator performance framework have been developed to assist policymakers and regulators with their policy design and implementation process. We are further committed to work with the states and territories to reduce red tape across all levels of government, and the Commonwealth has a clear and measurable commitment to reduce the cost of complying with Commonwealth regulations by making new decisions to cut red tape totalling at least $1 billion net annually.

Since September 2013, ministers—along with their ministerial advisory councils—have been working to deliver on a range of the government's red tape commitments. Today, as a result of those efforts, in education we will deliver the platform for a national assessment program for literacy and numeracy online from 2017. In health, we have removed requirements for psychologists to maintain two sets of records of their continuing professional development activities. In agriculture, we are improving the regulation of stock and pet food products of well-defined risk, reducing the need for these defined risk products to be subject to the same intensive assessment process as high-risk agvet chemical products.

In telecommunications, companies are no longer required to provide repetitive information about mobile premium services. This will lessen the regulatory cost for telecommunications service providers. We are also making identity checks even easier for retailers and consumers when purchasing a new prepaid mobile phone, including the ability for retailers to visually check identification documents.

For individuals, myGov services have been enhanced so that customers can now update their details in one place, using the myGov 'tell us once' service, and link Australian JobSearch online accounts to their myGov account to obtain secure and convenient access to online services with a single account and one set of credentials. Students who receive payments for youth allowance are now able to advise of multiple changes to their details in one transaction online without needing to contact a call centre or attend a service centre.

We are removing the requirement for heavy vehicle operators of B-double truck combinations registered under the Federal Interstate Registration Scheme to fit additional spray suppression devices. These devices were shown to increase costs but provide no additional safety benefits. The government has expanded use of personal electronic devices in all phases of flight, provided the operator can ensure the aircraft is operated safely. This now allows passengers to use electronic devices for the full duration of flights, providing improvement in productivity time for passengers, in particular for business travellers.

In response to a review of skills programs by the former council of Commonwealth, state and territory training ministers, we are reducing the number of existing mandatory reporting obligations. As part of the government's industry innovation and competitiveness agenda, launched in October last year, we adopted a new principle that Australian regulators should not impose additional requirements beyond those that already apply under trusted international regulations unless it can be demonstrated there is a good reason to do so. As part of these changes, Australian manufacturers of medical devices, for instance, will be able to choose to have a conformity assessment conducted by either the TGA or an alternative conformity assessment body, such as a European notified body. What this means in practice is that Australian manufacturers of all but the highest risk products will be on an equal footing with those from overseas. In many cases, this will allow locally made medical devices to get to market more quickly.

These are just a handful of the hundreds of examples, and the government's efforts have not stopped yet. We have set a target of removing $1 billion worth of regulation each year in 2014, 2015 and 2016. To underpin this clear and measurable approach to reducing the cost of red tape, upon coming to government we set about the task of undertaking a stocktake of the Commonwealth government's total regulatory footprint. Remarkably, this is one of the few times that any jurisdiction in the world has engaged in a rigorous and consistent process which allows for an accurate assessment of the total cost national government regulation imposes on an economy. For the first time in Australian history, a Commonwealth government has undertaken a complete and accurate stocktake of all Commonwealth regulatory costs. We are also consistently measuring and reducing those regulatory costs to reverse the growing burden of red tape on the Australian economy.

Having an accurate measure of the Commonwealth regulatory stock means that, for the first time, ministers, departmental secretaries, regulators and policy officers have a detailed picture of the regulations that the Commonwealth government has instituted, through its many pieces of primary legislation, thousands of subordinate instruments and tens of thousands of quasi-regulations.

Today, in tabling the government's inaugural Annual Deregulation Report to the parliament, we now know that the situation inherited by this government was that, annual costs to business and individuals of complying with Commonwealth regulations is estimated to be around $65 billion per annum. Further, this is the first time in Australian history that a Commonwealth government has, with a very high degree of accuracy, publicly reported to parliament, the total amount and cost of Commonwealth regulation.

Australia now has its most precise, comprehensive and transparent program to reverse the growing costs of red tape on the Australian economy. Being the first Australian government to achieve a thorough, accurate and reliable picture of the stock and cost of Commonwealth regulation offers very significant economic opportunities.

In undertaking a thorough and consistent stocktake of all Commonwealth regulatory costs, the government has developed a map of the Commonwealth regulatory environment. This now underpins what is proving to be a very successful program of significant reductions to the regulatory costs imposed on the Australian economy. The stocktake-measuring process prompts a better understanding of well-designed regulation and poorly designed regulation. And further, the stocktake measurement process provides the opportunity for ministers, policy makers, and regulators to reassess regulation and to work with businesses, community organisations, families and individuals on how to best assist them.

The government is absolutely committed to the ongoing task of identifying unnecessary regulations, removing them and to make sure that necessary regulation is administered in the least burdensome manner. The reduction of red tape is not just about what we do within our own border. It is also about how other countries—potential investors or importers—view us in terms of the ease of doing business in Australia.

According to the World Economic Forum's global competitiveness index, Australia's competitiveness ranking has declined over the last decade. In 2013-14, the Australian economy ranked 21st out of 148 economies. When questioned specifically about the burden of government regulation, the perceptions of those surveyed were that Australia was well behind in terms of global best practice. This is a perception that must be directly addressed for a country that is telling the world we are open for business.

Each repeal day is an opportunity to reduce or eliminate regulation and legislation that has outlived its usefulness or does more harm than good. It is also an opportunity to measure the cumulative effect of the many decisions to reduce red tape that the coalition government has progressed since the last repeal day, and since the start of our concerted plan.

Last year, the government identified an estimated $2.3 billion in net red tape and regulatory savings. This was more than double the annual target the government promised to deliver. Today, the government also announced that the total deregulatory saving since September 2013, is $2.45 billion. This is a significant achievement, and one that has real, positive impacts on businesses, community organisations and families.

The year 2015 marks a new year of making Australia more competitive and the commitment to work toward a new $1 billion deregulatory target by the Australian government. Today the government builds on the last two repeal days by announcing 890 acts and 160 legislative instruments will be scrapped as a result of this third red tape repeal day.

The core purpose of the government's red tape objective is to ensure that its deregulatory decisions, when implemented, will substantially minimize the cost of complying with Commonwealth regulations. To help achieve this outcome, this government is committed to continue to actively stem the flow of new regulations and to reduce the stock of regulations it administers.

I am also proud to table the inaugural Annual Deregulation Report today because it shows excellent progress towards this government's objectives to free business, community organisations, families and individuals of the burden of excessive red tape. I would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and express my gratitude to my predecessor, current Assistant Treasurer the Hon. Josh Frydenberg MP, and others for all the excellent work and the time and efforts that went into delivering the government's red tape reduction objectives over 2013 and 2014.

We will continue to reach into every corner of the Australian economy to find outdated and unnecessary legislation and policies which mean time and effort for business, but no value for them or for consumers. We are unshackling Australian business so they can innovate, grow and create more jobs for more Australians. Reducing regulatory burden is, part of the government's greater plan to build a healthy, resilient economy.

I present the Australian Government Annual Deregulation Report 2014. I also ask leave of the House to move a motion to enable the member for Watson to speak for 12 minutes.

Leave granted.

Mr PORTER: I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the member for Watson speaking for a period not exceeding 12 minutes.

Question agreed to.

Mr BURKE (Watson—Manager of Opposition Business) (09:15): It is with pleasure that I notice that after some noise back and forth across the chamber that was carried unanimously! I acknowledge that. How these days have changed. When we came to parliament today I thought it might be like the old repeal days with all the fanfare. We even had a thunderstorm. The elements were coming together to bring about the death of red tape! The previous ministerial statements on this were given by the Prime Minister, the galleries were full and we were told that they were going to be an extraordinary part of the deregulation agenda of this government. I think the parliamentary secretary has probably given a more honest presentation than we have had previously on what these days involve in that there was an acknowledgement, which I was pleased to hear, in the ministerial statement that we need to distinguish between well-designed and poorly designed regulation. The concept that you measure regulation by the kilo, which is how these arguments have been presented previously, holds no public policy merit at all.

I note that since the last red tape repeal day we have had changes from the government announced, for example, on product labelling for food, on the purchase of foreign land and on data retention. All of these involve significant changes and increases in regulation. All of these are supported by the government. I make no negative comment here about those particular measures but will simply say that the argument that you measure by the kilo how many acts and regulations you are getting rid of in order to claim whether or not you are doing something good for the nation is absurd. I hope that with the more measured response we have had from the parliamentary secretary today it means we are nearing the end of the absurdity of how these days have been conducted in the past.

Let's face it: there has never been a government from either side of politics in the history of the Commonwealth that has done anything other than made sure that, as they do annual cleanouts, old regulations get taken off the books. We all do it. The difference is that this has been the first government that has wanted rounds of applause for doing the ordinary work of government. We are told on this occasion that there are 890 acts and 160 legislative instruments that will go. When we were in office, we got rid of 16,794 acts and legislative instruments, and I take no comfort at all in the number. Yes, 16,000 was a bigger number than what we are talking about today, but who cares? The number of regulations and acts is not the point.

In previous red tape repeal days we have had acts that were clearly irrelevant and had absolutely no impact on the rest of the nation being taken off the books for reasonable housekeeping purposes, but they did not warrant the fanfare that occurred. We were told at the first red tape repeal day that the number included the abolition of a previous regulation that allowed the Commonwealth to take control of a mule or bullock for military purposes. It was some time since that had been used. There were not too many owners of mules or bullocks who were counting the cost to their business of that regulation still being around. It was reasonable to get rid of it, but absurd to get excited about it.

Similarly, we had the abolition of state navies, which had not existed since something like 1913. It was around that date since states had made any use of those provisions. It was sensible to get rid of them. Maybe there was a time, when he was a state politician, when the member opposite may have considered it, but it was not something that was making any difference at all to businesses in Australia. It was not making any difference at all to the cost of compliance in Australia. This is why the total numbers are so completely unhelpful. We need to distinguish between so-called red tape that makes a difference and the ordinary cleaning and housework of government.

There is a announcement in the ministerial statement—I concede that I have had a chance to go through the report—of a total deregulatory saving since September 2013 of $2.45 billion. I do not dispute the figure. I have not been able to find it in the report. If the figure is as it is presented then I presume the government is not including those savings that have not been implemented. The minister statement is worded:

Today the government also announced that the total deregulatory saving since September 2013, is $2.45 billion.

On page 19 of the report there is a table that shows a figure for 'decisions taken' of $2.315. If this figure is simply an addition to that—as to what has happened since the date of the report—then it presumes those savings yet to be implemented have been implemented.

The reason I raise this is that $824 million of the figures that have been quoted around here have not be implemented. That is because the government is so passionate about this legislation that the last repeal day legislation still has not made it through the parliament. It went to the Senate. There was an amendment. The government says that they do not like the amendment, even though they did not divide on in the Senate, but they have never bothered to send it back. So it is just hanging around here, waiting for a day when the Leader of the House will decide to ask the Clerk to bring it on so that we can send a message back.

But if this matters at all—if these days are meant to be important and are meant to be a centrepiece of the deregulation agenda of the government—you would think they could be bothered taking three minutes of parliamentary time to send a message back to the Senate. But they have never bothered to do so. So the legislation is just hanging around here with a message from the Senate that we have not responded to. As a result, I presume—given that the $2.45 billion figure does not appear in the report at all—that the figure is actually fictitious, because there is more than 800 million of it that the government has not bothered to advance, has not bothered to send back.

Maybe they are embarrassed about the fact that we have a dispute between the houses over a set of bills that are principally about punctuation—because that is what those bills dealt with. We have previously got excited in this parliament on our big repeal days—with statements from the Prime Minister—where there have been changes to legislation such as changing 'e-mail' with a hyphen to 'email' without a hyphen, and changing 'facsimile' to 'fax'. And then there has been the audacity to attach to those bills some hundreds of thousands of dollars of estimated savings to the business community by making those changes. It has never been explained to the public how you can quantify a saving to the Australian economy by the removal of a hyphen but if it can be done, good on the government for finding the way through to a punctuation-led recovery, because that is the absurdity of what we have consistently seen in these repeal days.

Sadly, in the repeal days we have had, there has been the occasional measure which has made a difference to people. And the worst of these what was done in the name of red tape repeal to the wages of cleaners working for the Commonwealth. Let's not forget: there was an amendment passed by the Senate, accepted reluctantly by the government, following the first repeal day, when they wanted to get rid of the Commonwealth cleaning guidelines. They wanted to get rid of them and, as a result, take away protections for cleaners. The first thing that happened was that the government accepted that amendment, and we had a discussion in the parliament, when it came back here, about how good it was that that amendment had been accepted. Within 24 hours, they found another way to get rid of the guidelines anyway.

Having done so, the Prime Minister stood up in this chamber and told us that no cleaner's wage would be cut as a result of that decision. But, the moment the first set of tenders to act on that regulation having been removed went through, cleaners' wages were cut. Today we have some of the most modestly paid people, who work as a result of Commonwealth contracts, finding themselves on $2 an hour less. I think it is wrong to cut their pay. I think it is wrong to get rid of the guidelines. But I think it is straight-out offensive to do it in the name of cutting red tape and to claim that deducting $2 an hour for a cleaner was a red tape provision after the Prime Minister stood up and claimed that there would be no cuts to cleaners' wages, thinking that people on modest wages might not notice when their wages went down by $2 an hour.

It shows two things. It shows the willingness of this government to do anything they can to attack the wages and conditions of people on modest incomes. Secondly, it shows the audacity of those opposite that they tried to pretend that that was a red tape measure. No-one on those sorts of wages regards their take-home pay as an example of red tape. It was nothing to be proud of. If the government wanted to deal with it, they should have done so head-on and honestly. I do not blame the parliamentary secretary at the table for this. He was not responsible for the plan that caused that. But the assistant minister, who he thanked in that ministerial statement, was responsible for that. The measure itself I opposed, but that can be part of genuine political debate. Tying it up as a red tape reform is straight-out offensive.

I welcome the fact that a deregulation report has been tabled. There remain a number of ongoing questions, including: how do the government deal with legislation that they are not willing to send back to the Senate and that they have not cared enough about to deal with at all? But overwhelmingly it deals with the fact that red tape is something that both sides of politics have attacked. In the order of $4 billion a year was saved through the seamless national economy reforms which were done when we were in government. There were no objections from those opposite when we made those reforms, largely. That is the sort of work that the parliament continues to do.

But let's not pretend that this government are only getting rid of red tape. There are times when they introduce it, and there are times when they introduce it with bipartisan support. We need to have a more sensible discussion than what we have had on previous occasions when we have tried to measure this by the kilo and claim that more is being done. In this parliament, it is always the overreach that gets you. It is overreach that has been the government's principal mistake on previous red tape repeal days. (Time expired)

Ms HENDERSON (Corangamite) (10:06): I rise to continue my contribution on the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014. Last night in my contribution I was speaking about some of the incidents of terrorism that we have seen in recent months and also the increasing concerns about the rise of lone-wolf terrorism, which makes the uncovering of terrorist plots even more difficult. Terrorism expert Dr Clarke Jones from the Australian National University said in an ABC News story on 20 January 2015:

This year is going to be a year of terrorism in the sense that I think we are going to see more small scale attacks.

There is no doubt that these are very troubling times.

The government does not propose or suggest that metadata will always stop a terrorism attack. I want to make the point—and this was actually made to me on Twitter last night, when I made my first contribution—that the use of metadata in relation to acts of terrorism is vital during an incident, such as the Sydney siege, for investigators and is of course vital for security and law enforcement agencies in the investigation of a terrorist incident. This bill is the vital next step in giving our agencies the tools they need to keep us safe. For that reason, and as I have said, I am very pleased that Labor is supporting this bill.

I certainly want to note again the excellent work of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security—and we have just heard from the member for Wannon in relation another matter. The committee has done an excellent job in addressing some of the issues with the original bill. The committee made 39 recommendations, which were of course accepted by the Attorney-General, and we now have those amendments in the bill before us today.

I did reflect on the member for Perth's contribution last night. I note an ABC report on radio this morning, 'Labor MP angry at how metadata was handled', and it was disappointing that the ABC perhaps did not give the same prominence to the fact that this bill is being comprehensively supported by both sides of the House—by the government and by the opposition. I have to say that I think it is a very partisan report. My comments in reply were not reported and yet there were some fairly derogatory comments in relation to the Prime Minister made by the member for Perth that were reported. The fact is that the ABC has not properly reported the member for Perth's speech and has not properly reported the fact that this bill has been comprehensively supported by both sides of the House.

AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin has advised the government that between July and September 2014 metadata was used in 92 per cent of counter-terrorism investigations, in 100 per cent of cybercrime investigations, in 87 per cent of child protection investigations and in 79 per cent of serious crime investigations. I think the member for Gellibrand in his contribution last night made the point well that this metadata is needed not just for terrorism and terrorism incidents but also for a range of crimes being investigated by law enforcement agencies. Internet service providers are keeping fewer records and it is vital that our law enforcement agencies have the tools they need to do their job. That is why this bill, which requires the ISPs to maintain this data for some two years, is so important.

David Irvine, former Director-General of ASIO, has said that, unless metadata practices are changed, law enforcement and counter-terrorism efforts will be severely hampered—and we must not let that happen. As I mentioned, under this bill, the industry will be required to keep a limited range of metadata for two years. It is important to reiterate that the government is not asking telecommunications companies to retain the content of communications—content such as emails, private social media posts, texts or telephone conversations or information showing a person's web browsing history. Metadata is information about a communication, not the content or substance of a communication. So we are talking about things like IP addresses, phone numbers and email addresses.

I also want to make the point that protecting the security of personal information is a key priority of this government. As a Liberal, I believe in a government that minimises interference in people's lives. That is why this bill has a range of important safeguards. The bill before us today strikes the right balance between protecting the privacy of the community and giving our security and intelligence agencies the help they need to keep us all safe, to maintain a safe and secure Australia. The bill limits access to just the agencies which have a clear need for such access and have well-developed internal systems for protecting privacy, such as law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Data must be reasonably necessary for the purposes of investigating criminal offences and other permitted purposes. The bill also requires the Attorney-General to report annually on the operation of the scheme. We are also introducing a comprehensive oversight by the Commonwealth Ombudsman for any Commonwealth, state or territory law enforcement agencies accessing this retained data. The government is also progressing the telecommunications sector security reforms that seek to ensure the ongoing security and integrity of Australia's telecommunications infrastructure.

I also want to make the particular point that there was an issue in relation to journalists' sources. As a former journalist myself, I do appreciate and understand how important it is to protect journalists' sources as best we can and to support investigative journalism, the free press and a health democracy. After some consideration in relation to this matter, the Attorney-General has made it clear that the data retention bill does not target journalists or their sources. To expedite the passage of the bill, the government has proposed an amendment to require agencies to obtain a warrant in order to access a journalist's metadata for the purposes of identifying the journalist's source. I welcome this move, which provides a greater level of comfort that journalists' sources will be protected. It is an amendment that has been accepted by those opposite, and I am pleased to see that the issue has been resolved.

We are taking a range of measures to combat terrorism, including a $630 million counterterrorism package announced by the Prime Minister in August 2014. That package includes expenditure of $13.4 million to strengthen community engagement programs; $6.2 million to establish a new Australian Federal Police community diversion and monitoring team; $32.7 million for a multiagency national disruption group to investigate, prosecute and disrupt foreign fighters and their supporters; and $11.8 million for the Australian Federal Police, to bolster its ability to respond to the threat of foreign fighters at home and abroad.

As I have outlined, terrorism, very sadly, poses a significant risk to the community. In this country the government is working very hard to do everything we can to keep Australians safe and secure. This bill is an important part of that effort, and I commend the bill to the House.

Dr LEIGH (Fraser) (10:16): I rise to speak on the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014. In considering any bill before the House, it is absolutely vital that we first recognise the status quo. On the issue of telecommunications data, as much as on any issue since the 1999 republican debate, misunderstandings about the status quo have bedevilled the debate about proposals for changing that status quo. So I want to begin by talking about the situation as it currently exists, before the passing of this bill.

At the moment telecommunications companies keep a lot of data about Australians. They keep information about call histories and about the mobile phone towers with which our mobiles have communicated. They keep this information for varying periods of time, sometimes up to seven years.

At the moment this information is accessed a lot. According to the report on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security:

In 2012–13, more than 80 Commonwealth, State and Territory enforcement agencies accessed historic telecommunications data under the TIA Act. In total, those agencies made 330 640 authorisations for access to historic telecommunications data, resulting in a total of 546 500 disclosures.

So, at the moment, telecommunications data is being accessed over half a million times a year.

At the moment the range of agencies that are accessing that data is very broad. They currently include: the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's passport offices; the Department of Immigration and Border Protection; Racing New South Wales; the Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries; the Wyndham City Council; and RSPCA South Australia. So those who argue that we should not pass this bill and should stick with the status quo are effectively advocating for a status quo in which half a million warrantless requests are made annually by agencies that include the RSPCA.

I do not believe this is well-known. Part of the reason for that is the way in which the government has pursued the conversation. On both sides of this, there have been some who have raised extreme concerns. In 2012, one person said of the retention of telecommunications data that it would have 'a chilling effect on free speech'. Another said:

The idea that the government should collect and retain the online records of all Australians for a period of two years I think is disturbing. It appears to go too far and I would have to be persuaded that this was a reasonable request.

On the flip side, one individual said that failing to pass this legislation will cause 'an explosion of unsolved crime'.

We have to put these extremist views to one side. The quotes I have just read into Hansard were from, in order, the member for Wentworth, Malcolm Turnbull, in 2012; the member for Curtin, Julie Bishop, in 2012; and Prime Minister Abbott, when speaking this year. You can understand that when senior figures take such extreme views about this legislation that it is difficult to have a reasonable and moderate debate.

It is certainly true that telecommunications data is an important policing tool. Of the half million requests that currently are made, the overwhelming majority are made by policing agencies. The murder of Jill Meagher was ultimately solved using telecommunications data, by matching the cell tower tracking patterns of Jill Meagher's phone and Adrian Bayley's phone. South Australian police have told the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security that they were unable to re-open a murder investigation because the telecommunications data was no longer available. They said:

A stalled murder investigation was reviewed about 14 months after the victim's death. Fresh information received during the review identified a suspect who was a known drug dealer. The victim, a regular drug user, had been in contact with the suspect and investigators suspect the victim may have been killed over a drug debt. Historical telecommunications data was sought for the suspect's mobile service for around the time of the murder but it was no longer available.

So the retention of telecommunications data could in that case potentially have helped to solve a murder.

It is into this context—a context of half a million warrantless requests from a range of agencies, including the RSPCA, with few oversights—that the government has moved to change the law.

The bill brought before the House by the c ommunic ations minister last year was inadequate. It lacked appropriate safeguards for the use of telecommunications data. It also lacked an appropriate public conversation about the fact that telecommunications data is primarily used not in counterterrorism operations but in policing operations. That, I think, is one of the reasons why the government has struggled to engage the public on this, because people have felt that this was a new regime. They have felt that, at present, their telecommunications data was not being kept and was not being accessed, and that the government was demanding new rights to store and access telecommunications data.

I believe that it is appropriate to put in place some safeguards around the use of this telecommunications data. Thanks to Labor members on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, this bill has been significantly amended. Those amendments include: listing the dataset in the bill itself, so Australians can know what aspects of our data is being retained; limiting access to telecommunications data to only those enforcement agencies specifically listed in the bill, and not allowing the Attorney-General to add agencies at whim; and providing oversight of the operational use of this legislation by parliament's intelligence community—the first time the committee has been given this power, and a step towards beginning to implement the reforms proposed by John Faulkner.

As a result of amendments championed by Labor members, ASIC and the ACCC are able to access telecommunications data to investigate and prosecute white-collar crime. We did not believe that it was reasonable to say that this information could only be available in prosecuting violent crime. We believe that it also should be used to tackle white-collar crime. The report and the subsequent amendments require telecommunications companies to provide customers with access to their own telecommunications data upon request. It requires stored data to be encrypted to protect the security and integrity of personal information. We, on this side of the House, continue to believe that that storage should be in Australia. It does not matter what level of encryption the system has, it is likely to be useless when faced with somebody with physical access to the servers. That means that offshore servers are always going to be less secure in relation to this information than if the information is kept onshore.

As a result of amendments, this bill will prohibit access to telecommunications data for the purposes of civil proceedings, so it cannot be used, for example, in a case of copyright enforcement. On Q&Alast November it was put to the Attorney-General by Tony Jones that this could be used for prosecutions against internet pirates. The Attorney-General said at the time, 'Well, they can't be and they won't be.' That was not right. As the bill stood at that time, it could be used to prosecute people who illegally downloaded Game of Thrones. That is no longer true as a result of the amendments championed by Labor members.

We have required a mandatory data breach notification scheme to ensure telecommunications companies notify customers if the security of their telecommunications data is breached. We have increased the resources of the Commonwealth Ombudsman to strengthen oversight of the mandatory data retention scheme, and we have ensured a mandatory review of the data retention scheme by no later than four years from the commencement of the bill. Importantly, as well, we have ensured that if journalists' data is to be accessed, that must be done through a warrant.

We have ensured that these amendments have been put in place. As a result, I do not want to claim that this is a perfect bill. There are significant challenges in an area such as this where we are balancing the reasonable concerns of law enforcement with the perfectly reasonable concerns of privacy. I would put it to those who argue that this bill is an inappropriate intrusion into personal liberties—and many people have contacted my office with concerns about this bill—that we currently have a system with more than half a million warrantless accesses. We currently have a system where the RSPCA can access your telecommunications data. We currently have a system without oversight from the Commonwealth Ombudsman and without proper oversight from the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. So, this system tightens up access to telecommunications data in a way that ought, I think, to give Australians a little more certainty about the access of their telecommunications data.

This is an ongoing challenge for reform. I have little doubt that when parliament comes back to look at this scheme in four years time there will be changes that need to be made. I am also under no illusions that this telecommunications data regime will catch all wrongdoers. But I do believe that it is possible that it might have assisted in the solving of the 14-month-old murder case that South Australian police confronted where telecommunications data had been discarded. It was by chance that the murder victim was using a particular mobile phone whose carrier did not retain the data for as long as other carriers do.

I do believe that this bill puts in place additional safeguards. For the first time, individuals will be able to access the information that is kept about them. For the first time, individuals will have the certainty that the information being kept about them is encrypted. For the first time, there will be appropriate resources given to the Commonwealth Ombudsman in order to oversee the use of these data.

We need to have this debate in an environment of full information. I understand the busyness in so many people's lives as they confront these conversations. The conversation has not been helped by overblown rhetoric such as that, indeed, of Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop in 2012. We do not need to claim that this reform solves all the world's problems, but we do need to acknowledge that the current system is, in some sense, a bit of a Wild West for the agencies that can access it and the oversight that is provided. This bill takes a step along the way towards a better regime for telecommunications storage and access and I commend it to the House.

Mr ENTSCH (Leichhardt) (10:30): I rise to speak to the Telecommunications (Interceptions and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014 and indicate that I very much support this bill. There comes a point, when the safety of the Australian people is at stake, that the Australian government is certainly obliged to step in—when the government has no choice but to make firm decisions to help safeguard our country against those who would destroy our free, democratic way of life. We are blessed to have incredible communications technology here—technology that lets us speak instantly with family across the world; technology that lets us download our favourite movies and music in mere minutes; technology that crosses national and cultural boundaries and lets us tweet or blog about our lives to a potential audience of literally billions.

But not everyone is using it for good. There are groups out there who use this same technology to commit crimes—to steal personal information, to distribute child pornography and to plan terrorist attacks. These are not pie-in-the-sky, far-off fantasies; they are happening on our shores and they are certainly happening in our own backyard. Against such faceless attacks, national security becomes everybody's responsibility. Every Australian man, woman and child, every business owner, every company and every agency has to play their part. The resources of our national security agencies, ASIO, ASIS and the AFP, are certainly limited and it would take an obscene amount of money, time and other resources for them to cover every base. We need a whole-of-country effort and, against these threats, we need metadata.

Metadata is the who, when and where—not the content—of communication. It is information such as an email address or telephone number and the time the email was sent or the call was made. It does not include the content of the communication, not even the email subject line. The government already works with our major telcos, Telstra, TPG, Vodafone and the like, to fight crime on an international, electronic level using metadata. In fact, the degree to which metadata is used in investigations already would probably surprise you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Between July and September last year it was used in    92 per cent of counterterrorism investigations, 100 per cent of cybercrime investigations, 87 per cent of child protection investigations and 79 per cent of serious organised crime investigations. I rise here today to say that I support this amendment, I support data retention and we will support our country's fight against those who will use technology to commit crimes against us.

The value of data retention was seen most recently in the Europol child exploitation investigation called Operation Rescue. The perpetrators involved shared much of their information online, and so physical evidence was very hard to get. In the UK, which has data retention laws, authorities were able to identify 240 of 371 suspects, two-thirds of them, using telecommunications data. The police stings that followed led to 121 arrests and convictions. Compare that to Germany, which has no data retention laws. In the very same operation, 377 suspects were believed to be living in Germany but German authorities were only able to positively identify seven, less than two per cent. They also were not able to gather enough evidence to arrest or convict a single person. The same situation was repeated in Austria, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Norway, which, at the time, did not have data retention laws. Had these countries had legislation in place, they would have been able to potentially convict hundreds of child molesters. But, because police were not able to access the metadata they needed, those perpetrators, unfortunately, are still out there.

Do we want to find Australia in a similar situation? I think not. We need to have the foresight to support our law enforcement authorities to fight against crime, espionage, cyberattacks and terrorism. We need to learn from the experience of our European friends, not repeat their mistakes. Our law enforcement heroes depend heavily on data retention and metadata for catching paedophiles. Just last year, the AFP received a tip-off regarding a person suspected of uploading child pornography to an image-sharing website. The AFP sent the IP address to the relevant telco and were able to identify the subscriber and their location. With this information, they gained a search warrant of the individual's home, where they found a large amount of child pornography material and information indicating possible abuse. That man is now behind bars, thanks to our police being able to use metadata.

Now consider this. Again last year, the AFP received information from Interpol about a suspect who had made a statement online that they intended to sexually assault a baby. Interpol provided the IP address details to our police, but, because the Australian carrier only kept their metadata for seven days, the suspect was able to disappear into the dark depths of the web. This is precisely why data retention is a vital asset. It is a front-line defence against criminals and a valuable tool to hunt them down.

If we do not make these amendments to enforce that that metadata be kept for two years, our law enforcement agencies will no longer be able to do their job effectively. The New South Wales police commissioner recently said:

There's not a terrorism investigation since 9/11 that hasn't relied on metadata.

He said:

This information is available right now. All we're saying is keep it for a little longer.

We need to accept that there is a risk out there. We have already seen that, despite our physical distance from other countries, terrorists are targeting Australians. It happened in Bali in 2002 and of course again in 2005. More recently, it is happening on our own soil as well, unfortunately.

We know of at least 90 Australians actively involved in terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria, and another 140 onshore actively supporting them. We cannot afford to stick our heads in the sand and block our ears. We cannot vainly hope that our distance from other countries will always protect us. We cannot continue to believe, when all the evidence indicates otherwise, that 'she'll be right, mate'.

There have been some very specific concerns by the public about our push for data retention. One of my constituents from Cairns, Mr Trent Yarwood, is a member of the organisation Future Wise. He argues that there is:

… no provision for the privacy of the data in the bill, and no provision for the law enforcement agencies to fund storage of this ... data, or to securely delete it once access is no longer required.

Mr Yarwood goes on to say that he and the Future Wise team are concerned about the effectiveness of the proposed regime as well as a number of secondary impacts of the bill, which he said include the impact on personal privacy and the presumption of innocence; warrantless access to personal data; cost implications for internet service providers and end users; and that the length of the retention period is not necessary or proportionate.

I certainly appreciate Mr Yarwood's comments and I have forwarded them to the minister's office but, in the meantime, I want to make a few points in response to his concerns. The government is not asking internet service providers to keep any data that would reveal their web browsing history. We are not asking for the content or substance of emails or social media posts; we are only asking telcos to keep certain specific metadata—the who, when and where of communications—for two years to assist with criminal and national security investigations.

My constituent Mr Yarwood talked about the cost. I can tell you the estimated up-front capital cost of this regime to all business is less than $319.1 million—that is less than one per cent of the $43 billion in revenue generated by the telecommunications industry each year. The government has also constantly said that we will make a reasonable contribution to this.

Mr Yarwood talked about personal privacy. It is our top priority, which is why this bill proposes several safeguards. Firstly, the data will continue to be held by the industry. Secondly, only specific government agencies will be able to request access, and only for specific circumstances. Thirdly, there will be multiple oversight bodies in place to make sure that agencies respect those controls.

We also recognise that the principle of freedom of the press is fundamental to our democracy. That is why the government is open to further measures to protect journalists' sources, and I am aware that these conversations are continuing. We have decided that a further amendment will be moved that will require agencies to obtain a warrant in order to access journalists' metadata for the purposes of identifying a source. Most importantly, this legislation is not about identifying journalists' sources; it is about making sure our security and law enforcement agencies continue to have access to metadata.

The Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 also provides a framework that governs who can access the data. But we are actually going much further. We are reducing the number of agencies that can apply to access this data from 80 down to around 20. Our law enforcement officers cannot just trawl through telecommunications data whenever they like—that would be a criminal offence and they could be charged. Data has to be reasonably necessary—not just helpful or expedient—for investigating criminal offences and other permitted purposes.

Our federal law enforcement agencies are subject to ministerial oversight, as you are well aware, Mr Deputy Speaker Vasta—Senate estimates, parliamentary committee inquiries and the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. Finally, requests for information by law enforcement agencies from telcos are reported annually, released publicly and subject to oversight by the Commonwealth Ombudsman. Having these layers of independent oversight means that any agency that accesses the data is certainly subject to some very intense scrutiny.

As you can see, we are not taking any risks with this telecommunications metadata. We need it to conduct criminal investigations, but the data will be held behind lock and key and only accessed when absolutely necessary.

Before I finish, I want to acknowledge the recent inquiry into this bill by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. As you know, this committee was bipartisan. Both Liberal and Labor came together to unanimously create a bill that protects Australians from those who would harm us, while also protecting our privacy. The committee's inquiry made 39 recommendations, and I am pleased to say that we will be supporting all of those as we move forward.

In conclusion, this amendment is a string in our law enforcement bow that will require telcos to keep specific metadata for two years. It is a vital measure to help us, as a country, stop online criminals—not the petty pirates who illegally download the Game of Thrones or the latest Hobbit movie but the hard-core criminal organisations who engage in child exploitation, identity theft and terrorism.

We cannot wait for another major crime to occur against an Australian child, against an Australian family or against our nation. We need to put processes in place so that we will have a strategic defence against tech-savvy terrorists so that our law enforcement agencies can respond quickly and effectively against threats to our Australian way of life.

The law has strong safeguards in place to protect our own citizens and measures that will ensure that only those who need access to data for major law enforcement activities can see it. Quite frankly, the only people who need to be concerned about these amendments are those major criminals. To them, I say: 'Australia certainly will be ready.'

Mr BANDT (Melbourne) (10:44): The Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014 is a bad law. This law is for smartphone and internet surveillance and it turns every Australian into a suspect. There is a basic principle in this country and in many others that, unless you are suspected of having done something criminally wrong, governments have no right to intrude into your private life and monitor what you do.

This bill trashes that principle and it trashes it in, at least, two respects. This bill treats everyone in this country the same, whether or not they are suspected of having done something wrong. In other words, someone on a train, who is just using their smartphone to browse the web on their way home, is treated exactly the same as someone who is suspected of having committed a crime. The same data is kept about you, is stored and is able to be accessed.

The second way in which it trashes this fundamental principle is that you do not even need a warrant to get access to this information. There are suggestions that an amendment will be moved to give some protection to journalists but, if the protection can be given to journalists, why can it not be given to everyone? In other words, why are we now departing from the principle that says that, if a police officer or an enforcement agency thinks someone has done something wrong, they go to a judge and they convince them that this person is such a suspect that their private life now needs to be intruded upon and looked at by government? The government is saying, 'We don't need that anymore.' In other words, it will be as it is at the moment, as simple as filling in a form to say, 'We want access to this person's metadata.' What is metadata? What is the kind of information that will be captured?

Our Attorney-General tried to explain that to us. And, frankly, watching that interview where Attorney-General Brandis tried to explain what metadata is was like watching my dog try to play chess. He was completely out of his depth—going on national television and saying, 'We really need this power,' and then when the interviewer said, 'What information do you actually want?' he could not explain it. The government tries to hide behind that uncertainty and that obfuscation by saying, 'Don't worry; it's only a little bit of information.'

If you call your doctor from your phone and then jump on a bus to visit your doctor and browse the web while on the bus and then, when you get home from the doctor, use your phone to call your close friends and family, you could, just from that, paint a bit of a picture about what you have been doing just in that afternoon alone. Because when you have enough bits of data, you do not need to listen in on a phone call; you know what someone has been doing. That is exactly what the heads of the national security agencies in the US have said about this. NSA General Counsel Stewart Baker said:

Metadata absolutely tells you everything about somebody’s life. If you have enough metadata, you don’t really need content—

because you can put together that picture. A former director of the NSA and CIA went on to say, 'That's absolutely correct.' And further:

We kill people based on metadata.

That statement is from a former head of the NSA and CIA. Their view, as security agencies, is that, nowadays, if you can put enough pieces of information together you do not need to listen anymore into the content of calls. We can just put together enough of a picture and know what someone is doing. That is in the context of law enforcement and, potentially, international activity. Now these same laws and principles will be brought to every citizen in this country without safeguards.

There was a suggestion from the previous speaker that this will somehow help us catch tech-savvy criminals. This law applies to Australian service providers. Let us just take email. If you do not want your email metadata to be caught, all you need to do is use Google webmail and then you will not be caught. Wow! I wonder which tech-savvy supercriminal will not work that out. This law immediately suggests that you can get out of having your email metadata collected by jumping on an online web server that is hosted in another country. But, more than that, there currently exist numerous ways that are legal and freely available to disguise your identity online and to have privacy. And people are now doing that.

Five minutes on the internet will tell you how you can work your way around this law. If this law catches any criminals, it will only catch the dumb criminals, who have not spent five minutes googling to work out that if they just use Google Webmail they will not be caught by this law, they can send whatever they like and you will not be able to catch the metadata. But it will catch everyone else—people who would not think about moving to some virtual private network or shifting from an Australian server to a Google-based international webmail server because they are not suspected of having done anything wrong. Why would they go to the trouble? Those are the ones who will be caught by this bill.

We are told that there will be protection for journalists in this bill. The Labor Party comes in here and says, 'We will give a struggling Prime Minister a leg up on national security and sign up to this.' And no amendment has even been circulated to give protection to journalists. Where is the amendment? We are now debating this legislation and no amendment has been circulated in the chamber, no amendment has been made publicly available and the Labor Party is prepared to take this government on faith. Well, we are not and why should we? Why should this parliament be required to vote on legislation without a chance to properly look through all these amendments? This is complicated legislation and giving people protections from these kinds of laws is complicated and that is exactly why this should not be rushed. But the government comes in here and says, 'We want this done in the next fortnight.' Labor says, 'Yes, we're happy to do it, even though we haven't seen any amendment.' That is not the way for a parliament to behave when we are talking about infringing on people's privacy and taking away rights that they have enjoyed for a long time.

What we also do not know is how much of this information is going to be available in civil suits. We are told: 'Don't worry. You won't be able to be prosecuted if you illegally download Game of Thrones.' But what if the media companies want to take you to court for it? What if the media companies, in a civil suit, want to go the government and say, 'I am going to issue a subpoena for all of this information that is available'? This was raised in the committee that oversaw this, and they said, 'This is a serious question, but we don't have an answer to that.' Yet we are being asked to take it on faith.

Potentially, this gives a massive leg up to every large media conglomerate who wants to sue someone for downloading Game of Thrones, and the government cannot rule that out. It has been put squarely on notice that that is an issue, and they are ploughing on ahead anyway, with Labor's full support. Although there are some agencies listed in the bill who will have access to this, the Attorney-General can add more agencies as he likes, so that the scope of who has access to this information get broader and broader.

There has not been a compelling case made that there are crimes somehow going unsolved if only we had this information. In fact, the Prime Minister gets up here and tells us about how much metadata so far has assisted in investigations. In other words, the existing laws work. The evidence has been clear that most of the requests for metadata go back only three months or so, but we are going to be required to keep them for two years. So even if you could make out a case for that, no case has being made out as to why we should deviate from the principle that you should get a warrant—absolutely none.

You expect that from the conservatives because they do not care about individual liberties and they are quite happy to take them away with the stroke of a pen. But it is surprising that the Labor opposition also has been prepared to say, 'Instead of fixing the existing system by changing it so that agencies have to get a warrant, we're just going to make sure that they can get whatever they like.' No-one has to get a warrant for anything. You just have to fill out a form to find what an ordinary Australian citizen has been doing and where they have been and who they have been talking to for the last two years, even though they are not suspected of having done anything wrong.

The European Union and the Netherlands do not go down this road, and for good reasons. You have to ask the question: why is the government taking these steps? Why is there such zeal to monitor what people do online? Going online should be a place where you are free to speak, where you are free to organise, where you are free to browse, provided that you do not break the laws of the land that you were in. It should be a place where people, free from government surveillance and are able to share their views, and it is incredibly scary to the government that such a place exists. So, what do we do? We will make sure that everyone is now subject to ongoing surveillance as if they were a suspect.

In an era where a lot of people's lives are lived online, individuals should have the right to have a digital forgetting of things that they have done in the past. I want to quote from something that the now communications minister said about this a couple of years ago. Malcolm Turnbull said:

Surely as we reflect on the consequences of the digital shift from a default of forgetting to one of perpetual memory we should be seeking to restore as far as possible the individual's right not simply to their privacy but to having the right to delete that which they have created in the same way as can be done in the analogue world.

I agree, and many other people around this country agree. The government is trashing that principle. So I am not prepared to listen to anything this government says about wanting to protect individual rights when they come here with this piece of legislation, because they are utter hypocrites, and Labor, in joining them in turning every citizen into a suspect, are also tarred with the same brush.

In that respect, I move the following amendment:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"the House declines to give the Bill a second reading until a review is carried out with particular reference to:

(1) how civil litigants would be able to access the data collected;

(2) the adequacy of data destruction requirements for data acquired under the scheme; and

(3) consider the impacts on, and implications for, journalism and other sensitive professions and their work under the legislation."

This amendment should be supported by everyone in this House because these are issues that were raised during the committee inquiry into this bill. As for those who are not aware, the committee that inquired into this bill was made up just of Labor and Liberal. It is a closed shop. It recommended that the bill be passed, with some amendments, but did say there are some concerns, and these are some of the concerns that have been raised, and they are not addressed in this bill.

We have talked about journalism already. There are supposedly going to be protections for journalists but where is the amendment? We are being asked now to vote for this without any amendment being circulated so that we can test whether it is, in fact, going to do the job. The committee was also put on notice that there are questions about what is going to happen in civil litigation. There will be a mass of information sitting there about who does what and who did what when online or on their smart phone. You can bet your bottom dollar that someone who wants to sue someone else—a big company that wants to sue an individual, a company that wants to sue another company—will want to get access to that. Are they going to be able to? We do not know.

The House should defer consideration of this bill until those issues have been resolved. Anyone who cares about proper process, anyone who cares about an individual's right to some kind of privacy and anyone who does not believe that every individual should be automatically treated as a suspect should support this amendment. But even if you disagree with all of that, if all you do is agree with what the joint committee said, then you should support this amendment. You should not allow this bill to be rushed through this House when there are big question marks over the use in civil litigation. You are potentially exposing people to being sued for downloading Game of Thrones. You should not pass this bill until you have worked out what you are going to do about journalists or about data destruction. So I commend the amendment to the House, and this bill should be voted down.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Vasta ): Is the motion seconded?

Mr Wilkie: I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Mr WOOD (La Trobe) (11:00): The Greens contribution from the member for Melbourne is very good but it is not quite what we are after. As a former member of the Victorian police force, I had the great pleasure on Monday night to meet with their current serving presidents and secretaries of all police associations across Australia. In particular, I had a great chat with the President of the Victorian Police Association, John Laird, and the Secretary, Ron Iddles. For those who do not know him, Ron Iddles is a bit of a legend in the Victorian police force because he has worked so many years in the homicide squad and done such great work. We had a conversation about the bill and about metadata. As Ron said, we have been using metadata for 20 years. As a former police officer, I have been heavily involved in using what we call metadata.

Most police detectives across the country would know about CCRs and reverse CCRs, terms which most members of parliament and most members of the public have never heard of. A CCR is a call charge record. When a person makes a phone call, there is a call charge record that identifies who they have called. And then we have a reverse call charge record, which obviously identifies who has been calling that person. The legislation in this country has required telecommunications providers to keep this information for six months. Police forces and law enforcement around the country have been using this information for years and years. The difference now is that we are looking at changing to two years the period they have to hold onto that information. The reason for this, when I speak to law enforcement, is the complexity with, in particular, terrorism cases—for example, September 11. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was one of the instigators and planners of September 11. It was not something that happened overnight, it was planned for a number of years. That is why police and law enforcement need this information.

To give you an example of how valuable I personally have found CCRs, I will go back to my time in the organised crime squad. Our unit received a file relating to drug crops discovered at Mount Disappointment. The file came from the internal investigations department. They had made a big investigation believing, sad as it may be, that there were some corrupt police officers involved in this crop. Why? Because a week or two before the special operations planned to arrest people on site, no offenders ever came back. So we got the file. The first thing they did was supply the internal investigations department with a list of their potential suspects et cetera. Our analyst, Tracy O'Neill, a very good analyst, went through that list and we tried to work out potentially who could be involved in this. As I said, we had our targets. So we started looking at call charge records to see who potential suspects had been calling. Interestingly, a government department came up, and that was the park rangers at Mount Disappointment. So we then looked at reverse call records for a park ranger and found that almost everyone potentially involved had been calling him. It was at that time that we realised he was our main suspect. What then happened was that other police tours went on—surveillance and all those other issues. That ended up with people being imprisoned and the breaking up of a drug cartel.

The member for Melbourne spoke about warrants. Well, I have taken out warrants for telecommunications interception devices. It is not easy to take out a warrant. You have to provide a hell of a lot of information when it comes to an affidavit to prove the case. The member for Melbourne would say people are innocent until proven guilty—and I accept that—but all the CCRs and reverse CCRs are looking at is potentially a link to whether a person has made a phone call. Everybody should realise that their own telecommunications provider keeps on record who you have been making telephone calls to. The difference, especially for this, will be that the information about telephone calls is retained for two years instead of six months.

Sadly, Australia is now in the grasp of a terrorism threat. The government has raised our national terrorism public alert level from medium to high. The advice is based not on knowledge of a specific plan but, rather, a body of evidence that points to an increased likelihood of terrorist attacks in Australia. The Criminal Code Act 1995 defines a terrorist act as an act, or a threat to commit an act, that is done with the intention to coerce or influence the public or any government by intimidation to advance a political, religious or ideological cause and that act causes death or serious harm or endangers a person, causes serious damage to property, causes serious risk to the health or safety of the public or seriously interferes with or disrupts critical infrastructure such as a power supply.

It is interesting to note that since we first wrote this speech, sadly, we have had two incidents. We had the incident in Melbourne where police officers were stabbed by a terrorist—sadly, a very young man who had been influenced by extremists. We also saw what happened at the Lindt Cafe in Martin Place in Sydney. That was a classic example of putting fear and anxiety into the public. We go back to days gone by, when in 1978, the bomb exploded outside the Hilton hotel—and that was an awful incident. Two garbage collectors, Alec Carter and William Favell, were killed, along with police officer Paul Birmistriw, who died later from injuries he received.

We have had other incidents such as the Bali bombings and the planes flying into the World Trade Centre, and I will just take up a point made by the member for Melbourne. He is half-right: not every criminal is the smartest criminal around. For example, in the Australian Embassy bombings in Jakarta, the video footage shows a person driving a truck laden with explosives. He actually drove around two or three times—why? Because, sadly for him and for those present, he was the mule who did not even know how to drive a car, so he drove round two or three times before crashing it.

Terrorism attacks are still occurring and, since 1978, communications have dramatically improved. The internet in all its forms plays a big part in garnering groups of radical and disenfranchised people to terrorise others. Some of their tools of terror have become more sophisticated, although the beheadings of people with a simple knife still have the desired impact. We have all seen public beheadings in the media, and it is absolutely disgraceful and tragic.

One of the roles of law enforcement is to ensure that we have all the tools to protect Australian citizens and also in the case, God forbid, of another terrorist attack in Australia to ensure that the police have the ability to track down those responsible. If you look at al-Qaeda, for example, they spend years planning most of their terrorist attacks. It is crucial that metadata is stored in this country to ensure the police have those tools.

Tragically, we now have young Australians travelling to Syria and Iraq, joining Daesh and becoming terrorists, and at least 60 of these fighters have returned to Australia. This puts great stress and pressure on police to monitor these people.

The bill we are looking at today is about metadata—and I will explain a bit about metadata. The best way to explain it is a telephone call between two people. The metadata of this phone call could include the following information: the two telephone numbers, the time and length of the phone call, and the locations of the people making the phone call. The actual conversation is not recorded. To get that information, the police must take out a warrant and, as I have said before, in order to do this they have to go before a Supreme Court judge and write an extensive affidavit. I have sat down at the Organised Crime Squad and put these warrants together: it takes weeks and weeks.

That brings me to another point: when detectives all of a sudden understand that they may have potential suspects in a case, they cannot wait two weeks to get information. Unless this process has changed in the Victoria police, members put in a request that goes before a detective inspector, who looks at the information, why it is required and who makes the order if appropriate. At the same time, if someone is charged, it goes before the courts where everything comes out about how the police got that information.

On the internet, every machine has a unique number, just like a telephone number. The number is called an internet protocol address, or the IP address for short. For machines on the internet to talk to each other, they need to have a unique IP address, similar to a telephone number. In this case the metadata, the data on data, on the internet connected machines could include: the two IP addresses of machines communicating with each other; the start and length of the internet connection on the machines; the location of the machines connecting via the internet; the names of the people who are allocated to the IP address of the machine; the email addresses used on the two machines, if there is email; and internet connected machine visitor logs for chat room sessions.

Metadata on chat room sessions is important because paedophile groups and others involved in terrorism go into a cyberworld where communications take place. It does not mean that everyone involved in chat rooms is going to be a terrorist or a paedophile but, at the same time, this information may be vital to a police investigation down the track, when they are looking at who has visited certain chat rooms. It gives them a start to an investigation, and that is just so vital.

The email content or subject, the chat room conversation and the input or output data to the software application, is not captured. So the conversation is not captured; just when someone has been in a chat room. It does not disclose what they browsed either. It is also important to remember: this bill expressly includes information relating to web browser activities being stored as metadata.

Summing up, Minister Malcolm Turnbull, in his second reading speech, spoke about the impacts of keeping appropriate metadata not being limited to law enforcement agencies in Australia. During the recent Europol child exploitation investigation, investigations relied heavily on access to telecommunications metadata, because perpetrators primarily shared information online, meaning that physical evidence was rarely available, and 371 suspects were believed to be in the United Kingdom. Using related metadata, UK authorities were able to positively identify 240 suspects, leading to 121 arrests and convictions. At the same time, in Germany, 377 suspects were believed to be involved, but because they did not have metadata, sadly, they were not able to track the offenders. And when it comes to issues of paedophilia and terrorism, I am sure every member in this place believes that those people should be imprisoned, and to make that happen the police need the tools to ensure that this takes place. Finally, they do already have access to metadata. It is just an extension from six months to two years. So, I fully support this legislation. Thank you.

Ms ROWLAND (Greenway) (11:15): I come to speak on the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014 with a long interest in this issue as both a practitioner and someone concerned with observing the way in which technological change is matched—or in many cases not matched—by regulation. It is true that we have crime, and new forms of crime have evolved. And the interception and access regime that we have in Australia has evolved sometimes in consequence to and sometimes in spite of different occurrences in our society. There used to be a plain differentiation between whether a matter was covered purely by the Commonwealth interception regime or by the listening devices legislation of the various states and territories. Fifteen years ago this was probably one of the most common and complex questions, and it was all concerned with voice—whether or not this particular voice communication was covered by a state or territory regime. And if we even look at the way the interception regime was enacted at a Commonwealth level, it was essentially drafted on measures to deal with SP bookmaking, which, of course, has now gone by the wayside. I think that gives you an illustration by way of background of the way in which this area of the law has evolved.

As someone who also worked in-house advising an operator on very complex issues relating to warrants and the law enforcement and access regime—in particular during a very significant incident several years ago in Sydney, which was a highly anxious time for all operators—I think it is an area in which I have had an enormous interest. And to set the scene also, I think it would be worthwhile quoting from a paper that I co-wrote in July 2008 for the Third Workshop on the Social Implications of National Security. I ended with these words:

Given that the use of warrants is already extensive in Australia, perhaps it is time to review whether the legislative framework and the associated regulatory regime represent the appropriate balance between the needs of law enforcement agencies and citizens. After all, the probable cause test is not so onerous that it could not be applied in Australia and members of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal will likely be just as available to the relevant agencies as they are for the existing warrant regime.

They were my views in 2008, and I have been consistent on a couple of points. The first is in highlighting that this is about balance, about proportionality and, in particular as we implement this regime, about oversight, about scope. I think it is also worth remembering that even when in opposition members of this government were some of the most vociferous opponents of the notions contained in this bill. The current Minister for Communications openly spoke of his grave misgivings on data retention. We had the member for Moncrieff saying:

I think that this proposal is akin, frankly, to tactics that we would have seen utilised by the Gestapo or groups like that.

Now, I do not mention that to in any way take away from the views that have been expressed in the past, and indeed with many of the reservations the sentiment is something I certainly share. But I think, where we are today, the task at hand is to improve on an extremely flawed bill that was presented by that very person, now the Minister for Communications, in October last year. And by no means do I believe that this bill is optimal. I think it has been improved by process. In some respects there have even been some positive and possibly unforeseen consequences arising from its recommendations in areas that will affect privacy, including the recommendations relating to privacy alerts. I want to make it clear that citizens, residents of Greenway—and many of them have contacted me—have been concerned about the way in which this bill may influence their rights. I have received numerous thoughtful direct representations from constituents, a broad cross-section of people—citizens who value their privacy. And the only rule that I think is possible when trying to predict technology and the interplay with regulation is: never underestimate technology.

But I do want to turn to some of the substantive issues. One of the most fundamental when I am talking about the improvements in this bill is that we now have a recommendation and supporting amendments that a dataset actually be defined, to give parameters to what we are talking about here. This was not in the original bill. There was a comprehensive series of recommendations relating to the dataset, including the most fundamental—primary—first item of recommendation here: that the bill be amended to include the proposed dataset in primary legislation. And it goes on, through recommendation 3, for example—how to declare items for inclusion in the dataset. There is even a series of recommendations that the explanatory memoranda be amended to make certain things clear. Now, why is that important? It is important of course for interpretation—extrinsic materials when looking at how these provisions will end up being applied in practice. I think that is probably the most fundamental change from the outset—to be improving on these measures.

The other issue that I think is important to mention—and it gives rise to some other substantive provisions in the recommendations—is the issue of proportionality. The committee that looks at this from a human rights perspective, the parliamentary joint committee of which I am a member, raised these questions in its initial consideration. They were very serious concerns about proportionality, particularly relating to the time for retention. I do not have entire visibility of the deliberations that occurred within the committee. What I do have to go on is the report and the recommendations in chapter 4. Looking, for example, at paragraph 4.39 where it mentions:

ASIO and the Attorney-General’s Department advised the Committee that the proposed two year retention period is the result of ‘extensive’ engagement between the Attorney-General’s Department, and law enforcement and national security agencies.

And I note in particular:

ASIO had advocated for a retention period of up to five years, however the Department concluded that the shorter, two-year retention period would be proportionate to the legitimate ends of safeguarding national security and public safety, and the enforcement of the criminal law.

There was clearly evidence also in paragraph 4.41 from the Australian Federal Police, emphasising that:

…while the majority of criminal investigations relate to relatively recent conduct, complex and serious investigations often require access to telecommunications data from a considerable time ago …

I want to stress again, that in spite of that I recognise that citizens will still have concerns about that two-year period.

I want to go to an issue that I believe will end up having substantive implications in the immediate and long term, and that this issue of costs. PwC commissioned a report estimating capital implementation of between $189 million and $319 million—that is capital expenditure. It is still unclear how smaller operators, especially smaller ISPs, will meet their obligations. I note recommendation 35, having regard to the regulatory burden on smaller providers with an annual turnover of less than $3 million, and a recommendation that the bill be amended to require all service providers to be compliant in respect of retained data with the Australian privacy principles or binding rules developed by the Australian Privacy Commissioner.

I point, in particular, to a letter from the Communications Alliance signed by the CEOs of its member companies, including Telstra, Optus and Vodafone Hutchinson, who have pointed out the need for clarity as to the government's intention to provide a contribution to up-front capital expenses that may fall on the industry following the anticipated passage of this bill. And they note:

… the Government has variously indicated it will make a 'reasonable' or 'substantial' contribution to these costs …

…   …   …

It is evident that the extent to which the Government's contribution falls short of the total cost to industry will determine the quantum of additional costs to be absorbed by carriers or carriage service providers or passed on to Australian telecommunications users.

This is significant for a number of reasons not only because of the potential implications for smaller operators, in many cases small businesses, and the implications for innovation; also, earlier today we had the announcement of another red tape repeal day. On its own website this government claims annual savings of over $2.1 billion in what it calls 'reduced compliance costs for businesses, community organisations, families and individuals'.

The reality is this scheme will cost. Costs, which we often take for granted, are just as important as compliance measures. I will watch this with interest. I am not alone in having concerns about these cost issues. It was interesting to read a recent opinion piece from the IPA, an organisation with whom I do not think I agree on much, noting, 'Communications minister Malcolm Turnbull will preside over the largest increases in the regulatory burden since the telecommunications market was liberalised two decades ago.' I think that is probably right. That is exactly what Mr Turnbull said in his 2012 Alfred Deakin lecture:

Leaving aside the central issue of the right to privacy, there are formidable practical objections. The carriers, including Telstra, have argued that the cost of complying with a new data retention regime would be very considerable with the consequence of higher charges for their customers.

Another extremely vexed area is of course that of the implications for journalists, and the flagged amendment on journalists and their sources. It is pleasing to see that the opposition's intervention in this matter has led to what we hope will be positives result in this area. It is frustrating that it has taken so long, but I will note, for example, the concerns in the community and the sector. The head of the Internet Society of Australia, Laurie Patton, told The Australian on 7 March, before the Prime Minister flagged his backdown on this:

There is no certainty that an effective mechanism to protect journalists and their sources can be retrofitted if the data retention bill is passed in haste.

This will be a significant issue. It will be a significant issue even for some of the most fundamental definitions. In the Evidence Act, for example, and we have definitions of what an informant is and what a journalist is. Journalist means:

… a person who is engaged and active in the publication of news and who may be given information by an informant in the expectation that the information may be published in a news medium.

'Informant' is defined separately. I am happy to stand corrected, but I actually have not seen the amendment in its final form on this issue, but many constituents have raised with me the issue of whether this will be a narrowly defined definition of a journalist. Will it be the same as the definition in the Evidence Act? Considering that so many of us are participants in a scheme where we participate in the new media as commentators, are we all active participants who would end up being covered? Can we define this separately for the purposes of an Act, and thereby have a different definition of journalists for one act or another? This is no trivial matter. I see this morning Chris Merritt writing very succinctly on this issue of the relationship between the metadata bill procedures and the shield law provisions. He encapsulates well the conundrum of benchmarking the tests that are in the shield laws with those already form part of the Evidence Act. He ends by saying:

Unless these requirements form part of the metadata bill, the shield law and the values championed by Brandis in opposition will become irrelevant as authorities turn to the metadata scheme instead.

There are some positive outcomes arising from the recommendations. For example, the original bill did not provide for individuals to access their own data. There was no provision for the encryption of data, even though this had been recommended in 2013, and the privacy alerts mechanism is certainly welcome.

I end by quoting one of the people who gave evidence to the committee:

The threshold proportionality issue—of whether retention of data that enables pervasive surveillance of all Australians is a reasonable and proportionate response to the threats of terrorism and serious crime—remains itself largely untested and therefore controversial …

It certainly is, but this parliament will have a very important role. After this debate is finished, it is not a matter of us walking away. Parliament will have a crucial role in the operation and oversight of the provisions of this bill, which will be enacted. We will have responsibilities that I believe our citizens expect us to take very seriously.

Mr COLEMAN (Banks) (11:30): I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this extremely important legislation, dealing as it does with the security of our nation—the security of the people in my electorate of Banks and across the country more generally. I start by summarising the essential question when dealing with these matters of national security: does the benefit of addressing matters of security through legislation, enabling law-enforcement officers to do their jobs better, outweigh any perceived or potential cost to civil liberties? The answer with respect to this legislation is: absolutely. That benefit far outweighs any perceived cost.

Metadata has been around for a long time. This is not a new category of information that has been created through the passage of this legislation. The central point of this legislation is to ensure that material that has been accessed historically continues to be accessed. That is the central point. This is not a regime of materially expanding the capacity of government to access metadata, it is to make sure that we can continue to access metadata in a way that enables our law-enforcement officers to stop acts of terrorism or crime before they occur. That is entirely appropriate.

It is very important to understand that under this legislation no content of any information can be accessed without a warrant. As is the case now, in order to access the content of information—be that the content of a phone call, web-browsing session or email—a court warrant will be required. A court warrant is not easily acquired and the courts, rightly, have high standards that must be met before a warrant is granted. It is also worth noting that under this legislation the number of agencies that can access metadata will reduce from the current number of about 80 to about 20, with a sharp focus on law-enforcement and terrorism-prevention agencies. This is the most important use of this material. This is sensible, measured legislation, which will help keep Australians safe. It is very important that it becomes law.

We need to back up a moment and focus on the issue of why this legislation is important now. One of the key reasons is that commercial practices in the telecommunications industry are changing. Historically, in this industry, a range of data—generated through phone calls, internet and email usage—was kept by telcos and generally kept for an extended period of time. That information was often used in things like analytics, within the business of how customers are using particular services and for billing purposes on occasion. As software becomes more and more sophisticated the commercial requirement to maintain that information reduces.

Telecommunications companies, being ultimately commercial entities, would say that if there is a cost associated with retaining this information, and if it is not essential to their commercial operations, there would be a tendency for less of that information to be retained over time. That is the essence of this legislation. What we as a government are saying—and we are supported by the opposition—is that it is very important for this material to be maintained for up to two years. This is the material that time and again has been used by our law-enforcement agencies to stop crime and acts of terrorism and to investigate crimes after they have occurred. The ideal use of metadata is for it to pre-empt any terrorist or other action before it occurs. We also should not discount its use as a means of solving crimes after they have occurred. Both are important, but prevention is the most important.

We know that metadata works. There is very little controversy about this point. We know that metadata, on many occasions, has helped to stop acts of crime and terrorism before they occur and allowed agencies to address the sources of crime after they have occurred. The AFP said recently that between July and September last year 92 per cent of cases relating to terrorism involved the use of metadata. For 92 per cent of the time that our agencies sought to investigate potential acts of terrorism—in the most recent quarter they published—metadata was used. So we know that this material is extremely important.

One of the best examples was of course Operation Pendennis, which was back in 2005. Under that operation, agencies were able to use metadata to identify a previously unknown terrorist cell that was operating largely in Victoria and planning to stage a major attack on the MCG and other institutions within Victoria. By being able to access the metadata, agencies were able to detect a series of relationships and a series of ongoing interactions between individuals who were a known concern to them. Through the use of that metadata, they were in fact able to stop the attack from occurring and it led to significant convictions of people who aimed to do us harm. Thirteen men were convicted on terrorism charges, with sentences of up to 28 years in jail. So the attack on the MCG did not occur and those people were taken off the street, which was entirely the right thing to occur. We also have another example where the provision of a single phone number by a foreign government to Australia, expressing their concerns about a particular individual and the potential for that individual to cooperate with others in acts of terrorism, allowed ASIO to identify a cell that was indeed planning terrorist attacks. So it is extremely important information.

It is also important in the context of cybercrime and cyberterrorism. What we are seeing now, unfortunately, is a rise in the use of internet networks to breach the security of nations, including ours. Sometimes that is done by rogue organisations and sometimes it is done by states. The accessing of metadata in the context of cyberterrorism enables our agencies to detect an IP address. As we know, an IP address is an identifier which an internet service provider will be able access for different individuals at different times. Metadata analysis allows the agencies to talk to that ISP about linking the IP address to a specific individual or organisation. Once you have been able to match an IP address to an individual, you can then, through the analysis of metadata, determine who that person is interacting with online and, if any disturbing patterns emerge, seek further investigation. Of course, that is the point at which our agencies would seek warrants to conduct further investigations.

We need to understand very clearly what the information is and what it is not. Frankly, there is a lot of misguided analysis in this area, where there is not always a clear description in the media of what metadata is and what it is not. The way I think of it is that it is about the interactions between individuals but not about what actually occurs within those interactions. If a phone call is made from A to B the metadata will track that that call was made but it will not say what A said to B or what B said to A. If an individual emails somebody, the metadata will track that interaction occurred but it will not track what actually happened inside the email. The only scenario in which that information can be provided is when the agencies obtain a court warrant for that purpose, and that is an appropriate protection. Of course web browsing is not metadata. It is very important to understand that. If somebody visits 50 websites tomorrow, the information as to what sites they visited is not metadata and is not in a form that can be accessed by agencies under this legislation. In order to access that information they would need to seek a more detailed warrant.

We know that metadata works and we know that, as a nation, we do face significant threats. We cannot pretend that is not the case. We have seen tragedies in recent times. We saw them in my own city, in Martin Place, and in Melbourne at Endeavour Hills Police Station. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by pretending that a problem of this seriousness does not exist. We all know it exists. The question is: what can the government do about it? One of the things that we can do about it is addressing this legislation.

There are significant protections in the legislation. I want to commend the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, which was so ably led by the member for Wannon. They went through this legislation in great detail over summer and around Christmas and they came back with 39 recommendations where they thought there could be certain subtle changes and improvements to the legislation. The government adopted all of those improvements. It was very pleasing to see—and is worthy of commendation—that the opposition and indeed the member for Holt, who served as the deputy on that committee, worked in a very constructive fashion with the government, so that we as a parliament can come to a largely agreed view on this legislation. That is very important, because we want to send a message to those who would do us harm that we as a nation are united in ensuring that we have the protections in place to stop them from doing what they want to do.

One of the protections in this legislation is that the circumstances in which metadata can be accessed will not change. So, effectively, what was available five years ago in metadata analysis by the agencies will continue to be available and will continue to be kept for up to two years. That is the central point here. We are not talking about a new category of information; we are talking about ensuring that the information is retained so that the commercial imperatives of the telecommunications companies do not disrupt the operation of national security.

One of the points that has been raised in the context of the commercial operations of the telcos is the cost of implementing this legislation. The government certainly acknowledges that there is a cost involved. It has been estimated at between $189 million and $319 million. That is a capital cost and, as such, is a cost that can be spread over a number of years. This is not something that would hit the profits of a company all in one year. It would be spread over a number of years, probably five to 10 years, depending on the depreciation approach the telco takes. Indeed, the government is willing to contribute to those costs. Discussions are continuing in that area.

What we can never do is allow a relatively modest cost to stop us from implementing something that is so important for the security of the nation. We have seen time and time again that metadata can be used to stop acts of terrorism before they occur. We must do everything we reasonably can to ensure that continues to be the case. By passing this legislation, this parliament will be sending a very clear message that we are going to be very vigilant in protecting the people of Australia.

Mr WILKIE (Denison) (11:45): Regrettably, it is looking increasingly as if everyone in this place will vote in support of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014, with the exception of the member for Melbourne and me, and perhaps one or two other crossbenchers. In other words, virtually everyone in this House is taking the position that the end justifies the means. That has in fact been made clear in a number of speeches we have heard in this place already in regard to this bill. Just about every person has jumped up and made the point that compulsory retention of metadata for two years will in fact help law enforcement and security agencies to do their work. I do not dispute that. As someone who served in the military for 20 years, including a stint in intelligence, I have no doubt that if the security services could have access for a period of two years to all of this metadata on everyone with a computer, a smartphone, a tablet or whatever it will make their job a little bit easier.

The question is: where do you draw the line? The point is that we should never let the end justify the means. During the last parliament I was on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, which looked into this matter previously. I came to the conclusion—and without giving too much away I think a number of my colleagues on the committee came to the same conclusion—that this would be an unreasonable extension of the power of the state. That is the challenge for us in this place: to work out where to draw the line. If you said to the security agencies that you could do whatever you wanted to about any matter, I reckon they would solve a lot of matters. If you summarily executed every suspected shoplifter, I am sure we would very quickly reduce the incidence of shoplifting. But that of course is a ludicrous proposition. It would never be done, because we know where to draw the line.

But when it comes to national security we always seem to be tempted to move that line just a bit further and extend the power of the state that little bit further. That puts us on a slippery slope, because where does this end? I recall that when this was mooted a few years ago mandatory metadata retention was only to be about national security and defeating terrorism. The government at the time was very careful to emphasise that. People in this House were very aware that that was what we were talking about. But in speeches and comments made both inside and outside this place we hear about all sorts of other forms of crime. So, already, we are seeing incrementalism at play, where it is not just about terrorism. It is that we want to keep for two years the electronic footprint of every person with some sort of smart device, perhaps so that we can track them down and prosecute them for any number of offences short of terrorism.

Rather than talking about the expansion of the metadata arrangements and making them mandatory, I think we in this place should be questioning the metadata arrangements that are already in place and asking why there is already so much metadata stored without any sort of legal cover, and why the authorities are accessing it so many times without necessarily having a warrant. In fact, when I look at the figures for the last couple of years, I see that in fiscal 2011-12 federal and state security services accessed metadata 290,358 times. In fiscal 2012-13 federal and state security agencies accessed metadata 319,874 times. This was done all without any sort of legislative framework, and none of it with mandatory recourse to a warrant. I think that is the sort of thing we should be discussing in this place. So much metadata is already sloshing around and it is already being accessed. Why should we already be allowing metadata to be searched, without a warrant, when we accept that for someone's property to be searched normally there should be a warrant. This is their property. Surely a requirement for warrants should be introduced right now.

I do not accept the comment made by a previous speaker that getting a warrant is just too hard. That is the whole point. The whole point of getting a warrant is that there should be a tension in the process—that it should be a bit difficult. The onus should be placed on the security official to make the case to a judge, and it should be a bit difficult, because we want to have that tension and make it a bit hard. We want warrants to be issued when the case for a warrant can be unambiguously made when a judge, without any doubt in his or her mind, is convinced that a warrant is necessary.

I have already made the point that I am intrigued by the incrementalism that has already crept in—the fact that this was originally all about terrorism, but now we are talking as much about paedophiles and other heinous and serious crimes. I am the first to say that we must track those people down and prosecute them. But where do you draw the line? I fear that we are already on a slippery slope and we do not know where this slope is going to take us. Before we know it, there will be this massive volume of metadata before stored and people will be making applications to access it perhaps in civil matters. What will the government of the day make of that?

I fear that eventually this will be a resource for anyone to access. That would be so far removed from the original purpose both in this country and in other countries where they have looked at metadata or mandatory metadata retention.

I have made the point that mandatory metadata retention will assist the security agencies, but I worry that in this place some members have been too quick to take at face value the assurances of the security agencies about just how much use metadata is. We know from history—we know without any doubt from history—that the most clever terrorists know what they are doing. We saw this on 9/11 when a very small group of people using innovative means carried out those shocking attacks in 2001. We know that these days fortunately most would-be terrorists are not very bright, and we are able to track them down and detect them, and take action against them. But there are a small number out there who are very clever and know how we operate. They know with these new laws that, if they come to pass, there will be ways to defeat them. It will not be hard for them to defeat them. It will not be hard for them to use foreign-based telecommunications environments to beat our laws because for them the relevant metadata will be stored in another country which we cannot access.

We also know that a large amount of the World Wide Web is not accessible normally, and it not accessible normally to the security agencies. This is where the real evildoers hang-out. This is where terrorists will sometimes communicate. This is where paedophiles will sometimes share their pictures. This is where all sorts of unspeakable things go on in places like the Deep Web—that portion of the World Wide Web content that is not indexed by standard search engines—or the dark internet, which is made up of computers that can no longer be reached via the internet. That is where we will push the real evildoers. This means that mandatory metadata retention will end up being much more a matter for law-abiding people like ourselves who are having our electronic footprint recorded, and lesser criminals who have not got the smarts to go to places like the Deep Web and to use facilities like the dark internet or have not got the nous to use a foreign-based communications environment.

I worry that we will not achieve what we are trying to achieve to the full extent—even though we will be paying the enormous price that our electronic footprint will be stored for two years. Let us not underestimate what that footprint means. Speakers are very quick to say, 'Don't you worry about that; it will be just the fact that you made a call.' It will be a darned sight more than that. For example, every time your phone is recorded as having a location, it will be recorded for two years. In other words, the security services will know where every phone has been located, while it has been turned on, for the last two years. This is an unprecedented extension of the power of the state. I do not know that people in this House understand the scope of the extension of the power of the state that is being contemplated in here and likely to pass the parliament. Not even in the United States have they contemplated such a remarkable extension of the power of the state, and most countries in Europe have baulked at going anywhere near this because they know it is an unprecedented extension of the power of the state. It is. I do not mean to sound overly dramatic, but it is a step towards the police state, when all of a sudden our security agencies will have in their possession, or access to, your electronic footprint for the last two years. They will know every time you have made a phone call; every time you have sent an email; everywhere your phone has gone, which presumably is on your person—quite remarkable.

When I was on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security in the 43rd Parliament and we did look into these matters, I was quite affected by the volume of public submissions and the breadth of public submissions. There were thousands of submissions from all sorts of individuals and organisations, and not from your usual suspects. Mostly these submissions were from people and organisations that should be listened to, and they were overwhelmingly opposed to mandatory data retention. So why are we ignoring them? I cannot fathom it. I can only assume that members of the government and members of the PJCIS in this parliament have gone inside the tent, and when secrets are shared with you it is intoxicating—you start to drink the Kool-Aid; you start to believe everything that is being said. When the security agencies are asking for a cheque, you hand them a blank cheque because you have drunk the Kool-Aid and you are believing everything they have said. Of course they will ask for everything, that is their job. It is our job to limit what they get; to limit it to what is acceptable to the community; to limit the power of the state to acceptable levels.

I might have had a different response to this bill if a couple of aspects were addressed. They will not be addressed. I have raised them before. One is that there needs to be much more effective parliamentary oversight of the intelligence services. I think it was the member for Greenway who was expressing some confidence in this bill because she was able to say that we in the parliament would keep a close eye on this—we would know what is going on and monitor it, and be able to take remedial action. I support the member for Greenway's sentiment, but the reality is that parliament has no oversight of operational matters of the security services. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security only has a remit of administrative oversight of some of the security services. It is, in fact, the ministers who have oversight of the relevant agencies. That is fine when you have good ministers, but what happens in the next parliament, or the one after that, or the one after that, when you have a dud minister—someone who is prepared to go just that bit further. Again, we are back on the slippery slope.

I might have had a different approach to this if we had taken this opportunity to ask: why is it that already, every year, the security services access metadata without warrants hundreds of thousands of times? That is effectively searching someone's property. There should be a warrant arrangement in place now. Surely any sort of mandatory metadata storage and access arrangement must include warrants for any access—not just for journalists but to access anyone's metadata.

Yes, that will be hard. It will slow things up. But it will ensure that the security agencies less and less unnecessarily access our property and more and more focus on the property of people who should be scrutinised. That is what is required. Again, this is a missed opportunity to give the parliament greater oversight and to put in place a warrant requirement for all access to all metadata. Instead, the parliament is doing what it does.

I hope I am wrong. I hope more than the member for Melbourne and I and perhaps one or two other crossbenchers oppose this bill. I will certainly oppose this bill. I will continue to oppose it and speak out strongly against it. I will call on a future parliament to wind it back.

Mr FLETCHER (Bradfield—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications) (12:00): I am pleased to rise to speak on the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014, a bill which amends the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act and the Telecommunications Act. It contains a package of reforms to ensure the continuing investigative capabilities of Australia's law enforcement and national security agencies.

This bill has generated a fair amount of community debate. In the time available to me, I would like to make three points. Firstly, I would like to emphasise what this bill is not about. Secondly, I would like to cover what the bill does. Thirdly, I would like to respond to some of the concerns that have been raised as part of the debate and address the measures that are included in response to those concerns.

Let me come, firstly, to the question of what this bill does not do. I should say that I bring to this debate a perspective from having worked in these areas for quite a number of years. In a previous life I was director of corporate and regulatory affairs at Optus, the second largest telecommunications company in Australia, and dealt regularly with the kind of matters that this bill addresses. At Optus, as is the case at the other large telecommunications companies, there is a law enforcement liaison unit which deals regularly with state and federal police and other agencies in relation to requests under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act for information and content, in each case compliant with the various requirements under that act.

I want to emphasise that this bill does not provide law enforcement organisations and security agencies such as ASIO and the Australian Federal Police with new powers to access metadata. The powers that they have to access metadata are set out in the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979, particularly in division 4 of chapter 4. There are no new powers to access metadata granted by this bill. Nor does the bill expand on the range of telecommunications metadata which the police and security agencies are able to access. Again, that is not something which is contained in this bill.

Indeed, I want to highlight just briefly some of the points made in the report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security about the existing law in relation to police and security agency access to metadata. The report highlights the point that I have just made, that today so-called enforcement agencies as well as ASIO are permitted to access telecommunications data under an internal authorisation which is issued under part 4-1 of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act. I hasten to add that enforcement agencies are defined to include the Australian Federal Police, state police and a range of other agencies, including state crime commissions and so on.

I will come to what telecommunications data includes under the terminology of the existing act before I go to the bill. Telecommunications data includes such matters as: the time, date and duration of a communication; the identifiers of the services and devices involved; certain information about the location of the respective devices, such as, for example, which mobile base station a mobile phone was connected to; and information about the parties to the communication, such as their name, address, contact details, billing and transaction information, and so on.

I want to emphasise again that I am speaking here about the current law which is contained in the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979. This is law which has been in place for many years. It is worth bearing that in mind when you consider some of the things that are being said in this debate about what people are concerned that the bill before the House today may do. A number of the comments that have been made appear to have been made from a lack of knowledge on what the law presently says on this matter and has said for many, many years.

I also want to emphasise that this bill does not deal with the content of a communication. It deals with information about a communication, which is referred to by the term 'metadata', which we have all now come to know and love. It is referred to in the existing legislation as 'telecommunications data'. I want to make it clear that there is nothing new in this bill in relation to the scope of metadata. In fact, as I will come to, in some ways the scope is narrowed. I again want to emphasise that the bill does not change the grounds on which metadata can be obtained by enforcement agencies and security agencies.

I also want to make the point that large amounts of this data is today stored by telecommunications companies and internet service providers for their own business purposes. In the day-to-day operation of a telecommunications network, enormous amounts of information are generated. For example, each time a mobile phone is connected to a particular base station, that generates a piece of information. That information may be kept for some time or it may be kept for very short period of time. But it is information that is generated in the ordinary operation of a telecommunications network, and so are many other kinds of information. Information is generated and retained, for example, for billing purposes. All of this is done for the ordinary operational purposes of running a telecommunications network.

Let me turn, secondly, to the question of what this bill does. This bill deals with specific categories of metadata—that is, certain classes of information about telephone calls and so on. The primary purpose of this bill—and let us be very clear and specific on this, because again there has been a lot of confusion in the commentary—is to standardise the approach for how long metadata is retained. Let me make this point: today the law says, as I have sought to explain, that if the security agencies and police comply with the processes set out in the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act, they can obtain metadata from telecommunications companies and internet service providers. That is not information about the content, for example, of a telecommunications call, but certain information in relation to the call—the name of the A party, the name of the B party, the time of the call, the duration of the call and so on. The law as it stands today gives those powers, but it does not impose any particular requirement on the telecommunications companies and internet service providers as to the length of time for which they retain that data. That is what is new about this bill. That is the essence of the bill before the House today: it will impose on the telecommunications companies and internet service providers an obligation, which they hitherto have not faced, to retain the classes of metadata specified in the bill for a period of two years. We need to be very clear about what this bill does do and what it does not do. A lot of the public commentary about the effect of this bill misunderstands that fundamental point.

If we come to the policy intention behind imposing this new obligation on telecommunications companies and internet service providers, it is, firstly, that metadata is a vital investigative tool. Many speakers before me have quoted the statistics as to the very high proportion of particular kinds of investigations in which telecommunications data is used—for example, in 87 per cent of child protection investigations. But at the moment the position is that the success or failure of a particular investigation by the police or the security agencies can depend upon a random factor—that is, which telecommunications carrier or internet service provider happened to provide the service which was used by the person of interest to the police or to the security agencies and, in turn, what the particular business practices of that company are with regard to the retention of metadata. At the moment, the success or failure of an investigation—which could well be an investigation into a matter that goes to the physical safety and security of large numbers of Australians, depending upon the nature of the threat being investigated—can depend upon the random outcome of which particular network is used and the particular business practices of the relevant telecommunications company or internet service provider. A desire to systematise the retention requirements is the policy purpose and intent of this bill, and it is very important to be clear that that is what this bill does. It does not, for example, change the law as to the circumstances in which metadata is authorised to be obtained by the police or by the security agencies.

Let me turn, lastly, to some of the concerns that have been raised and the ways in which the bill before the House seeks to address those concerns. I note that the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security conducted a very detailed examination of the bill and presented its report on 27 February. The government said that it would carefully consider recommendations made by the committee. The report makes 39 recommendations, including the recommendation that the parliament should pass the bill, and the government has supported all of the committee's recommendations. The recommendations in the committee's report focus largely on specifying the dataset in the primary legislation instead of regulations, specifying the agencies in the primary legislation instead of regulations and increasing oversight mechanisms and privacy protections. The government agrees that the bill should be amended to include the proposed dataset in primary legislation and also agrees that enforcement agencies be specifically listed in the legislation. The bill will also implement additional oversights for the new data retention regime and particularly will significantly reduce the number of agencies that are permitted to access metadata.

The point I want to make to the House this afternoon is that, if you listen to some of the commentary, you might think that this bill creates new powers for information to be accessed, that it greatly widens the scope of information that can be accessed and that it widens the range of people who can access that information. In fact, as I have sought to explain, it makes no change to the circumstances in which information can be accessed. It will limit the range of agencies that can access information and, indeed, by giving a specific definition of metadata, it makes quite specific what the obligations will be on the telecommunications companies and internet service providers.

A key issue is the cost of implementing these arrangements, because clearly there are costs incurred in storing data. PricewaterhouseCoopers has been retained to look at this question. Evidence was provided to the committee on the conclusions drawn by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which were that the up-front capital cost across industry was going to be between $188 million and $319 million. The government has consistently said that it will make a reasonable contribution to these costs, recognising of course that the industry participants are private sector companies and that there is a public policy purpose in imposing this data retention obligation.

The government also acknowledges the reality that it takes time to put in place new IT systems and processes, and therefore the bill allows individual telecommunications companies and internet service providers to develop an implementation plan to allow a pathway to compliance over a period of up to 18 months. That is very important, because what typically happens in telecommunications companies is that there is an annual IT upgrade cycle. This will allow the relevant information technology work to be accommodated within that annual IT upgrade cycle.

I conclude by reiterating the point that what this bill is about, despite some of the confused commentary, is the imposition on telecommunications companies and internet service providers of a uniform period for which they must retain metadata. That data is already extensively retained, but the key issues are that the period for which it is retained varies materially between different companies and that there is an underlying public policy purpose in retaining data, which is to ensure that the agencies and police are best equipped to do their work of seeking to maintain the security of Australians. It is a very important public policy purpose.

Ms PARKE (Fremantle) (12:15): I rise to speak on the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014. The proposal to introduce a mandatory data retention scheme is of deep concern to many Australians and organisations, particularly with regard to its potential impact upon privacy, media freedom and freedom of expression, cost and competition.

The amendments brought about through the work of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security have done much to improve what was really just a shell of a bill presented by the government. I thank the shadow Attorney-General and shadow minister for communications in particular for their consultative approach to this issue and I also thank the individuals and organisations who have taken the time to make submissions on the legislation.

It will perhaps be a surprise to many people in the community that over 80 agencies, including local councils, can already access anyone's metadata without a warrant. To the extent that this bill imposes some limitations and oversight around this process it is clearly an advance. It is, however, apparent that even with the amendments significant concerns remain regarding the lack of evidence as to necessity and the lack of adequate safeguards ensuring proportionality, security and oversight.

It is worth noting at the outset that the primary purpose of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act, which this bill seeks to amend, is to ensure the privacy of telecommunications and to prohibit the accessing or interception of telecommunications. That purpose meets the human rights imperative identified in article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to protect from arbitrary interference a person's privacy, family, correspondence or home, and article 19, the right to freedom of opinion and expression. In protecting these rights, the Telecommunications Act has always provided for exceptions under which law enforcement and national security agencies can access data in appropriate circumstances.

We are informed this bill is needed to ensure that law enforcement agencies can keep pace with rapidly evolving telecommunications technology and services. I note the evidence given to the intelligence committee that, while preservation notices issued under the Cybercrime Legislation Amendment Act 2012 can secure information into the future, law enforcement agencies frequently require historical data. There is a concern that such data will become increasingly unavailable as service providers adapt to new technology; the term used is 'going dark'.

As per the intelligence committee recommendations in its March 2013 report, which have not been implemented by the government, what is needed is a comprehensive revision of the TIA Act and the entire interception and access regimes. This is supported by the Law Council of Australia, which in its submission to the committee noted that the bill should have been 'preceded by rigorous and comprehensive review of the alleged deficiencies in current processes and unavailability of data needed for investigatory purposes'.

In its attempt to sell this bill, the government has given the community many inconsistent messages. It claimed that the retention of and warrantless access to metadata are less intrusive to privacy than access by warrant to content, and therefore we should not be concerned. The Attorney-General and Prime Minister described metadata as akin to the address on an envelope. This view has been comprehensively debunked in many of the submissions as well as by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, which stated in its report on the bill:

Communications data can reveal quite personal information about an individual, even without the content of the data being made available, revealing who a person is in contact with, how often and where. This in turn may reveal the person’s political opinions, sexual habits, religion or medical concerns. As the European Court of Justice has stated in its recent ruling that held that blanket retention of metadata was disproportionate, such data 'taken as a whole, may allow very precise conclusions to be drawn concerning the private lives of the persons whose data has been retained such as the habits of everyday life, permanent or temporary places of residence, daily or other movements, the activities carried out, the social relationships of those persons and the social environments frequented by them.

Indeed, the Victorian Commissioner for Privacy and Data Protection's submission quotes former CIA and NSA director General Michael Hayden as saying, 'We kill people based on metadata,' and that metadata without content is capable of telling the government 'everything' about an individual. The Western Australian internet service provider iiNet has stated that metadata reveals even more about an individual than the content itself'.

At the same time as the government has been telling the community that metadata access is no big deal and that it is not intrusive of privacy, we are informed by the government that metadata is absolutely vital to investigations. The Minister for Justice has in question time cited the example of the joint ASIO-law enforcement operation in 2005 that prevented a mass-casualty terrorist attack at the MCG, in which telecommunications data was critical. But, as noted by the Pirate Party in its submission, this case study serves to demonstrate that law enforcement and intelligence agencies already have sufficient capabilities.

Furthermore, other more recent confirmed or suspected terrorist attacks such as those in Boston, Ottawa, Paris and Sydney were committed by people already known to authorities or acting alone. The Pirate Party notes:

Thus, data retention would not have helped to pre-empt them. Resources should be directed towards current law enforcement efforts and targeted surveillance rather than placing an entire nation under suspicion and thereby diverting, diluting and distracting their efforts.

Indeed, as many submissions, including from a number of councils for civil liberties point out, the review set up by President Obama following Edward Snowden's revelations reported it could find 'no evidence that sweeping collection of the telephone metadata of Americans led to a single major counterterrorism breakthrough', and a German parliamentary study referenced by European Digital Rights showed that blanket data retention would have made a difference in only an infinitesimal 0.002 per cent of criminal investigations.

On the other hand, the proposed data retention regime would ensure that police and intelligence agencies would have a large source of information with which to hunt down whistleblowers and the journalists and others, including MPs, to whom they may have provided public interest information, thus potentially having a chilling effect on media freedom and public interest disclosures of wrongdoing. Crikey's Bernard Keane notes in his submission that 'the Australian Federal Police has admitted in Senate Estimates that in hunting for whistleblowers it obtains the metadata of journalists and even politicians'. The Human Rights Law Centre notes that AFP Commissioner Tony Negus admitted in December 2013 that up to five MPs had been the subject of data surveillance without a warrant.

The firm pressure from the Labor opposition and a strong campaign by media organisations has prompted the government to agree to introduce an amendment requiring law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant for access to journalists' metadata. The Media Arts and Entertainment Alliance has objected that this does not go far enough to protect media freedom, since access to information by warrant is still access, which should not be permitted. Indeed, as noted by Bernard Keane in yesterday's Crikey, a judge would likely issue warrants to police who claimed that laws had been broken by a public servant leaking a story. The MEAA says that such data could be used to capture the communications between a journalist and a source and, once that is known, the other tranches of national security legislation, particularly National Security Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 can be used to jail both the source and the journalist for up to 10 years and to tamper with the media organisation's computer network.

I share these concerns about the unacceptable threat to media freedom from this suite of national security laws. The Law Institute of Victoria and the WA Law Society have also pointed out the danger to legal professional privilege of the warrantless access regime. One of the reasons the EU Court of Justice found the EU data retention directive—on which this proposed scheme is modelled—to be invalid was that 'it does not provide for any exception, with the result that it applies even to persons whose communications are subject...to the obligation of professional secrecy'.

The requirement to force ISPs to retain, and in some cases create and store, data for two years in advance of the telecommunications sector security reforms is, in my view, putting the cart before the horse. The issue of where data will be stored is a matter of concern to many Australians, including notably the Director-General of ASIO David Irvine, who this week described himself as a 'cyber nationalist' and said he would feel much more comfortable with data governed by Australian law than law by some other country. It is significant I think that another of the reasons that the EU Court of Justice ruled the EU data retention directive invalid was because it did not require data to be stored in the EU.

The Australian Lawyers for Human Rights has noted that the bill 'outsources' compliance to private companies. This arrangement unfairly imposes an enormous cost, which will be passed on to consumers, will have anti-competitive results as it is likely to drive smaller operators out of business and unfairly penalises companies with eligible infrastructure in Australia as against overseas companies.

The government has indicated it will pay 'a substantial share' of the cost of implementing this regime and the Prime Minister has named a loose figure of $400 million. An amendment to the bill provides that the Commonwealth 'may' make a grant of financial assistance to a service provider to assist with compliance under the scheme, but this discretionary provision is unlikely to give comfort to service providers that their costs will be covered. Whether it is via taxpayers or costs passed onto consumers from service providers, it is clear that Australian citizens and businesses are expected to pay for their own surveillance, as well as any damage that may result from the inevitable misuse of metadata or unauthorised access to such data.

A number of submissions also noted that the massive 'honey-pot' of data that the legislation will require business to create and retain under the legislation could in fact be a magnet for cyber attacks. The Law Council notes that the bill does not provide a minimum set of standards for government agencies and service providers to ensure storage and security of telecommunications data; it does not require data to be stored in Australia; nor does it require the destruction of stored metadata at the expiration of the two-year period, unlike the requirement for information obtained pursuant to a warrant which must be destroyed when no longer required for the particular purpose.

The sweeping scope of the data retention scheme, together with the permissive nature of the access regime, presents very real risks to the rights and freedoms Australians are entitled to expect. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights concluded in her July 2014 report on the right to privacy in the digital age that mandatory third-party data retention is neither necessary nor proportionate.

The Human Rights Law Centre observed that:

… the absence of a warrant or other independent authorisation process prior to access and use of the stored data gives rise to serious concerns regarding the propriety of the access and use.

The PJC on Human Rights and many other submissions to the Intelligence committee recommended that access should only be granted on the basis of

…a warrant approved by a court or independent administrative tribunal, taking into account the necessity of access for the purpose of preventing or detecting serious crime on defined objective grounds.

The government has made much of the need for data retention laws to enable law enforcement and national security agencies to identify people involved in serious crimes, such as child pornography, and those who present a serious threat to public safety. Yet there is no requirement in the bill that access to metadata may only be for the purpose of investigating serious crime or national security matters. Police forces gave evidence to the committee that metadata is used primarily in general crime investigations, rather than for serious crimes, which account for only around two per cent of the cases of access to metadata.

The AFP Commissioner has even conceded the information could also be used to investigate copyright infringement. While the amendments made to the bill as a result of the intelligence committee recommendations generally preclude disclosure of information for civil litigation purposes, including by way of subpoena, they do not address a requirement imposed by a court on an individual to disclose information under the rules of court or an obligation of discovery and inspection.

I am also concerned about the ability of the Attorney-General under this bill to make declarations as to items for inclusion in the data set, additional classes of service providers or additional authorities as law enforcement agencies, as well as regulations providing for exceptions to the prohibition on disclosure of information for civil litigation purposes. In my view the period of 40 sitting days—approximately six months—before the Attorney-General has to bring a bill before the parliament, or the declaration or regulation lapses, is too long.

The final issue I want to raise is that of the oversight provided in this bill. Under the bill the Commonwealth Ombudsman is charged with responsibility for oversight of law enforcement agencies' use of powers and the intelligence committee is to do a review of the scheme two years after the conclusion of the implementation phase. These are worthwhile measures, but they are directed at reviewing access powers after they have been exercised. The Ombudsman's oversight does not extend to the use and handling of data by the service providers required to retain the data. Furthermore, there has been no watertight assurance by the government that the Ombudsman will receive the significant additional resources needed to carry out the oversight function. As mentioned earlier, an independent warrant process for access to the stored data would constitute a greater safeguard and provide some measure of reassurance to the general community.

In short, this bill, which has been introduced with too much haste and too little concern on the government side, proposes a quantitative and qualitative expansion of data retention and access over the private communications of millions of law-abiding Australians. There should have been a comprehensive review of the data access regime, including the question of whether any warrantless access should continue to be allowed at all. These and other issues around security and storage of data, and oversight mechanisms, should have been investigated before this bill was embarked upon. Such legislative change—with implications for fundamental rights of privacy and freedom of expression and media freedom as well as the significant implications for businesses—should only occur very carefully, and with the utmost rigour in its design. Unfortunately, notwithstanding the best efforts of the Labor opposition and many others outside the government, that is not the case with this bill.

Mr SIMPKINS (Cowan) (12:30): I welcome this opportunity to speak today on this bill, the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014. It was very long time ago that I was a member of the Australian Federal Police and at that time, in the mid-eighties, there was not a whole lot of talk about metadata or digital communication. The sum of the high-tech investigations at the time was in the early days of credit cards: where a card was put under a three-ply sheet of paper, the swiping machine was run across it, and then people had to sign it. And when they had signed that piece of paper, they put their thumb on the corner of it and pulled out their copy—from the middle of that three-ply piece of paper. The reason I am talking about this is that lots of people who were up to no good—with credit card fraud, and things like that—were subsequently caught, because that piece of paper offered a brilliant thumbprint of the person who had used the credit card. Those were the high-tech days of the past! But of course, time has moved on—with credit cards now, you pretty much just type in your four-digit PIN, and that is all you have got. But in those days there was no concept of metadata or of digital communication. Obviously, things have changed a lot.

More needs to be done. There are serious circumstances now: we have terrorism; we have child exploitation, and crimes against children in general—and so many of the most serious crimes in society around the world are now directly linked through the internet and through digital communication. We need to step forward and look for other ways of investigating, and it is through metadata and through looking at digital communication that this action takes place—and many serious investigations now use metadata that already exists.

Before I turn to the bill—and I do not intend to speak for a long time on this bill; I do not intend to go through each minute detail of the bill or anything like that, because that has already been covered on so many other occasions. But, after listening to the member for Fremantle, I would make the observation—and I know that she has passionate views about this and I respect passion—that it is amazing how she could speak for 15 minutes about the problems—according to her—with the bill, and then at the end of the day say, 'we will nevertheless support the bill'. I sometimes wonder about the courage of our convictions in this place: if you stand up here and you disagree with something, have the courage of your convictions to vote against it. But, of course, there are problems on the other side with that technicality.

This bill is all about data retention, and about how the retention of data can assist law enforcement and the security agencies of Australia in their investigations. This bill is not about keeping more data, but about retaining the data for longer. Through this bill, if passed, the carriers and the internet service providers will be required to keep a prescribed set of telecommunications data for a period of two years. The situation is concerning—and I am not talking about this bill but the reasons why we need this bill. There is a threat; there are those that are planning terrorist attacks. The opportunity to access metadata up to two years after it was generated is essential. There has been a lot of misinformation over the last year about this metadata. It would seem that the opportunity for the police and the national security agencies to access metadata is somehow a new concept. This is wrong, of course; they have that opportunity now, and they will have that opportunity in the future.

Metadata is, in the most basic sense, a communication, but not the actual content of the communication. As the Prime Minister and other ministers have said, metadata is a vital investigative tool in police investigations of serious matters; not just in the investigation of terrorist activity and planning but also in the identification and investigation of child abuse crimes and organised crime. Clearly the need is for ASIO and our police to be able to access metadata so that crime in many areas can be attacked and dealt with. The trouble is, with increasing technology, the telecommunications companies can conduct so much of their business without retaining metadata for long periods. This means that government must now act to ensure that the investigative asset which is metadata is not lost as a result of these technological advances. This bill sets the time frame as two years.

The main issue of opposition to these laws is—as I said before—the false belief that metadata access is somehow new, but obviously it is not. The second issue of interest that has been raised is protection for journalists, or rather, protection of sources, because no-one would really suspect that journalists would be likely to be involved in any of the crimes we have spoken about. Interestingly, metadata can currently be obtained without a warrant, even with regard to journalists. It is only through this process and through the recommendations of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security that the need for a warrant in the case of journalists has been added. So this is a good thing; it will improve the freedom of the press. I say again: this requirement is not currently there. There should therefore be greater support for this bill, because it adds more protections.

As I said before, it is not merely my intention to restate the details of the bill that the minister has already laid down in his second reading speech and that others have also talked about. I would like to pursue a related matter—a matter for the future, perhaps. It is well known that one of the great challenges to our efforts to combat the Daesh extremists in Australia is the slick social media that they put out. It is also true that the tweets and the Facebook posts are encouraged by Daesh, and that influence reaches to the smartphones and out into the homes of Australia. They might influence those that might be tempted by what these murderous extremists offer. The sadism, the paedophilic tendencies and the other evil the lurks in the deep darkness of the souls of some people can be attracted to what Daesh offers. It is bizarre that the worst in human nature and the incomprehensible for most of us can actually inspire others.

To combat this, I believe that it should be a criminal offence to share F acebook posts or tweets , or other social media , of those that are part of a prescribed terrorist organisation or those that support or promote such an organisation. By this, I mean that if a person is a F acebook friend with a person that disp lays an IS flag, or is in Syria or Iraq with IS or a l-Nusra, or with Hamas in Gaza, or with other such terrorist groups, and they receive a post, to share that post sh ould be an offence. To retw eet a tweet from such a person sh ould also be an offence. That is what I would propose. Obviously , a defence to such an offence would be where the social media is forwarded to the police or an Australian security agency.

Again, it is not my intention to merely restate what has been stated already about the detail s of the b ill. But , in co nclusion, I will say that this b ill is about preserving our security and law enforcement capa cities . It is also about requiring that existing and accessible metadata b e retained for two years. This b ill initiates protection for journalists that does not currently exist and ensures that metadata is strictly and properly controlled. As someone who believes in every aspect of this bill and in every aspect of the need for this bill, I completely and utterly endorse the bill as it is and I look forward to its passage through the parliament.

Mr GILES ( Scullin ) ( 12:39 ): I rise also to spea k on the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014. Debate around this bill is very important. It concerns challenging and complex legislation that raises some fundamental questions. How do we, on the one hand, enable effective law enforcement, while, on the other hand, preserving the foundations of our democracy and safeguarding privacy?

The bill the government introduced to this House in October of last year failed to satisfactorily grapple with these questions. I could not have supported it and I hoped that this House would not have supported it in that form. Now, on balance, as a consequence of the considered and firm approach Labor has taken to this legislation, and the hard work of the members of the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, I am persuaded that I should support this legislation, subject to the many amendments arising from the committee's report and those additional matters proposed and outlined by the shadow Attorney-General in his contribution to this debate.

In my view, however, there are significant matters that remain outstanding, particularly in respect of oversight. I again echo the contribution of the shadow Attorney-General in talking to what have been described as the Faulkner reforms, which would elevate to a more appropriate level parliamentary and democratic oversight of the operation of our security agencies. That is, of course, only a small part of the remit of this legislation, but, in my view, it is a critical piece of unfinished business for this parliament to attend to.

Let us be clear in having this conversation about the circumstances that this legislation is concerned with. As the member for Fraser said at the start of his contribution earlier today, with any law we must start with the status quo—as this government did not in October last year and as some who continue to oppose this legislation, or any such legislation, do not. As we speak today, a vast amount of data is retained by telecommunications companies. This information is, in large volume, being accessed by a wide range of law enforcement agencies. Last year, we understand that over half a million applications were made to access metadata. This, of course, represented a very significant increase on applications made in the previous year. This legislation, this debate, does not arise in a vacuum.

The data that is retained is not in a standard form, nor is it kept for common or standardised periods of time. The bodies accessing the data right now are not just police and security agencies. They include local governments and, indeed, the RSPCA. As we are having this debate, this area is effectively unregulated and without any meaningful oversight. We know very little about the use and, indeed, the misuse of such data—a very important point made by the member for Blaxland in his contribution. This is the problem we are trying to solve, or the problem we should be trying to solve, through this legislation and this wider debate. This should have been the starting point for this conversation. Should we seek to regulate these activities and, if so, how? What safeguards should we seek to introduce? What balances should we strike? I believe that we should be regulating both the retention data of data and the question of access.

As the member for Isaacs has noted, this bill differs in several important respects from the national security laws that were supported by Labor last year. This bill is not primarily concerned with national security. Evidence presented to the joint committee made clear that telecommunications data is used in law enforcement of all kinds, and that counter-terrorism and counter-espionage make up only a very small proportion of this data use in Australia. The majority of requests for access are made by state and federal police for general law enforcement purposes. The data retention regime, as set out in this bill, is not specifically directed towards current national security concerns. This is a point that must be stressed. Rather, the scheme proposed provides for the retention of certain telecommunications data generated by all Australians who use the internet or a mobile phone.

This bill, as I said earlier, raises difficult and complex questions, as the Attorney-General demonstrated in one of his media contributions. Fundamentally, we are considering questions of balance, not absolutes. That is another point which has been insufficiently stressed here by government members and, indeed, by some of those opposed to any regime of this type. Across the provisions of this proposed legislation, we must be prepared to run the ruler over their efficacy to maintain security and lawfulness, on the one hand, and to weigh this against infringements on privacy on the other. It is important that we consider questions of process here. This bill was introduced in the House last October. It was not in a state, as I said at the start of my remarks, to be properly dealt with, much less passed. The process undertaken at some length by the joint standing committee makes this abundantly clear, and I take this opportunity to acknowledge the work of the members of this committee—all of them but in particular the Labor members. Their report is comprehensive and I certainly found it helpful in considering my response to this legislation.

I say again: the retention of very large volumes of telecommunications data by private companies has been occurring in Australia for many years in a largely unregulated manner. This data has been accessed under the current act by a large number of agencies hundreds of thousands of times at least. This is something that has not been greatly appreciated by the general community, and this lack of understanding clearly extends to members of the government, which is not helping an informed debate. The Attorney-General has clearly been out of his depth in these matters. This has raised community concern about the supposed powers in this bill, the cruel irony being that the majority of the security agency powers that people have contacted me about are already in existence.

I am concerned, like many other speakers on this side of the chamber, about the implications of this legislation on the media. I am not convinced that it is appropriate that we should be waiting to move to address such concerns, which go to the heart of how we enable, or facilitate perhaps, truth to be spoken to power. I note that the government has had to be dragged kicking and screaming to provide any such protection, thanks to Labor's resolve on this issue, but this is worrying and it is also telling. It depicts a government in the thrall of security agencies and one that has had seemingly very little regard to other sources of information. Of course it is vital to pay careful attention to what these agencies say, but this cannot properly be to the exclusion of all other voices. The fact that Labor has had to close so many loopholes, like protection of whistleblowers, is evidence of this government's slapdash approach to legislating on these critical questions. Labor keenly await the government's amendments in the Senate and we will make sure the government is held to its reluctantly given agreement to our warrants proposal to protect journalists, journalism and sources.

Due attention must also be given to the question of how data is preserved, and this is a matter that remains outstanding. In large part, of course it is the case that assurance in this regard turns on the question of where data is stored. If this were to be solely a question of cost, it is obvious that ISPs would choose lowest cost options—that will be the market simply doing its work. But how secure would this data be? In this regard, I note comments reported in The Australian Financial Review by former director-general of ASIO David Irvine, who voiced strongly held concerns about where Australians' data would be stored. Mr Irvine makes the perfectly sensible point, in my view, that this bill does not presently require the onshore storage of data but that it should, describing himself as a 'cyber-nationalist', as I think he should be and we should be in this regard.

It is clear, however, that the government does not have any meaningful answer to this proposition, and why would it? It has not sought to ask this question. Indeed, this bill is silent on the important related process of telecommunications sector security reform, a process commenced under Labor, underlining our strong record in seeking to protect people's personal information across a range of policy areas. Consistent with this approach and these principles, Labor will continue to articulate the case for this data to be stored in Australia. I note also on these points that Labor has argued for the bill to be amended to impose stringent standards for data security, and I am pleased that these arguments were accepted by the committee, which recommended a requirement for stored data to be encrypted. Labor has also pressed for a recommendation that a scheme of mandatory data breach notification be introduced so that anyone who has had their data compromised is informed of this breach and so is placed to take appropriate measures to respond and to protect their privacy.

The question of who pays for this data to be stored, wherever that may be, is, of course, a question the government has been reticent about, but it is not sufficient for consumers to carry the costs of the implementation of this regime. The original bill was silent on who would bear the cost of the scheme and the government refused to release the cost of the scheme. Through the work of the committee, Labor has insisted that the government bear the cost of the scheme. Business and consumers—small business in particular—should not have to bear solely the cost of law enforcement or, indeed, national security operations. Labor has demanded that the government consider the interests of competition in small business in structuring their contribution to industry. This scheme should not—indeed, must not—harm the interests of small ISPs. It should not entrench the market dominance of major players. Labor has also made sure through this process that members of the public are informed of the cost of the scheme. We have insisted the government release the cost figure ahead of the parliament's consideration of the bill.

As my contribution, I hope, has made clear, I am far from being opposed in principle to implementing a mandatory data retention regime. Indeed, I am persuaded, having carefully read the report of the committee, that such a regime is warranted, for a variety of reasons, of which national security is only one. For example, and importantly to me, the ACCC and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission require access to metadata, in my view, to build their case against those whom they suspect of insider trading. So Labor has moved to enshrine their access for this vital law enforcement purpose.

Having said this, though, we should be much clearer about the purposes for which this regime is to be introduced. Only in this way can we be assured and assure our constituents that it is appropriate in all respects and strikes the correct balances—and we should take the time to get it right.

These laws were introduced with unseemly haste under the auspices of national security, but their remit goes much, much further. This should give pause for thought for all of us, as it did for all of us on this side of this chamber. Labor recognises, for instance, the world of difference between someone downloading the latest episode of Vikings and someone plotting a terrorist attack. On this, the words of the shadow Attorney-General, the member for Isaacs, bear repeating:

The bill as introduced by the government would have allowed access in ordinary civil proceedings to private information retained under the regime for the purpose of national security and criminal law enforcement. This could have led to serious intrusions into the privacy of individuals by civil litigants for purposes entirely unrelated to the reasons for which the data retention regime is being established. To respond to this problem, Labor argued for and the intelligence committee recommended amendments to ensure that retained telecommunications data cannot be used for civil litigation purposes, including enforcement of copyright claims.

I pause to say that this is a matter that the member for Melbourne might have considered in his contribution.

Exceptions to this prohibition will be able to be made by regulation. The government has proposed amendments to give effect to this recommendation.

As with the issue of whistleblower protections, we keenly await the government's formal response. Time is available, and we should make use of it. We should not forget that successive governments have already given security agencies a wide range of powers. As the review into the Martin Place siege found, these powers had been used to monitor Man Haron, the perpetrator of this attack. This is really an indication that these powers will not always prevent such attacks. We should be up front about this. The Martin Place siege review recommended that we should broadly maintain the current balance in our existing regulatory and legislative framework.

With the limited time available to me, I note, firstly, that there are a wide range of important aspects of this bill that I have not had the time to consider; but I say this: there is genuine community concern about this bill. To the extent that people's fears are well founded in the community, I believe the Labor Party has played an essential role in listening to and acting on this community response. But the response on the part of all of us in this place cannot end with this debate. There are outstanding matters that we need— (Time expired)

Mr TEHAN (Wannon) (12:54): I stand today to speak on the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014 not only as the member for Wannon but also as chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. I would like to talk about a few things today just to be clear about the process which has led to us being here today. I would also like to talk a little about the process that has led to some members putting forward amendments—I would call them pious amendments—the recommendations that the committee has made, the environment we are dealing with currently and why this piece of legislation, which is before us today, in my view, needs to be passed.

The committee took its time in considering this legislation. It considered every significant, important matter that this bill brings before this place and has dealt with it in a very systematic way. I would like to take this opportunity to commend all members of the committee who participated in this inquiry—the five coalition members and the four Labor members. Everyone who was involved in the committee process acted in very good faith and in a truly bipartisan way. I think it is significant for this parliament that, when it comes to issues of national significance, we can act in a bipartisan way. It is reassuring to the Australian community and the Australian people that when a bill like this comes before us, which deals with national security and individuals' rights, we can consider it in a way which brings all those concerns together and to put in place a piece of legislation which I think makes this nation safer but at the same time also puts in place greater protections than there are currently. The way the committee has been able to do this, I think, has been very, very significant.

It is why I have found the contribution of the Greens in this place, and in particular the contribution of the member for Melbourne, so disappointing. For the member for Melbourne to suggest that the data retention regime is being put in place without safeguards, sadly, shows that he is on a completely different planet. In an example that he gave, he said that it was like watching his dog play chess. It was a tiny bit enlightening because, obviously, he has spent far too much time watching his dog play chess and not bothered to read the committee's report and consider, in particular, the evidence that was received by the Australian Federal Police, other law enforcement agencies and our national security agencies.

This debate brings together two important elements, and I think that not to consider one of those elements is concerning, worrying and, as a matter of fact, downright disturbing. I would say to the Greens that, when it comes to considering this bill, there are serious national security implications that are involved and you should consider them, not just turn a blind eye.

Having got that out of the way, I would now like to turn to what the committee recommended when it considered this legislation. The data retention bill will implement a mandatory telecommunications data retention regime. It contains measures to require telecommunications suppliers in Australia to retain certain data for two years, with web-browsing history and the contents of communications excluded. It does not involve the storage of content. The bill also seeks to limit the organisations able to access telecommunications and store data to those with a demonstrated need and with appropriate internal procedures to protect privacy, and expands the role of the Commonwealth Ombudsman in overseeing the exercise of these powers.

The report recommends that the bill be passed by the parliament and makes 38 further recommendations aimed at strengthening the regime and improving oversight and safeguards. These include: including the proposed dataset in the bill rather than in regulations as proposed; listing all criminal law enforcement agencies and enforcement agencies in legislation; establishing emergency declaration powers, subject to safeguards, for the Attorney-General to include items in the dataset, or declare an additional agency able to access data; prohibiting civil litigants, with appropriate exceptions, from accessing telecommunications data being held solely in compliance with mandatory data retention requirements; and strengthening the safeguards around the use of telecommunications data for the purpose of determining the identity of a journalist’s sources by requiring agencies to provide a copy to the Commonwealth Ombudsman or the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security of any authorisation for access to such data. The Ombudsman or the IGIS would then be required to notify the committee as soon as practicable and provide a briefing accordingly. This was a major safeguard when it came to the media. We have now, as a result of further bipartisan work between the two major parties, sought to put an additional safeguard in there by requiring a warrant.

There is also additional funding for the Commonwealth Ombudsman, commensurate with the office's expanded oversight role. Not only have we given increased oversight powers to the Ombudsman; we have also agreed that he needs to get more funding. Privacy and data security measures, including a mandatory breach notification scheme, will also be introduced.

The committee recommended that the government make a substantial contribution to the up-front capital costs incurred by service providers in implementing their data retention obligations. The committee also recommended that, when designing funding arrangements, the government ensure that an appropriate balance is achieved that accounts for significant variations between the services, business models, sizes and financial positions of different companies. This was something that the previous speaker spoke about. The committee has sought to ensure that both the small end of town and those larger providers are taken into account when it comes to how those capital costs contributions will be rolled out.

There are other aspects to what was agreed—and this is important—including when it comes to the proposals which were put forward by former Senator Faulkner. The committee has agreed, and this is of particular significance to parliamentary oversight, that the committee be able to look at operational matters in the limited area of authorisation of access to telecommunications data relating to ASIO and the AFP, consistent with the committee's remit. This is the first time that the committee will be granted those powers. This is a significant recommendation, which has been agreed to by the government and which goes a huge way in increasing the remit of the committee. That is the seriousness with which this government has taken the bill before us.

We received more than 200 written submissions from a broad range of sources and heard from 30 organisations over three days of public hearings. The committee's report also built on previous work done by this committee in the previous parliament. I commend the deputy chair of the committee, Anthony Byrne, for the role he played in that preliminary report, which was produced by the committee in the previous parliament. It has very much led a path to where we are today. So when others talk about a process which is being rushed, that is utter, utter nonsense. This is a process which has been to a committee in the previous parliament, the government has put legislation to this parliament, the committee has further looked at that and made further recommendations, and that is why we are here today now looking at and examining this bill.

This has been an extended process and an extended bipartisan process and one which all members of this place, in my view, should commend, particularly given the current security climate that we are operating within. For the first time in its 11-year history we saw the national terrorism public alert system raised to 'high' last September. There are 90 Australians known to be fighting and supporting terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria. Over 30 have returned to Australia. At least 140 people in Australia are actively supporting extremist groups. Since December 2013, 24 people have been charged as a result of seven joint counter-terrorism team operations.

Metadata is important in dealing with these threats. Operation Pendennis was a joint investigation between the AFP and ASIO and state law enforcement agencies in New South Wales and Victoria into terrorist cells based in Victoria and New South Wales. It was the first serious counter-terrorism investigation prosecuted in Australia. As a result of the investigation, a total of 13 individuals were charged in Victoria with a variety of terrorism offences. A further nine individuals were charged with similar offences in New South Wales. A number of trials were subsequently held in Victoria and New South Wales. The Victorian trial of 13 individuals for membership of a terrorist organisation concluded in 2009 with seven accused found guilty, two accused pleading guilty and four accused acquitted. Historical data was a crucial tool supporting the investigation and was used to identify a covert phone network that was being used in New South Wales in an attempt to conceal illicit terrorist planning activities from law enforcement.

We have to take these things into consideration when we are dealing with these matters. I understand, and the committee understood, the importance of getting right the privacy aspects of this bill and other individual freedoms that potentially could have been challenged. But we also had to take into account the evidence that was put to us by the AFP and ASIO. My view is that the committee has got the balance right. My view is that this legislation, with the recommendations and the amendments that have come before it as a result of the committee's work, ensures that we have got the balance right. This bill should now be passed by this House and it should be passed by the Senate and should become law.

Ms BUTLER (Griffith) (13:09): The Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014 demonstrates, to my mind, just how disorganised and hopeless this government has been, in its first year particularly, as the government. The Attorney-General was a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security in June 2013 when it published its report into national security, which considered in some detail whether there should be a mandatory data retention regime. What we have had in this country for a very long time is a situation where telecommunications companies store telecommunications data, like the phone numbers you call, the location you were in when you made the call, the location that the recipient was in when you made the call and how long you spoke for.

In 2012-13, there was 330,000 warrantless accesses of that data. In 2013-14, that had grown to 500,000 warrantless accesses of that data. Yet, did the Attorney-General see fit to act on the idea of looking at better regulation for data retention when he was elected? He spent more than a year before even getting a bill into a position where it could be brought into the House. What was he doing in that year? Was there some other issue that was so important that we could not possibly be talking about data retention? I know what he did in his first year as the Attorney-General. He decided to tinker with hate speech laws. He decided to try to take away protections for people from hate speech. For some reason, the Attorney-General thought that that was more important than working on the regulation of data retention in a situation where we have had massive amounts on warrantless accesses to people's telecommunications data with very limited regulation. The state that this bill was in when it was first introduced suggests to me that he spent no time at all in that first year worrying about data retention, because the bill itself, when he finally got around to thinking, 'We should do something about data retention,' and rushed it into the House, was in a completely ridiculous state that could not have been supported.

It took the Labor Party to insist on a time frame for appropriate consideration, for appropriate review and for appropriate consultation. It was our insistence that got that time, that allowed for the many organisations to have the proper opportunity to make submissions, to review the legislation and to lobby their members of parliament. What level of revision was needed? To the extent that we have pages of amendments, we have further amendments to come and we had 38 recommendations from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security required just to get this bill into a state where it could be supported, I have to say that when I first read the bill I had a number of concerns, and why not? This is a very complicated issue.

There are so many competing considerations for us to take into account, considerations like the importance of law enforcement in this country and the availability of a tool for law enforcement to crack crimes such as murders, kidnappings—those serious offences—and the availability of telecommunications data to assist in those investigations. On the other hand, there is also an importance in people being able to use this data themselves to help them with their own legal rights. For example, if you need to prove that you were in a particular place, then this might be very helpful in legal proceedings. So people need to have access to that if it is available as well. On the other hand, again, there are cost considerations. This government has been finally dragged kicking and screaming into telling Australians what the costs of this legislation will be, but it took Labor to force them to do that. It took Labor to force them to even undertake the costings in the first place, which had not even been done when this bill was tabled. It was in the months since the bill was tabled that there was some costing work done. The human rights aspects of this bill and of the existing data retention scheme are vastly important. The existing data retention scheme has been around for many years and under it there are many warrantless accesses —in fact, there are hundreds of thousands—every year. Those human rights issues, like privacy, are of fundamental importance to this nation and to any nation that claims to be a modern, democratic nation where people have appropriate respect for human rights.

There are a range of other competing considerations. There is the consideration of the effect on competition when smaller ISPs have to scale up their operations in order to meet the proposed data set. In fact, the data set itself was not even settled when this bill was introduced. It was not even in the bill. There was an idea that it would just be done by regulation. The ridiculousness of that speaks for itself. To say 'we're going to have a mandatory regime where everyone has to do retain the same data but we can't tell you what data that is going to be' suggests to me that this government is yet again being shambolic, disorganised, chaotic. And what have we seen this year? They are too busy fighting amongst themselves, too busy fighting over the leadership. Luckily for this government—and, more to the point, luckily for the people of this nation—the Australian Labor Party has reviewed this bill and has forced this government to take appropriate steps to make improvements to this bill, which I will touch on.

Before I do that, I want to join with others in this place and express my thanks to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. I acknowledge the chair of the committee, who has spoken in this debate previously, and also the four Labor members of the committee—members Byrne, Dreyfus and Clare, and Senator Conroy. Each of those four has made a phenomenal contribution to moving this bill from being shambolic and unpassable to being a bill that will now seek to improve the regulation of the existing data retention scheme in the interests of Australians.

Those of us on this side, who are being thoughtful and considered about this bill, have raised issues about cost and privacy and the appropriateness of use for law enforcement purposes and about oversight and about data security. It is our advocacy that has forced the improvements in this bill. Despite the impression that some people have been trying to give, the parliament is not considering a choice between introducing or not introducing data retention. Data retention has been happening for many, many years. The choice is not whether we should have data retention, but whether we should better regulate data retention in the interests of human rights and other issues I have already mentioned. In addition to recording my thanks to the committee, I want to record my thanks to Bill Shorten, the Leader of the Opposition. It is his advocacy, his interventions, that has forced the Prime Minister and the government to give further time for consideration and to agree to further improvements. Most recently it was the Leader of the Opposition who procured from a very reluctant and begrudging Prime Minister a commitment to introduce protections for journalists. We think it is very important that the Prime Minister and the government provide their amendments so that, once they are considered in the Senate, we can properly scrutinise whether that commitment is being met in a way that appropriately meets the needs of journalist.

The Leader of the Opposition has strongly recommended to the government that they consult with media organisations about those amendments and about the content of those amendments. I know that is a new idea for this government—to actually consult with stakeholders—but we would like to see appropriate consultation with media organisations when it comes to how best to protect journalists and ensure that we do not see the chilling effects that journalists and the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance have raised in respect of their concerns about this bill. We also have other concerns that we continue to raise. One is a concern that Labor shares with the former head of ASIO, David Irvine. David Irvine was recently in the media talking about where the data is to be physically stored. This is something that we continue to raise and advocate for. Like Mr Irvine, we are 'cyber-nationalists' in that we believe Australian's metadata ought to be stored on Australian soil—and we will continue to advocate for that.

A very significant matter on which we continue to advocate is the Faulkner reforms, which are named after Senator John Faulkner. As the shadow Attorney-General said in his contribution in this debate, it was Senator Faulkner's view that the parliament is the body to which security agencies are accountable and, therefore, the parliament should have a formal oversight role in respect of those agencies. If you read the amendments to this bill, you will see that one of the changes we have procured is to increase parliamentary oversight of national security agencies and the use of telecommunications data. If you look at the reports that are made under the TIA Act every year in respect of the interception powers that currently exist and the data storage powers which relate to the storage of data, including content, and the telecommunications data retention powers, you will see that, while there is a significant level of detail for interception and storage use, there is much less detail in respect of the way telecommunications data accessed without a warrant is used.

When you have got agencies from the RSPCA, to local councils and all the way up to ASIO accessing that data without much scrutiny, you know that something needs to change. That is what Labor believes and that is why we support greater regulation. For example, one of the great improvements we have procured in this bill is to ensure that only a very limited range of agencies can access data without a warrant. The original draft left out a couple of very important white-collar crime agencies—ASIC and the ACCC—which we have required to be re-included in the bill. The existing law allows any agency with responsibility for investigating serious offences or protecting the revenue or enforcing civil pecuniary penalty provisions to access metadata. That is why we have the RSPCA and local councils being able to access metadata. Having such a broad definition of the agencies that can authorise themselves to access your metadata, my metadata, the member for Aston's metadata and the member for Canberra's metadata is a problem with the existing law. This bill will deal with that problem by articulating the agencies that can access metadata without a warrant. Should the need arise, it will also allow for further agencies to be added in a way that can be disallowed by the parliament and can only be done temporarily unless legislation is moved to amend it for a more permanent reason.

That in and of itself is an important reform in the legislation that we are now considering, but I want to mention a few others. One of the very important reforms in this legislation is to apply the Privacy Act to telecommunications data. At the moment, there is no express provision applying the Privacy Act to telecommunications data, and there is a difference of views and opinions about whether telecommunications data is always covered by the Privacy Act. Importantly—and those who are opposing this bill might want to think about this—you are opposing a bill that will apply the Privacy Act to the telecommunications data of every person. I think that is an extremely important provision of this bill, because the Privacy Act, as members here would know, has in it the Australian Privacy Principles, one of which requires destruction of personal data. It is quite useful to think that we are going to have for the first time an express provision applying that Privacy Act, including those principles, to the telecommunications data that is already being kept by telecommunications companies.

Those who are opposing this bill ought to think about this: this bill, as amended by Labor's hard work, will include a provision to actually require encryption and secure storage of the telecommunications data. Why would you oppose a provision to require encryption and secure storage? It is irresponsible to allow the status quo to continue. It is irresponsible to allow the current, very limited regulation to continue when it comes to the amount of metadata that is being kept and the way in which it is presently being accessed.

I would also say that the bill would require more detailed reporting, there are more opportunities for the parliamentary joint committee to have oversight and, importantly, there is much more oversight because the Ombudsman will have oversight of the telecommunications data regime for the first time. As the previous speaker said, we have also procured from this government an obligation, a commitment, to provide further funding to the Ombudsman to allow the Ombudsman to discharge that obligation to have that oversight.

It has also been noted by a number of speakers that at the moment the agency authorises itself to get metadata without a warrant. The threshold for that authorisation is being lifted so, by supporting this bill, we are introducing into the telecommunications data regime a threshold of proportionality and justifiability, and that there has to be reasonable grounds. That increase in the threshold and the introduction of proportionality, in and of itself, is a vast improvement to the existing regime that has too much access without warrants with too little regulation by too many agencies. We want to see a much more appropriate and detailed regulation of those opportunities for access.

The point has been made that this bill would also put limits on the use of telecommunications data in civil proceedings, including, importantly, for a number of people, the enforcement of copyright rights. I commend the bill to the House.

Mr IRONS (Swan) (13:25): I too rise to join with my colleagues in speaking on the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014, which has been the focus of much debate and confusion within the community and in the media since it was introduced in this place on 30 October 2014. I highlight that perhaps the latter confusion is the cause of the former and has largely surrounded concerns that Australians' privacy would be breached and that our law enforcement agencies—and by extension the government—will have unprecedented access to our personal information, if this bill is passed in this place. It is the 'Big Brother is watching you' concept and it is raising concerns for many people. I know there are some in my electorate who have been concerned about the privacy of their data.

With this confusion in mind, I would like to take this opportunity to clarify and highlight three key things: (1) the bill will in no way expand the type of metadata that law enforcement agencies can access; (2) it will not allow law enforcement agencies to tap a person's phone or read their personal emails without a warrant; and (3) the bill expressly precludes a person's web browsing history from being accessed. To make this clearer: law enforcement agencies will not be able to access any more information about me, the member for Swan; the member for Griffith, who has just spoken; the member for Canberra; the member for Aston—I noticed the member for Griffith also mentioned them in her speech—or any other member of the Australian public, if this bill is passed, than they can already access today.

I believe greater clarity has now been given to the government's intent in introducing this legislation following last Friday's release of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security's response to the provisions outlined in this bill. The committee made 39 recommendations with the last being for the bill to pass through this and the other place, and I thank all the committee members for their invaluable contribution.

I take this time to also highlight that this report has bipartisan support from the Labor government, and therefore thank the committee's chair, Dan Tehan, the member for Wannon, and its deputy chair, Anthony Byrne, the member for Holt. I must admit that the member for Holt has been a driving force within the Labor Party for this type of legislation, and his advocacy on all matters related to border security and security have been helpful and worth recognising. I thank them for their dedication to ensuring an effective scrutiny processes is also undertaken, and I thank the opposition leader for recognising the true intent and importance of this legislation's passage.

As I previously highlighted, there have been a number of concerns raised about the bill's impact on everyday Australians' privacy. The key thing that all members in this place should note is that the bill before the House will in no way change the scope of the metadata that can be accessed. Instead it is about ensuring this important data, which is helping our law enforcement agencies to investigate a range of crimes every minute of every day, is retained by the telecommunications service providers for a mandatory minimum period of two years.

Before I proceed, I think it is important to first explain the concept of metadata, so there is further clarity about what this word means in terms of information. Metadata is actually being collected about each and every one of us by service providers and, more importantly, it is what data can then be accessed by our law enforcement agencies.

Metadata is simply the information that identifies that a communication exists; it is not the content of that communication. One form of communication that we all use regularly in the digital world is email, so I will use that as an example—I see the member for Longman and I know he uses email and many forms of communication. When we say that the metadata of an email is retained, this means that the sender, recipient, time, date and location of where the email was sent from is retained by a telecommunications service provider, and that this information is able to be accessed by law enforcement agencies. The contents of that email or its substance will not be able to be accessed, though. This is the same for a phone call. An agency could use metadata to show that one individual called another at a particular time on a particular date, but what was said during that conversation would not be known. The importance of our law enforcement agencies being able to access this information cannot be undervalued, but the issue they are currently faced with is that telecommunications service providers across Australia are progressively reducing the amount of time they retain—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ) (13:30): Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour, and the honourable member will have leave to continue his remarks at that time.

Ms BRODTMANN (Canberra) (13:30): It is with great pleasure that I rise today to congratulate Soldier On on its relocation and on the reopening of the Robert Poate Reintegration and Recovery Centre. Yesterday I joined with my colleague the member for Batman as well as the assistant minister, the Chief of the Defence Force, the Deputy Chief of Air Force, and the Chief of Army at the official reopening of the new centre in Crace. It was in a stunning old building—an 1860s building; we do not see many of those in Canberra these day. It was great to see the charity receiving so much support from across the Defence community and across the Canberra community.

The new headquarters were opened by the Governor-General, who has been a tremendous supporter of Soldier On since its inception. Soldier On has grown from an entity launched in a tent about five years ago. I was there at that launch in the tent, just down the road, where the Canberra Services Club used to be located. From that early and very, very small start, it has now grown into an extraordinary institution with top-notch facilities. The way in which the organisation has grown over the past five years is a testament to the positive impact it is having on returning soldiers and those who have left the service to deal with their wounds, their PTSD and other issues. But the charity does not just help the soldiers; it supports their families, too—like the parents of Robert Poate, Hugh and Janny, who were there today, and Hugh Poate made an incredibly powerful speech. It was great to hear how they are also engaging with Soldier On to provide them with support and to help them heal the wounds from the loss of their son. (Time expired)

WYATT ROY (Longman) (13:31): Today we are stopping Labor's raid on ordinary Australians' bank accounts. When the Labor Party was in government they loved to spend Australian taxpayers' money, and at a much greater rate than they were saving it. We know they were spending about $2 for every $1 they were getting in revenue, and as they came to the end of their time in government the Labor Party made promise after promise after promise to return the Australian government's books back to a surplus. But of course they never reached that, and in those last few months of desperation the now Leader of the Opposition, as the financial services minister, thought it would be a great idea to raid the bank accounts of ordinary Australians—of ordinary people in my electorate trying to make ends meet.

I remember asking at the time what the next initiative from the Labor Party was going to be. They were raiding disused bank accounts—bank accounts that had been sitting there for only three years. What was next? Was the now Leader of the Opposition going to look in our piggy banks? Was he going to look in our spare change in the car? Where were these guys going to get money to pay for their ridiculous spending on things like pink batts and the blow-outs on border security and school halls that were twice the price they were meant to be? Today we are stopping that. Today we are stopping Labor's raid and returning that money for the future bank accounts of people in my electorate. It is a great change. (Time expired)

Ms RYAN (Lalor—Opposition Whip) (13:33): I rise again today to talk about the budget delivered last May that just keeps on hurting families in my electorate of Lalor. Today I want to talk about the cuts to the Financial Assistance Grants. Wyndham City Council is set to lose almost $6 million in the next four years. It is an absolute shame. The Senate has told us that the Abbott government undertook no analysis of the impact these cuts would have on communities before making the decision to pause this indexation, and it is families in my electorate who will bear the brunt of that decision.

Earlier in the week I spoke about the Wyndham Legal Service and the cuts of $140,000 this year and next year to that legal service—which also supports the most needy in my electorate and assists people affected by domestic violence—only to find out that Attorney-General Brandis has reinstated the community legal centre funding to the Healesville Community Legal Centre. I stand here today to say that again and again and again I am on my feet to talk about the budget that just keeps hurting, yet we hear today that some people are having those decisions overturned—money reinstated. Well, I want the money for Wyndham City Council, and I want the money for Lalor, and I will keep getting on my feet. We have another few opportunities between now and the next budget to talk about the last budget, which we are just uncovering—still uncovering ways it is going to hurt our families. (Time expired)

Mr RUDDOCK (Berowra) (13:34): I want to make a positive contribution, because there are positive things happening in Australia at this time. It is appropriate at the moment that we think about the Anzac centenary and the Anzac Centenary Local Grants Program, which, I might say, in my electorate has been undertaken with an enormous amount of enthusiasm. I want to thank the Minister for Veterans Affairs for increasing the amount per electorate from $100,000, as originally proposed, to $125,000. Last week I had the opportunity of inspecting at the Berowra RSL Sub-Branch, outside the community centre, the new memorial, to which we have allocated some $17,000 to put in place a sandstone wall and bronze plaque to commemorate the locals who bravely served overseas in the First World War.

There are other groups in my electorate, including Beecroft Lions, Brooklyn RSL Sub-Branch, Hills District RSL, and schools such as Marion College, Redfield College and Pacific Hills that are all undertaking projects to build commemorative monuments that will last for centuries to come. This is a positive, good-news story. I believe in this year, our Anzac centenary, projects such as the Local Grants Program are helping to increase the awareness and participation which Anzac rightly deserves. (Time expired)

Ms CLAYDON (Newcastle) (13:36): I rise today on the eve of National Close the Gap Day because I want to bring this House's attention to a really critical—indeed dire—situation that now exists for up to 150 remote Indigenous communities in Western Australia following the callous decision by the Abbott Liberal government to cut funding for municipal and essential services in remote Indigenous communities. Historically, the Commonwealth has provided this funding in myriad ways. When I lived and worked in the Kimberley region of WA, this was done primarily through the Community Housing and Infrastructure Program. But no more: the new Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Nigel Scullion, said that the delivery of municipal and essential services is now a state and territory matter. People in Western Australia are now looking at the closure of up to 150 remote Indigenous communities due to the absolute inadequacy of the transitional funding being provided. Worse still, this Prime Minister, with this thought bubble, has deemed that we can no longer subsidise what he deemed to be lifestyle choices. How wrong could this Prime Minister be? Reckless commentary is no substitute for well-considered policy and is no basis for a fair, just and equitable partnership with Indigenous people.

Ms SCOTT (Lindsay) (13:37): The Aboriginal word for laughter is kurrambee. Laughter is what you hear when you walk through the school gates of Kurrambee School in Werrington. This remarkable school turned 50 this year. This wonderful school is one of our nations longest standing schools for children with a disability, and they have long been one of the most respected. On Saturday night at the St Marys Rugby League Club we, along with the founding principle of the school, celebrated this remarkable milestone and the work that this fabulous school has done to help so many children and so many families. Graham Nicholls, now 80, the founding principal, remarked that Kurrambee was a lighthouse for special education. I do not think you would find a more dedicated or passionate educator. There are not many events where you turn up and the original founding principal is still there, 50 years later. I would also like to mention Harry Terry, another principal; Alan Cullen, the unstoppable and wonderful principal; Alan Booth; and, of course, the current principal, Lisa Moffat. This is such an excellent school, and I am proud to support such a fabulous community that works so hard with children with a disability. They provide solutions for these children. They give these children the opportunities that they deserve, like every child in Australia.

Ms McGOWAN (Indi) (13:39): Our regional newspapers are community institutions as well as products of public companies and private enterprise. Our newspapers are, at their best, much more than the front and back page. In my community, papers such as The Border Mail enable the community voice to be heard, transactions to take place, and people to hatch, match and be dispatched. They enable innovation to be shared. And particularly The Border Mail, which advocates for such services as headspace. The Border Mail allows us to see ourselves. Decisions by organisations such as Fairfax have a huge impact on my electorate and other people's electorates.

Today in this House I call on my community: let's stand up; let's tell Fairfax. They have asked us for our opinion. Let's tell them how much our community newspapers mean for us, and, at their best, what they can do for us. The email address is acm@fairfax.com.au.

On Friday, at the invitation of The Border Mail, I am going to be meeting the 23 staff who will lose their jobs because of this decentralisation move, and I am going to be working with my community to make The Border Mail even more relevant to our local community and even more of a community institution.

Mr SIMPKINS (Cowan) (13:41): On 14 March I was invited to the vote count ceremony for the Vikings Women's Softball Club for the Valhalla Award—the award for best player. I would like to thank the club for their invitation and their hospitality, and I also thank the committee for the great work of the club members: the president, Sharon Perkins; the vice president, Megan MacLean; the secretary, Kelly Baker; the treasurer, Angela Balnaves; and the registrar, Jordana Baker. Congratulations, of course, to the winner of the Valhalla Award, Marietjie Haereroa for her strong and consistent performances. Her name kept coming up throughout the evening, so it was a very fitting award.

Although the Vikings Softball Club has its origins in 1981 when the Northern District Softball Association was formed, it was only in 2005 that the women's club was established and took the field the summer season of 2005. It has been strength to strength since then, with teams travelling around Australia and overseas to compete. In 2014 Vikings women finished with two premiership flags, and with the rounds versus the other clubs just finished, I understand that division 2, division 5 and the under-17 teams are through to the finals again this year, and I wish them all the best for their upcoming finals campaign.

Mr FEENEY (Batman) (13:42): On 15 March the city of Darebin and hosted the Darebin Community and Kite Festival. This year I again had the pleasure of attending this festival which has been a hallmark of the city of Darebin's commitment to community and art for over a decade. In recent years, the festival has attracted a large following from across Darebin and the greater Melbourne area. The festival has recently become a larger part of the True North Reservoir Arts Festival, which aims to showcase local artists and businesses. Held at Edwardes Lake Park in Reservoir. The festival offers families the opportunity to come together and engage as a community. Free entertainment was featured all day with kite flying, kite-making workshops, kids activities, local bands, a mini market, food stalls and a mobile art space. Local council staff and representatives from Darebin community groups were also in attendance, available to festival-goers, to talk about the services they provide and the services locals need and the very important work they do.

I congratulate the city of Darebin for organising, again, a wonderful event and wish them all the very best as they continue to contribute to the character of the Darebin municipality located within my electorate of Batman.

Mr TONY SMITH (Casey) (13:43): Last Tuesday, I was pleased to attend the leadership assembly at Lilydale West Primary School in the heart of the Casey electorate to present leadership certificates and badges to a number of school leaders. I want to make mention of the school captains: Brodie Gray and Ava White; the vice captains, Brayden Cox and Caitlyn Serong; and the house captains, Corey Meade, Tamieka Anderson, Riley Gordon, Victoria Carrabbia, Molly Ellen, Charlea Miller-Mullett, Corey Gray and Tayla Mitchell. I also make mention of the other school leaders that received certificates and badges for a range of responsibilities.

I want to pay tribute to the school community; to the teachers, led by the principal, Wendy Bartsch; the parents; and the school leaders for 2015, who will ensure that Lilydale West continues to be the great school that it is.

Ms OWENS (Parramatta) (13:44): Surprise, surprise, the Abbott government is divided again. Already cracks are appearing in the Abbott government's ranks, this time on the food and grocery code of conduct. Consultation on the code of conduct began four years ago and it concluded with the tabling of the code in the federal parliament on 2 March, just a couple of weeks ago. Almost immediately, we saw the cracks appear with members of the Nationals pushing for a Senate inquiry and going so far as to say that the code was valueless—in fact, worse than no code at all.

The time for disagreement on policy as important as this is before you table it. In fact, it is before you announce it let alone before you put it in the parliament. Governments have resources to do the work, to get it right, to consult with their colleagues—and there are not that many of them—and get agreement before they take the step of taking it out and telling business that this will be the way it is.

A government member: And you're so good at it!

Ms OWENS: It is not about us anymore. The government is in charge, and it is about time the government considered its own quality of work and stopped bagging us incessantly. All this week we have seen the Minister for Small Business come to this dispatch box and suggest it would be the Labor Party that brought this code undone. He should turn around and look at his own backbench, because that is where the disagreement is. He has had over a year—a year and a half—to get this consultation right, and he could not get it right within his own ranks let alone within this industry as a whole. Please get your act together. The uncertainty is killing people.

Dr SOUTHCOTT (Boothby) (13:46): I rise to congratulate many groups across my electorate who have been successful in receiving funding through the Australian government's Anzac Centenary Local Grants Program. In particular, I would like to say how great it is that so many schools around my electorate have embraced the Centenary of Anzac.

While the RSLs and established commemorative groups are doing so, a good two-thirds of these grants will be going to local schools. These include Scotch College, Westminster School, Brighton Secondary School, Blackwood High School, Aberfoyle Park High School, Aberfoyle Park Primary School, Flagstaff Hill R7 School, Seacliff School and Colonel Light Gardens Primary School. These schools will be undertaking a wide range of activities, from constructing new memorials to staging musical productions, displaying local First World War memorabilia and producing a film about the First World War featuring, researched and narrated by students, for students.

That last project, in particular, had the selection committee quite excited. I cannot wait to see the final result. The Colonel Light Gardens Primary School is actually at the site of what was the Mitcham Army Camp, where soldiers did their training before they departed for France, Gallipoli and the Middle East. They have used the skills of the parent body to put this proposal together.

Congratulations to all the grant recipients. I look forward to working with the community to deliver commemorations that will honour our nation's centenary of service and mark the nation-defining events of this Centenary of Anzac.

Ms CHESTERS (Bendigo) (13:47): It is another day in this place and there has been another breach of temporary work visas, another case of abuse and exploitation of people who are here as guest workers. This time it has been uncovered by the government's favourite union, the CFMEU. What they have discovered are two workplaces. One has eight Filipino workers underpaid, receiving as little as $10 per hour. Six were living in one bedroom and two were living in shipping containers. At another workplace 16 Filipino workers and 13 Chinese workers were paid as little as $4 an hour and made to work seven days a week.

This is what is going on in some of our workplaces under the temporary migration program that we have for overseas workers. This government is not doing the right thing in working with the union to see these companies prosecuted. What this government is doing, instead, is calling in the fair work building commission to call on these organisations to show cause.

They have asked the union, the organisers, to demonstrate how they found out this information. Rather than investigating these abuses, rather than working with the union to stamp out this kind of exploitation, what this government is doing is continuing to bully unions, saying that they are the thugs, they are the ones causing the problems in workplaces—when it is actually the employers. This is the same company that has made a donation to the Liberal Party of $400,000. (Time expired)

Dr STONE (Murray) (13:49): Australia's reputation is as one of the safest producers in the world of eggs, seafood, meat, fruit, honey, nuts and cereals. Our farmers grow this produce in compliance with some of the world's strictest and most comprehensive food safety regulations. They do not do this because they must, they do it because they are proud to grow and see sold-on some of the cleanest product in the world. This clean production adds considerably to the cost but the dividends have been a rock-solid reputation built in both domestic and international markets. Australian produce is trusted and attracts premiums, and demand is strong.

Unfortunately, unscrupulous food exporters in some countries that have very poor food safety records regularly try to pass off their produce as Australian. We have Koala brand rice grown in Thailand, imported contaminated honey from China being rebranded and re-exported as Australian and apples from South Africa with kangaroo branding.

The defence of our reputation must include strict prosecution and penalties, but I acknowledge that is difficult for a company in Australia to work in these overseas jurisdictions to get a penalty imposed. Part of the solution is to impose much clearer country-of-origin labelling on our own Australian goods, so there is no confusion and we can protect our own stellar reputation, which is the envy of the world.

Mr NEUMANN (Blair) (13:51): I welcome the council of south-east Queensland mayors to Canberra, once again, for their annual visit. As someone who has lived in Ipswich all of my life, I am committed to South-East Queensland. One in seven Australians live in south-east Queensland and for the past 10 years 20 per cent of the economic and employment growth in this country was in south-east Queensland.

While they are here, the infrastructure Prime Minister—as he likes to call himself—can have a listen to the mayors of South-East Queensland. One of the projects he can think about is the Darra to Springfield rail extension to Redbank Plains. It is the biggest of the fastest-growing suburbs in Ipswich. That is $180 million. The Brisbane Valley Highway upgrade from the Blacksoil Interchange, built by a Labor government with funding that we put in—$54 million—is upgraded to the Brisbane River to help the towns of Fernvale and Lowood. It is $45 million. The Cunningham Highway upgrade from Yamanto to Willowbank, helping RAAF Base Amberley and the aerospace precinct, is $270 million. The Norman Street Bridge project, across Ipswich, will help flood resilience for my community, which has suffered major floods—three in the last difficult biblical generation. That is $250 million.

They could also get started on the Ipswich Motorway's Darra to Rocklea section, which the coalition said they would match the funding for. We built the Dinmore to Darra section of the Ipswich Motorway. It was built and completed under a Labor government—$2.8 billion. The Abbott government said they would match the funding for the last stage and have done nothing about it since the last election. (Time expired)

Mrs SUDMALIS (Gilmore) (13:52): Each year, many Australians take part in the Cancer Council's Relay for Life. Gilmore has four of these events. This Saturday, the Albion Park Showground will come alive for the Shellharbour Relay for Life. While I am not able to walk side by side with the survivors, patients and carers at this year's event, I would like to take a moment to praise their efforts, for in their short history they have raised more than $300,000 for the Cancer Council and grown to 900 purple-shirted participants, due to the efforts of their passionate committee.

On the weekend of 28 and 29 March, it is Nowra's turn for what will be a fantastic community event. This has been a longstanding, successful fundraiser. In fact, it is the Shoalhaven community enthusiasm that raised more than $1 million for the local Cancer Care Centre. In October, the Milton-Ulladulla Relay for Life will be on the weekend of the 17th and 18th and the Kiama Relay for Life will be on the weekend of the 24th and 25th.

Unfortunately, the statistics show that each of us will be directly affected by or know someone with cancer. These relays help the community come together not to only raise money but also to raise hope for a brighter cancer-free future for all those we love. There is nothing quite as poignant as a relay sunset, where you walk past the candlelit prayer and hope message bags. The relay volunteers and committees throughout Gilmore deserve great praise for giving up their time and their tireless energy to provide others with hope for a better future.

Ms MacTIERNAN (Perth) (13:54): Tomorrow I will join Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people rallying in Perth to protest the closure of up to 150 remote Aboriginal communities against the wishes of these communities. For a second and in some cases a third time since European settlement Aboriginals will be thrown off their land. They will also be protesting the Prime Minister disrespecting their deep connection with country when he described them as merely exercising a 'lifestyle choice'.

The federal government must accept responsibility for the mess that is occurring in Western Australia. It stopped funding essential municipal services and gave a bucket of money to the Barnett government without any consultation with affected communities and without any preconditions. Mr Barnett says it is now all too hard and up to 150 communities will have to close down. There are challenges in these communities, but forcing these people to move to other communities or onto the fringes of urban towns is no solution. We do need change, and the change we need is to empower these communities to shape their own destiny.

Mr SUKKAR (Deakin) (13:55): This week marked the occasion when Bill Shorten finally confirmed that he has turned his back on the people of Melbourne's eastern suburbs, by supporting the reckless tearing-up of the contracts to build the East West Link.    This week when asked if he was still in favour of building the East West Link, Bill Shorten squirmed and waffled as usual, but was finally pinned down by the journalist for an answer, when he replied: 'No, not in the current circumstances.'    This is outrageous considering that, on two previous occasions, Bill Shorten has put forward submissions strongly supporting the East West Link.

His new position of tearing up the East West Link contracts also contradicts his earlier support for the shadow Treasurer's comments, when he said:

Labor in Government honours contracts entered into by previous governments ... for issues of sovereign risk, Labor honours contracts.

The East West Link is a shovel-ready and fully funded project which will deliver 7,000 jobs to Victoria and save commuters in my electorate of Deakin up to three hours per week in travel time.

For these reasons alone, Bill Shorten should put Victoria first, by getting on the phone to his mate Premier Dan Andrews and telling him to get this crucial project going. If Bill Shorten and Labor continue down this dangerous path, they will be threatening Victoria's reputation and the people of Melbourne's eastern suburbs will never forgive Labor.

Mr STEPHEN JONES (Throsby) (13:57): Tomorrow in my electorate, elders from the Dharawal tribe will be joining with their supporters throughout the region in celebrating and taking action around Close the Gap Day. When they gather there will not be much to celebrate in the recent Close the gap report, but we are pleased that there has been some progress in halving the gap in year 12 attainment. We are also pleased that small gains have been made in closing the gap in life expectancy. But the failure to take on board measures which will close the gap in Indigenous employment outcomes, infant mortality, reading and numeracy and nameless other health gaps continues to be a national shame.

We cannot blame the government for generations of inequality, but what we can blame the government for is failing to have a plan to address these problems. The programs that are most needed to address these gaps have been held hostage to an absolutely hopeless budget process. This includes over $500 million worth of cuts to Indigenous programs and $165 million worth of cuts in health programs. The one thing that we can do which will make an enormous difference will be to address the gap in smoking rates. If we can bring that down, the benefits to the Indigenous community and the whole community will be paramount. These are not lifestyle options; these are things we must address as a nation. (Time expired)

Mr TAYLOR (Hume) (13:58): I am pleased to announce a joint federal and state government commitment to fund up to an additional $15 million for much-needed safety works on the Barton Highway between Yass and Canberra. This was announced last week by myself and the hardworking state member for Goulburn, Pru Goward. The federal government has pledged to work with New South Wales to identify up to $12 million from any project savings from the New South Wales government's Infrastructure Investment Program allocation to put towards the Barton Highway—and the New South Wales government has agreed to commit $3 million.

It is one of the most important issues for commuters around Murrumbateman, Yass and as far away as Boorowa and Binalong. The Barton Highway is the artery that allows thousands of local people to work in Canberra, to use Canberra's tertiary and medical services, and to have their children attend school in Canberra.

I have been pushing for this latest funding to build overtaking lanes and other safety measures, such as road widening, in line with the planned staged duplication of the highway. Overtaking lanes are urgently needed along the 'mad mile' north of Wallaroo and south of Murrumbateman. The majority of the new work should be done between Murrumbateman and Wallaroo, where there is the heaviest traffic in peak hour.

The SPEAKER: Order! It being two o'clock, in accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded.

The SPEAKER (15:10): I have received a letter from the honourable member for McMahon proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The government’s commitment to deep cuts which hurt every Australian.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Mr BOWEN (McMahon) (15:11): The Australian people know that this is a government completely out of touch with the needs of working Australians and pensioners. They know how heartless this government is. They know how this government completely misunderstands the impact of their own decisions. They know this Treasurer completely misunderstands his own policies and the impact they have on the Australian people. They know that this Treasurer puts together policies which impact on them and then he does not understand the impact of his own actions. They know all this because the Treasurer has told them. They know all this because the Treasurer has laid bare his lack of understanding of the impact of his own decisions.

He told them that poor people do not drive cars. He told them that if poor people have cars they do not drive them very far. He told them that the GP tax does not apply to people with a chronic illness. He told them that the GP tax was only the cost of a couple of middies—what an insult to the Australian people. What an insult the Australian people this Treasurer and this Prime Minister and this entire government are. The Australian people know how heartless they are. They know how out of touch they are. They know how they do not understand the impact of their own policies. But the Australian people say to this government, 'At least be confident as you go about your program of cuts to us.'

What we get from this government are cuts and chaos all at the same time. The alibis change. The narrative changes. Everything changes accept the cuts. We get the changing stories over the course of one interview, or one day, or one week. We get the changing alibis and excuses for their actions, but at its heart the government strategy remains the same: make those who can least afford it pay the cost for their policies. The prejudice remains the same and the result remains the same. We have seen it the over the last day or so. Remember we have been told how dire everything is, because that pesky Senate will not rubber-stamp their broken promises. We are told regularly how bad things are, how we are heading towards cataclysm for our economy, and then we are told something different. We were told today by the Prime Minister: 'Well, we've made a lot more progress than people think. Actually, things are all right, because the Intergenerational report apparently tells us that with everything that has been passed we get back to balance in just five years.' It is okay; the Intergenerational report says it. 'No problem,' we are now told. 'Nothing to see here.' 'Move along,' says the Prime Minister. The fact that there are 40 years of deficits after that—'Oh well, don't worry about that. We wouldn't worry about that, because everything is fine now.'

No wonder the Australian people are confused by this government's economic narrative, because they are confused themselves. Former Treasurer Peter Costello, says, 'There are mixed messages here from the Prime Minister and the Treasurer.' If Peter Costello cannot work it out, no wonder the Australian people say this government is not up to it. This Treasurer in particular is simply not up to it. He is not up to the task before him, the task entrusted to him by the Australian people. He is incompetent as he goes about his chosen project of cutting from the Australian people and from Australian families.

We had the Prime Minister say today: 'Don't worry about it; we're back at balance within five years.' When the Treasurer was asked, 'When will we be back to balance? When will we back to surplus?' he said, 'I'm not putting a date on it. I couldn't possibly put a date on it!' Again, we have dysfunction between the Prime Minister and the Treasurer. The one thing though—to give the government credit—that is always consistent, is its attack on low- and middle-income earners. That is the one thing that never changes when it comes to this government. Everything else changes—the stories change, the alibis change, the excuses change and the blame game changes, but the answer is always the same: 'Those who can least afford it will pay,' says the Treasurer. That is what he says. That is his one consistent narrative. He says to the Australian people, to Australian working families and pensioners: 'You will pay.'

I want to spend a minute talking, in particular, about the pensioners of Australia. We had the Treasurer at the dispatch box yesterday telling us how much he respects taxpayers. 'I respect taxpayers,' he said. How about a bit of respect for Australia's pensioners, people who worked hard all their lives. How about not telling Australian pensioners that they are leaners. They are not leaners. The Treasurer's own report—written by the Treasurer himself—tells us something very interesting about Australia's Treasurers. Do you remember how many times we have been told by the Treasurer that the Australian age-pension system is unsustainable? He makes himself out to be the hero. 'I'm making the pension sustainable by cutting it,' he tells us. But what does this report tell us about the age pension? This highly-political document contains three scenarios.

One of those scenarios is previous policy. While this is a complete dodge by the government, I am proud to say that the previous policy, included in this report, is the Labor government's: fair indexation for the age pension; fair indexation for Australia's pensioners who worked hard all their lives. This report tells us how much that policy will cost, how much fair indexation of the age pension will cost over coming years. It tells us that it will cost 3.6 per cent of GDP by 2054-55. That is 3.6 per cent of Australia's GDP. I say Australia's pensioners are worth that. I say it is fair when the OECD average cost for pension systems is 7.8 per cent. I think Australia can afford 3.6 per cent. I think Australia's pensioners have worked hard all their lives. They have lifted all their lives and deserve that support.

We, when in office, commissioned a review. That review found that CPI, inflation, was a woefully inadequate indexation measure for the age pension. So we said: no. We will have three measures to improve the age pension. One will be average weekly earnings, one will be the CPI and one will be a basket of goods that pensioners primarily buy. That is fair.

We saw the Prime Minister in a shameful performance, in the House, earlier this week say: 'Under your system, under the Labor Party system, Australia's pensioners would be worse off.' That was blatantly untrue. It was clearly and undeniably untrue, because the pension goes up by the highest of those three measures under our policy. It is a policy we will defend in this House, and that house across the country, because it is a fair one.

Forty years ago a Prime Minister we recently mourned said to the Australian people, 'As Australia grows and prospers, Australia's pensioners should share in the prosperity.' He introduced a link to average weekly earnings for males. He said, 'As Australians earn more, pensioners should earn more.' He indicated new government policy to link the pension to weekly earnings of 25 per cent.

Before we hear from members opposite that this was unsustainable and unaffordable and typical Whitlam spending, let us remember that this policy was continued by his successors. They were Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, John Howard, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. They all continued that policy. In fact, the previous Labor government said, 'We can do better than 25 per cent. We can lift that to 27 per cent, because Australia's pensioners deserve it.'

All this remained bipartisan policy for 40 years, until this Prime Minister and this Treasurer—without a skerrick of a mandate—said to Australia's pensioners: 'You do not deserve that. You do not deserve to share in Australia's prosperity. You do not deserve to share in Australia's wage growth. We will institute a policy that will see your pension fall to 16 per cent of average weekly earnings.' It is shameful that without a skerrick of honesty, without a word of a mandate and without one indication to the Australian people that this would be the case they implement the policy. They tell us what the policy is eight months after the election. How dare this Treasurer lecture others about when they should release policies when he released his policies eight months after the last federal election, when he stood there and delivered the federal budget.

There are facts. Australia has the second-lowest spending on age pension as a percentage of the economy in the OECD and has the second-highest level of poverty, for people over 65, in the developed world. We said in office that we can do better. That is why we increased the age pension and improved the indexation. It is also why we made it easier for Australians to save for their own retirement through superannuation, why we increased the superannuation guarantee to 12 per cent and why we gave low-income earners a fair tax concession, which this government has abolished and is proud of abolishing.

On Monday night the Treasurer said, 'I'm always cautious when taking money off people.' No, he is not—not when they are low-income earners and not when they are people who have worked hard all their lives. He calls them leaners, but they are not. They have been hard workers and they deserve this parliament to defend them. He deserves this parliament to stand up for them. Only half this parliament does, and they all sit on this side of the chamber. We will defend pensioners in opposition and we will defend and improve them in government as well. (Time expired)

Mr FRYDENBERG (Kooyong—Assistant Treasurer) (15:21): I will start with a quote: 'If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there.' That quote did not come from George Costanza. That quote did not come from Jerry Seinfeld. That quote did not come from Bob—

A government member: Justin Beiber?

Mr FRYDENBERG: or Justin Beiber. That quote came from the Leader of the Opposition. It goes to the heart of this debate, which is that those opposite do not know where they are going. They have no economic narrative, no economic policies and no economic direction.

If we look at the action that we need to take now in government, it all goes back to repairing the debt-and-deficit legacy that was bequeathed to us by those opposite.

When Labor came to government at the end of 2007, they were given a pristine balance sheet. There was $50 billion in the bank and a surplus of $20 billion. We had paid back $96 billion of Labor debt. We had created two million jobs and we had seen real wages growth of above 20 per cent. But, after six years of the chaos and dysfunction of the Rudd, Gillard, Rudd governments, we inherited a balance sheet which was in a total mess. Debt was heading on a trajectory towards $667 billion. The interest bill for the Australian people—for every man, woman and child—was heading to $1 billion a month and growing over time to $3 billion a month. In fact, the total debt bill for every Australian man, woman and child was going to head towards $25,000.

The reason that Labor left this mess was that they are addicted to spending. They did not know how to say no. Even though income increased by 22 per cent when Wayne Swan was the Treasurer, we actually saw income increase but spending grow even faster. The OECD looked at 17 advanced economies and found that Australia's spending growth was the fastest amongst those 17 advanced economies. Independent advisers like the Parliamentary Budget Office, the Commission of Audit and the Governor of the Reserve Bank said that we were on the wrong trajectory, but Labor is addicted to spending.

It is really interesting to listen to the member for McMahon. The member for McMahon said in one of his interviews:

… I completely agree and accept that the next election will be a choice and it will be as much about the alternative vision that the Labor Party provides as the failings of the Government. The Australian people are over the magic pudding Santa Claus economics—

Well, do you know who believes in magic pudding economics? It is the professor of ouzo economics. He loves magic pudding economics and so does the Leader of the Opposition. The member for Hughes has very kindly pointed me in the direction of Norman Lindsay's The Magic Pudding. I opened it up at page 18 and found that it sums up Labor's economic policy:

'My word,' said Bill, … 'You have to be as smart as paint to keep this Puddin' in order'—

said Bill—

'That's where the Magic comes in,' explained Bill. 'The more you eats the more you gets.'

That is the essence of the Labor Party's economic policy: 'The more you eats the more you gets'—because the more you spend the more you think you save. It does not work. We got the carbon tax—a slug of $550 on every Australian household. We got the mining tax, which was expected to produce more than $50 billion and ended up producing just over $300 million. We had the boat disaster, which led to more than 50,000 people coming, an $11 billion bill to the Australian taxpayer and, dare I say it, the tragedy of more than 1,000 people dying at sea. That was the legacy of the Labor Party, including 21,000 cheques which went to dead people along the way.

We have been left to clear up this mess, whether it has been their broadband, where in just the six years Labor were in office they spent $7 billion and only reached three per cent of the targeted homes. We have had to fix up that mess. We have had to stop the boats and remove people from detention. We have had to abolish the carbon tax and we have had to abolish the mining tax. In fact, the Intergenerational report says that, when it comes to repairing Labor's debt and deficit legacy, we are actually making significant headway. We were on a trajectory over the next 40 years where debt and deficit was to reach 122 per cent of GDP or $5.6 trillion. As a result of our legislated measures—not our proposed measures; our legislated measures—we have reduced that to under half. We have passed around 80 per cent of our budget measures, but we still have a long way to go. We have around $30 billion worth of savings stuck in the Senate because those opposite are refusing to support them, including $5 billion worth of savings that they took to the last election.

As a result of our policies we are starting to see some green shoots across the Australian economy, with economic growth of 2.7 per cent in 2014. It was under two per cent under you in 2013. We have seen job advertisements at the highest level in 28 months. We are creating 600 new jobs a day. In fact, when we look at retail numbers, we see that they have been going up for eight consecutive months. Housing starts are very strong, In New South Wales we are seeing housing starts at the strongest they have been for some time. We are rolling out infrastructure projects in every state, except those where the Labor state government are ripping up contracts like the East West Link in Victoria and seeing 7,000 jobs disappear overnight—vitally, 7,000 jobs which the state of Victoria needs.

Today we had a very good policy announcement—to reverse the cash grab by those opposite of unclaimed moneys. They went against all logic and put their hands into people's savings account and said that moneys in inactive accounts would be identified as unclaimed moneys after three years of inactivity instead of after seven years. We have reversed that change made by the Labor Party—which was also a recommendation of David Murray's financial systems inquiry. We are also putting better privacy provisions in place and we are also excluding the children's accounts and accounts in foreign currencies from the unclaimed moneys regime.

We are also today celebrating our third repeal day. It has been so successful as a means of reducing Labor's red tape, In fact, Labor gave us 21,000 additional regulations and, as a result of the measures put in place by people on this side of the House, we have removed more than 50,000 pages from the statute books. We have removed more than 10,000 pieces of regulation and legislation and we have made it easier for small business, for big business, for individuals and, importantly, for the not-for-profit sector.

We are making a really important headway in fixing up Labor's mess. What we have to guide us is the Intergenerational report. The IGR told us that not only are we paying back Labor's debt and deficit at a record rate but we are also living longer and seeing our incomes rising. The key to Australia's successful future will be about boosting productivity and boosting participation. One of the things we need to do is get more seniors into the workforce. That is why we have really positive proposals, plans and policies, like the Restart program, which actually incentivises employers to take on senior Australians.

Also, we will be putting out our child care and families package, because we want to see more women get into the workforce. Right now, we are about six points behind where Canada is in terms of the percentage of eligible working age women who are in the workforce. We need to bring more women into the workforce, because that will produce a $25 billion productivity dividend for the Australian economy.

Opposition members interjecting—

Mr FRYDENBERG: To those on the other side who are heckling I want to finish on this point. Those who are heckling have long-term experience in the union movement, and if you want to know of one way to boost productivity and growth in Australian economy, it is about bringing back the Australian Building and Construction Commission. The Australian Building and Construction Commission was effectively the cop on the beat. If we are able to bring back the ABCC it will lead to a $6 billion annual productivity dividend for the Australian economy and it will see more jobs created.

The motion moved by the member for McMahon goes against all the evidence of the successful policies we have put in place: paying back Labor's debt; on the road back to surplus; and on the road to a stronger Australian economy.

Mr HUSIC (Chifley) (15:31): Member for Kooyong, you are in an alternative reality. In fact there were moments there I thought he was channelling his inner comical Ali when he was telling us how good the economy was going. The economy was going so great the Reserve Bank Governor decided to give you an early Christmas present. He decided to give you a little shave off interest rates to kick the economy along, because it was going so great! It is unbelievable, Member for Kooyong—Assistant Treasurer Member for Kooyong—that you could believe the economy is going that well.

When the RBA appeared before the House of Representatives Economics Committee we asked them about this. Oil prices have fallen, fuel prices are falling, and the Australian dollar is falling in value relative to the US dollar. You would think that would supercharge the economy and be a great thing. It was not enough. Those two things, which would normally kick the economy along, were not enough. What did the Reserve Bank look at? They looked at the forecast of where the economy was going and decided to change their position and say that no longer would there be stability in rates—they had to cut it. They had to cut it because the economy is going nowhere fast. One of the biggest reasons for this is that there is a failure to invest. Business will not invest. They keep telling the RBA, 'We will not invest until we see consumer sentiment change.' What was the biggest hammer to consumer sentiment in the last 12 months?

Ms Butler: What was it?

Mr HUSIC: It was their budget that killed consumer confidence in this country.

Ms Butler interjecting—

Mr HUSIC: One of the worst budgets indeed, Member for Griffith. In fact, when you look at a household on roughly $60,000 to $65,000 a year losing $6,000, it is no wonder they will not spend. It is no wonder that confidence is down. When people are confronted with the prospect of a GP tax, with the prospect of $100,000 university degrees, when you see all the changes to supporting the young jobless, when you see, for example, all of the things that are being done to pensions, it is insane that you could have those opposite saying that the economy is going great. You can only say that here. They would never say this outside, because no-one would believe them. Everyone knows that the economy is in a funk and that the people opposite are doing nothing to repair it.

To be fair to them, we expected too much. When they said they would be an adult government it was not reality; it was an aspiration. That is what they were aiming to be.

Mr Giles: They will grow up one day.

Mr HUSIC: That is right—one day they will be an adult government. The first half of their term in government has been all about cuts. The only thing they have is cuts, tearing thinks down and wrecking things.

Mr Bowen: Wreckers, not builders.

Mr HUSIC: Indeed. They make cuts to Medicare, sell of Medibank, tear down everything they see, and then when they have nothing left what do they turn to? They turn to the IGR. This is a great work of fiction. In fact, I have added this to my '100 pieces of fiction you must read in your 150 years'! This is great work. It is excellent stuff.

Mr Giles: 250.

Mr HUSIC: Yes, 250—I can imagine how big it will be then. This is fiction. This is a political document designed to advance propaganda rather than a serious attempt to look at what should be done. If it were a serious attempt to look at what we should do as people are aging, you would make sure that they have a sustainable retirement income. There's an idea. Look at everything they have done in the first half of their term. It has been: cut pensions; cut the superannuation guarantee contribution; cut the size of future national savings; get rid of the low-income superannuation contribution; and make sure that the wealthy are looked after as superannuants—those who are on $2 million of superannuation savings. And what was the other contribution? The other contributions in terms of improving retirement savings was given by the Treasurer, who floated the idea that we should drain superannuation to pay for housing, which was another bizarre proposal by a government that is basically at its heart full of contradiction. Its messages conflict with each other. There is no certainty about what they propose to do. The only thing you can bank on with this government is that they will cut, they will make life harder for people, they will break promises and they will continue to do that in this upcoming budget, which will just be a budget of cuts and chaos.

Mr McCORMACK (Riverina—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) (15:36): The good old National Party. Great to see the member for Richmond over there—a lover of the National Party. Good to see the member for Wakefield over there—and that he has lasted this long. But it is always a pleasure to see the member for McMahon sitting there right opposite me. In this matter of public importance the member for McMahon talked about Labor's record as opposed to our record. Of course, he was the immigration minister, and in the financial years July 2010 to June 2013 he was a bit like Helen of Troy, the face that launched a thousand ships. In his case it was not quite 1,000, but 602—38,096 illegal boat arrivals came on his watch.

But let's talk about a few other members of the Labor Party front bench. We have the member for Grayndler, who promised roads but could not and would not fund them. Luckily, theDeputy Prime Minister, the member for Wide Bay and the Nationals leader, is getting on with the job of doing what the member for Grayndler could not do. The member for Watson pinched water from my farmers and other irrigation farmers in other electorates too—kept buying it back. He made farmers account for every single drop of water, but then wanted to buy all this water back and did so for the environment which they knew they could never deliver. Then we had the member for Lilley—debt and deficit were his trademarks, absolutely.

I am so glad that the Assistant Treasurer and the Prime Minister today announced that we, the coalition, are going to deliver on our commitment to improve the way unclaimed money in banking accounts and life insurance policies is managed. The member for Maribyrnong, when he was the Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation in 2012, in the previous government, reduced the period of time that inactive bank accounts were declared unclaimed from seven years to three years.

I have this report from the Hervey Bay Independent. On 31 May 2013, it wrote:

The family of a 95-year-old Hervey Bay pensioner who had $50,000 forfeited from a bank account because it hadn't been used for seven years is warning others to be aware of the laws.

Craignish resident Jan Powell said she was shocked last week when she went to check the status of an account her mother Doris Osborne opened in 2002 established to pay her own funeral costs, and found the balance had gone from $49,000 to—what do you think, member for Lyne or member for Page?

Dr Gillespie: Zero.

Mr Hogan: Zero.

Mr McCORMACK: That is it, zero—from $49,000 to zero. And we heard from the Treasurer today talking about the unclaimed money—$550 million. The member for Oxley was yelling out, 'Where are you going to account for that?' But it was 156,000 bank accounts. It is theft. It is absolute theft.

You talk about the Labor Party and the live cattle ban. On the night of 7 June 2011, the $700 million a year live cattle trade was stopped—just like that—because of a Four Corners show on the Monday of the previous week. What an absolute disgrace. You look at the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Maribyrnong. He is shallow; he is see-through; he is superficial. The Australian public are on to that. They are absolutely on to that. He is quick to criticise but offers absolutely no alternative. His party is divided. The member for Sydney wants his job, and he only offers weak leadership.

This government are listening. We are getting on with the job. We have scrapped the carbon tax. We have scrapped the mining tax. We are building the roads of the 21st century—Warren Truss is doing a great job of that.

What have we got opposite? We have a Labor Party who do not ever actually tell us how they are ever going to fund anything. They come out all the time and they carp and whine and carry on about everything, but they never offer any financial alternative as to how they are going to pay for anything. We know what they are going to do. They are going to up taxes. They are going to reintroduce the carbon tax. They are going to do all of those things which hurt families and which hurt business. There is nobody on that side who has ever really run a fair dinkum business. We know that. We are the party of business people.

Ms Butler: The National Party!

Mr McCORMACK: The coalition are building a strong and prosperous economy—yes; the National Party, member for Griffith. We, the coalition, hold the record of the largest infrastructure spend in Australian history. We know that the education minister is a fixer. He is a fixer. In fact, there are 89 other fixers, apart from the Minister for Education and Training, on this side because we are fixing the debt and deficit legacy left by that side opposite.

By investing in infrastructure, by building the roads and the water infrastructure of the 21st century, we are creating jobs, opportunity and reward. We are getting on with the job of restoring this country to the great country it can and will be after it was left almost in ruin by those opposite.

Mrs ELLIOT (Richmond) (15:41): It is always interesting to be following the member for Riverina, and that series of tall tales he put to us. It is like he is living in rainbow land along with the rest of the National Party. When they go home and people ask them questions about why they made these massive cuts and why they increased taxes, I wonder what they say to them? I wonder what they say when people ask them about their petrol tax and their cuts to pensions? It is always nice to hear that little piece of fantasy that they present to us. As I say, they are all living in rainbow land. In my area, in the North Coast of New South Wales, that is why they cannot be trusted. Everyone knows that. They just cannot be trusted because of their broken promises.

The fact is that this government's unfair budget and cruel cuts have been devastating not just for the nation but also for regional areas like mine, the electorate of Richmond. The deep concern now is that this year's budget will be just as deep and just as cruel and just as unfair because of this government's massive mismanagement. Everyone knows they are in utter chaos; they cannot manage anything at all. There are real concerns that there are going to be just as severe cuts in this year's budget. All we are seeing from this government today—whether it be here in MPIs or in question time, or throughout the day—is chaos, mismanagement, conflicting narratives and backflips on a whole range of issues. Today, the Prime Minister said that the government will get back to broad balance by 2019-20. This, quite frankly, means the commitment to the same cuts that were in last year's budget. All we get is a series of bad decisions from a bad government. It just keeps on going.

Locals in my area have every right to feel betrayed by this government, and in regional areas of course that betrayal is by the National Party. A Liberal-National government continue to relentlessly attack the standard of living of Australians by cutting pensions and cutting family payments, slashing services and increasing taxes—hurting, of course, the most vulnerable in our community.

Indeed, before the election, we had all these promises made that there would be no changes to pensions, health care, GP tax and no cuts to education. After the election all those promises were broken. It was an unprecedented attack on the living standards of millions of Australians. The fact is, since the Liberal-National Party's unfair budget last year, locals in my area have had to deal with so many cruel measures like those cuts to pensions and health and aged care cuts as well, yet all we keep seeing now is more of the chaos.

I will move to health cuts because this is something that has really impacted people in my area. Firstly, we recently had the Prime Minister claiming that the GP tax is now dead, buried and cremated. Locals in my area know that you cannot trust Liberals and especially the National Party when it comes to health care and hospitals. We also have, at the moment, the state government out there trying to blackmail people seeking some small amount of funding for their hospitals. They are saying, 'You will only get this if you agree to the sale of electricity assets.' Can I tell you, a lot of people are saying that this is the reason they are not trusting the National Party, because they are selling electricity assets, which will push up electricity prices.

But back to the GP tax. Regardless of what the Prime Minister or health minister have announced, we know that the GP tax will be back—make no mistake about it. It is not gone. It is not buried. The Prime Minister said he is committed to it. This is all about the Liberal-National Party destroying Medicare and destroying bulk-billing because this is their agenda. Part of this attack also includes the $50 billion to be slashed from the hospital funding agreements.

You will recall, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I asked the Prime Minister today in question time specifically about those $50 billion worth of cuts and how they will impact on my electorate. Do you know what he did? He refused to answer. Do you know why he refused to answer? It is because he is weak and running scared. The Prime Minister is weak and running scared and would not answer my question about how his $50 billion cut will impact on hospitals on the north coast of New South Wales.

One of the cruellest cuts is the one to the age pension. Again, we had the Prime Minister and his candidates running around all over the country—in my area it was National Party candidates—saying, 'There'll be no cuts to pensions. There'll be no changes there.' Of course, when they got into office, we saw huge changes with their cuts to pensions.

But it got worse over the weekend. We saw some changes. What they say now is that they only want to index the pension by the consumer price index. The fact is that, under Labor, the pension was indexed by whichever was the higher of wages, the consumer price index or the pensioner index that Labor introduced. This was to make sure that pensions kept up with the general standard of living of all Australians. This is just the government's latest mean trick.

There was such an array of cruel cuts and unfair methods brought in with the last budget. Many people have real concerns that this year's budget will be just as bad. People have no faith in this government. They think the government are cruel and unfair and that all they seem to introduce are a series of mean and unfair tricks. As I have said, all we see from this government is chaos, conflicting narratives and backflips on a range of issues. I am constantly told by people in my area that they do not trust the National Party. Whether it is at the federal level or the state level, they do not trust them one bit because we constantly get bad decisions from bad governments. The fact is that this is a government with a commitment to deep cuts which are hurting every Australian.

Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (15:46): It is a great pleasure to speak on this matter of public importance on the subject of every Australian. On the debate we are having in parliament and the media today about cuts, I would like to make an analogy. Imagine there is a house where the gardens are neat and the lawns are mowed. It is neat and tidy inside. The furniture is all in good condition. All the bills are paid and up to date. Then a rogue tenant moves in and, over a period of six years, he has a series of wild parties. He invites all his mates around and he absolutely trashes the place. Finally, after six years, he is evicted. On the way out, he barricades the door and he sets fire to the place. Then this rogue tenant come arsonist walks across the road and sits on the other side in the gutter. As the fire brigade rolls up, he starts to heckle. As the fire brigade comes up and parks on the grass, he yells out, 'Don't park there! Look at the mess they're making on the grass.' The fire brigade have to knock down the door that has been barricaded. The rogue tenant sitting in the gutter on the other side yells out, 'Look at the damage they are doing to the door. Look at the mud that they are walking through on the carpet. Look at the water damage they are causing to the house.' That is an analogy of exactly what the Labor Party's governance did to this nation during their six years in government. For six years, the Labor Party trashed the governance of this country and trashed the budget, so every single cut should be hoisted back on the Labor Party.

Let me give you some facts and figures. During the period from the last coalition budget in 2007-08, a Costello-Howard budget, to the final Labor budget of 2013-14, there was no problem with income. Income actually increased during that period of six years by $68 billion. There was a 23 per cent increase in revenue flowing into the government because we had the mining boom and record commodity prices. We had record prices for our coal and our iron ore, so we had that 23 per cent increase. The problem was not on the revenue side; it was on the expenditure side. That is because the Labor government in that period of six years increased government spending by over 50 per cent. There was a 50 per cent increase in expenditure. We know where it went. It went into the billion dollar blow-out in border protection, the pink batts, the green loans, the $900 cheques to the dead and the set-top box program. I could go on and on. I would need several hours to list all the waste and reckless, politically motivated expenditure of Whitlam-esque proportions of the previous Labor government.

That resulted in turning what was money in our national accounts into a net debt of $245 billion. That comes at a cost. The cost is the interest that we now have to pay on that debt. This year it is a $13.5 billion cost to the budget. The fastest increasing expenditure that we as a government face is the interest on Labor's debt. It was previously zero; it is now $13.5 billion. That works out at $560 for every man, woman and child in this country. For the average household of four, that is $2,200. That is just the interest bill on Labor's debt. We have to work out where that money is going to come from.

We in this country have a choice. There are two things we can do. We can work together as a parliament to work out how we can bring our budget back into balance, because we are currently spending 10 per cent more than we collect in revenue. The members on the other side want to continue to borrow money and steal from future generations of Australians. That is their plan—to have the debt paid by our children and grandchildren. Shame on them. Shame on every single one of them for stealing from our children and grandchildren by running up debt through reckless and wasteful spending. They should admit the reason for the cuts is their reckless and wasteful spending, and we should work together to get this budget back into balance.

Ms CLAYDON (Newcastle) (15:51): How interesting it is to listen to members opposite. I am reminded of an often-said saying that the definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result. Time and time again we have seen the government commit to a course of action—to be more precise, it is usually little more than a thought bubble—only to expect that they will deliver some different result each time. But it is the same old mistakes. They are stuck on an ideological treadmill that they just cannot stop. There is one thing you can always be sure of: whatever proposal this government puts forward will be absolutely deeply embedded on a path to austerity. It is about cuts—it is about cuts on cuts—that hurt every man, woman and child in Australia. No sleight of hand and no amount of re-badging, re-branding and re-booting from this government is ever going to conceal their steadfast commitment to making life harder for every Australian.

This is a government of broken promises. It has torn up the social contract with the Australian public. Indeed, the list of broken promises is truly astonishing. Having completely trashed the social contract that previously existed with the Australian people, this government has now completely wedded itself to this very conservative ideological agenda of austerity. This is an agenda that sees cuts to education, cuts to health, cuts to family payments, cuts to science and the arts, cuts to the ABC and SBS, cuts to the environment, cuts to the Human Rights Commission, cuts to overseas aid, cuts to social services, cuts to legal services, cuts to Indigenous affairs, cuts to the pension, and the list goes on and on and on.

Let's face it: the government are hell-bent on forcing through these cuts in whichever way they can. They are making decisions that are more reflective of concern for their own jobs than for the jobs of Australian men and women out there. And completely mixed messages are being bandied around in this parliament about whether we are in a budget emergency or not, or whether they are now going to crank up net debt again by 15 per cent, which is a matter of fact since they took government. The Treasurer claims that he has delivered a surplus in his first year and every year—that is what he is claiming out there—but we now hear that the budget may never, in fact, get back to surplus. This Prime Minister claims that the budget is going to be broadly in balance within five years, I see. But who are we to believe here? I would probably prefer to listen to Peter Costello, who was on 7:30 recently. He said: 'I think there's a bit of a conflicting narrative there.' Peter Costello really hit the nail on the head. The Prime-Minister-in-waiting, the member for Wentworth, agrees that the message has not been all that clear or respectful either, and he knows a thing or two about messaging. But the problem is that the spin, the deception and the conflicting narrative is the centrepiece of this government, so there is nothing but an incoherent economic agenda for people to listen to.

According to the Prime Minister, the Intergenerational report was meant to reset the debate, but all we have seen since its release are new spending commitments and policy backflips. Is the industry assistance package to car makers finished, or is it happening again? Is it $900 million, is it $500 million or is it just $100 million? Are we building submarines in Australia, Japan or Europe or, indeed, somewhere else altogether? It depends on where the Prime Minister needs to shore up his votes for his own job, I would suggest. And, on so-called health policy, we have this government's attacks on Medicare. Are we dealing with version 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 of their GP tax—who knows? (Time expired)

Mr JOHN COBB (Calare) (15:56): It is interesting to look at what the member for McMahon's matter of public importance actually says. The government of which he was a minister, in various portfolios including Treasury and immigration, brought about the reason for our government's commitment to responsible economic management, which we have no choice about. We have to do it, because it had not been done around here for the previous six years.

The shadow Treasurer could be referred to as the tax-free threshold expert. The tax-free threshold, which he was unable to recall recently in a very public way, is not one that he had to reach back into time for. It was not a Howard government threshold; it was one put up by his own government—perhaps not when he was Treasurer, but not that long before it. For a budding Treasurer wanting to be reincarnated as that again, it was not a very big thing to remember. We have to question the memory of the opposition in general, because without doubt the reason we have to make cuts is not to hurt people; these cuts are not going to do anything except lower the cost of living for families. I think the memory loss that the member for McMahon and his colleagues have is that they left us with the situation we are in. They left a high cost of living and a huge debt, which has to be serviced. I remember how shocked the small business sector was at the 2010 election when we went around explaining that the Rudd-Gillard government was borrowing around $110 million a day just to service their borrowing and their spending. It was quite amazing.

I will take the member for Riverina up on one thing—he may be right, but I actually thought the member for Watson would have nearly challenged the member for McMahon as somebody who sent boats off into the sunset, because he was also the minister for immigration. I think it is prophetic that the minister for immigration who solved this issue when it first arose in around 2001 or 2002 is in the House with us today—the member for Berowra. He was the most successful immigration minister of all time. When this became a huge issue he solved it. Even with that lesson not very long before them, the member for McMahon and the member for Watson vied with one another to see who could cross Australia the most. I will not go into what was the cost of that, in more ways than one.

I thought it was very apt when the member for Watson became minister for immigration, because he was a refugee of the first order. Here is a member of the far Right in New South Wales. He is a protege, you could say, of Eddie Obeid and Joe Tripodi. He is a member of that same group, let us be honest about it. I think they must have known what was coming and said, 'Tony, you go down to federal parliament. Get out of New South Wales.' He was in the upper house in New South Wales in those days. They said, 'Tony, you go down and show the feds have a New South Wales Right runs things.' He did come down here. When you are trained by Joe Tripodi and Eddie Obeid there are a lot of things you know that the rest of us do not, and do not want to either, probably. I thought he was the right person to be the minister for immigration. Perhaps the member for Riverina is right when he says that the member for McMahon probably did spend more and did see more boats come in, but it was a close run thing. They were neck and neck. That was a mere $10 billion or $11 billion over budget.

Those guys know how to spend. It is a very easy, quite pleasant, thing to do. But in the history of Australia, nobody ever spent as much money, as quickly and with so little return as the Rudd-Gillard government. It is not easy to spend that much that quickly. (Time expired)

Mr LAURIE FERGUSON (Werriwa) (16:01): Many previous speakers in the debate on this MPI on the government's commitment to deep cuts have detailed the national picture: a 6.3 per cent unemployment rate, meaning that 770,000 Australians are without employment; a youth unemployment rate of 14.4 per cent; and the collapse of business confidence. The unemployment figure I cited is the worst since 2002, when the current Prime Minister was concentrated on employment as the minister responsible.

I will talk today on a more regional basis. Some of these issues affect some areas of Sydney more than others. When he made he made his infamous statement that poor people do not drive cars, it might have been a credible position for the member for North Sydney, privileged with taxpayer subsidised public transport and living very close to the Sydney CBD. But for people in south-west Sydney, distant from employment and with a great dependence on cars to get to work every day, it is a very different scenario. The budget cuts by the government are having a far greater impact on my region. In Claymore the previous federal government was working with the state government of New South Wales to bring social mix into housing so we did not have reservations of government sponsored housing. We have a situation where the $50 million cut over four years in the hospital agreement means that at Campbelltown 400 patients use the after hours GP service. Its potential closure will lead to mass stress on the hospital. Physicians who have resigned are not replaced. We have a significant number of doctors acting in their position. In the growth areas of Sydney, every day of the week I and my two colleagues over there, the member for Macarthur and the member for Hughes, see new housing developments going on. It is quite clear that funding is not keeping pace with the expanding population. It is all right to talk about Liverpool Hospital being the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere—

Mr Matheson interjecting—

Mr LAURIE FERGUSON: The member for Macarthur interjects. The only competition in the Campbelltown state seat at the New South Wales election is who is more pro the Labor candidate. I think he is more pro the Labor candidate for Campbelltown than I am! There have been cuts to preventive health programs. That will affect conditions such as diabetes. Surveys show that in the Macarthur region and south-west Sydney people suffer from that more seriously. A $60 million mental health unit promised by the previous government has been scrapped. The members for Macarthur and Hughes know that it is far more vital to have that unit in our region than elsewhere. Organisations such as Beautiful Minds, Macarthur Disability Services and Autism Australia lead their fields in this country, because there is a need.

Only one trade training centre has been established in the electorate; 12 have been scrapped. This is an area where, historically, the number of people going to TAFE colleges—

Mr Matheson: Two.

Mr LAURIE FERGUSON: Two, is it? So it is two, and 12 have been scrapped. You are on the ball there: 12 have been scrapped. TAFE education has been more crucial in this region than in other parts of Sydney. The state government changes increasing the cost of courses and reducing the hours of instruction have been accompanied by a massive cut by the federal government of $1.5 billion in vocational education and training throughout the country. That is having a very real impact in suburbs such as Holsworthy, Liverpool, Macquarie Fields and Ingleburn. I hope people recognise that for the upcoming state election.

The government wants to deregulate university fees. This is another area where location is crucial. The University of Western Sydney, because it has some social conscience, because of the nature of its creation, has agreed to hold fees. It will never be able to compete with the other universities in Sydney when attracting students. The status of that university will decrease very substantially because of the changes the government is trying to make.

Whether it is a cut to legal aid, the Medicare Locals or the trade training centres or whether it is pensioners being hit by a new way of assessing increases to their pension, the government say, 'Well, you know, it's not mean to accomplish a decrease in their pension.' Of course it is! That is their whole budgetary proposal. So when they say that they will go into a surplus, we know that what is being put in the so-called backburner for a while—deregulation of the universities; a commensurate, massive increase in student debt and the amount of money they will have to pay to go to university; and the cuts in health. The Minister for Health is still talking about the need for a cost signal so that poor people will not go to the doctor's too often. We know that the Prime Minister has refused, basically, to say how he is going to accomplish his surplus, throwing back to the opposition that somehow we have to write a budget for him. (Time expired)

Mrs GRIGGS (Solomon) (16:06): Can you believe the hide of those opposite? The Australian public inherited a $667 billion debt from the six years they were in government—the six longest years I can remember of any government. A debt of $667 billion, and they are here today to criticise the government—a government that is trying to fix the problems they created. Mr Deputy Speaker, you know as well as I do that those opposite know how to spend the country's money—they know how to spend on the country's credit cards; they know how to create dodgy programs that not only waste money but have much deeper consequences.

What do they do when it comes to making the tough decisions? What do they do when it comes to getting things in order? Well, we know: they say, 'No.' They say: 'No, no, no.' It is no wonder that the member for Maribyrnong is no longer called the Leader of the Opposition; he is now known on this side as Dr No. He always has a cunning plan but is never willing to make the tough decisions—he does have evil plans, but I digress.

Mr Turnbull: And clever tricks.

Mrs GRIGGS: And clever tricks, yes, Minister. We have an Intergenerational report that says that we have serious financial trouble and it says that we need to take some serious steps to avoid the massive destabilising in times to come. We on this side are prepared to do all the hard yards to make some tough decisions in the best interests of our country. I know all too well the electoral effect of hard decisions, but they have to be made today in order to avoid the catastrophic effects in years to come.

Those opposite would not lift one little finger to help reform higher education, would they? My good friend and the good friend of the member for Dobell, the minister, Mr 'Fix-it' Pyne, is trying to make the sector sustainable, but what does he get from those opposite? He gets Dr No— and 'No, no, no, no'. This is from the same party that doctored the higher education budget figures before the election in 1996. Sometimes I wonder whether the truth is in permanent short supply when those opposite approach the dispatch box. But I do not wonder about the fact that I am so thankful that the nightmare six years of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd era have come to an end. The worst of the lot of them—

Ms Butler interjecting—

Mrs GRIGGS: You are not in your seat and so you should not even be speaking—

Mr Husic: That was a cutting point.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Chifley will be silent.

Mrs GRIGGS: I am quite entitled to remind the Speaker and point out that the member is not in her seat. She does it all the time—she is a serial offender. The worst of it is Dr No can only say 'No' to anything sensible. No, no, no. He has difficulty in saying 'Yes'. We know that he has no answers for this year that was supposed to be the year of ideas and the year of opportunity, that Labor promised to give us. What have they given us? Only no, no, no. You can still hear it in the interjections—'No, no, no'. It is amazing that all I can hear is 'No, no, no'. That is the sound ringing in my ears. I look forward to seeing the minister, Mr 'Fix-it' Pyne, get back to looking at the higher education area because he is going to fix this problem. He is Mr Fix it, and Mr 'Fix-it' Pyne is actually going to fix it.

Opposition members interjecting—

Mrs GRIGGS: You guys gave him the name, and we gladly take it. He finds a problem and he fixes. He is going to be known in this case as Minister 'Fix-it' Pyne. Thank you, guys. We think that is a great title, because we know that he is actually going to deliver. He is not like those on the other side who can only say, 'No, no, no'. We know that Minister Pyne will fix the system because it is broken and it absolutely needs to be fixed.

Mr CHAMPION (Wakefield) (19:30): I rise to report to the House about submarines. The other night's Four Corners was a very interesting program that had a lot to do with the leadership of the government and the nation and the various contenders in all of that. Halfway through the program, it said:

Four Corners has been told by sources intimately involved with the project—

referring to submarines—

that the Government's top secret National Security Committee, which included key ministers led by the PM, debated the future submarines in October last year.

No final decisions were made in favour of Japan. But sources close to the discussions told Four Corners the meeting did support options for the bulk of the submarines' construction to go overseas and for only limited work to go to the Australian Submarine Corporation.

That is a very serious issue indeed for my state. Today we saw an article on page 3 of The Australian under the headline 'Sir Les, eat your heart out: PM adds Swedes to his Irish stew of international offence'. That is a very topical headline, I suppose, and one that tells the nation a bit about the quality of the Prime Minister, but The Diplomat did a far more serious article headed 'Australia's Botched Sub Bidding Process Upsets Sweden'. It refers to the fact that back in February, in question time, the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, ridiculed the Saab Group's wish to bid for that contract and said:

The last Australian submarine came off the production line in about 2001 … the last Swedish submarine came off the production line in 1996, so it's almost two decades since Sweden built a submarine.

He then accused the opposition of wanting to build a 1960s submarine.

We know now, because of a letter from Lena Erixon, the Director General of the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration, that this is not the case. In the letter—here it is for the House to have a look at—Ms Erixon talks about the fact that Sweden has been very active in the building of submarines, including building three new Swedish Gotland class submarines between 1996 and 1997, four Challenger class submarines for Singapore between 1998 and 2004, two Sodermanland class submarines for Sweden between 1997 and 2003 and another two Archer class submarines for Singapore between 2006 and 2013. One of these subs, the Gotland class, is called 'Sweden's little carrier killer', which indicates that this was a very capable submarine built at the time. There have been numerous articles about the Swedish submarines and, of course, the Swedes had an intimate involvement with the Collins class submarine. Interestingly enough, the Japanese submarine uses propulsion systems that are Swedish designed, and they have licensed Kawasaki Heavy Industries to build them in Japan. This is Swedish technology in a Japanese sub.

You might wonder why the Prime Minister is so enamoured by Japanese-built submarines, and I think we have to take into account the record of defence exports. Sweden, quite clearly, has a very sophisticated record of exporting submarines, including to our region. Japan has no record at all of exporting defence exports. It has not done any defence exports since 1976, when the then Japanese government outlawed it. Prior to that, there were very, very limited exports from Japan, little more than side-arms. So there is no record of defence exports from Japan. Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution severely curtails any exports that can be done by the government. It takes a two-thirds majority of the Japanese parliament to change that. What is more, there is a very, very strong pacifist constituency in Japan, for good reason given the experiences during the war.

We need to be very clear about the facts of this case—the facts of the companies and nations bidding for the submarine work. We cannot afford a Prime Minister who is not dealing with facts, either in this House or when he is undertaking these bid processes. We need a process that values a proper Defence procurement process and gets the right capability for Australia, based on the facts.

Mr HOGAN (Page) (19:35): Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, I am sure you are very aware, even though you are a Queenslander, that on Saturday week there will be an election in New South Wales—and a very important election, as they all are. We only have to go back four years and we can all remember the state of New South Wales after Labor had been in office for 16 years. To be as kind as I could, I would have to say that at the very least they had lost their way and the state was suffering as a result. In the four years we have had now of coalition government in New South Wales, much has changed for the better of the state.

I would like to talk tonight about some of my state colleagues and what they have been doing to deliver real infrastructure and real improvements to the northern rivers of New South Wales. I will start in the state electorate of Lismore. The member there, Thomas George, has been in that seat for 16 years—a very loved and very popular local MP. I will not run through them all because I would not be able to do it in five minutes, but I will run through some of the major commitments that the coalition and the state Nationals in my region are making at this election. Thomas George has committed $180 million to stage 3B of the Lismore Base Hospital. This is going to be a complete refurbishment, there will be extra beds and it will bring the Lismore Base Hospital up to a wonderful standard. He is also committing money to a multipurpose health centre at Bonalbo, which is going to be very important to the Bonalbo community, and he is making many other commitments in relation to roads and infrastructure around the electorate.

The candidate in Ballina is Kris Beavis. Kris was previously the CEO of the Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service, and also the president of the Ballina surf lifesaving club. He is a great candidate for us. I would not be able to run through all the commitments that he has made, but they include $50 million to a new super school in Ballina, which crosses a few electorate boundaries. They are also making a commitment to apply—there is a $50 million pot—to build rail trails in New South Wales. The rail trail that is proposed in the Northern Rivers would start in Casino and work its way through Lismore, Byron Bay and up to Murwillumbah. This will bring a whole new tourist dollar to the Northern Rivers. It would also, obviously, have a lot of spin-offs with other cottage industries along the trail. It is a very exciting proposal and, again, would be a great piece of new tourism infrastructure for our region.

The other state electorate that fits within Page is Clarence. The member there, Chris Gulaptis, who is a good man, has made some amazing infrastructure commitments on behalf of the state Nationals. He has made a commitment of $150-odd million for a new bridge in Grafton, which is an exceptionally important piece of infrastructure for Grafton that they have been waiting for for many years; and also, millions of dollars to build a new HealthOne precinct at Coraki after the previous Labor government closed the hospital there.

They are just a sample of some of the election commitments. The state Nationals also made sure that Essential Energy, which is the energy provider in our region, would not be leased but would stay in state ownership. They have secured the public ownership of the electricity supplier but have made sure that they have got some of the money by leasing some of the city poles and wires. They are also helping us with a 20 per cent contribution to the Pacific Highway upgrade, a major piece of infrastructure in our region. That is a $7 billion commitment by both governments. We are funding that with over $5 billion and their contribution is just a little short of $2 billion—again, a major contribution there from the state government.

We are all very aware that infrastructure is important. The state Nationals in this election campaign are certainly doing that. I would also like to make the comment that CSG is a very hot issue in that part of the world. I would just make the point that the previous state government issued the licences. The coalition government has suspended Metgasco's licence in our region and purchased back others.

Mr BYRNE (Holt) (19:40): Last month I was delighted to make my way down to the Little India cultural precinct in Foster Street, Dandenong to meet with two well-known and respected community advocates, Manoj Kumar and Kaushaliya Vaghela, at this wonderful Indian and South Asian precinct. We met to discuss the future of this precinct.

Little India is a quintessential Australian success story—a story of a wonderful migrant community that has transformed the face of Dandenong. It is a transformation driven by a community, the Indian community, which has made a profound contribution to the country. According to the 2011 census, Indian Australians make up around 1.9 per cent of the Australian population, totalling about 391,000 Indian Australians by ancestry; and 111,700 Indian Australians are living in Victoria, with many visiting Little India on a regular basis.

The history of Foster Street is really one of transformation by this dynamic community, who have literally transformed the face of the City of Greater Dandenong. I would like to briefly touch on the history of Foster Street, now branded as the Little India precinct in Dandenong. The first important stage in the transformation was in 1980, when the first Indian grocery and video shop was established in Mason Street. It subsequently relocated to Foster Street. The Punjab Indian sweet shop followed by opening on Mason Street, and in 1994 the first sari clothing shop, Roshan's Fashion, opened in Foster Street. However, over 30 shops in the precinct were vacant at the time due to the 1990s recession.

Roshan's sari shop was the start of the transformation of the street that brought life back to the area. Foster Street is the gateway to Dandenong, given its close proximity to the station and bus interchange. It is now filled with lively and colourful shops. There are approximately 37 shops in Little India, featuring specialty goods from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Fiji, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Mauritius, the Middle East and Africa.

People from all backgrounds come from far and wide to enjoy and experience the vibrancy of this wonderful precinct. Fashion outlets with beaded saris, children's clothes and one-of-a-kind jewellery pieces are popular with shoppers here. Little India has an array of stores selling Bollywood movies and music as well as restaurants and grocers serving a wonderful array of Punjabi sweets, authentic spices and delicious meals.

In a recent survey conducted by the Federation of Indian Associations of Victoria, it was found that within a 20-kilometre radius of Little India in Dandenong, there are approximately 85,000 persons of Indian descent. This area has the highest number of specialty Indian shops, mostly contained within the precinct. The Dandenong Market also houses traders selling vegetables and spices traditionally used in Indian cooking that allow the population to feel a little closer to home.

In 2007, the Dandenong council noted the economic activity in Foster Street and, recognising the value of the area, named it the Little India precinct. Council promoted this precinct by running Little India cultural tours as well as providing distinctive signage and advertising.

Little India has also participated collectively in food and wine festivals, and visitors have been brought in by bus from various locations in Melbourne. It has featured in promotions supported by the council and on TV shows such as Postcards and Coxy's Big Break. It has also been written about in The Age newspaper, which compared the eclectic Foster Street charm with a new Brunswick, Lygon Street or Acland Street. That says a lot about the vibrancy of this particular street.

However, due to recent acquisitions by VicUrban of buildings surrounding this precinct, the Foster Street traders association and the Little India traders are fearful about the future of this unique precinct. Little India is an Australian success story. We should do everything we can and I will do everything I can to protect this precinct on behalf of the Indian and South Asian Australians and make it a better future for all to enjoy its charms.

In the time remaining I would just like to say that the Indian community has been an amazing community, particularly in the region that I represent. We recently had the Moomba Festival where Labour Day Bollywood star Pallavi Sharda was named one of the Moomba monarchs in order to strengthen ties with the Indian community in Melbourne. There is certainly a lot of two-way trade and a growing relationship between our two countries, augmented by the great number of Indian Australians in our community.

I was there recently to celebrate one of their great days, Holi. It showed the best of Indian culture. The Indian community has much to be proud of, but I will do what I can in this place to protect this great precinct, the Little India Precinct, in Foster Street, Dandenong. (Time expired)

Mr O'DOWD (Flynn) (19:45): The coastal shipping trade in Australia has been in trouble for some time. Let me explain. While there has been a dramatic increase of 57 per cent in total Australian freight over the past decade, during this period shipping's share of national freight fell from 27 per cent to 17 per cent.

The number of major Australian registered ships with licences to move coastal freight fell, from 30 to just 13, during the six years that Labor was in power. And there was also a 2.4 per cent decline each year in the total weight of coastal freight in the five-year period, from 2008 to 2013, under Labor. It is disgraceful to see the decline of such an important industry.

Coastal shipping moves vital cargoes, including coal, petroleum products, LPG and, particularly in Queensland, fertilizer supplies. Gladstone Port, in my electorate, is an important port for cement and aluminium shipping. The Coastal Trading Act, put in place by the former Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, in 2012, has really sickened the whole trade.

The act was supposed to tighten restrictions on foreign ships operating in Australian waters. Did this happen? No. It has, instead, damaged the domestic shipping industry in Australia. Ships are being held idle at ports for a day before loading and it is costing domestic vessels twice as much as foreign vessels. The Maritime Union claim that this is not true but, because of this regulation, there have been rate hikes across the industry. Tasmanian company Bell Bay Aluminium has reported a rate increase of more than $11 per tonne, or 63 per cent, when transporting from Queensland to Tasmania.

The Maritime Union also claims that there has been increased activity since the act was implemented, but that is not right, either. Shipping capacity has fallen by 64 per cent between 2012 and 2014. There have been 1,000 fewer journeys since this reform was passed and, as a result, hundreds of jobs have been lost. We told the minister so at the time that this bill came in! There have also been disastrous flow-on effects to other industries on land. The jobs of some 90,000 Australian workers employed in the manufacturing sectors using coastal shipping, including oil refining, steel and aluminium production, are at risk.

There is more congestion on our roads as a result of the ships slowing down and this is all putting pressure back on our road system and of course driving up costs. And the increased usage of our infrastructure is quickly wearing out our roads. Shipping rates are imposing excessively high cost on business. Currently, an Australian ship can cost around $5 million a year more than a foreign ship of similar capacity on the same routes. That of course is hurting jobs and affecting our manufacturing industries.

But I am pleased that our government is trying to fix the mess that Labor created. But how do you unscramble an egg? We are now doing something to remove the red tape imposed, which will help the industry and improve the shipping trade. It will create more jobs and it will go some way to reviving the coastal shipping trade in this country. The task is ahead of us.

It is good news for my electorate in Gladstone if we can keep these costs down and get the ships moving, because we are in a competitive world. We are a global trade and we must be competitive along with the other countries which have an advantage over us with cheaper shipping rates.

Labor came in. They replaced a system that was 100 years old. But do you know what? It worked. Since 2012 the whole industry has been hurting. I think it is up to those people on the other side to help us restore the faith in coastal shipping.

Ms BURKE (Chisholm) (19:50):    I rise to draw attention to the increasing rate of unemployment in my electorate of Chisholm, which has seen a dramatic rise in joblessness over the last 12 months, something I have not seen in my time in this parliament, which is coming up to almost 17 years.

The release of the Small area labour markets report for the September quarter shows a sharp rise of unemployment in the suburbs of Burwood, Box Hill, Box Hill North and Blackburn South in my electorate. All suburbs, which have traditionally enjoyed high levels of employment, are now all markedly above the national average unemployment rate of 6.3 per cent.

Burwood is now at 10.2 per cent unemployment, up from 7.4 per cent a year ago; Box Hill is also at 10.2 per cent, up 2.9 per cent from a year ago; Box Hill North is at 8.6 per cent, an increase of 2.4 per cent; and Blackburn South is only slightly better, at 7.8 per cent, which is still a two per cent rise since 2013. As I have said, these are the highest rates I have ever seen in my time in this parliament.

It is quite obvious that over the course of the first year of the Abbott government and coming off the back of four years of a state Liberal government, which cut services and funding to health and hospital jobs in these suburbs, these suburbs have taken a battering. In all these suburbs, workers are predominately professionals, clerical and administrative workers, managers and technicians, and they predominantly work in school education, tertiary education, scientific research and our hospitals. These are areas which are extremely sensitive to government cuts. They are areas which have both been subject to savage cuts and funding uncertainty at the hands of the former Liberal government and a horrendous, unfair budget produced by the worst Treasurer in Australia's history.

In government, the Baillieu-Napthine government cut $826 million from Victorian hospitals and, in the Treasurer's horror budget, those opposite have cut a further $277 million from our hospitals. In my electorate there are two of the largest hospitals in Victoria—indeed, in Australia—Monash Medical Centre at Clayton and Box Hill Hospital in Box Hill. Both have undergone major refurbishments and rebuilds in the last few, and I want to thank all levels of government for supporting those. But what we have seen, even though we have now got substantially larger hospitals servicing large demographics—not just my electorate but huge catchment areas are coming into them; indeed, people from interstate travel to these hospitals—is massive job cuts. So whilst I have got a state-of-the-art hospital in Box Hill, there are actually floors of wards of beds that are currently empty. It is a Yes Minister experience because they cannot staff them. They are not open. They look beautiful, but they are not open.

These cuts not only dramatically disadvantage patients, they are also putting people out of work. These are people with mortgages, people with bills to pay and children to educate. My electorate is a very expensive place to live. You do not buy a house for under $1 million in my electorate. These people are relying on hefty salaries and amounts of money just to survive, day-in day-out. The Victorian Liberals cut $600 million from Victoria's schools. They cut $300 million from TAFE, and the Abbott government has ripped away all the funding from years 5 and 6 of the Gonski reforms, denying $7 billion to schools across the country, having a devastating impact upon my electorate, which is home to Box Hill TAFE, a world renowned, leading institution. It has seen jobs lost and cuts to services and reduction in courses. This has an absolute ripple effect, not only to those people in the jobs but to the ability to educate future generations. Again, in my electorate, Deakin University and Monash University have enormous amounts of students and enormous amounts of staff and one of the largest CSIRO premises, in Clayton in my electorate, where we have seen massive job losses. Not only have people lost their jobs but, again, skills and training for the future are gone.

These decisions are harming our schools. They are harming our hospitals. They are killing jobs and they are destroying our future prospects. I am deeply concerned that this government has no plan to stem the losses. Indeed, we saw that one of issues that turfed the Baillieu-Napthine Liberal government out of Victoria was that there was no plan for jobs and no plan for job creation. What happens when the car industry shuts down in Victoria? There is nothing on the horizon, and we will see from the next budget more unfair cuts, less money invested in critical services and more jobs losses in my electorate and other communities.

Mr ENTSCH (Leichhardt) (19:55): In this adjournment this evening, I would like to welcome the environment minister's announcement this week that there will be zero capital disposal anywhere in the entire Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. The ban will be put into law through regulation and will apply to all applications for capital dredge disposal in the marine park, whether past, present or future. The Greens and Labor pretend that they are the only ones that care about the reef. But, of course, we know that is very wrong.

Coming into government, we inherited five major proposals from Labor to dispose of dredge spoil in the marine park. We have reduced that to zero and are now putting that ban into law. This step forward is just one part of a much wider suite of measures that we have put in place to give greater legal protection to the reef than any government before us. We will not let it be listed as in danger when UNESCO meets in May. People can make comment on the new dredge ban until 27 March. They need to visit the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority's website for the details.

This is reinforcing a view that I have had for a long time on proposed dredging of the port of Cairns. It is absolutely critical that we look for a land based solution. I have certainly argued on that for a long time. I have been working on this since I was responsible for Geoscience Australia some years ago, when I convened a meeting back in May 1999 at Edmonton in a suburb south of Cairns. At the time, I released a ground-breaking report by CSIRO researchers on the acid sulphate soil crisis in East Trinity, a result of cultivation of the salt pans there in the 1960s when it was being prepared in an attempt to grow sugar cane. In a media release at the time, I said: 'The report on East Trinity reads like an absolute horror story. Every day that passes is another day when the equivalent of up to 14,300 litres of sulphuric acid pours unchecked into our Cairns inlet.'

By using dredge spoil on the 365-hectare East Trinity site, it will deliver multiple economic, social and environmental dividends. Firstly, it will stop dredging, whether it be maintenance dredging or capital dredging, from dropping into the barrier reef lagoon. Secondly, by putting it on a land base, it will contain the existing acid sulphate contamination, which is, as I say, leaking into the East Trinity site and into the barrier reef lagoon. Thirdly, it will also provide an opportunity for residential growth in the East Trinity site for some 25,000 people, and it will certainly take significant pressure off the hill slopes as we look to grow our fair city. Fourthly, it will go a long way to preventing the ribbon development which is extending to the south past Gordonvale and, in doing so, will help to protect prime agricultural land. Fifthly, it will also contain the city's footprint and, in doing so, will reduce the cost of providing infrastructure and services to the community, and it will certainly revitalise our CBD area. If it were not for the dredging activities, though, and these are important, large areas of Cairns, such of Portsmith and the airport, would not be in existence, because a lot of that was created through dredge spoil.

I welcome the support of people like Norm Whitney and Peter Senior who have really done a good job in highlighting this. Norm, in particular, has a very comprehensive knowledge of the area, in his role as the president of the Eastern Trinity Inlet Ratepayers and Residents Association. Last December, in a letter to the editor of the Cairns Post, Norm again mentioned the economic potential of a residential development and highlighted what was happening at East Trinity at the moment when he said: 'Much of the property is now overgrowth with weeds and overrun by feral pigs, crocodiles and vermin, with a large area of dead melaleuca trees.' These dead melaleuca trees were done in an attempt by a local environmental group to create an artificial wetland and, by allowing the saltwater inundation into the area, destroyed beautiful groves of melaleucas. The reality is that we can have a healthy environment and a very strong economy. The science is there. We need to have a deeper harbour and all the benefits there without making any impact on our reef.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ): Order! It being 8 pm, the debate is interrupted. The House stands adjourned until 9 am tomorrow morning.

House adjourned at 20:00