Senator HANSON (Queensland—Leader of Pauline Hanson's One Nation) (10:02): Once again I rise in this chamber, with a heavy heart, to bear witness to the demise of Australian democracy and freedom. Once again I am forced to remind this chamber of the most essential foundation for a successful, free democracy: the right to choose. Once again I am moved to lament the theft of this most fundamental human right from the Australian people by the very representatives who are charged with protecting it. And once again I am obliged to call out rogue premiers for authoritarian overreach and to call on the Prime Minister to show some leadership and rein them in.

Last week the Prime Minister said he didn't support vaccination mandates enforced by governments. He said state governments should 'step back' and let Australians 'take their lives back'. Australians have had a 'gutful', he said, and he's right—not that Steven Miles gives him any credit. This frightened little schoolboy masquerading as Queensland's Deputy Premier is so completely out of his depth that he panics whenever someone threatens Labor's complete command and control of Queensland's captive population.

The Prime Minister said people in Brisbane should be able to go and get a cup of coffee regardless of whether or not they've been vaccinated against COVID-19, but people in Brisbane can't get a cup of coffee if they haven't been vaccinated. People who call Brisbane home will not be permitted to return there from interstate next month if they haven't been vaccinated. Hospitality businesses in Brisbane will be banned from opening if they don't enforce mandates against customers who haven't been vaccinated. Many people in Brisbane, including those in critical positions in health, education, freight and law enforcement, have lost their jobs because they haven't been vaccinated. This Prime Minister has done nothing to prevent this pandemic of discrimination unleashed on the people of Brisbane—or anywhere else in Australia. In the Northern Territory, anyone with a job involving public interaction will lose their job and pay a $5,000 fine if they haven't been vaccinated. In South Australia, every adult who works or volunteers at a school won't be able to do so if they haven't been vaccinated.

State governments are relishing this extraordinary power to command and control the people they are supposed to serve. They're desperate to keep this power for as long as they can. They've ignored the Prime Minister's national plan and the decision of the national cabinet. The Victorian government relishes this power so much they're trying to permanently enshrine it in law, giving the Premier unprecedented authority to act like a dictator—and still the Prime Minister has done nothing to stop this discrimination.

These vaccines were rushed. Their long-term effects are unknown. The Therapeutic Goods Administration has recorded more than 77,000 adverse reactions to the vaccines, including more than 600 deaths. We are part of a grand experiment. Australia is now a continental Petri dish, and those Australians who exercise their right to refuse this experimentation on their bodies face a bleak future as second-class citizens.

What isn't experimental and what has been shown to be highly effective in treating COVID-19 is a medication called ivermectin. It's been in use for more than 40 years, during which time 3½ billion doses have been administered by doctors, with no ill effects. Last year when data emerged on its effectiveness against COVID-19 and Australian doctors screamed for permission to use ivermectin to treat patients, the authorities just banned it—and still the Prime Minister did nothing. No; all the Prime Minister has done is let state governments get away with a grab for power, leaving his national road map and his authority in tatters.

The cost to our economy has been staggering, but it is the cost to our democracy and our freedom which is even more concerning. One Nation will not stand by and witness the demise of Australian democracy and freedom without a fight. We don't do this lightly. We do it with sincere regret that such legislation is even necessary. But make no mistake: it is not only necessary but absolutely vital that Australians' right to choose is protected from the vaccine discrimination running rampant across this country. You might not agree with the choices that the Australian people make, but that doesn't mean the right to choose should be stolen from them.

Senators here are on notice. If you don't support my legislation then you don't support Australian democracy and freedom and you don't support the right to choose. If you don't support my legislation, you are saying to Australians that their rights will be protected only so long as they do not conflict with the state.

Australia is a democracy. It's one of the most successful in the world. We are not here to wield power against the Australian people. We are here to wield the power of the Australian people. We have no right to take away their rights. We are charged with protecting their rights. It is in this spirit that One Nation has introduced the COVID-19 Vaccination Status (Prevention of Discrimination) Bill 2021. This legislation is urgently needed to arrest and reverse the pandemic of discrimination which has been unleashed on the Australian people.

I'd like to relay the words of a doctor, an expert in immunology, who has taken the risk of speaking to me about his concerns about the COVID-19 vaccines: 'I am angry and frustrated at coercive vaccine mandates healthcare workers now face. After two years of sacrificing everything, we have to care for COVID patients at risk to ourselves and our families. We are now being stood down across the country for simply asking to have a choice, even in our health, a topic we alone are experts in. A recent Lancet study shows that vaccination alone is not sufficient to prevent the transmission of the delta variant. This means that both vaccinated and unvaccinated are as contagious as each other. There's no evidence proving that unvaccinated healthcare workers pose an additional risk. Many of my colleagues are alarmed at the failure of Australia's COVID response to deal with the critical issues of informed consent and COVID prevention. We are further alarmed at the censorship of early treatment options. These failures cause direct patient harm, leading to further vaccine hesitancy and forcing doctors to break their Hippocratic oath.'

He goes on: 'Following the position statement by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency on COVID-19 vaccination, several of my colleagues have been threatened with the loss of their registration for simply and honestly discussing vaccine hesitation with their patients. Most of the more educated among my colleagues—the experts in their field—are in fact the most vaccine hesitant group in Australian society. As the health minister, Greg Hunt, said, "The world is engaged in the largest clinical trial, the largest global vaccination trial, ever." Australian patients need to know this. Trials like these must provide long-term data in order to prove safety. How is it possible, in less than two years, by the definition of informed consent, that doctors cannot and are not able to accurately weigh the risks of COVID vaccines without long-term data? We have no way of knowing if these vaccines will cause future autoimmune injuries, which only present months to years after vaccination. The government and media have placed doctors in an impossible position. The public have been told to speak to their doctors if they have concerns about the vaccine, but, due to the AHPRA's gag orders, those doctors are not allowed to deviate from the current narrative for fear of losing their licence to practice. How can doctors possibly inform patients' consent and overcome hesitancy when we're gagged and have no long-term data? This is not informed consent. At best, it is manufactured consent; at worst, it is coercion.'

These are the same doctors who, when we were hit with COVID last year and there were no vaccinations, were on the front line, working in the hospitals beside the nurses. They put their lives on the line when we did not know what course this pandemic would actually take. Now they are treated like criminals. They can't go into hospitals. In Rockhampton Hospital, there are shifts for which no doctor is available, because they won't allow unvaccinated doctors to attend. We are on the verge of dividing our nation and people because of differences of opinion.

As the doctor said, they have been gagged. They are in fear of losing their licence or getting a heavy fine. This is not Australia—people being gagged this way. The whole debate on the issue has been stopped. The media cannot put across anyone who has a different opinion and wants to debate this. This is the only place we can do it—on the floor of parliament. Hence my stance with regards to this vaccination: people have a right to actually choose whether they want to have this vaccination or not.

As I have said quite clearly, under section 51(xxiiiA) of the Constitution, the Prime Minister cannot impose mandatory vaccination on the people. That is what he has said, because it's true; he can't do it. If we actually go back to the signing of the Constitution, in 1901, all the states agreed to the Constitution. They signed off on it. Therefore it is arguable that, if it were challenged in a court of law, the Australian Constitution should override state laws and rein in these premiers, who are wielding their power and forcing people to have this vaccination against their will.

Also, under section 109 of the Australian Constitution, if you have two conflicting laws the federal law will override the state law—hence my bill. If these politicians really care for the freedom and the rights of the people of this nation, they will support this legislation. It states that you cannot force mandatory vaccination. It's exactly what the Prime Minister is stating—no forced mandatory vaccination. It will also stop the discrimination against people in this nation who are being stopped from going into pubs, clubs and even hospitals. They're saying now that you cannot go into a hospital unless you have proven that you have been vaccinated. What is our country coming to?

To those people out there saying: 'Get on with it; just get the vaccination. It's alright. Don't worry about it'—no, it's not alright. If you allow these states, these premiers, to have the power over you and your rights, what will be next? Are they going to say that, because you don't work or pay taxes in this nation, you are not going to have the right to vote? Are they going to say, because we have a crisis in housing, that, just because you have so many bedrooms in your house that you don't use, you're going to have to downsize or open up your house to other people? This could lead to anything being under the control of the premiers.

This is nothing but a political stunt because we're coming into a federal election. Look at the three states: the premiers are all Labor. This is what Labor is doing to actually undermine the Morrison government, so they are seen as weak. And I will say that the Prime Minister is weak because he said there should not be vaccine mandates—well, do something about it. I'm also saying, if the Prime Minister is not happy with my bill, change it. You have the Solicitor-General and you have means to do it, to make changes that will give the people back their rights and their freedoms in this nation. Why do you think so many people have protested on the streets of this nation? A lot of these people are not ratbags; they're not idiots. The media and the premiers are trying to say that they are extremists. They're not extremists, they're everyday Australians. They could be your mother, your sister, your father, your cousins, your neighbours. You know they're not extremists. These are people that have had a gutful—they've had enough—and I can't blame them because so have I. And I thank from the bottom of my heart my colleague Malcolm Roberts for standing strong with me on this.

I know, because the Prime Minister has told me, that they don't intend to support this bill, and neither does the Labor Party. How weak and gutless they are, and so are the Greens. The fact is that the Labor Party are supposed to be there for the workers. They say that they're standing up for the blue-collar workers. These are the police, the nurses, the ambulance drivers that are your voters and they're screaming out, 'Help us.' That's why we've got 7,000 nurses in Queensland, 7,000 nurses in South Australia and nurses right across the country who are refusing to have this vaccination. Why? They are not anti-vaxxers. Remember that under the states' standards for their profession, previously they've had to have all the other vaccinations. Why are they hesitant about this one? I'll tell you why: it's because they've seen the adverse side effects in people now coming into hospital that have had the vaccinations. That's why they don't want it. They're not anti-vaxxers, but they know that they want to have good health for the rest of their lives, and there's no-one that can guarantee that. No-one in the world can guarantee it because we don't know the long-term effects of having COVID-19.

Australians are not against getting vaccinated. You have Petrovsky in South Australia. He's inventing a vaccine that's protein based. Why aren't we taking it up? Why is the TGA slamming doors in his face? Why are we supporting Pfizer and AstraZeneca, which are making billions of dollars out of this? No, I don't believe that this is right and I wish the Prime Minister would stand up with the people and be the leader of this nation, because that's what they want. For those members of parliament who are going to cross the floor and support this bill today, I say thank you and so do the Australian people. But I intend to show up the rest of you who are too bloody gutless to stand up for the rights of the people of Australia. I hope they have their say at the next election and throw you out on your ear. This is about the people's rights and their freedoms, and I will fight to the death for them for that reason. I thank the doctor for his words as well. (Time expired)

Senator CANAVAN (Queensland—Deputy Leader of the Nationals in the Senate) (10:17): I rise to support the COVID-19 Vaccination Status (Prevention of Discrimination) Bill 2021, which aims to end unfair, cruel, unnecessary and un-Australian vaccine mandates on the Australian people. You should not need to undergo a medical procedure to earn a living. Everybody should have the right to work and provide for their family, and no government in this free country that I was born in has the right to take away people's right to work and provide for their family. Yet that is what we see a variety of state governments doing across the country. People are being forced to choose between having a medical procedure and keeping their business, keeping their job and, ultimately, keeping their house. I thought I was born in a free country, and a lot of other Australians thought they were too. A lot of Australians respect the sacrifice that previous generations of Australians put in for us to have that right. But those rights are being stripped away from us and will be denied to our children unless we stand up against this tyranny. In the last week, since the Queensland government announced its vaccine mandates, I have been inundated with calls from small businesses and workers who are at their wits' end because they don't know how they are going to provide for their family. They do not know how they're going to put bread on the table next year.

I've always said that coronavirus is a serious thing. We've had to take serious action. The businesses that are calling me have sacrificed. They've willingly shut their doors. They went through cash-flow problems last year to lock down and protect people, but they never thought that their government would turn around after all that and put them out on the street. But that is what is happening. There's a coffee shop in Rockhampton where half the staff are not vaccinated and don't want to be. The owner himself is not vaccinated. He might have to shut his doors in a month's time. His wife is currently pregnant and doesn't want to be vaccinated. She is being told that she can't go to antenatal classes while not vaccinated. What the hell happened to 'My body, my choice'? Why are we making pregnant women undergo a medical procedure that they don't want to have? That is what these laws are doing.

Last year, nurses put themselves on the front line. Now we're saying, 'Thanks for your service; you're out.' There's no leave without pay and no payout of their terms. They're just gone. Apparently, over the past month, 4,000 nurses have walked off the job in Queensland due to the mandate, or they've said it's due to the mandate. They're the ones we know of. There are probably more. That's five per cent of the health workforce in Queensland. Apparently, we're doing this to protect the hospital system, but we're losing five per cent or so of our health workforce. The hospital system is already stretched. There is already a situation where people sometimes can't get a bed. How will these policies deliver their objectives when 5,000 workers in our health system have walked off the job in Queensland over the past month?

I don't support these mandates, and I don't support this legislation—because vaccination mandates don't work. I am vaccinated. I support the vaccination rollout. I encourage others to be vaccinated. It protects us from the severe disease that COVID can inflict. But these vaccines do not seem to be doing a good job at stopping transmission. Therefore, there is no justification for taking the choice away from others, because it is not going to work. For those who support vaccine mandates in this place, name one country where vaccine passports are working. Just one. There are lots of countries doing it. We're in the lucky position in Australia where we have not had widespread coronavirus. We have seen lots of other examples of what other countries have done and what they are doing in response to it, such as lockdowns and Sweden's approach, and a lot of countries have introduced vaccine passports and vaccine mandates. For the advocates of vaccine mandates, an incredibly authoritarian policy that strips rights off people: can they name just one country where the vaccine passports have helped stop the spread of coronavirus? Just one. There are none!

Senator McMahon interjecting—

Senator CANAVAN: Senator McMahon is right. There are none. Let's go through a few examples. Austria is experiencing more than 10,000 cases a day—a record. They have vaccine passports. Bulgaria is experiencing nearly 5,000 cases a day, which is a record. They have vaccine passports. The Czech Republic is experiencing 10,000 cases a day, which is just below their previous record of 12,000 cases a day. They have vaccine passports. France is experiencing massive numbers of coronavirus cases. They've introduced vaccine passports. Serbia is experiencing 7,500 cases a day. That's a record. They have vaccine passports. Germany has 40,000 cases a day, almost double their previous record. They're introducing vaccine passports. The Netherlands and Switzerland are in the same boat. Vaccine passports simply do not work. They are a failed policy that we should walk away from before this gets any worse for all of us. Let's walk away from these mandates before we inflict more pain on everybody.

I want to deal with the issue of whether this is the Commonwealth government's responsibility. That's a fair point. These mandates have been put in place by state governments and are no doubt within the purview of state governments with their constitutional power over public health. There's no doubt about that. The Commonwealth government obviously does have powers to override the states from time to time. Indeed, the Constitution says that, where a law at the Commonwealth level conflicts with the state government law, the Commonwealth government law will prevail. The question is: can we legislate in this area? This legislation uses a variety of powers that the Commonwealth government has, like the corporations power, which the High Court has established as one with significant reach and which we apply in many different areas such as environmental policy and industrial relations policy. There's no doubt that it could be applied in public health policy too. But, more importantly, given the rights we are talking about, this bill uses the Commonwealth government's international treaties powers that have also been backed up by High Court rulings that we have the right to make laws that enforce treaties. Where does the treaty come from in this instance that gives us this power? We are a signatory to International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and I'll refer to the Australian government's Attorney-General's website, which says:

The right to work includes the right of everyone to the opportunity to gain his or her living by work which he or she freely chooses or accepts.

It goes on to say:

Where does the right to work and rights in work come from?

Australia is a party to seven core international human rights treaties. The right to work and rights in work is contained in articles 6(1), 7 and 8(1)(a) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

We clearly have the power to enforce these basic rights across Australia, because that is clearly a job of the federal government to enforce human rights in this country. They are basic rights that should be available to every Australian citizen, regardless of where they live, where they are born or whether they are born overseas. It is a birth right of anyone in this country to have the right to work. We have signed up to that and we should implement and stand by that by overriding these unfair, unethical and cruel state government mandates.

In saying that, I think this bill has the power to do these things. I would make some amendments to this legislation. I think it's important to note that this legislation has its origins in a bill that, in the other place, Mr Craig Kelly and Mr George Christensen drafted. Senator Hanson has made some changes. She's changed the approach in that bill from vaccine passports to discrimination, but the basic structure remains the same. I think it is worthy of some amendments. I will support this bill regardless of whether those amendments are accepted or not, but I do think that the Australian government should retain the power of deciding who comes to this country and whether they're vaccinated or not. That was something in the original Kelly/Christensen bill that I would seek to reinsert. I think that we need to look at exceptions in high-risk situations such as aged-care centres and COVID wards in hospitals where perhaps a requirement for vaccination would reduce risk in those situations.

My amendments would ensure that any such exceptions are very narrowly targeted and don't otherwise impinge on someone's rights to work and make a living. For example, in a hospital, if someone doesn't want to be vaccinated that may mean they will not be able to work in the COVID ward. However, hospitals are big places and they will surely be able to find other work for those people. My principle here is that we should respect each other as Australians and respect each other's choices. If someone wants to make a different choice to me, I don't want to make their life miserable, unlike the head of the Queensland medical association when remarkably the other day he said anyone unvaccinated will be lonely and miserable. What an inhumane thing to say about a fellow Australian. I don't want to take anymore lectures from the Labor Party about compassion, refugees or people's rights to work because the Labor Party are not standing by the unions. They're not standing by the CFMEU who are fighting BHP at the moment on vaccine mandates. I am: I'm standing with the CFMEU. I support their case. I'm against big business telling people what to do, but the Labor Party here are not supporting the labourers of this country who just want to work and provide for their families. They have deserted them and, worse, they are vilifying them.

We had the spectacle last week of the Deputy Premier of Queensland, Steven Miles, saying that those people out there protesting are the fringe elements of society—that's what he said. We saw hundreds of thousands of Australians out there on the weekend. Thus far I've seen just one arrest in the whole protest—and the police in Victoria said that that was actually unrelated to the protest. These have been the most peaceful large-scale protests we have ever seen in this country. Then we have the Deputy Premier out there saying to average men and women in this country who just want to work that they are fringe elements. That's the contempt that the modern Labor Party has for the average working man and woman in this country. Mr Daniel Andrews, the Premier of Victoria, is out there saying that they're radical extremists, all these people who just want to work, to own a business, to run a coffee shop. You're a radical extremist now, according to the Victorian Labor Premier. That's how you've been labelled. Well, this division has to end, and passing this legislation would be a strike for unity in this country, a strike against further division.

I fear what's going to happen next year. I didn't think we'd end up in this place. When COVID first hit last year, I supported the lockdowns. I thought we were all in this together. Remember that? Remember when we were all in this together? That was a long time ago. Now we're dividing our community, segmenting them up, segregating ourselves, based on the politics of fear. If we do not end this here, what will be next, next year? As I said, the passports aren't going to stop COVID. We know that. Everybody here knows that. They may not express it, but they know that the passports aren't going to end COVID. We will have outbreaks next year. We will have high vaccination rates—that's clear—but we will have outbreaks. What will happen then? If I know governments well, I don't think they're going to get up in March next year and say: 'Sorry about these record coronavirus cases. We were at fault. We were wrong about the passports. That was our fault. Mea culpa.' That's not what governments will do. They will double down and they will blame the unvaccinated even more. They'll seek to blame someone. They'll seek to say, 'These outbreaks are all because of the unvaccinated,' when it's clearly not true. It can't be statistically true in this country, because there are not enough unvaccinated people to have these spreads. But that's what they'll do, and it will further divide our society.

And then what will happen? Then they'll say: 'We've got to have all the kids vaccinated. They've all got to line up.' I'm on the front lines of this battle, because that's where I draw the line. I am not ever going to support governments forcing children to get these vaccines, but that is where we are headed unless we put a stop to this now. That's what they will do. That's what governments will do. When these clearly failed policies fail, then they'll seek to say: 'Let's go after the kids. We've got to vaccinate them too.' There is no justification for that in health terms. The Doherty modelling itself clearly shows that vaccinating children has almost no effect on coronavirus spreads. But that won't matter. There will be new health advice from the failed and hopeless medical associations of this country, who continue to say that opening up will cause massive lockdowns and then are massively wrong. These people should have no credibility now. We need to restore freedom in this country and let every Australian choose. I trust the Australian people to make the right decisions. I trust the Australian people to be the masters of their own health care. I trust Australians to look after their own families. I trust Australians to work and cooperate and do business with each other without the heavy hand of government being over them all the time.

Senator KENEALLY (New South Wales—Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (10:32): Labor supports vaccine mandates where they are guided by public health advice. That is because we want to see as many people as possible vaccinated as soon as possible, to keep Australian businesses open and keep all Australians safe, including Australian workers. We do not want more lockdowns. What we need right now, what Australians are calling out for, is leadership from the national government, and especially from the Prime Minister, on this issue. Instead, what do we have? We have the bungled vaccine rollout—a Prime Minister who forgot to order vaccines, who lied when he said we were at the front of the queue. We were at the back of the queue. We had a disastrous, tragic third outbreak that saw hundreds of people die. That is what happens when people are not vaccinated. They get sick and they die. Lives and livelihoods are lost. Instead, what do we have? We have a Prime Minister who is dog whistling to extremists who drag around gallows in protests, calling for state premiers to be hanged. This is un-Australian, yet the Australian Prime Minister cannot call it out, cannot unequivocally condemn it.

The fact of the matter is: we are debating this bill this morning because the government have given up their time to One Nation. They have jettisoned Senator McMahon's bill. They have jettisoned Senator McKenzie's bill. Instead, we are debating Senator Hanson's bill, and the government has made that deliberate decision because the Prime Minister is pandering to these extremist elements. Let's understand why he is pandering. Let us understand this. As Senator Pauline Hanson said:

In the Senate, I hold two of the three votes the government needs to pass their legislation …

So I have the deciding factor what happens, in the Senate.

I will not be supporting or voting for any government legislation, from here on in, until we get my private members bill up.

That is what we are doing here today. The Prime Minister has made sure we don't get to talk about Senator McMahon's bill and we don't get to talk about Senator McKenzie's bill. We get to talk about Senator Hanson's bill because he is giving a wink and a nod and a dog whistle to extremist elements. The same Prime Minister who can't call out and unequivocally condemn threats of violence and assassination against elected leaders in this country is here today allowing these same extremist elements to run the same arguments.

It's another example of this Prime Minister seeking to divide Australians rather than unite them, seeing to undermine the tremendous progress we have made as a country. We are all in this together. People have come together. People have worked hard to ensure that they can get access to the vaccine, that people understand the benefits of the vaccine and, yes, where it's guided by health advice, that we have mandates for a vaccine, to keep all of us safe. We are yet to reach 80 per cent double-dose rates for eligible people in Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. In many vulnerable communities, vaccine coverage is much lower than that. Prime Minister, now is not the time to be sending mixed messages on the importance of getting vaccinated. So I say to the chamber today that Labor condemns—without reservation, without qualification—the violent threats being made by antivaccination protesters, even if the Prime Minister won't do it.

We live in a society, in a community, and that means we have obligations to one another. We have obligations to one another to tame this virus, to look out for one another and to keep each other safe. The Prime Minister is trying to divide us. He is trying to diminish that collective effort and undermine all of that good and all of that progress that Australians have made together, and he's doing it with dangerous dog whistling—with the doublespeak that we hear from him. He is claiming credit for the high vaccination rates without taking responsibility for the measures that got us here.

What makes this especially troubling is that, for mainstream Australians, for ordinary Australians, we see the kind of violent politics that played out in the United States over the last couple of years and exploded in the January Capitol Hill riots and we reject it. Mainstream Australians reject it, but the Prime Minister seems to want to give it a wink and a nod to curry favour with people with those types of violent views and violent threats.

We know that there are government members and senators who prefer this division and who are spreading vaccine misinformation. Senator Rennick has been a relentless person in this space with his efforts to undermine the nation's vaccine rollout with antivax content. For months, Senator Rennick has been pursuing an agenda to undermine the vaccine rollout. Senator Rennick is the one running scare campaigns on social media pages. As reported in the New Daily this morning, Senator Rennick has set up a taxpayer funded website to publish unverified reports of alleged vaccine adverse events and has claimed there is a government cover-up of the side effects. Senator Rennick tries to pretend that he's not actually a member of the government! The opposition condemns Senator Rennick's actions, as does the Australian Medical Association vice president, Dr Chris Moy, who has called Senator Rennick's posts 'about as antiscientific as you can get'.

Just this morning, Senator Canavan tweeted against workplace vaccination mandates, a position in direct opposition to his own government's mandate for aged-care workers. Then there is Senator Antic, who's undermining the vaccine rollout and feeding these dangerous protests by saying: 'Australians are being coerced into taking COVID vaccinations.' Australians are not being discriminated against and coerced. It is their choice whether or not to be vaccinated.

Of course, we cannot forget the member for Dawson, who has undermined health advice throughout this pandemic by promoting ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment, which the TGA has banned for COVID treatment, because:

… there are a number of significant public health risks associated with taking ivermectin in an attempt to prevent COVID-19 infection rather than getting vaccinated.

The member for Dawson has also compared vaccine mandates to apartheid. Once again, we will remind the member for Dawson that the Morrison government, of which he is a member, has a vaccine mandate in place for aged-care workers.

By the way, it's not just the vaccine mandate for aged-care workers. Let's revisit some of the views of the Prime Minister from 2015. In 2015, this Prime Minister, Mr Morrison, when he was Minister for Social Services, brought in the No Jab, No Play policy:

Parents who vaccinate their children should have confidence that they can take their children to child care without the fear that their children will be at risk of contracting a serious or potentially life-threatening illness because of the conscientious objections of others.

That was the Prime Minister in 2015. His government policy is that children should be immunised. In August this year, Mr Morrison, the same Prime Minister who brought in No Jab, No Play, said that he expected the COVID-19 vaccine to be 'as mandatory as you can possibly make it'. Mr Morrison then went on to say:

There are always exemptions for any vaccine on medical grounds, but that should be the only basis.

Then this year he went on to say:

I was the minister that established 'no jab, no play'. So my view on this is pretty clear and not for turning.

Here's the thing: you've got a slippery prime minister who lies as effortlessly as he puts on his socks in the morning. Was he lying in 2015, or is he lying now? Was he lying earlier this year when he said he supported vaccine mandates or is he lying now? Is he so willing to pander to violent extremists and to threats of assassination against elected officials, premiers and members of parliament? Is he so willing to incite division, hatred and fear? Is that the path to victory that he wants? Is that the game he is playing? We are here today because he is pandering to One Nation. He is unwilling to say the things he said in 2015 and earlier this year. This is a prime minister who will say or do anything. This is a prime minister who cannot be trusted, and on this issue we are talking about the safety, the security, the lives and the livelihoods of our fellow Australians.

The nation is crying out for national leadership. If the Prime Minister of the day, Mr Morrison, is unwilling to show that leadership, is unwilling to unequivocally condemn the threats of violence and is unwilling to reject ideologically motivated violent extremism, then not only do we have an opportunity to take him out of office at the next election; indeed, Australia, we have an obligation to do so.

Senator RENNICK (Queensland) (10:44): I'd like to start today by acknowledging all the people who have suffered injuries from the vaccines. When I signed up to become a senator 2½ years ago, I signed up to protect the Australian people and, in particular, to make sure that we always look after the health and wellbeing of those people. The name of the game with health is to make sure that everyone has a good health outcome. It's not just about the vaccine rollout and reaching targets. That's a means to an end. The end, in itself, is good health for everyone. The best people to do that are the people themselves, in consultation with their doctor. We shouldn't be having mandates imposed upon people by bureaucrats, by governments or by the media.

What we have got, however, is Australians who have been injured—Australians who did the right thing, who listened to the government that said the vaccines were safe and effective—and what we've seen is that many of these victims have been scorned and ignored by the medical community. It must be particularly difficult to have an injury at the best of times, but it must be so much worse when you go to the doctor or the hospital and you don't get the attention that you need. That is why I'm speaking here today.

The reason I am withholding my vote from the government is first and foremost to improve the indemnity scheme for those people who have been injured by the vaccine. People have been injured for months now. There have been people who have been paralysed down their right-hand side, people who have had strokes, pulmonary embolisms, myocarditis, pericarditis or functional neurological disorders, and these people have been left helpless by a government who are more than happy to indemnify foreign pharmaceutical companies, many of whom are convicted felons for past misdemeanours.

We are neglecting suffering Australians. I believe that these people should be compensated for every dollar they spend as a result of vaccine injuries. The threshold should not start at $5,000. They should also be compensated for their loss of income as a result of not being able to work because of the vaccine injury. Furthermore, they need to be compensated straightaway and not have to wait for months. I know one lady who was paralysed back in June. She's been bedridden most of that time. She's had a broken ankle. She has to spend $400 a month on potassium IV injections just to keep her alive. I don't know about you, but I think that we've got an obligation to protect people who are going through such shocking medical injuries.

Furthermore, in the case of healthy people who had no underlying conditions, the onus of proof should be on the government to prove that serious injuries weren't caused by the vaccines, not the other way around. These victims should not be treated like criminals and expected to prove beyond reasonable doubt that their injury was caused by the vaccine; rather, the civil weight of evidence should be used—that is, the balance of probabilities. It would be very intimidating for someone who's sick and injured and who isn't a medical expert to go up in front of a board of lawyers and doctors, who are basically trying to talk these people out of compensation merely because the government doesn't want to do the right thing by its people. But what these people want most of all is for their voices to be heard, for their injuries to be treated with the same level of concern as a COVID patient. These people should not be shunned and scorned by the very people who are expected to care for them.

To be fair to the medical community, this is not your fault. I have heard from countless doctors, nurses and patients that backroom bureaucrats—namely AHPRA and the TGA—are threatening medical staff with deregistration if they speak up about vaccine injuries. This needs to stop. This leads to the even more egregious act that people who have suffered an adverse reaction from the first dose of the vaccine are now required to get a second shot. What kind of cruel, inhumane act is this? Seriously, what has happened to common decency and human compassion? I note that Senator Keneally used the words 'violent extremism' and 'violence' a lot in her speech. But can I say that the threat of having to take a second vaccine if you've already had an adverse reaction from the first vaccine is violence in itself. It is intolerably cruel, and it is not something I intend to walk by.

Furthermore, I don't understand why it is so necessary to force these people into getting a vaccine if we are already at 84 per cent double-vaccinated for the adult population over 16. If you'd asked the Prime Minister and the premiers last year if they would have accepted that this figure was a reasonable rate of progress and would achieve herd immunity, I'm sure they would all have said yes, so why are the premiers still pushing vaccinations so hard?

I have been contacted by thousands of people who have valid medical reasons why they can't take the vaccine. Many have even been granted exemptions by their doctors because there are reasons why they can't take a second vaccine, but they are still being excluded from society by the premiers. If a doctor says that you can't take a vaccine, and you're given an exemption, who are the premiers and the government to say to people, 'We're going to exclude you from society'? These people are already injured. Why are we shunning them? Why are we putting them down? Why are we putting the spin of the political narrative over the health and wellbeing of the Australian people? This issue is way above politics. It is about the people, and we should not be playing political games with their health.

Where there is a risk, there must be choice. This is especially so in regard to healthy people who have a very low risk of serious injury from COVID. They should be entitled to weigh up the relative risk of an injury from COVID versus an injury from the vaccine. Instead, we have had their rights and their choices taken away from them. The problem with that is that federal legislation, and the Immunisation Handbook itself, says that you cannot coerce people into taking a vaccine. Section 51(xxiiiA) of the Constitution says that you cannot conscript people into giving the vaccine, especially in regard to medical procedures. That was put into the Constitution as a result of a referendum. That's one of the very few referendums about the Constitution that has actually got up, but that only got up on the condition that people couldn't be conscripted into taking a vaccine. So we need the Prime Minister and the federal government to stand up to the state premiers. At the end of the day, whilst I am a proud Queenslander, I'm a much prouder Australian, and the last thing I want to see is the premiers tear this country apart by playing political games at the expense of people's health and at the expense of our national unity. Enough is enough.

The government overreach of the state premiers in destroying our civil liberties has gone too far. This is no longer about health but is rather about politicians wielding power for the sake of power instead of doing what they should be doing and protecting the people. To those of you who say I should not be holding the parliament to ransom, I say this: politicians should not be holding people to ransom. Politicians should not be holding people to ransom with their health. The people should not be held to ransom with their livelihoods. They should not be held to ransom by being separated from their children. They should not be held to ransom by their children being discriminated against. I've heard so many stories of upset parents who have chosen not to get their children younger than 16 vaccinated, because they want to wait and see the longitudinal data, and they know there is a low risk of children having severe adverse events, injuries, from COVID. And yet the children now have been stopped from going to school formals, attending schoolies and things like that. I just cannot believe that we are taking these mandates so far as to be holding it against the children. They have their choices restricted by their guardians—rightfully so; that's why we have things called parents and we acknowledge age of consent—but this is just another example of government overreach that has gone too far in dealing with COVID.

I'd also like to point out to my colleagues, especially my Queensland colleagues, that we have the LNP values, which are about the dignity and worth of every individual. Surely, if someone has had a serious injury from a vaccine, they have the right to say no to a second one. What type of intolerable cruelty is it that we are going to force people into possibly getting injured again? I've heard many stories of people who felt a little bit off after the first vaccine and thought it was as a result of the vaccine. They went and saw their doctor, and the doctor said: 'No. It wasn't the vaccine. You'll be right. Get the second vaccine.' And then they've had a much worse reaction the second time around. When Chantal Uren, a Western Australian police officer in Perth, went to the vaccine safety clinic, she thought she was going to get some counselling as to how to deal with her injury. Instead, the vaccine safety clinic was trying to tell her to take a second vaccine. Her health has deteriorated markedly since that meeting.

We believe in freedom of choice. We believe in freedom of conscience. We believe in free speech. We should allow people to make choices based on their own medical conditions in consultation with their doctor. I'll quote another doctor I spoke to last week, who said, 'We're now in this upside-down world where the doctors and nurses are being gagged and all the unqualified experts, politicians'—myself included—'the media and celebrities are telling everyone to get the jab.' Another doctor pointed out to me last week that it is entirely irresponsible not to be diagnosing and looking at people before giving a vaccine, especially a vaccine that is still undergoing longitudinal testing, a vaccine that is new technology and that has never been used before.

The arguments often split out into vax versus antivax. Every vaccine has to be assessed on its own merits. This vaccine was rushed. I understand why: there was a serious risk from COVID. But we need to be honest about the fact that we are still undergoing testing, and we need to be honest about the fact that what we're seeing out in the population—the population data of adverse events—doesn't correlate with the data from the testing that Pfizer did. Much of that data, when it got released, had been redacted. That in itself is a massive concern. How can anyone make a proper, informed choice when the data from the trial itself has been redacted? Furthermore, they went and vaccinated the placebo group, so now it is almost impossible to do long-term testing, because we don't have a trial of people who haven't been vaccinated.

While I know the Prime Minister had good intentions by setting up the national cabinet, the premiers have abused his trust and the trust of the people. They are playing political games in order to score political points. They need to be reined in. The Prime Minister must assert his authority and stand up for the Australian people. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Senator LAMBIE (Tasmania) (10:57): If you want to champion against discrimination, you don't want One Nation. One Nation wants autistic children to be taken out of public schools because they're a 'strain' on the rest of the class. People don't choose to be autistic. Taking them out of school is discrimination, and One Nation just loves it. One Nation wants a ban on any immigration from majority Muslim countries, even if the person isn't Muslim. People don't choose what country they were born in. That is discrimination. One Nation has no problem with that either. One Nation is opposed to same-sex marriage. People don't choose to be gay. That is discrimination. One Nation has no issue with that either. One Nation are not fighting against discrimination; One Nation seek to profit from it. It's just a fund-raising exercise for them. That's all this is.

This bill is supposed to be about fighting discrimination against people who haven't been vaccinated against COVID-19. The only people who need protection from discrimination are the people who can't receive the vaccination for reasons outside of their control. They shouldn't be discriminated against. But if you're able to get vaccinated and you choose not to, 'discrimination' is the wrong word. That's not discrimination. You have freedom to make a choice but, if you make a choice, those choices have consequences.

You can't call every consequence of choice a discrimination. If you get behind the wheel of a car and drive at twice the speed limit, you may be comfortable taking that risk with your safety, but you'd be putting other peoples' lives at risk, and you don't have the right to do that. And you will more than likely lose your licence. You are not being discriminated against. If you chose to do something that puts other peoples' lives at risk, you will be held accountable for that choice; it is that simple. That's what we're talking about here. People who don't get the vaccine are making a choice. You have a choice; we all have choices to make. We all get a choice. You're making a choice that means you're more likely to get COVID and you're more likely to spread it to someone else. That is your choice; it is your right. I want to make that clear, and I support that choice.

But you don't get to decide how the rest of Australia responds to that choice. You can't force someone else to act a certain way, the same as you, because of your freedom to choose. That's not how we do things in this country. We have freedom of speech in Australia, but you can't stop people reacting to what you say with your freedom of speech. We have freedom of assembly, but you can't stop the rest of us from calling you out if you're being disruptive and rude. Having freedom to choose isn't the same as having freedom to avoid the consequences of that choice. Some might say that if you're vaccinated because you're required to be in order to keep your job, then you've been forced to get vaccinated. But that's not right; that's not being truthful at all. That is not correct. If you want to work with vulnerable people, you need to get a National Police Check. If you want to work with kids, you have to have a Working With Children Check. That is the way it is, and we do that to keep people safe. How about that? We put others before ourselves.

You can decide not to choose those checks. No-one's forcing you. But if you don't do them, you can't work where you want to work; it's as simple as that. That is the way it is. If you want to work as a cabbie, you need a licence to drive a cab. People without licences are not being discriminated against. If you want to work in aged care, you need to have a flu vaccine. That rule was in place before COVID-19 was even a twinkle in a Chinese bat's eye, for goodness sake! That is the way it is.

You have a right to choose. You don't have a right to put vulnerable people's lives at risk. You don't have that right—and you shouldn't have that right. You don't have the right to go into an aged-care home unvaccinated and risk starting a COVID outbreak among the elderly. I have constituents with autoimmune conditions who run businesses. If they're forced to serve unvaccinated customers, they'll have to choose between risking their lives or shutting down their businesses. You don't have the right to force them to make that choice. We have pubs in Hobart that will have to close if just one person with COVID walks into them. Those pub owners should be able to choose to protect themselves and their staff, and they should be able to say, 'I can't afford to have an unvaccinated person in here.' They're already on their knees. They should not be forced to pay for another person's choice to not get the vaccine. This is the point: nobody has the right to make someone's life less safe. That's not what freedoms mean; it's not what freedoms mean at all. You have the freedom to make your own choices. Everyone else has the freedom to respond to your choices, and you don't get to control that, no matter how much you might want to.

I get that some people have a lot to fear about the vaccine. I understand that, for some, getting that needle in your arm is hard choice to make. It's good to ask questions about how the vaccine was developed, where it comes from and how we know whether it's safe. I've asked plenty of those questions myself. I put them to the Department of Health and I put them to the TGA, and I wouldn't have it any other way. That's our democratic process in this country. The problem is that politicians like Senator Hanson and Senator Roberts are using people's fear to boost their own election campaigns, and they're using fear to make money. That's what this is about, from One Nation. They're not being straight with you people out there—not straight at all. It's all about cash, it's all about power and it's all about One Nation's seats. That's all this is: a grab for cash and seats from One Nation. I reckon a lot of their supporters would think twice if they saw the absolute hypocrisy of these two politicians. Honestly, One Nation pretends to be on the side of the people, but they are happy to tell fibs to their own voters if it means they can make a quick buck or two.

Take this example: Senator Hanson went on Sky News and said the TGA had published data saying that a whole bunch of people had died from the COVID-19 vaccine. The journalist pulled her up straightaway and told her, 'That's wrong.' The journalist called her out for misleading Sky's viewers. And do you know what happened? Senator Hanson backed down. She admitted that she had the facts wrong, that she'd have to look at it again. But the very next day she went right back to saying the same crap anyway, like nothing had happened—like that's acceptable behaviour in this country. That's leadership, is it, Senator Hanson? My goodness. I've got things wrong in the past. I accept that; I'll admit it. I'll fix it and move it on. That's how it works. If you get it wrong, say you got it wrong and stand by that.

What sort of person accepts they're wrong but just keeps saying the wrong thing anyway? What sort of person does that? Let's be clear: I don't want people being forced to get vaccinated. I don't think we should ever do that. But I think there's a world of difference between opposing that and supporting this damn bill. This bill says that the freedom of the unvaccinated is more important than the freedom of the vaccinated. Really? It says that the nine in 10 Australian adults who have gone out and got the jab don't get a choice themselves, that we don't have a choice to keep COVID out of our worksites, our aged-care homes, our pubs, our cafes and our houses and away from our kids. It says that some people should be allowed to make consequence-free decisions, that some people should be able to yell 'Fire!' in a crowded room and get away with it scot-free.

I don't think so, not on my watch. Here's the thing. Being held accountable for your own actions isn't called discrimination. It's called being—you wouldn't believe it—a goddamn bloody adult! That's right; it's being an adult. It's putting others before yourself, and that's what this country is supposed to be about. We don't have lockdowns and border restrictions because state premiers love discrimination. That's rubbish. We have them because state premiers don't want people dying, because they don't want to be playing Russian roulette with their own people's lives. That is why they're doing it.

One Nation is the champion of the right for unvaccinated COVID-carrying mainlanders to come to Tasmania and create an outbreak. I don't think so! It's not going to happen under my watch, and I doubt very much it's going to happen under Peter Gutwein's watch. We're not going to stand for it. One Nation are the enemy of health workers and officials who would have to clean up after the outbreak. Everybody pays for COVID-19. Every day that we have to deal with lockdowns and restrictions is a day when a business goes bust, a family breaks down in despair and a person takes their own life.

The way out of lockdowns and restrictions is vaccination, because there is nothing else on the table. Let's be honest about that. It's how we protect ourselves and it's how we protect each other. It's how we stand together. It's how we fight back. It is the only weapon we have, and we need to do everything we possibly can to keep ourselves safe, our kids safe, our grandchildren safe and our friends and family safe. That's what we need to do, and sometimes sacrifices have to be made.

You are patriots. We should be celebrating vaccinated Australians. You are fighting for our freedoms, to take control of our lives again. That's what you're doing, and good on you! It's a proud day for you today, and so it should be. Good on you for showing the courage to do so. You're the best we have. You are at the frontline fighters. You are displaying the kinds of qualities that make this country the great country it is. That's what it takes: sacrifice.

I was brought up believing in responsibility, to look after people who cannot look after themselves, and that nobody owes you anything. So go out and earn what you want. Go out there and earn it. This bill flies in the face of all of that. That's why I absolutely oppose every bit of it.

Senator W ONG (South Australia—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (11:09): I move:

That the motion be put.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Fierravanti-Wells ): The question is that the motion be put.

Question agreed to.

The PRESIDENT (11:14): The question is that the bill be read a second time.

The PRESIDENT (11:19): Are you seeking leave, Senator Hanson?

Senator Hanson: Yes, I am. I seek the call, please.

The PRESIDENT: Is leave granted? Are you wishing to make a short remark, Senator Hanson?

Senator Hanson: I just want that One Nation's vote be recorded in support of the bill, please—that is, for Senator Roberts and for me.

The PRESIDENT: Leave is not granted.

Senator Hanson: Mr President, to record that we are in support of the bill, that has happened before. We have the right to record our vote as in support of the bill.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Hanson, you requested leave. Leave was denied. We will move on.

Senator Hanson: Mr President, we have the right to have our support of the bill recorded.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Birmingham?

Senator Birmingham: Mr President, on a point of order, to perhaps help the chamber in this regard. I understand that during the operation of remote participation rulings, and remote participation in proceedings, it has been enabled at times—for example, where divisions haven't been called, or otherwise—that a senator indicates their party's voting intention or position. The fact that they have simply stated that position means that it is reflected in the Hansard record of proceedings. It doesn't change the tally of the votes. There's no process to change the tally of votes, but Senator Hanson merely making the statement that One Nation supported the bill is a statement of fact and would be recorded on the Hansard.

The PRE SIDENT: Thank you, Senator Birmingham. Senator Hanson, you have put that onto the Hansard record now. The Hansard will note your position.

Senator O'NEILL (New South Wales) (11:21): I rise to make a contribution on the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Amendment (Improved Grants Reporting) Bill 2021. It's pretty tough to start a speech by saying: 'This bill will clean up some of the corruption and rorting of taxpayer dollars that's become endemic under the current Liberal-National government'—because the only thing that's really going to fix it is getting rid of the government. This is only going to attempt to clean up some of the mess and address some of the disgraceful behaviours that we've seen commonly done—just as part of business as usual, according to this government. I'm talking about what people know as 'sports rorts', about the Building Better Regions Fund, about the National Commuter Car Park Fund—and the list just goes on and on and on. We need to ensure that we as a house of review oppose this spending by the government of billions of taxpayer dollars as if it's their own Liberal-National party campaign money.

The Commuter Car Park Fund is just one small example of incredibly poor governance and cynical politics, even for the Morrison government. This failed fund has built only three of the car parks that it promised before the last election—three car parks in three years!—and the government have cancelled six car parks, double the number that they've built, because they have shown an inability to plan properly. And there are 47 other car parks that are unlikely to ever be built. With all the resources of government, with access to the entire capacity of the government of Australia, they couldn't get the plan right, and in three years they've built three car parks. It's a disgrace. It's a disaster of a project, and it was caused purely by the political greed of those opposite. A planning process was absent, and the project was based on an electoral timeline, with no due diligence. This scheme is exactly what happens when the Liberal and National parties decide to use your Australian taxpayer dollars as their personal re-election fund. They did it in 2019, and they're lining up for a replay in 2022. On the Central Coast, where I live—represented in the southern end by Lucy Wicks, the member for Robertson—it's been an utterly failed and hapless and haphazard planning project. The local member failed Robertson when she did nothing for eight years—no planning, despite handing out at the station as commuters headed to Sydney. Then she rushed a completely unsatisfactory process that's gone nowhere because it was always going to go nowhere. This was about an announcement and not about the actual delivery of vital infrastructure for coasties.

This bill before us today aims to stop rorts such as the grossly mismanaged commuter car park rorting fund. It's intended to halt local members and their Liberal and National Party leadership from funnelling money into dodgy projects with incomplete data and from making commitments and announcements as if they're going to happen but which never actually translate into reality in people's lives. Another one was sports rorts—it wasn't an isolated incident; it was evidence of an endemic culture of rorting and corruption. The Community Sport Infrastructure Program was a $100 million taxpayer funded coalition slush fund to save their political future. They didn't spend it appropriately and with care. They spent it to get themselves elected. A scathing ANAO report found that it was afflicted by severe distribution bias and that in the last round of funding 70 per cent of the department's suggestions were overruled in place of electorates picked out on a spreadsheet colour coded to let the Liberal and National Party members and candidates make announcements that were likely to increase their votes and get them elected. The ANAO even found that this project may have been illegal. I see Minister Reynolds is here still trying to cover up robodebt. We've seen them do illegal things where they actually had to pay back money to Australians. The ANAO said it was not evident to them what the legal authority was for them to roll out this $100 million worth of sports rorts money.

Shocking as that is, it's just the tip of the iceberg with this lot. They really have a born-to-rule mentality and they really think that every taxpayer dollar that comes into this place is there for their personal discretion—not to build the nation. God forbid that we should lift our eyes, look to the future and advance everyone. No, this is about personal victories, personal interest and power for the Liberal Party over good governance for the Australian people. That's why we should kick that lot out at the next election. They do not deserve people's votes, not on the back of what they've done. Public governance and accountability are the basics for a government. These guys do not know what that means.

The Liberals and Nationals are happy to splash taxpayer cash wherever they see their own political interest but rarely where the public interest needs to be served. We've seen that with JobMaker, a much lauded $4 billion plan that delivered just one per cent of the jobs that were announced—the jobs that were promised. That happened because the government rushed it. It was poorly designed. They don't care. They got the headline with the number four billion—they'll use it in a lovely glossy blue brochure in your letterbox. But those brochures that this government will put out are based on a litany of lies and deceptions.

With the Building Better Regions Fund—I have to laugh when I say it, because it's a joke the way that they corrupted this one. I know what it means to come from a regional part of New South Wales. I'm just over 100 kilometres out of Sydney, but it's another world. When you get to the other side of the Great Dividing Range in places like Cobar, Coonabarabran, Broken Hill, Wilcannia and the seat of Farrer, it's a whole different world. That's regional. This government don't seem to understand that, even though they purport to represent it. Under this government, your taxpayer dollars are wasted by incompetence and a failure to design proper infrastructure projects, or they are corrupted by a government that wants to save hapless, non-working MPs who just roll up when an election comes around, confident that they're going to get the vote from the National Party members out there in the bush. They just show up for elections, and the people in the community are not getting their fair share.

The Building Better Regions Fund managed over $105 million in grants to regional communities across Australia—at least, that's how it was described—yet there was a secret ministerial planning instrument that managed those grants. It saw over half of the funds, more than $50 million worth, awarded to projects that were ranked far lower than many much more worthy, higher-ranked applications—as assessed by people who are building for the nation, who are professionals in government who understand getting value for your dollar.

I come from a small-business family. Like many of my colleagues, I know small businesses are the heart of this country; that is where jobs are created. Entrepreneurship requires people to do their jobs brilliantly, with due diligence and to spend resources in wise ways. This government would not know what wisdom looks like when it comes to spending a buck. The only 'wisdom' they have is a self-inflated sense of their right to government and their willingness to corrupt the processes of government to fund what they want for their own personal advantage over the advantage of regional communities, and I am sick of it. I am sick of it people from the regions of this country being dudded by their own government: being given announcements but getting no swimming pool; getting no funding for roads they know they need to be fixed; getting no investment in infrastructure that will improve their local economies. Overwhelmingly, these poorly ranked grants went to Liberal and National electorates at a rate that would have been deemed completely inappropriate if the proper scrutiny had been applied.

It is as simple as this: a swimming pool in North Sydney that was funded out of this pool of money is being dressed up by this government as a regional infrastructure project. That is how cynical they are, and that is how stupid they think the Australian people are. They think they can pull the wool over our eyes. They tell you they are supporting the regions and then put money into the pool at North Sydney. What a con from the ad man, Mr Morrison, and his whole team of minions, who line up behind him and continue in the same way. There is no program that those opposite will fail to rort. It doesn't matter what the experts say, it doesn't matter what the departments say, it doesn't matter what the community says; they only want to do what gets them re-elected, and that is way too low a bar to set.

The Australian National Audit Office was absolutely scathing about the car park rorts. It found that car parks were heavily centred in Liberal electorates, particularly in Victoria. The government was clearly trying to save its seats down there. Mr Frydenberg must have thought he was under incredible threat because he got four of the car parks. The reality is that, as the department put on the record, most of the congested roads in Australia are found in Sydney. I will stand up every day for my state, but I will stand up with integrity and fairness. If money needs to go to another state to advance this nation, then that is where should go—when a scheme is appropriately designed. You cannot just look after your own at the expense of the rest. That is unethical behaviour, but that is the playbook of this government—unethical behaviour—and that is why we need this piece of legislation to rein it in. We cannot contain it; it is endemic and out of control. This piece of legislation, the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Amendment (Improved Grants Reporting) Bill, is merely a reining in of the most egregious practices of this government.

The government don't support a federal national integrity commission. Is it any wonder? They probably won't back this bill, because they don't want any containment on what they've found as their political survival strategy. Their political power is based on the rorting, the corrupt use, the inappropriate use, the poorly designed use of the public funds that are Australian taxpayers' dollars, dollars which should be used so judiciously to advance the nation, not the Liberal-National government. The kind of behaviour I'm describing here has to be described. It has to be called out for what it is. It takes a lot of work from opposition to get the facts from this secretive government that wants to hide the truth from Australians. I don't like having to make this speech, because it erodes public trust and public confidence in the rectitude and effectiveness of the government, but I'm putting it on the record now because, pretty soon, Australians are going to have the chance to vote, and I'm calling on Australians when they vote to recognise the shameful behaviour, the disgraceful, corrupt behaviour of this government in its industrial-scale rorting of taxpayer money to the benefit of its own political interests and not those of Australians.

With this government it is all about politics and division and themselves. It's not about Australians. It's not about our future. It's not about Australia's benefit. It's about their personal benefit. That is not satisfactory. Heartless political arithmetic benefits only those in power, not those on the ground. Because of rushed political announcements without any due diligence, the Central Coast is further away from getting a car park than ever. But all that was needed was for Mrs Lucy Wicks to stand up with Mr Morrison and make an announcement to shore up a majority. You won't get away with it twice, Lucy Wicks. You've lied to the Australian people on the Central Coast for long enough. It's over, and this legislation is there to help.

Senator Payne: Madam Acting Deputy President, that should be withdrawn.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Walsh ): Senator O'Neill, would you like to consider the comments that you just made and respond to the minister.

Senator O'NEILL: I will withdraw, even though it's true.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator O'Neill, if you are going to withdraw the comments, it needs to be done without any condition.

Senator O'NEILL: I withdraw. I just hope she can tell the truth.

Senator Payne: Madam Acting Deputy President, the senator is flouting your ruling and your advice.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator O'Neill.

Senator O'SULLIVAN (Western Australia) (11:37): I rise today to speak on the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Amendment (Improved Grants Reporting) Bill 2021, a bill introduced by Senator Gallagher. I rise first to dispel the myth that saw the genesis of this bill, that there is some kind of lack of reporting or lack of transparency around grants and the grants decision-making process. I'm sure that we will hear, as we've already heard this morning, myriad examples from those opposite of what they deem to be scandalous conduct, but the fact is that, if there was no transparency around grants reporting, they would have no idea that there had been any occurrence of them. The very examples raised here are evidence of the significant level of transparency that this government undertakes and is very happy to undertake. We on this side of the Senate firmly believe that Australian taxpayers deserve to know where their money is being spent and on what. We have no problem with transparency. If those opposite were truly in favour of transparency and accountability, then they would subject their mates in the union movement to a much higher standard in those areas, but we certainly don't see much example of that happening there.

There are already four levels of reporting relating to grants. Senator Gallagher's bill simply adds a fifth with significant overlap and duplication. This bill adds new terminology. Further bureaucracy and regulation may not be of any consequence for the Labor Party—we know this—but it's my preference and it's the preference of this government that we do not add any significant duplication and overlap.

Avoiding this, where possible, always has to be the aim, and it's the aim of this government. It's also the preference of grant applicants, who want a streamlined and simplified process. In my previous career and work I was involved in submitting grant applications, and it's an extraordinary process that you have to go through. That's necessary; it's understood. But we don't need to add to the red tape or the burden that's required. I know that many organisations simply end up grant writing to grant write, because there's so much required in being awarded grants. We don't need to add any further complication to it. Of course we need accountability and transparency, and there are good reasons for that. It's because it's taxpayers' money, and taxpayers expect there to be transparency and proper oversight.

The most wide-ranging and obvious of these accountability measures that the government has put in place is the GrantConnect website. This was put in place in 2017, when the government mandated a requirement to report all grants on the GrantConnect website. This is a fantastic website. It provides whole-of-government consolidated data on grant opportunities and grants that have been awarded. The GrantConnect website captures information on grant recipients, their location and the value of grant decisions. In this way, it acts as a very open and accountable record. The website also includes grant guidelines for each grant program, allowing people to look up who the decision-maker is for the grant program and therefore identify which grants are decided by which minister. This increases the accessibility of the general public to the decision-makers in the process.

The website not only shows grants awarded previously but also grant rounds currently open and upcoming grant grounds. This enables community organisations to plan and get their ideas together for future grant applications. I know that a number of community organisations find this website very useful, and I've been fortunate enough to visit a number of organisations who have received grants. People can not only search by key terms but can also export large datasets to find programs or decisions of interest. The GrantConnect website can notify registered users of grant opportunities as they arise. You can put in key search terms and you'll get notified as these opportunities come up.

Further to the GrantConnect website, reportable grants are also required variously to be reported to the finance minister under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Rules and the Commonwealth Grants Rule and Guidelines. They are also required to be reported to parliament under the Senate orders of continuing effect. Senator Gallagher's bill would add a fifth level of required reporting, a wholly unnecessary level in my opinion.

Further to this, the other furphy which continues to be propagated here is that if a minister disagrees with or overrules advice by the departmental staff then there must be some kind of conspiracy going on. The Labor Party are so caught up with the temerity of a minister apparently defying their department that Senator Gallagher has drafted a bill to deal with it—that is, this bill. I must have missed the memo stating that ministers are no longer in charge of their departments and that the departments are now in charge of their ministers. I must have missed that memo, but the Labor Party seem to have got that and that's why they've written this bill. Indeed, I believe that Labor would prefer this. On this side, we're very happy about, and we welcome, ministers exercising their right to overrule advice that they don't agree with. Ministers have a far greater opportunity than officials do to consult extensively with communities, NGOs, industries and other stakeholders. They travel extensively around the country and hear frequently from constituents, including from those referred by parliamentary colleagues. Ministers are uniquely positioned as grant decision-makers because they have a very broad understanding of community needs. This is what ministers are appointed to do: to consult, to deliberate and to decide.

Of course, the Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines state that where ministers are deciding grant outcomes they must consider official advice. But ministers are not rubber stampers, and they are, of course, obliged to use their own judgement—at least, that's what we believe on this side of the chamber. If those opposite want to pretend that they're ready to form some kind of alternative government, they should realise that the role of a minister is to lead, not to be led. It is inevitable, on occasion, that a minister may take a different view from those of officials. Ministers are elected. At the end of the day, they have the capacity to make these decisions—and so they should—but ministers are always required, in the first instance, to receive and consider official advice. This is in the guidelines, it's very clear, and it's what must always be followed and is followed by this government.

Let's look at the recent grant round of the Building Better Regions Fund. I've seen firsthand how this has benefited communities: the new taxiway at the Kununurra airport, for example, where I've landed on numerous occasions, or the newly announced Tom Price Skate Park. I was in Tom Price last year, and it's a fantastic town. Many people are choosing to raise their families there. My young son loves a skate park and kids up in Tom Price should have a skate park just as much as those in the suburbs of Perth. This is a town that desperately needs more facilities for young people.

This is a fantastic grants program. It's providing funding to a wide range of organisations, strengthening and diversifying regional economies and helping to provide facilities to remote communities. Of course, predictably, after the results of the latest round of the Building Better Regions Fund were announced, we saw headlines from those opposite, claiming that 90 per cent of building better regions funding went to coalition seats. The forced outrage was palpable. Ms Catherine King MP labelled it a scandal: the supposed shadow minister for infrastructure, transport and regional development labelled it a scandal. Let's look at this. Let's look past the spin. Perhaps that funding breakdown could be explained by the fact that Labor barely holds a seat outside the inner city. This is, after all, the Building Better Regions Fund, not the 'Cappuccino Strip Improvement Project'—the CSIP. Is it any great surprise that, as Labor have deserted the regions, regional voters have deserted them?

At this point, I will add that it's a great shame that the Labor Party is losing Mr Fitzgibbon, the member for Hunter. Mr Fitzgibbon has been a true voice of the Labor Party for regional jobs and regional development—probably the last one they have left. But he's going. It's little wonder then that after the last election the vast majority of regional seats were held by Liberal or National party members. So, of course, if you're running a regional grants program, 90 per cent of those grants will go into those seats. It's because the Liberal and National parties hold those seats.

Neither I nor the government shy away from transparency in awarding and reporting grants. In fact, our current regime actually contains a more rigorous reporting standard than that suggested by Senator Gallagher's bill in relation to the grants that a minister awards in their own electorate. The current grants standard requires that when such a grant is awarded it is to be reported to the finance minister as soon as practicable. Senator Gallagher's bill pushes that requirement out to 30 days, but, after that 30-day period, the finance minister would be required to table the report in the parliament within five sitting days of receiving it. This is bizarrely inconsistent, I have to say.

This bill is commendable in its intention, I'll grant them that. Transparency is not something that should be shied away from, but the bill fails to take into account all the other transparency arrangements currently in place. This bill seems to be drafted as if they were the first movers in this space, but that's simply not true. It duplicates, it creates inconsistency, it requires reporting of incorrect information and it requires some information to be reported later than it is today, so it doesn't do anything to add to the level of transparency that the Australian taxpayers would expect of a government. This bill just complicates it. Why is this the case? Because it's just a stunt. It's just another one of these stunts to claim a headline and to create a bit of noise and attention to detract from the fact that they really have no other plan, other than to create smear and divert from the fact that they really are not in a place to be the alternative government.

The bill duplicates, it creates inconsistency and it requires reporting of incorrect information. This is not necessary. While apparently attempting to increase transparency, Senator Gallagher's bill actually lessens it to some extent in some areas, either by design or by oversight. This is not good enough. This bill is not well considered; it's seriously flawed. Further, it highlights the Australian Labor Party's nervousness around ministerial decisions and their preference for government by unelected officials, with those officials being solely the ones making decisions. Is that what we can expect, should the Labor Party form government after the next election? Are they just going to be led by their departments, and ministers won't be the ones actually making the decisions? It's the ministers who are ultimately accountable to the Australian people. They're the ones who have been elected. They're the ones who will be fronting up in their communities, facing the media and dealing with scrutiny in this chamber and the other chamber. It's their work that will be scrutinised, not the work of the officials. We have excellent officials. Australia is well supported by wonderful members of the Public Service who are of a high calibre and work to a high standard—arguably, they're some of the best in the world. But, at the end of the day, they're not elected; they're appointed. They've been given an important job to do, but it's the members of the House of Representatives and of this house who become ministers who are ultimately responsible.

This is just an example of why the Australian people have trusted, and will continue to trust, the Morrison government to lead Australia. We're prepared to make decisions, we're prepared to stand up, and we're prepared to take those decisions to the Australian people and be accountable for them, because we're an adult government. That's how the Australian people know that they can continue to trust us. We look forward to prosecuting that case over the next six months or so as we lead into the next election.

Senator GROGAN (South Australia) (11:52): I rise to strongly support the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Amendment (Improved Grants Reporting) Bill 2021, and I commend Senator Gallagher for her work in holding the government to account in this outrageous rorting of public funds for political gain. Having recently arrived in the Senate, I've been shocked at the lack of transparency and accountability of the Morrison-Joyce government. It isn't just that transparency isn't a priority for them; they are actively seeking to hide documents and shield their decisions from the public's view. So I support this bill as a step to hold the government to account and to get some accountability even where the current government doesn't want it.

As other speakers have highlighted, this bill amends the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act to bring together the grant rules and guidelines currently found in other legislation and to tighten the time frames around these requirements. It's probably worth referring here to Senator O'Sullivan's commentary about the timing. The current requirements are that it's 12 months before grants need to be reported, and that's one of the key things that this bill seeks to change—to bring that forward, so we're not waiting 12 months for that level of accountability and transparency. Specifically, this bill would require the finance minister to report to the parliament when ministers have approved projects against the advice of their departments or within their own electorates, and it would require this to happen in a much tighter time frame.

Grants are a critically important part of how a national government works, and it is important that the public can see exactly what is happening here and exactly where the money is going. So many community groups and sporting clubs rely on this type of funding to be able to keep their operations going or to fund much-needed infrastructure upgrades. I know that a great many South Australians will know of local sporting clubs that desperately need upgrades. They need a new pitch, better lighting, change rooms or other facilities to help their clubs thrive. The grants are vital for the larger-scale projects too, whether it's funding for research projects or for significant infrastructure works, like new roads, bridges, public transport and other required infrastructure. But, at the end of the day, these grants are taxpayer funded. People rightly expect that the government will spend public funds in a way that is transparent and accountable to them.

There are worthy and much-needed projects in just about every single corner of the country, and we accept that not every good project can be funded at the same time. But we need to be transparent and we need to understand what the evidence base is for each and every grant: What are the most urgent projects? What is the best bang? How are we funding these things? What is the rationale? The system should work in that manner—it should be accountable and transparent, and people in communities should be able to see that. But, under eight long years of this Liberal-National government, that is not what we are seeing. The Morrison-Joyce government continues to treat taxpayer funded grants like this as if they were part of a Liberal Party campaign account, splashing money on political priorities, not based on evidence and real community need. To counter another point that Senator O'Sullivan made: as for the particular grants that he was talking about, 34 per cent of those seats that were eligible do not sit within the LNP. That's 34 per cent—I hardly think that's negligible—and, of those seats, only 14 per cent received grants. That shows us very, very clearly how political these decisions are. The worst thing about this is that, when they are called out on it, the government just keep trying to hide the documents and the evidence from public view. They hide from any form of scrutiny and deflect any form of attention. That's exactly what this bill is trying to address and it's exactly why it's so badly needed.

One of the most outrageous examples that we have seen was the notorious sports rorts. This wasn't just a case of public funds being rorted. It actually had real consequences for the people and the communities across this country. We felt it keenly in South Australia. As a result of the $100 million sports rorts, worthy clubs across South Australia—clubs run by dedicated community members, like mums, dads, aunts, uncles, grannies and grandads, people who work very hard to make their local clubs as successful as they can be to give everyone an opportunity to participate in these important community activities—have been denied basic upgrades simply because they are not fortunate enough to be located in a Liberal target seat or a Liberal held seat.

In South Australia we've seen some amazing things occur, and I don't mean that in a good sense. We've seen the spectacle of failed candidate for Mayo Georgina Downer parading around Yankalilla with novelty cheques advertising the rorts. It's exceptional. It's unbelievable. Of the top 50 unsuccessful applicants nationwide, 12 were South Australian projects, and seven of those were in the top 15. These had all scored above 88 out of 100 in the Australian sports independent merit assessment process. However, all 12 of these deserving clubs were rejected by the Morrison government so that it could instead spend the taxpayer money pork-barrelling marginal seats in other states. Clubs with a huge demand for infrastructure, like the South Adelaide Football Club—home to back-to-back SANFLW premiers and also a highly successful SANFL side—missed out completely. Meanwhile, the Old Collegians Rugby Union Football Club, in the Liberal seat of Sturt, was awarded $500,000 for female change rooms, despite not having any female programs. They have no girls' or women's teams. McLaren Football Club, which scored 88 out of 100 on the Sport Australia merit criteria, was yet another club that missed out even though it exceeded those criteria. The club president at the time, Darren Lines, called on the PM to go and visit the club, speak to the women who needed these change facilities and explain to them why the merit system was totally ignored. The PM never turned up and never answered that question.

This was, simply, an outrageous slap in the face to local sporting communities that had worked so hard week in and week out to get their kids out in the field, on the court or on the track, and it didn't take long for the South Australia Liberal government to catch on. Fresh on the heels of Senator McKenzie's largesse to the Liberal marginal seats, we saw South Australian Liberals endow some of the exact same clubs with more funding—more rounds of sport rorts—just joining in. Of the Marshall Liberal government's Grassroots Football, Cricket and Netball Facility Program, just six out of 47 of the electorates that received money were Labor electorates. In June this year, just 22 out of 117 clubs to receive funding under three revised sports infrastructure funding streams were located in Labor electorates. Then, to stick the boot in further, the additional condition that has been brought in is one that totally slams any low-socioeconomic areas by now requiring a 50 per cent contribution, ensuring that only those clubs with more money, in more wealthy areas, actually have a chance to develop their sporting clubs.

But we know it's not just sports and it's not just those funds that have been rorted by the Morrison-Joyce government. Just last month we learnt about the mass rorting of the Building Better Regions Fund for much-needed projects in regional Australia. This $1.5 billion bucket of money has been there since 2018. It is money that was supposed to be spent on 'investment ready projects that provide economic and social benefits for regional and remote areas'—that's a direct quote. The Australian National Audit Office—not anyone else—has found that 55 per cent of these regional grants announced since 2018 have gone to projects in major cities. Let that sink in: 55 per cent of regional grants have gone to major cities. That's millions of dollars for projects in regions that are screaming out for support that has just been put across to the cities. Analysis has shown that some 90 per cent of the funds granted have gone to coalition-held or coalition-targeted seats. What is particularly galling about that regional money is the $10 million that went to a swimming pool in North Sydney that is right next to the Sydney Harbour Bridge. That is not regional by anyone's assessment. The claim that it's regional because some people from the country go and swim there is absolutely ridiculous.

Yet again, this government and this Prime Minister are using taxpayer funds like they're part of a Liberal Party campaign account. So, if you happen to live in a Labor seat that the coalition does not have it's eye on, tough luck! You are not going to get anything, regardless of need, and that is shameful. That is exactly what this bill seeks to stop. It's obvious for all of us to see that decisions are being made for political purposes, but still the Morrison-Joyce government does the same thing it always does—dig in, avoid responsibility, avoid any transparency and refuse to answer the questions of the Australian public. Something needs to change, and it's those people in regional and remote communities who are missing out most of all here. They're losing their chance of upgrades for their towns because of the Prime Minister's political objectives. I sincerely hope that, when the Australian National Audit Office releases its report into this issue next year, it is able to provide that transparency. There's a clear contrast here. Labor is on the side of those people in regional Australia and on the side of transparency and accountability. This bill is part of that. There may be a good reason for a minister to go against departmental advice or to fund a project in their own seat, but they should be upfront about that. They should be clear and transparent about the exact rationale for why it is happening. And they shouldn't be delaying or obfuscating. It should be timely.

But there is more work to do as well and we need to consider the steps beyond this bill. The legacy of this government's rorts and grants scandals has been an erosion in public confidence in government and government decision-making. The important work that grants can and should do is being totally undermined. A strong national anticorruption commission would be a powerful tool to restore public trust and hold government decision-makers to account. The government committed to this before the last election but has still been completely silent on it. Labor will deliver a strong, independent, transparent, national anticorruption commission and it is time for this government to do the same or just own up to the fact that they are not going to bother.

In closing, I reiterate my strong support for this bill; my strong support for accountability, transparency, trust in government decision-making and a fair go for the regions of this country and for all the community and sporting facilities in this country, not just the chosen few. What we've outlined are practical measures to bring transparency to the decisions on government grants—transparency that is currently sorely lacking. I urge all senators not just to support this bill but to continue the work of restoring trust in government and in government decision-making.

Senator SMALL (Western Australia) (12:07): I join my fellow colleague from Western Australia Senator O'Sullivan in rising today to argue against the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Amendment (Improved Grants Reporting) Bill 2021. The reason is not, as those on the other side of the chamber would have you believe, that this is a government committed to anything other than transparency in decision-making, and indeed accountability, to the people of Australia who send us here but rather that there are five key flaws in this particular bill which seek to undermine its intent, complicate decision-making and indeed do nothing to further the cause of transparency within government. If we take this in turn, in terms of transparency in grant-making decisions by ministers of the Crown, Senator Gallagher's bill would significantly increase duplication in existing reporting arrangements, not only creating a second but rather a fifth set of reporting rules that complicate reporting that already exists under four other separate and distinct sets of rules.

To Senator O'Sullivan's point: a lot of the hot air that we hear out of those opposite on this is, in fact, only caused by the transparency that's upheld by those reporting arrangements. Currently the grants that are awarded under ministerial discretion either contrary to official advice that they be rejected or relating to projects in the minister's own electorate are already disclosed to the finance minister. For corporate Commonwealth entities this is required under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability rules. For non-corporate Commonwealth entities this is required under the Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines. There are many good reasons, some of which even Senator Grogan touched on, that would require a minister to take a decision that isn't in line with official advice, and we'll get to those a little later. However, on this point that grant information is already transparent, grant information is also disclosable to the parliament under Senate Procedural Orders of Continuing Effect Nos 16 and 23E. Order 23E covers most grants reported to the finance minister under those circumstances I just touched on. Order 16 covers all grants.

Transparency is, ultimately, achieved in our democracy through periodic reporting to this parliament, and transparency is achieved more directly and faster through online reporting to the wider public. This is what's been happening for years. In 2017, the government mandated the requirement to report all grants on the GrantConnect website, located at www.grants.gov.au, which provides whole-of-government consolidated data on grant opportunities and those grants that were awarded. Grants are uploaded to this site regularly throughout the year, after the grant agreements are signed between parties. So we have a GrantConnect website that captures information on grant recipients, their location and the value of those decisions.

It includes the grant guidelines for each of the grant programs under which those same grants are made, thereby allowing every person in Australia to look up who the decision-maker is for the grant program and, therefore, identify which grants are decided by which minister. The website not only shows previous grants awarded but also those grant rounds that are currently open and upcoming grant rounds that enable community organisations to plan for future grant applications.

This bill deals with just one set of grants, those that are awarded based on ministerial discretion or ministerial decision against advice. Governments—on both sides of politics—have always considered it appropriate to use ministers as decision-makers in certain circumstances, because the reality is that ministers have greater opportunities than those public servants and bureaucrats based here in Canberra to consult widely with the people of Australia, to engage with stakeholders and industries, particularly in rural and remote parts of our country. They travel extensively around the country and hear from these people directly.

Ronald Reagan said it best: the nine most terrifying words in the English language can be, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.' Having ministers of the Crown, of the democratically elected government of the day, travel our country and hear directly from the horse's mouth on these important issues and take up the decision against official advice is recognised by both sides of politics as an important part of our democracy.

That said, the Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines require a minister to consider, when making a decision on a grant, that same official advice. Official advice from a department is not simply a rubber stamp. Ministers are obliged to use their own judgement, and sometimes that means they form a different view from that of our officials. Ministers are always required, though, in that very first instance, to receive and consider the official advice and the very good reasons that the hardworking public servants here in Australia provide that same advice.

There are five key areas of defect within this bill. Firstly, there is inconsistent treatment of different government agencies. On the face of it, this makes absolutely no sense to me, because the bill proposes to introduce a new term, a 'reportable grant', which covers most grants currently reported to the finance minister by ministers in respect of the 98 non-corporate Commonwealth entities. The bill does not cover any of the grants administered but 71 corporate Commonwealth entities.

I just touched on the two very different sets of circumstances in which these decisions are reported to the finance minister and the parliament. This is a bizarre oversight. The bill is oblivious to the fact that there are separate requirements in the PGPA regulations that cover those 71 corporate Commonwealth entities as distinct from the 98 non-corporate entities. So that will cause a divergence in the current approach, which is aligned and uniform, requiring the treatment of grants administered by both corporate and non-corporate agencies to be reported. That alignment was cemented in regulations on 17 July 2020—regulations that Senator Gallagher appears perhaps to have missed in bringing this legislation forward despite the fact that she was shadow finance minister at the time. This bill would take those requirements from a position of uniformity to a position of inconsistency.

The bill also places details in the PGPA Act covering practices that have until now sat within delegated legislation. It would require agency officials to delegate and depart from following a consolidated set of rules and guidelines, providing a single point of reference that exists today in the Commonwealth rules and guidelines, to expecting them to follow scattering rules that are separated between primary and delegated law. That inevitably increases the risk of inadvertent rule breach by officials within the Australian government structure and makes for ultimate confusion in the administration of our laws—procedural information being appropriately in the regulations with key principles sitting within the primary legislation that informs it. The bill cuts that longstanding practice for procedural requirement around a grant application that has allowed officials within the Australian government structure to operate from a position of uniformity.

There's duplication within the bill, requiring ministers who approve grants to provide reports to the finance minister within 30 days of their approval, relating to three key areas of grant decisions. However, the third category, which is that those did not meet any relevant selection criteria in 1 and 2, are completely overlapped by the first category, which are those grant decisions that the government department recommended against, so everything in category 3 would also have to be reported in category 1. If a grant application doesn't meet the selection criteria or falls short in some way, a departmental official will, of course, recommend against it. Therefore, the grant would be reportable under category 1, just as it is now reportable under the status quo, under the Commonwealth Grant Rules and Guidelines and under the existing Senate orders 16 and 23E.

The Gallagher bill is also unclear about the time point at which an application is in fact reportable if it did not meet the criteria for a particular grant program. It has been accepted practice by governments of both political persuasions for a long time to provide opportunities for those applicants who are unsuccessful to approve their applications in some circumstances. If an application is found not to have initially met the criteria and later the proponent, having brought on changes that would improve the compliance with the relevant program criteria and before the minister approves, the Gallagher bill suggests it would have been reported as if it were outside guidelines. That is a misleading outcome. The bill only looks at what is in a grantee's application, not what is in the final grant agreement after a negotiation between proponents in the community and those government officials who sit here in Canberra. Therefore, the bill leaves open those proponents to reputational harm for those who have ultimately brought their application into close accord with the program requirements.

In addition to these two key defects in this legislation, we also see a duplication with those Senate orders 16 and 23E. Senate order 16 provides that ministers are able to table grants approved between estimates periods. Three times a year and at least seven days before each estimates round, the grant details are tabled to facilitate scrutiny of those same decisions by this very chamber. This duplicates entirely the requirements, with continuing effect, of Senate order 23E, which, as I've already outlined, requires the tabling of reports from other ministers to the finance minister about grants awarded contrary to departmental advice in any way, including those grants awarded in a minister's own electorate.

Senate order 23E only came into effect relatively recently, so the first tabling of documents under this accord occurred on 30 April this year. There has been no review of that reporting and no suggestion that the additional reporting is not of some value in upholding the transparency which Australians rightly expect we uphold in dishing out taxpayer money. If Senator Gallagher somehow thinks that Senate order 23E is deficient, perhaps we ought to be having a conversation around extending those terms—

The DEPUT Y PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator Small. The time for this debate has now expired. You will be in continuation.

Senator KENEALLY (New South Wales—Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (12:35): I rise to speak on the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2021. In 2019 the Prime Minister, Mr Morrison, called a big press conference here at Parliament House. He fronted the media with his then ministers for Home Affairs and Defence standing beside him. He told Australians we were under attack. He said that Australian organisations and Australia's critical infrastructure, including all levels of government, were subject to sophisticated and malicious cyberattacks.

The threat that Mr Morrison spoke about that day is very real and very sophisticated. It's a threat that demands an equally sophisticated response. Instead, in 2019 Australia got just another Mr Morrison photo-op: an announcement. It has taken more than two years to get the follow-up. That's what this bill is today: two years later, after the photo-op, we finally get the follow-up. In that time the Morrison government has allowed its cybersecurity strategy to expire, even as the Australian Cyber Security Centre amplified its warnings that the cyberthreat was growing in its scale and complexity. In that time the Morrison government ignored urgent advice to do even the bare minimum to uplift Australian cybersecurity, such as by introducing a mandatory ransomware payment scheme, instead leaving this to the opposition, to Labor, to introduce before finally adopting Labor's call for a national ransomware strategy.

In the time since Mr Morrison's big announcement the cybersecurity threat environment has continued to shift and evolve, and the bill we are considering today is very different to the one the Morrison government originally sought to pass: a bill that was referred to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. That this bill today is so very different to the Morrison government's original bill underscores the importance of the bipartisan Intelligence and Security Committee and its important role in scrutinising legislation in the national interest. This bill is so very different to the government's original legislation because the committee unanimously agreed that, quite simply, the Morrison government had not finished its work on this bill and that the work it had done, it had not done well enough.

The original bill sought to uplift security and resilience in all critical infrastructure sectors, promising that the government would work in partnership with responsible entities of critical infrastructure assets to establish a clear, effective, consistent and proportionate approach to the security of critical infrastructure. The government promised that it would ensure these new requirements did not duplicate existing regulatory frameworks. The bill proposed four major areas of reform. The first was to expand the coverage of critical infrastructure from four to 11 sectors; second, to introduce positive security obligations for critical infrastructure assets; third, to enhance cybersecurity obligations for assets deemed to be systems of national significance; and, finally, provision for a government assistance regime to allow, as a last resort, the emergency powers of the government to step in and secure Australia's security critical infrastructure.

In principle, these are sound and, indeed, crucial policy priorities. But the committee found that, far from being a clear and effective approach, far from being an exemplar of collaboration and far from avoiding regulatory burden, the Morrison government's bill was an irreconcilable mess for which it could not recommend passage. I will quote from the committee's report:

While the Committee strongly supports the aims of the SOCI Bill, it would need a significant amount of re-drafting to pass in its entirety and respond adequately to many of the concerns expressed to it during this review. This would delay significantly the time-critical elements of the Bill.

So as not to delay the urgent provisions that will help to secure Australia's critical infrastructure from cyberthreats, the committee recommended that the bill be split into two and that the considerable work of co-designing sector-specific positive-security obligations be deferred to a subsequent bill. The amended bill that we have before the chamber today is but a portion of the original framework in the original government bill.

The bill that Labor will be supporting today introduces the most-urgent elements of an enhanced cybersecurity framework. Most importantly, it expands critical framework coverage from four sectors—electricity, gas, water and ports—to 11, now encompassing communications, financial services and markets, data storage and processing, defence industry, higher education and research, energy, food and grocery, health care and medical, space technology, transport, and water and sewerage. The bill also introduces mandatory notification requirements by an entity to a relevant Commonwealth body, but within 84 hours rather than 12, as originally proposed by the Morrison government. This is an important concession to the feedback received from stakeholders. The bill also defines 'significant impact' in the context of a cybersecurity incident as being when the incident has 'materially disrupted the availability of essential goods or services provided using the asset'.

Lastly, the bill introduces last-resort emergency government assistance powers whereby the minister may authorise the secretary of the department to direct an entity to gather information or to undertake an action, direct that an action not be undertaken or authorise the Australian Signals Directorate to intervene when a cybersecurity incident has occurred, is occurring or is likely to occur. This last measure generated significant concern during the inquiry. Indeed, this is a considerable power for the government to wield. The committee heard assurances from the department that this power would be used rarely, if at all. But, to ensure against any mission creep and to build in stronger safeguards and oversight, the committee made an important recommendation that the government has accepted in this amended bill—that is, that the department's secretary must now report to the committee any use of these powers—and the stated intentions of cooperation and consultation are better enabled by the provisions of this bill.

On the remaining elements of the government's critical infrastructure plan—the significant work of regulatory obligations that will apply to critical infrastructure assets and systems of national significance—the Morrison-Joyce government has been told to go back, do better, listen better and return with another bill that represents that consultation. To make sure that Mr Morrison and his colleagues have really heard the feedback that was overwhelmingly delivered to them via the intelligence and security committee, I want to draw out some of the issues raised during the committee's hearings on this bill.

As a member of the committee, I can assure this chamber that we received substantial evidence in submissions to the inquiry. The submissions were received from companies that will be directly affected by the bill, representative organisations, cybersecurity and technology companies, trade unions, state governments, Commonwealth agencies, academics, international experts and legal peak bodies. I'd like to thank all submitters for their diligent participation and constructive approach. Almost uniformly, submitters expressed reservations with the government's approach to developing its security critical infrastructure regime. They reported a lack of active engagement and consultation and a lack of information provided to them. They reported a rushed time line—a scramble to review something incredibly complex, extraordinary in its breadth and gravity and with long-lasting implications. And, consistently, submitters raised issues with the government's approach of legislating a mere shell of an idea, the significant detail of which would be left to the delegated legislation, meaning that neither the parliament nor the affected entities could fully know the impact, impost and cost of the proposed regime.

It was the unanimous assessment of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security that this chaotic Morrison government has rushed and botched such a critical piece of legislation. In the interests of national security and in constructive bipartisan negotiation, the committee has amended some important elements of the critical infrastructure bill and salvaged the portions that can be passed today. Hence Labor will be supporting this legislation today.

Before finishing I want to highlight an important feature of the committee's report—one that I commend to Mr Morrison and his Liberal-National colleagues. The committee heard expert evidence that cyber-enabled operations spanning disinformation, data theft and technical disruption can render democratic infrastructure vulnerable in new ways. Such operations, as was witnessed in the 2020 presidential election, target political parties, news organisations and social media and have the potential to undermine democratic systems. We heard from former Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in the United States Mr Christopher Krebs, who said:

Our strategies have to be connected against countering disinformation … This is important for critical infrastructure as well. If you go to the point about an uneven underinvestment for cybersecurity in the critical infrastructure community, there is virtually no investment in countering disinformation. Nowhere more important is that right now than in the deployment of COVID-19 vaccinations. We are seeing an active threat environment from Russia and China for vaccine diplomacy. We're also seeing it from conspiracy theorists and antivaxxers in general.

Mr Krebs went on to say in the context of election security that, ahead of the 2020 presidential election, the US government prepared for attacks on electoral systems and hacks of media websites and voter databases. He warned that the 'more pervasive aspect' was the broader campaign 'to undermine confidence in leadership, government and democratic institutions through disinformation operations'.

Reflecting on his own experience as a senior national security official of publicly announcing that his country was experiencing a major cyberattack, Mr Krebs said that it should only be public officials, such as those from national security agencies, that make such announcements, especially during election campaigns, in order to avoid the perception of political interference. Mr Krebs said:

… you never want the incumbent with the ability to put their thumb on the scale and change the outcome of the election … you would not have wanted a White House press conference for those sorts of announcements because that, in and of itself, can be politicised.

These are important pieces of advice from Mr Krebs, and the bipartisan Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security unanimously agreed and recommended that the government review the cyberthreat to our democratic institutions. The committee also recommended that the government review the caretaker conventions for cyberincidents in an election context. On this important point, I ask the Morrison government to heed the advice of the committee. I note that in Senate estimates ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess indicated that he is reviewing and considering how he would approach a cyberevent in the context of an election and flagged he would seek to brief the opposition. It is important that the Morrison government heeds the advice provided by Mr Krebs, heeds the evidence provided by Mr Burgess and heeds the recommendation of the bipartisan intelligence and security committee.

The Morrison-Joyce government's attitude to cybersecurity is, quite frankly, dangerously one dimensional. This is not just a defence or intelligence issue. Cybersecurity must be understood as a whole-of-society endeavour. It involves the broader community. It involves small business. It involves large corporations. It involves individuals. There must be robust, active and collaborative partnerships across government and industry and amongst experts. At a time of, quite frankly, global crisis brought on by the pandemic, by disinformation and by threats to cybersecurity what we need is clarity, certainty and confidence. I urge the government as it starts its work on bill 2 to amend the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act to do its work properly, to consult properly and to truly co-design workable, effective and positive security obligations for Australia's critical infrastructure. I look forward to that bill coming to the parliament once that work has been done.

Senator THORPE (Victoria) (12:49): The Greens will not be supporting the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill. Very few key stakeholders, in fact, support this bill, so we cannot support it in its current form. The government, as usual, is introducing even more half-baked legislation that no-one actually wants so those opposite can stand here and pretend to be doing something. This legislation is a greedy little power grab, and the Greens cannot support it in its current form. I foreshadow a second reading amendment in my name which outlines our main concerns. I'll go over some of our concerns.

This bill is not supported by key stakeholders in the logistics, technology and education sectors, among others. In the review of this bill that was undertaken by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, numerous stakeholders reported insufficient consultation by the government with their respective sector or industry. The government's failing to consult is nothing new to me. Believe me, as a First Nations woman, I know that this government does not know the difference between consultation and consent. We know Labor has a problem with that too. In the case of this bill, the government failed to consult, and many of our key stakeholders don't consent. In fact, many stakeholders reported that this bill would result in the imposition of an excessive regulatory burden on their businesses, including the potential duplication of regulatory systems. These stakeholders will now have more regulatory and compliance burdens heaped upon them. I note that for the education sector there is no new additional funding to allow them to comply.

From the position of the Australian Greens, the critical flaw in this bill is that it imposes very, very serious obligations on entities that, I remind the chamber, have not been properly consulted. These obligations include the potential for the takeover of businesses or operations by government security agencies. They also include the ability for the minister to authorise the Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs to direct one of these entities to gather information; undertake an action or direct that an action not be undertaken; or authorise the Australian Signals Directorate to intervene when a cybersecurity incident has occurred, is occurring or is likely to occur. In short, the government and its spy agencies can take over the operations of an industry, based on the decision of the minister. This is wrong, and the stakeholders have not asked for this. This bill would give the minister considerable powers under the guise of protecting the security of critical infrastructure.

As I said at the beginning, this is a greedy little power grab that has been done without proper consultation and without any real co-design—we know the government loves that word 'co-design'—with the affected sectors. The Australian Greens will not be supporting it. I move:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate notes that:

(a) this bill proposes to introduce an extended supervision order regime that would allow a Supreme Court of a state or territory to make orders in relation to a person who has completed a sentence of imprisonment;

(b) the Criminal Code Act 1995 already contains provisions that permit a court to make a similar order in relation to the same category of offender;

(c) the new extended supervision order regime proposed by this bill does not repeal the existing similar provisions;

(d) the extended supervision order regime in this bill departs in very significant ways from the model proposed by the third Independent National Security Legislation Monitor; and

(e) over 70 counter-terrorism laws have passed this Parliament in the last two decades, many of which have not been supported by human rights organisations because they create broad, extensive, and often overlapping powers, as is the case with the regime proposed by this bill".

Senator MOLAN ( New South Wales ) ( 12:54 ): Australia faces what is without doubt the most uncertain strategic environment it has faced since 1945. For the last 75 years Australia has achieved prosperity and security to a degree almost unheard of in human history.Much of that security and prosperity is due to the stabilising presence of the United States. I acknowledge, as someone who has worked with, trained and fought beside the United States, that the United States is far from a perfect power but it is a far better world power than many others. Australia has benefited from the relationship with the United States. But the world is changing and Australia is trying to change to accommodate the new world. The new world has characteristics of the old world. The new world is still based on power politics. The new world has nations and leaders who do not have as much of an interest in the world order as Australia does. The new world has powers like China who look back on the appalling way that the old world treated them and want to take that out on the new world—on our world.

For 75 years, when most of our critical infrastructure was built, Australia knew that, because of our geographical location and because of our alliances, we faced no direct threat in this country. This was a luxury that we are only now really coming to appreciate. We now find that our region, the Indo-Pacific or the western pacific or whatever you want to call it, is pretty well the centre of the world's strategic environment and certainly the world's interest. Several things are happening in our region which make the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2021 and the government amendments in 2021 very important indeed.

The first is that the military power of the United States to stabilise our region has fallen by 30 to 50 per cent since the end of the Cold War. This is admitted by the United States in how they express their national defence strategy. For a long period of time many of us have thought that the United States' power was infinite. It's not and we might find ourselves on our own.

The second is that we've seen an increase in the military power of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. China has the largest army, navy, maritime militia, integrated air defence and what are called substrategic rocket and missile forces in the world. Qualitatively they are approaching the standard of the United States. Let's not forget that Russia is a Pacific power with close military and economic links to China. Let's not forget that Iran is the source of just about every problem in the Middle East at the moment and is supposedly a month away from getting the bomb. Of course North Korea is an unpredictable nuclear power with an unpredictable leader.

The third thing that is relevant to Australia's situation and this bill is that we in Australia have seen over the last two COVID years how vulnerable Australia is to outside influence, in terms of not just supply chain issues, which are terrifyingly real, but also an ability by external actors to reach into any country through cyberspace and impact on our day-to-day life.

Much of our prosperity is due to our interconnected world. Much of the efficiency of how our country functions is due to that interconnectedness. Much of the way our security—internal and external—functions relies on cyberspace. The use of actual space, where satellites fly, depends on cyberspace for the transmission of data. The crossover between cyberspace and the real world is now what is important. At present we are probed in cyberspace thousands of times per day. Many of those probes are successful. Some are from criminals, some are from countries and some are malign actors that exist between criminals and nations. What we see today is nothing compared to what we might see in the lead-up to conflict or to war. We have not seen one country, such as China or Russia, apply their full cyber-resources to attacking another country through cyberspace. We have not seen it yet. We've seen small examples in the Baltic countries, probably by Russia. We have seen impacts on parts of India's electricity sector, probably by China. But we will only see the full cybercapability of certain nations applied to other countries in the lead-up to, or actually in, war. And the prospect of war in our region is real. China says it will reincorporate Taiwan, even if it has to use force. President Biden has reaffirmed US support for Taiwan, which makes the US policy of ambiguity even more ambiguous. These are worrying times.

Australia, as a nation, is vulnerable, and this bill is one step in addressing our vulnerabilities. The level of cyberattacks on Australia's critical infrastructure is bad enough now, but in certain circumstances it could be much worse. Most of us are aware of the reliance of our hospitals, transport, financial systems and military systems on the internet, but what many don't realise is that many of our military systems rely on exactly the same civilian systems to pass data as do hospitals, transport and banks. Our infrastructure has never been more important than it is now, and we need this bill.

Amendments to this bill will ensure that the government is well placed to assist entities and those responsible for critical infrastructure assets to respond to serious cyberattacks as the first step in strengthening Australia's critical infrastructure security. The reforms outlined in the amended bill will strengthen Australia's ability to respond to serious cyberattacks on critical infrastructure. This bill expands the definition of critical infrastructure to include energy; communications; financial services; the defence industry; higher education and research; data storage or processing; food and groceries; health care and medical; space technology; transport; and water and sewage sectors. It introduces a cyberincident reporting regime for critical infrastructure assets. It makes government assistance available to industry as a last resort, subject to appropriate limitations. Under this bill, government will be able to provide assistance immediately prior to, during or following a significant cybersecurity incident to ensure the continued provision of essential services.

The Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018 strengthened the Australian government's capacity to identify and manage the national security risk of espionage, sabotage and coercion resulting from foreign involvement in Australia's critical infrastructure. The government amendment to this bill amends the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018, and is the first phase. The second phase of these reforms will be implemented by further amending the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018, capturing the remaining elements from the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill, and the risk management programs, systems of national significance and enhanced cybersecurity obligations of industry. Recommendations six to 14 of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security are currently being considered by the government. I recommend this bill to the Senate.

Senator CAROL BROWN (Tasmania) (13:03): It is pleasing to see the government's recognition of the increasing cybersecurity threats facing essential services, businesses and all levels of government with the introduction of the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2021. To understand the need for this legislation, we need only consider the recent cyberattack on the major US oil-and-gas pipeline. The pervasive threat of cyber-enabled attack and manipulation of critical infrastructure assets is serious, considerable in scope and impact, and increasing at an unprecedented rate. Australia is facing increasing cybersecurity threats to essential services, businesses and all levels of government. In the past two years, cyberattacks have struck federal parliamentary networks, the health and food sectors, media and universities. Queensland's largest regional water supplier, Sunwater, recently revealed that it was targeted by hackers in a cybersecurity breach that went undetected for nine months. In this case, the hackers left suspicious files on a web server to redirect visitor traffic to an online video platform.

A recently published report produced for the World Economic Forum revealed that 80 per cent of senior cybersecurity leaders see ransomware as a dangerous, growing threat that is threatening our public safety. The cyber incident in the US underscored that, increasingly, providers of essential services are more vulnerable to widespread cyberthreats, both here and abroad. The increasing digitisation of critical infrastructure sectors such as oil and gas and the associated industrial systems is changing the nature of cyber risk. The government's original approach to address this alarming and growing threat was to expand the definition of critical infrastructure from four sectors to 11 systems of national significance—namely, communications, financial services and markets, data storage or processing, defence industries, higher education and research, energy, food, health care, space technology, transport, and water and sewage. At the same time, the government also sought to introduce additional reporting requirements for cyber incidents affecting critical infrastructure, along with new government assistance measures for critical infrastructure assets and additional positive security obligations for critical infrastructure assets.

When the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security considered the government's initial approach, it noted that threats to critical infrastructure are often complex and serious, and usually require a swift and comprehensive response. Given this, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security formed the view that the government's attempt to introduce both the assistance measures and the new positive security obligations along with the sector-specific requirements all at once would end up achieving neither aim. Following the release of the findings of the parliamentary joint committee, it is pleasing to see that this legislation reflects a more considered approach than the one the government originally proposed.

By accepting the recommendation of the parliamentary joint committee that legislation relating to the security and protection of our critical infrastructure should be split, the Senate is now able to consider this first bill, which relates to the expansion of sectors deemed to be of national significance, the additional reporting requirements and the new assistance measures. The positive security obligations and sector-specific requirements are to be covered in further legislation, which should allow the government to conduct genuine and meaningful consultation with industry.

The threats to Australia's critical infrastructure are not solely contained to cyberattacks. They can include natural hazards, espionage, chemical or oil spills, and insider actions. These all have the potential to significantly disrupt our critical infrastructure. Delays and disruption of fuel supplies and other pressures on our supply chains have made Australians increasingly aware of the vital role played by key parts of our national supply chain infrastructure. The global pandemic has also led to heightened awareness of the essential roles undertaken by our transport and logistic workers. Essential workers play a key role in securing and protecting our critical infrastructure. They access key transport infrastructure and ensure that the goods our economy and our society need are delivered when and where they are needed. For this, we can thank the maritime workers and truck drivers of our nation. These critical workers have kept our country and economy going throughout the pandemic with little thanks or help from this government. In fact, the government won't even officially recognise the essential role played by our maritime workers. The federal government has done nothing to facilitate the vaccination of these key workers, nor have they acted to ensure that maritime crew changes can take place in a safe and effective manner. Instead, we have seen repeated outbreaks of COVID on board ships transporting goods to and from Australia and crew being forced to remain on board vessels for over 12 months because crew changes are rarely facilitated in Australia. I remind the government that there is much more to critical infrastructure than physical premises or assets.

In addition to the government assistance and mandatory notification requirements provided for in this piece of legislation, the bill also provides for oversight arrangements. On the recommendation of the parliamentary joint committee, the secretary to the department is required to report to the committee as soon as possible after government assistance measures are requested. This is an important safeguard that will ensure that the parliament, through the committee, will be aware of the operations of the act and whether the provisions are meeting the threat that they have been drafted to address. In addition to this, the parliamentary joint committee will review the operations of the act three years after it receives royal assent. This measure will help ensure that our security regime, put in place to protect our critical infrastructure, remains fit for purpose.

Security legislation is often complex and can have dire ramifications if we get it wrong. That is why consultation and review processes are so important. As I understand it, there was considerable concern from stakeholders that the consultation process leading to the government's initial proposed legislation was too rushed and that input, concerns and feedback were not acknowledged or addressed. It is my sincere hope that, by splitting the original legislation into two bills, the government will avail itself of the renewed opportunity to consult with stakeholders and that their concerns and suggestions will be given due consideration.

I commend the bill to the Senate.

Senator FARUQI (New South Wales) (13:12): I rise to speak on the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2021 and I associate myself with the comments made by my colleague Senator Thorpe. The bill gives considerable—and too much—power to the minister, under the guise of protecting critical infrastructure. It creates the potential for government security agencies to intervene and take over businesses and operations. This bill is not supported by key stakeholders, including the logistics, technology and higher education sectors. As the Greens spokesperson on education, I'll focus my comments on how this bill could impact the higher education sector. In a nutshell, this bill will require the higher education and research sector to have, and comply with, a critical infrastructure risk management program. It will require universities and research bodies to notify the government about cybersecurity incidents, under increased regulatory obligations. The government will be able to directly intervene and take over their computer systems when they experience a cyberattack.

National security is important, but there is no clear or compelling reason for the powers this bill gives the government nor for the burdens that it places on higher education and research. This is a misguided bill. I recognise the concerns of various universities that this bill, as it applies to the university sector, is not proportionate, is not workable, is not risk based and is not carefully targeted. The definitions of 'critical education asset' and 'critical infrastructure asset' are too broad in scope. Universities have tens of thousands of staff and students. They have cafeterias, gyms and swimming pools. None of these assets are distinguished in the bill. Instead, everything in a university would fall under this law. As a number of universities and their umbrella organisations noted in their submissions to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security inquiry related to this bill, the regulatory obligations imposed by this bill are likely to be extensive and quite costly for them. The government doesn't even intend to offer financial support to critical infrastructure owners and employees to meet the proposed obligations.

The innovative research universities have concluded that imposing further legislation on universities without a clear overarching strategy risks blurring the lines of responsibility for action, adds complexity to large diverse organisations and highlights compliance over effective responsive action. The Group of Eight universities have said that the regulatory impact and the costs that may accrue in the sector and for its members will be significant—far greater than so far estimated by the government, especially when added to the regulation cost already borne by the sector for compliance with other foreign interference laws. For the Group of Eight, the catch-all nature of the legislation proposed for higher education and research is highly disproportionate.

We know universities are in crisis as the government has cut funding, hiked fees and offered no support to them or to their international students during COVID-19. Thousands of staff have been let go already, casualisation is rampant and wage theft is systemic. What does the government do to address the devastation and problems that the universities are facing? Nothing. But here we have a bill that makes life more difficult for them. It's clear that this government has no plan for universities beyond a slash-and-burn, anti-intellectual, anti-education agenda. We can't sit back and expect that the government will take any approach other than the one that they have taken for the last eight years. That's why the rest of us have to proactively take back some power and reimagine what the universities in future should and hopefully will look like.

Last week I published a new discussion paper on what that could look like. The Greens propose a range of bold ideas that would completely transform higher education in this country. The government should fully fund learning, teaching and research by providing a big boost to funding. Education should be free and student debt should be abolished. Moreover, universities should be places where you can be guaranteed a secure job, where casualisation is reversed and where wage theft has ended. Staff and students deserve so much better than what they are experiencing at the moment. Universities should be places where student activism is encouraged, academic freedom is assured and political expression is part and parcel of campus life. Universities should be institutions that are equitable and antiracist and that provide a platform for First Nations knowledge, research and leadership.

This paper contains Parliamentary Library data which we have analysed that reveals that, over the past 20 years, the number of elected members on the governing bodies of Australian universities has decreased by 43 per cent, from 274 elected members in the year 2000 to 155 elected members in 2020. As a proportion, in 2000 more than one-third of positions on these bodies were elected, but by 2020 that was down to fewer than one in four. This is nothing less than a crisis of democracy in freefall at our universities.

The corporatisation of universities by government and neoliberal university management has occurred while staff and student representation on government bodies has shrunk massively. This business model sees staff and students as expendable cogs in the machine of a corporate campus that makes a mockery of the notion that the university is a public good. Universities are at crossroads. They can continue hurtling down a path of corporatisation, austerity and job insecurity, or they can chart a new course based on democracy, equity and the collective public good.

Rather than focusing on the real issues that universities face, this government is imposing another unnecessary, disproportionate burden on university communities. The government is once again trying to grow its ever-expanding surveillance powers under the guise of national security. It presents a real threat to the independence and autonomy of the university sector. It allows the government to extensively intervene in university operations.

The ability of government agencies to reach into and possibly take over external systems, including those of our education sector, raises serious issues of organisational integrity and autonomy, and this ever-increasing surveillance creep should be concerning for all of us here. Let's not become desensitised to how much surveillance power we are giving this government. The Greens will not be supporting this bill.

Senator VAN (Victoria) (13:20): We undoubtedly live in a digital age, one where no corner of the globe has been left untouched. This interconnectivity has brought with it a significant number of benefits to society. However, this also means that human life and society have become increasingly dependent on modern information technology. Recent advances in new information and communication networks have led to a shift towards newly emerged paradigms, such as smart grids, IOT—or the internet of things—cloud computing, big data, and edge and fog computing.

One of the most fundamental responsibilities of a government is to ensure the security of its citizens. This means that we must ensure that the infrastructure that underpins the very functioning of our society is secure. While past cyberattacks were focused mainly on IT environments, the trends show that cyber risks are now greater in the operational technology environment. Software and data that are critical to the provision of essential services such as power, water, health care, transportation and communications must be protected from criminals and terrorists if the nation's security is to be assured. The imperative is to ensure that the continuous delivery of essential services is not only clearly legal but also moral.

The cyber threat to critical infrastructure continues to grow, and this represents one of most serious national security challenges that we must confront. The increased integration of IOT technology as well as the digitisation of many systems upon which our critical infrastructure rely means that many of the systems that our society relies on are increasingly under threat from cyberattacks. As outlined in Australia's Cyber Security Strategy 2020, the Australian government is committed to protecting the essential services that all Australians rely on by uplifting the security and resilience of critical infrastructure.

Australia is facing increasing cybersecurity threats to essential services, businesses and all levels of government. In the past two years we have seen cyberattacks on our federal parliamentary networks, logistics, the medical sector and universities, just to name a few. Internationally we have seen cyberattacks on critical infrastructure. Recently the Colonial Pipeline in the United States, which supplies half of that country's east coast with fuel, was shut down for six days, leading to the President declaring a state of emergency. It led to fuel shortages and to the company having to pay a $4.4 million ransom. We saw attacks against the Ukraine's power grid in 2015 and 2016, resulting in large parts of the country losing power for hours on end. These and countless other examples go to show that this is a real and present threat that has real-world consequences.

All Australians rely on critical infrastructure to deliver essential services that are crucial to our economic prosperity and our way of life, such as electricity, communications, transport and banking. Critical infrastructure is increasingly interconnected and interdependent. Connectivity without proper safeguards creates significant vulnerabilities. Interconnectedness means that the compromise of one critical infrastructure asset can have a domino effect that degrades or disrupts others and results in cascading consequences across Australia's economy and national security. Threats across a range of hazards from natural threats, including meteorological or climate hazards, to human induced threats, including unlawful interference, cyberincidents, espionage and chemical or oil spills, as well as from trusted insiders, all have the potential to significantly disrupt critical infrastructure.

As the majority of Australia's critical infrastructure is owned and operated by private industry or state and territory governments, it is vital that our approach to ensuring the resilience of Australia's critical infrastructure is clear, effective, consistent and proportionate. That government alone can succeed in addressing the challenges and vulnerabilities regarding cybersecurity should not be our expectation. Critical infrastructure owners and operators, whether public or private, must take every precaution to protect their digital assets and networks. However, we believe the government must take necessary steps so that it can protect critical infrastructure from various threats.

Amendments to the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2020 will ensure the government is well placed to assist entities responsible for critical infrastructure assets to respond to serious cyberattacks, as the first step in strengthening Australia's critical infrastructure security. Reforms outlined in the bill will strengthen Australia's ability to respond to serious cyberattacks on critical infrastructure by expanding the definition of critical infrastructure so that it includes energy, communications, financial services, defence industry, higher education, research, data storage or processing, food and groceries, health care and medical, space technology, transport, water and sewerage sectors. It will introduce a cyberincident reporting regime for critical infrastructure assets. By making government assistance available to industry as a last resort and subject to appropriate limitations, this assistance will be available immediately prior to, during or following a significant cybersecurity incident to ensure the continued provision of essential services.

By defining what is and isn't critical infrastructure, the government is better able to allocate resources and responsibilities during a crisis. The definitions have been refined in partnership with industry to ensure that only those assets that are truly critical are captured. The assets have been identified as critical based on their impact on the social or economic stability of Australia, the defence of Australia or Australia's national security. Currently, the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018 requires entities responsible for critical infrastructure to provide ownership and operator information for the Register of Critical Infrastructure Assets. The cyberincident reporting regime builds on the existing obligations in the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act. Once turned on, for each sector, it will require infrastructure entities to report incidents to the Australian Cyber Security Centre through the ReportCyber portal and provide ownership and operator information for the register. This will enable a quick and effective government response to cybersecurity incidents by providing a greater situational awareness of threats to those assets.

Critical infrastructure entities will have up to 12 hours to report a critical cybersecurity incident once they become aware of it and up to 72 hours to report other cybersecurity incidents. The time frame for reporting cybersecurity incidents aligns with the reporting regimes such as APRA's prudential standard CPS 234 and the EU's GDPR. The reporting of cybersecurity incidents is vital to help the government develop an aggregated threat picture and comprehensive understanding of cybersecurity risks to critical infrastructure in a way that is mutually beneficial to government and industry. Reporting of cybersecurity incidents will provide better, proactive and reactive incident response options, which can range from providing voluntary assistance to industry to building a better culture of cybersecurity.

These reforms will provide for government assistance measures. These measures are necessary as there may be situations where a cyberthreat or incident is occurring or has occurred which can or will pose a serious risk to our national security interest. The assistance measures will focus on protecting and defending assets that provide a critical role in Australia's economy, society or defence when the owner or operator of those assets is unable to do so. Noting the importance of these assets for an effective functioning of Australian society, it will be a criminal offence not to comply with directions made under the assistance regime. These assistance powers are necessary due to the current threats we face and expectations from the community that, where Australia's national interests are under threat, the government will use its technical expertise to ensure essential services remain functioning.

Debate interrupted.

Senator HANSON-YOUNG (South Australia) (15:50): I move:

(1) That there be laid on the table, by the Minister representing the Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction and the Minister representing the Minister for Resources and Water, by no later than midday on 24 November 2021, answers to the specific questions asked by the Environment and Communications References Committee in correspondence dated 22 October 2021 to the Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction and the Minster for Resources and Water relating to the committee's inquiry into oil and gas exploration and production in the Beetaloo Basin.

(2) If the Senate is not sitting when the documents are ready for presentation, the documents are to be presented to the President under standing order 166.

Senator DUNIAM (Tasmania—Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries and Assistant Minister for Industry Development) (15:51): I seek leave to make a short statement.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Leave is granted for one minute.

Senator DUNIAM: The government will not oppose this motion, given the minister has already provided answers to the committee secretariat and, of course, will continue to cooperate constructively with the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Senator SESELJA (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (16:56): I table a document relating to the order for the production of documents concerning ASIC's internal review of its handling of the Sterling Group.

Senator SESELJA (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (16:56): I table a document relating to the order for the production of documents concerning the government response to the report of the Select Committee on the Administration of Sports Grants.

Senator RICE (Victoria—Deputy Australian Greens Whip) (16:56): I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

In relation to the OPD concerning the government's response to the report on the sports rorts—surprise, surprise!—the minister has decided that the information still shouldn't be forthcoming, just like the documents relating to car park rorts, which are still not forthcoming. This is information that is in the public interest. We know why the government are not revealing this information. It is because they are hiding information. They are telling lies to the Australian public. They are trying to pretend that everything is fine, that everything is being done appropriately and that money is being spent with due consideration and due process. But it is not.

We know from the refusal to table documents relating to sports rorts and from the refusal to table documents relating to car park rorts that these are not isolated incidents. We have rorting left, right and centre. We have sports rorts, we have car park rorts and we have got the Building Better Regions Fund. Basically, government money, taxpayers' money, people's taxes, their hard-earned money, is being channelled into projects that purely serve the government's interests. It's being siphoned into projects that are being funded just because the government think it's going to help them win an election. We saw it with sports rorts and we saw it with the car park rorts.

People thought there was a proper process—as there should have been—but there wasn't. With sports rorts a process went on. Clubs applied for grants and thought there was going to be a fair process and that their grant applications were going to be considered fairly, and indeed they were. There was a process that ranked those projects to see which ones should be funded. But we know that, within the then sports minister's office, Senator McKenzie decided she didn't like that list of projects that were going to be funded, because those projects weren't in the government's interests. Most of those projects were not funded. Instead, the projects that were funded were the ones that they thought they could use to curry favour with the electorate to win votes. They were in either marginal seats or in seats where they wanted to reward their best mates. That's what happened with sports rorts.

We had hardworking people who put hundreds of hours into their applications, who thought that they would be getting money for upgrades to their sporting projects, left out in the cold. We had projects that scored right at the top of the list when they were being considered, according to their eligibility and meeting the criteria, that didn't get funded. It wasn't an accident that they didn't get funded; it was because they weren't the favoured projects. They weren't the ones that the government felt they could use to win the election. That was sports rorts. The ANAO, the Auditor-General, told us about what was going on, but when we asked for those documents, no, we didn't get them. The public is not able to see what's going on. The government are hiding information from the public. They are lying to the Australian public.

We saw at the same time the same thing going on with the car parks rorts. Here we have a program where even the advice of the department was that it should be a project for which people could apply but, no, it ended up being a program where only the favoured coalition MPs got to say which car parks could be funded. In fact, it was doubly outrageous because here is a scheme worth billions of dollars that's meant to be tackling urban congestion. All the evidence shows that, if you're trying to tackle urban congestion, you do not build more infrastructure for cars, because all that happens if you build more infrastructure for cars is you encourage more people to drive. We had an inquiry a fortnight ago into car park rorts. The transport and planning experts said it is universally accepted around the world that the way to tackle congestion is to give people alternatives to travelling by car, to give people decent public transport, to give people really good safe walking and cycling facility. That's how you get people out of their cars and that's how you tackle congestion, not by building more infrastructure for cars. But no, that advice, that information, that evidence was completely ignored. There is the first element of the deception on the Australian people.

The second element is okay, alright, we're building car parks because they're popular, and people seem to think that building car parks is a good idea. Who gets to decide where those car parks will be? Again, it is the coalition MPs whose marginal seats are at risk. Nobody else gets asked where these car parks should be built, just the coalition MP ins their marginal seats. It is crazy to be building car parks while trying so solving congestion, and even more crazy to be building car parks in Brighton and in Camberwell and in other inner suburban areas, where the last thing you want to be doing is encouraging more people to drive to the station. It is total foolishness and goes against the basis of good urban planning. But that didn't matter, because we had a government that decided here was a way they could try and win a few votes. Here was a way they could support the electoral outcomes. They could support the electoral campaigns of House of Representatives MPs whose seats were under a bit of threat.

Again, the Auditor-General told us that this was going on, that this was the reality of that total mismanagement of our taxpayers' money. But when we ask for the documents, they were not forthcoming on a public interest immunity claim with no justification at all. Suddenly documents become cabinet documents because they were passed within sniffing distance of the cabinet. We here in the Senate try and get this information through orders for the production of documents, and this government has the audacity to say, 'No, we're not giving it to you, Senate.' It is just totally outrageous. It is typical of a government that fear transparency. They fear accountability because they are doing the most underhanded so-called governance. They are governing in the interests of their mates. That's what's going on. We need a federal anticorruption commission to get to the bottom of this. We were told at our car parks inquiry two weeks ago that there was no doubt that this sort of behaviour was corrupt and that heads would roll if we had a federal anticorruption commission. We know that's the reason why this government is not the slightest bit interested in bringing in a federal anticorruption commission. They've put it off again because they don't want the possibility of having something holding them to account, to be actually making sure that we have processes that will run that are transparent and accountable. Instead, they are very happy with the way the situation is at moment: that the Senate tries to get the information and we don't get the information. Our orders for the production of documents just get denied.

Well, a time is going to come when there's going to be some responsibility. Sadly, we know that there isn't going to be any change from this government. That time when this government is going to be held to account is at the next election, because there's only one thing for a government that is so averse to transparency, so averse to accountability, so averse to putting in place the proper measures of decent, accountable government. There's only one thing for it, and that is to kick them out. So I am looking forward so much to the next election to see the back of this corrupt government and to get government that actually will be governing for the interests of the Australian public.

Question agreed to.

Senator SESELJA (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (17:06): I move:

That these bills may proceed without formalities, may be taken together and be now read a first time.

Question agreed to.

Bills read a first time.

Senator SESELJA (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (17:07): I move:

That these bills be now read a second time.

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

Leave granted.

The speeches read as follows—

OFFSHORE ELECTRICITY INFRASTRUCTURE BILL 2021

Today the Morrison Government is taking further steps to strengthen our economy, create jobs and opportunities for Australians, and ensure the delivery of affordable and reliable power.

I am pleased to introduce the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Bill to the Senate. This Bill establishes a regulatory framework for a new Australian industry, building on this Government's strong record of supporting renewables projects and critical grid infrastructure.

Specifically, this Bill will facilitate and regulate the development of offshore electricity infrastructure in Commonwealth waters, including transmission infrastructure and generation. Australia is an attractive place to invest, with many opportunities to harness and a skilled and talented workforce to deliver important projects. Leading developers have expressed a keen interest in investing in offshore electricity infrastructure projects in Australia and this Bill provides a licensing framework and regulatory certainty for those investments to occur.

Enabling the development of an offshore electricity sector will deliver significant local benefits to all Australians.

Investment in transmission infrastructure will support a more secure and reliable electricity system.

Market competition from new electricity generation capacity will help put further downward pressure on wholesale electricity prices.

We can take advantage of evolving and emerging technologies to secure cost-effective electricity solutions for Australia.

Thousands of skilled regional jobs can be created, providing both direct benefits and indirect opportunities for regional businesses.

Already, there are a number of projects that stand to benefit from this legislation, representing as economic opportunity for Australia.

This Bill will help the implementation of Marinus Link, the proposed 1,500 megawatt (MW) transmission line between Tasmania and Victoria.

Marinus Link will provide the additional interconnection needed to export the electricity generated by the Battery of the Nation projects in Tasmania, to the mainland. In doing so, it will unlock new investment in generation projects, including pumped hydro energy storage. Marinus Link will help deliver a more reliable, affordable energy system, helping keep the lights on and prices low.

Passage of this Bill will also provide business certainty for other proposals that are under development, such as 'Star of the South' - a proposed offshore wind farm off the coast of Gippsland, Victoria, and 'Sun Cable' in our north.

Combined, these three proposals, Marinus Link, Star of the South and Sun Cable, are estimated to be worth over $10 billion and create over 10,000 direct and indirect job opportunities during construction. There are also ongoing employment opportunities for the staff that would be required to operate and maintain the infrastructure. Much of this job creation would occur in our regions.

While these are the most advanced projects, there are at least 10 other commercial-scale windfarms that have been proposed by developers for construction around Australia.

International experience shows that offshore electricity sectors co-exist with other offshore sectors and activities, such as fishing and shipping industries. This Bill protects these maritime stakeholders by requiring developers to take into account the impacts that potential projects may have on existing users of the offshore area. Importantly, under the Bill, areas will not be available for offshore electricity infrastructure projects if their impacts cannot be appropriately managed and enforcement action can be taken if licence holders interfere with existing users of a declared area.

Environmental approvals will be sought through established processes under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. This approach secures necessary protections while avoiding the imposition of any additional or duplicative regulatory obligations.

Securing the health and safety of workers and workplaces is paramount in this high risk offshore marine environment. The Bill will apply the national model Work Health and Safety Act 2011, with some necessary modifications to ensure that the framework operates appropriately in the ocean.

The Bill also requires developers to agree to provide financial security to cover the cost of decommissioning proposed infrastructure, prior to any construction or installation commencing. This financial security will be equal to the cost for government to decommission infrastructure in the licence area. This important feature ensures that tax payers do not foot the bill for removal of any retired assets in the future.

Supporting the development of large projects and a new offshore industry represents an exciting new opportunity for Australia. I urge my colleagues to support the passage of this Bill to enable the development of a new industry that will create jobs, strengthen our economy, and facilitate a more affordable and secure energy system.

OFFSHORE ELECTRICITY INFRASTRUCTURE (REGULATORY LEVIES) BILL 2021

I am pleased to introduce the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure (Regulatory Levies) Bill 2021 to the house. This Bill supports the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Bill 2021 (or the Main Bill) which establishes a regulatory framework to enable offshore electricity infrastructure projects, including transmission and generation projects in Commonwealth waters.

The Main Bill supports investment in large scale offshore electricity infrastructure through a new licensing regime, administered and regulated by the Offshore Infrastructure Registrar and the Offshore Infrastructure Regulator.

The Regulatory Levies Bill ensures the Offshore Infrastructure Registrar and the Offshore Infrastructure Regulator are fully cost-recovered to undertake the functions required to facilitate the life-cycle of offshore electricity infrastructure projects.

The National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator (known as NOPTA) and the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environment Management Authority (known as NOPSEMA) will be appointed as registrar and regulator of the framework, respectively. These agencies have extensive experience in developing regulatory processes for the offshore environment and are best placed to support and regulate the offshore electricity infrastructure sector.

Under the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure framework, NOPTA's principal functions will be to administer the licensing scheme, including maintaining a register of licensees and managing the application process.

NOPSEMA will be responsible for regulatory duties relating to workplace health and safety, infrastructure integrity, environmental management and compliance.

Currently, NOPTA and NOPSEMA perform regulatory functions for the offshore petroleum and greenhouse gas storage industries, and are fully cost-recovered by way of fees and levies imposed on these industries. NOPTA and NOPSEMA's functions will expand under the new framework to regulate the offshore electricity infrastructure industry.

Levies collected from regulated entities will be placed in the Offshore Infrastructure Registrar Special Account established under the Main Bill, and will be apportioned between the agencies to recover costs incurred.

Supporting the development of large projects and a new offshore industry represents an exciting new opportunity for Australia.

I urge my colleagues to support the passage of these bills that will enable the development of a new industry that will create jobs, strengthen our economy, and facilitate a more affordable and secure energy system.

OFFSHORE ELECTRICITY INFRASTRUCTURE (CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS) BILL 2021

The Offshore Electricity Infrastructure (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2021 is part of a package of three bills, including the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Bill 2021 and the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure (Regulatory Levies) Bill 2021, which were introduced into the House on 2 September 2021.

Together these bills establish a regulatory framework to enable offshore electricity infrastructure projects, including transmission and generation projects in the Commonwealth offshore area.

A new offshore industry can deliver significant benefits to all Australians by strengthening our economy, creating jobs and opportunities for Australians, and enhancing the delivery of affordable and reliable power.

Specifically, the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2021 updates five Commonwealth Acts to clarify the operation of those Acts with the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Bill.

The Consequential Amendments Bill amends the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006 (known as the OPGGS Act) to clarify how it is intended to work alongside the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Bill. The OPGGS Act is amended to ensure regulated entities under the OPGGS Act do not unduly interfere with the activities of regulated entities under the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Framework.

Amendments are also made to reflect NOPSEMA's dual role in regulating the OPGGS Act and the OEI framework, and to clarify that NOPTA may be appointed as the Registrar of the OEI framework.

This Bill also make minor amendments to other Acts to allow the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Bill to operate as intended. This includes updating definitions for offshore electricity infrastructure and to provide for similar arrangements to the offshore electricity sector that are provided to offshore resources sector.

Together the offshore electricity infrastructure package will enable the development of a new industry that will create jobs, strengthen our economy, and facilitate a more affordable and secure energy system.

I commend this Bill.

Debate adjourned.

Senator SESELJA (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (17:07): I move:

That these bills may proceed without formalities, may be taken together and be now read a first time.

Question agreed to.

Bills read a first time.

Senator SESELJA (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (17:08): I move:

That these bills be now read a second time.

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

Leave granted.

The speeches read as follows—

Territories Stolen Generations Redress Scheme (Facilitation) Bill 2021

This Bill will facilitate the implementation of certain aspects of the Territories Stolen Generations Redress Scheme, a redress scheme for Stolen Generations survivors who were forcibly removed as children from their families in the Northern Territory or the Australian Capital Territory prior to their respective self-government, or the Jervis Bay Territory - as announced by the Prime Minister on 5 August 2021 as part of the Commonwealth's Closing the Gap Implementation Plan.

The establishment of the Scheme represents an important practical step forward to healing this country and reflects our government's commitment to our nation's journey to reconciliation.

The Scheme will operate from 1 March 2022 to 30 June 2026, and will be open for applications between 1 March 2022 and 28 February 2026.

The Scheme will provide to eligible participants:

A one-off redress payment in recognition of the harm caused by forced removal.

A one-off healing assistance payment in recognition that the action required to facilitate healing will be specific to each individual.

The opportunity, if they choose, to confidentially tell their story about the impact of their removal to a senior official within government and receive a face-to-face or written direct personal response acknowledging the harm caused by removal.

The Scheme adopts a survivor-focused and trauma-informed approach. This means access to the Scheme will be simple, and support, including free legal and financial advice, will be available to Scheme applicants.

In line with the survivor-focused approach of the Scheme, this Bill will facilitate the delivery of certain aspects of the Scheme by ensuring that participants in the Scheme will not be adversely affected by receiving a redress payment. This is achieved by providing that receipt of a redress payment does not:

affect a participant's access to, or eligibility for, any pensions, payments, benefits or services provided by the Commonwealth; or

require the repayment of an amount to the Commonwealth.

The Bill also ensures that the payment is absolutely inalienable, which, among other things, means the Commonwealth cannot set-off the amount of the redress payment determined under the Scheme against amounts owing to the Commonwealth by the participant.

The Bill will be supported by the Territories Stolen Generations Redress Scheme (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2021.

These Bills will:

support the survivor-focused and trauma-informed approach of the Scheme,

support intergenerational healing,

ensure eligible participants receive the full benefit of their redress payment, and

will positively impact the health and wellbeing of Stolen Generations survivors, their families and communities.

With many Stolen Generations survivors being of an advanced age and suffering life threatening illnesses, the imperative to act now has been brought into sharp focus.

I am pleased to introduce this Bill so that the Commonwealth can facilitate steps towards healing.

Territories Stolen Generations Redress Scheme (Consequ ential Amendments) Bill 2021

This is a companion Bill to the Territories Stolen Generations Redress Scheme (Facilitation) Bill 2021.This Bill will facilitate the implementation of certain aspects of the Territories Stolen Generations Redress Scheme, a redress scheme for Stolen Generations survivors who were forcibly removed as children from their families in the Northern Territory or the Australian Capital Territory prior to their respective self-government, or the Jervis Bay Territory.

The Scheme adopts a survivor-focused approach and the redress payments under the Scheme are in recognition of the harm caused by forced removal and are aimed at healing.

As such, this Bill makes amendments to various Commonwealth Acts to ensure that eligible participants will receive the full benefit of their redress payment and that receipt of the payment does not adversely affect income testing for other Commonwealth payments or benefits.

Amendments to the Social Security Act 1991 and Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986 will ensure the redress payments are exempt from the applicable income test under those Acts.

Amendments to the Bankruptcy Act 1966 will ensure that the redress payment is quarantined from the divisible property of a bankrupt and the recipient can fully benefit from redress payments provided under the Scheme, regardless of their circumstances.

Amendments to the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 provide that any redress payments made under the Scheme to a person will be exempt from income tax, and not be subject to capital gains tax. These amendments will also prevent a redress payment from being considered in income testing for some other Commonwealth payments and benefits.

This Bill also makes amendments to the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999. These amendments facilitate access to protected information, which will be used in limited circumstances in administering the Scheme. For example, to verify the identity of applicants to the Scheme, it may be necessary to cross check identity information provided by applicants with information held by the Department of Social Services or Services Australia. At all times, the protections applying to social security protected information continue to apply.

These amendments:

support the survivor-focused and trauma-informed approach of the Scheme,

support intergenerational healing,

ensure eligible participants receive the full benefit of their redress payment, and

will positively impact the health and wellbeing of Stolen Generations survivors, their families and communities.

Debate adjourned.

Senator SESELJA (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (17:09): I move:

That these bills may proceed without formalities, may be taken together and be now read a first time.

Question agreed to.

Bills read a first time.

Senator SESELJA (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (17:09): I table a revised explanatory memorandum relating to the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response No. 2) Bill 2021, and an addendum to the explanatory memorandum relating to the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Remote Engagement Program) Bill 2021, and move:

That these bills be now read a second time.

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

Leave granted.

The speeches read as follows—

AGED CARE AND OTHER LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (ROYAL COMMISSION RESPONSE NO. 2) BILL 2021

Today I introduce the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response No. 2) Bill of 2021. This is the second stage of aged care legislative reform to deliver the high quality and safe aged care that our senior Australians deserve.

This Bill responds to a number of Recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, ahead of further reforms that have been committed to by this Government.

Australian National Aged Care Classification (AN-ACC)

This Bill implements significant structural reform of funding for residential aged care. It replaces the outdated Aged Care Funding Instrument with a new model for calculating aged care subsidies. The Australian National Aged Care Classification (AN-ACC) model has been developed in consultation with the aged care sector and consumer groups over several years and it will encourage innovation and investment in the sector.

The AN-ACC was developed following an extensive research project, and the Government has taken a staged approach to implementation. From April 2021, residential aged care recipients have been progressively assessed and classified under the AN-ACC, and this classification will now be linked, through this Bill, to the subsidy calculation for residential aged care providers. This Bill will finalise implementation of the AN-ACC model from 1 October 2022.

Aged Care and Support Worker Regulation

The Royal Commission recommended strengthening regulation of the personal care workforce and increasing protections for senior Australians from workers who pose an unacceptable risk of harm.

This Bill responds in part to Recommendation 77 of the Royal Commission by establishing authority for nationally consistent pre-employment screening for aged care workers and governing persons of approved providers. It also establishes a Code of Conduct, which will ensure poor behaviour of approved providers, workers and governing persons is held to account.

A national database of cleared and excluded individuals will support employment decisions in aged care and, through mutual recognition arrangements with the National Disability Insurance Scheme, across the care and support sector more broadly.

The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner will have powers to make and enforce a Code of Conduct. The Commissioner will have a range of powers to deal with breaches including civil penalties, and, significantly, new banning orders for individuals, in line with recommendation 103 of the Royal Commission.

These new regulatory arrangements are designed to work together, to effectively manage and prevent unsuitable workers from entering or remaining in aged care.

Extending the Serious Incident Response Scheme to home care

The Bill extends the Serious Incident Response Scheme to home care and flexible care delivered in a home or community care setting from 1 July 2022. These amendment give effect to Royal Commission Recommendation 100.

The new requirements seek to build provider capacity to identify risk, respond to incidents, and drive learning and improvements that will reduce the number of preventable incidents in the future. Under the scheme, providers of in-home aged care services will be required to identify, record, manage and resolve all incidents that occur.

By extending the definition of reportable incident, this Bill will ensure the most serious incidents occurring in home and community care settings are reported to the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. Expanding the Serious Incident Response Scheme will reduce the risk of abuse and neglect, and protect vulnerable senior Australians receiving aged care services in their home and the community.

Strengthening Provider Governance

This Bill improves the governance of approved providers from 1 March 2022. The amendments align with recommendations 88 to 90 of the Royal Commission, which note that good provider governance arrangements result in high quality care.

A number of new governance responsibilities for approved providers and their governing bodies will be introduced, as well as new reporting requirements to assist senior Australians and their families to understand the operations of providers.

Approved providers will be required to notify changes to key personnel, and the Bill will replace the current disqualified individual arrangements with a suitability test. The new governance arrangements will improve the transparency and accountability of providers, and will change the culture from the top down.

Enhanced Information Sharing

Along with improving regulatory protections in aged care, the Australian Government is taking a first step towards aligning the regulation of providers across the broader care and support sector. This sector covers aged care, disability support and veterans' care. Regulatory alignment will improve the consistency of quality and safety protections across the care and support sector while reducing the overall regulatory burden on cross-sector providers.

The Bill facilitates increased information sharing by the Commission, Department of Health and Department of Veterans' Affairs with specified Commonwealth bodies. It will facilitate information sharing about providers and workers operating across the care and support sector who are not complying with their obligations, are failing to provide quality care or whose conduct might be putting senior Australians at risk. The amendments seek to address aspects of the existing legislation that make it difficult to share information in a way that responds effectively to such risks.

I note that reciprocal sharing of information about provider and worker conduct in the National Disability Insurance Scheme will be facilitated by proposed information sharing powers in the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Improving Supports for At Risk Participants) Bill 2021.

Increased Financial and Prudential Oversight

The Government is implementing a new financial and prudential monitoring, compliance and intervention framework for the aged care sector. Its purpose is to build the sector's financial resilience and improve its accountability. It will enable the Government to identify at risk providers earlier, and help ensure providers meet their obligations to refund deposits to residents.

This Bill introduces the second phase of a three-phase reform by:

enabling the Secretary or Commissioner to request information or documents from a provider or borrower relating to the use of a loan made with a refundable deposit or accommodation bond

making it an offence for a borrower to not provide the information or documents and

extending the period of liability between misuse of refundable deposits and insolvency for both providers and key personnel from 2 years to 5 years.

These changes implement the Government's commitment to enhancing the transparency of the aged care sector and supporting continuity of care for senior Australians. They also respond to the Royal Commission's recommendations for more stringent financial reporting requirements and strengthened monitoring powers.

Independent Health and Aged Care Pri cing Authority

Finally, the Bill expands the functions of a renamed Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority to also include the provision of advice on health care and aged care pricing and costing, and to perform functions conferred on it by the Aged Care Act.

New governance and appointments arrangements will streamline administration and reflect the enhanced responsibilities and integrated functions of the Pricing Authority. Information used and disclosed to perform the new functions will be appropriately protected.

Establishing an independent aged care pricing and costing advice function will support transparent and evidence-based assessment of the costs involved in delivering care to senior Australians who use aged care. This builds on our existing work to improve transparency in the aged care sector and fosters community confidence that the care they receive is cost-effective and sustainable. Transferring functions performed by the Aged Care Pricing Commissioner to the Pricing Authority will further streamline administration and enhance industry confidence.

Collectively, these amendments form the second step in the Government's five year reform agenda through the five reform pillars: home care, residential aged care services and sustainability, residential aged care quality and safety, workforce, and governance.

The health, safety and wellbeing of senior Australians is of the utmost importance to the Government, and is driving our plan for generational change of the aged care system.

HEALTH INSUR ANCE AMENDMENT (ENHANCING THE BONDED MEDICAL PROGRAM AND OTHER MEASURES) BILL 2021

The Australian Government recognises the unique challenges facing the health system in the regions and is focused on improving the capacity, quality, distribution and services to meet the needs of families and communities

The 2018-19 Budget $550 million ten-year Stronger Rural Health Strategy continues to give doctors more opportunities to train and practise in regional, rural and remote Australia, and incentivises nurses and allied health professionals to participate in multidisciplinary, team based primary care. After the first two years, more than 700 additional GPs and 700 additional nurses are now working in regional and remote areas.

Building on and supporting the implementation of the Stronger Rural Health Strategy, the Government has announced a further $123.0 million Health Workforce Reform package in the 2021-22 Budget to ensure the health workforce is available to improve the health and wellbeing of all Australians.

The Government funds a broad range of programs to train, attract and retain medical professionals in rural communities. This includes the statutory Bonded Medical Program - the Program - which commenced on 1 January 2020.

The Program provides a Commonwealth-supported place in a medical course at an Australian university in exchange for participants completing a Return of Service Obligation (RoSO) working as a medical practitioner in a regional, rural or remote community. The Program aims to deliver high numbers of vocationally recognised GPs and specialists to areas of workforce shortage.

In addition to accepting new student participants every year, the Program allows participants of legacy schemes - the Medical Rural Bonded Scholarship (MRBS) Scheme and the Bonded Medical Places Scheme - to opt in to the Program. Participants from these legacy schemes are attracted to opt in to the Program because it provides more flexible options to undertake and complete their Return of Service Obligation. In addition, the Return of Service Obligation - generally three years - is less than what would otherwise be required under the legacy schemes.

The Health Insurance Amendment (Enhancing the Bonded Medical Program and Other Measures) Bill 2021 (the Bill) provides additional flexibility to support the ongoing administration of the Program. The proposed amendments will address unintended consequences in the interests of participants and will also support achievement of the Program's objectives.

The proposed amendments to the Health Insurance Act 1973 will introduce additional administrative flexibility into the Program. Amendments will allow a person to cease to be a bonded participant - and effectively exit the Program - in the event of their death or if the Secretary determines that exceptional circumstances apply to the person.

The amendments also provide greater flexibility to provide some long-term legacy scheme participants - who would otherwise not be able to complete their Return of Service Obligation in the 18 year period allowed - an extension of time to complete their Return of Service Obligation under the Program, if needed.

The Bill will also ensure that the administrative penalty applied under the Program - when bonded participants fail to give information or documents to the Department within prescribed timeframes - is appropriate and proportionate in the circumstances.

The Bill also provides for the more appropriate administration of breaches of legacy Medical Rural Bonded Scholarship contracts.

It will allow for the waiving of amounts owing to the Commonwealth accrued by Medical Rural Bonded Scholarship Scheme participants due to minor or inadvertent breaches of their contractual arrangements.

It will also establish discretionary authority as to whether a person - having breached their Medical Rural Bonded Scholarship contract with the Commonwealth - should be subject to a ban period during which a medicare benefit is not payable in respect of a professional service rendered by, or on behalf of, the person as a medical practitioner.

Overall, the Bill enhances the Bonded Medical Program in the interests of participants. It allows for more appropriate and efficient administration of bonded programs and above all, to meet and support the needs of a modern workforce - a workforce of medical professionals providing crucial health services in regional, rural and remote Australia, at this critical time.

SOCIAL SECURITY LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (REMOTE ENGAGEMENT PROGRAM) BILL 2021

The Government is reforming remote employment services in 2023. The reforms will be co-designed and piloted in partnership with a number of remote communities ahead of implementing the new program.

The Social Security Legislation Amendment (Remote Engagement Program) Bill 2021creates a new supplementary payment for job seekers in remote engagement program pilot communities who volunteer to participate in a placement that is like having a job. The placements will build participants' skills in roles that will deliver goods or services to benefit local communities and provide a pathway for job seekers to find a job. The new payment will be one aspect that communities can trial alongside other approaches to training, skills development and non-vocational support as part of the co-design of the remote employment program.

Over many decades, governments have tried different approaches to delivering employment services in remote Australia. We have learned that what works in our cities and more densely populated regions may not work in remote areas. We have also learned that we have to continuously adapt and evolve to better meet new and existing challenges.

There is more to be done to continue to develop an approach that empowers the people, many of them Indigenous people, living in our remote communities to develop their skills and engage in economic opportunities in a way that is both tailored to their specific needs and beneficial to their communities.

This Bill supports collaboration with communities to develop an appropriately flexible program that will build the skills and vocational capabilities of people in remote communities. Many of the more detailed aspects of the approach will be set out in legislative instruments and policy guidance, allowing the flexibility to adjust as lessons are learnt and communities' ideas change over the course of the pilots.

Achieving sustainable change in remote communities can only be done by working together, including by listening to Indigenous experience and expertise to develop a new approach. Working in partnership to pilot innovative approaches, learn and review, and develop the new program will be key to our future shared success.

Rewarding and sustainable employment opportunities are transformational for individuals, families and communities. Jobs contribute to financial and economic security and to self-determination and wellbeing.

Australians living in remote communities face complex employment challenges, different from those experienced in regional and urban areas. Remote areas cover 75 per cent of the Australian land mass however there are fewer jobs available in remote areas, with less than two per cent of actively trading businesses located there.

The measures in this Bill recognise the lack of employment opportunities people, including Indigenous Australians, face in some of the most remote parts of Australia. The opportunities and circumstances in remote Australia are unique and different from urban areas, and this will continue to be the case. We have heard what communities and stakeholders have said about current and previous remote employment services. We know remote communities want changes so that future employment services better match place-based economic circumstances and labour market opportunities.

This Bill supports the reforms to the Government's suite of employment services and programs to ensure they remain fit-for-purpose, make the most of technological advances and support Australia's economic recovery from COVID-19.

These reforms include the Government's 2021-22 Budget announcement to pilot a new remote engagement program to trial approaches in advance of replacing the Community Development Program (CDP) in 2023. Initially, we estimate around 200 eligible job seekers across the pilot sites will volunteer to participate in placements in work-like roles across their community and receive the payment.

We want to collaborate with stakeholders to develop a new remote engagement program that will better enable job seekers to contribute to goods and services that will strengthen the economic, social and cultural life of communities and build in-demand skills. And at the same time, create a pathway for these job seekers to build skills to find local jobs.

When implemented, the new program will contribute to the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, which includes targets to close the gap on employment outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

The new payment is one possible design element of the new program we would like to co-design with communities as part of the pilots. We will also work with communities during the pilot phase to explore:

how to provide better support to job seekers who have the skills and experience to work, but are having difficulty finding work

vocational training options for job seekers that will lead to real jobs in their communities

how to provide the right support, at the right time, to job seekers with acute or complex needs and

the best ways to engage with and support job seekers to meet Mutual Obligation Requirements.

This Bill makes changes to the Social Security Act 1991 and the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 to create a new supplementary payment that will be paid at a fixed rate between $100 and $190 per fortnight. The new payment will be paid in addition to an eligible job seeker's primary income support payment and other supplements. The new payment will not be subject to the income test.

This Bill proposes an eligible job seeker's income support plus the new supplementary payment will be approximately equivalent to the minimum wage for the hours participating in work like activities. Eligible job seekers will voluntarily participate in a role in government services or community organisations between 15 and 18 hours per week building important skills and experience. The payment will be designed not to discourage people from taking up paid employment opportunities. The pilots provide an opportunity to test the level of incentives.

The Bill defines an eligible job seeker as someone receiving a qualifying income support payment, who receives employment services from a Remote Engagement Program service provider and who has agreed to participate and is participating in an eligible placement, with a host organisation, for at least 15 hours per week.

Eligible job seekers will be considered to be fully meeting all their Mutual Obligation Requirements by participating in the scheme. Eligible job seekers can voluntarily choose to leave the placement at any time.

To give effect to this commitment of working in partnership, this Bill proposes further detail about qualification criteria and the rate of the payment be set out in legislative instruments. These legislative instruments will be informed by the outcomes of a co-design process with communities in the pilot sites. We will take the time to work together and listen to communities in the pilot sites about what they think could work in relation to the amount of payment to be provided, the hours of engagement to be undertaken in return and what eligible job seekers are required to do to continue to receive the payment. This approach will also enable adjustments during the pilots as lessons are learned.

This Bill provides that the payment will not be payable after 30 June 2024.

While the Bill will have no impact on arrangements for current CDP participants outside the pilot sites, learnings from the pilots will inform the design of the new program.

The Bill also proposes amendments to repeal or omit provisions of the Social Security Act 1991 and the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 relating to the former Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) Scheme. Removing these obsolete provisions will assist with modernising and streamlining the social security legislation.

It is important that we take this opportunity to work with Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in remote communities. Sustainable change can only be done by working together, including by listening to Indigenous experience and expertise to develop a new approach. An approach that empowers individuals to gain skills and find a job. And an approach that enhances employment pathways for job seekers in remote Australia to realise aspirations. For themselves. For their families. And for their communities.

Debate adjourned.

Ordered that the bills be listed on the Notice Paper as separate orders of the day.

Senator WHISH-WILSON (Tasmania) (17:11): [by video link] I'm in continuation, having spoken to this motion roughly a month ago. At that time I was imploring the Senate to support this reference to the Environment and Communications References Committee, to look at the government's premeditated, long-term lobbying to stop the Great Barrier Reef from being declared endangered by UNESCO. Now we've had the details from the COP26 negotiations in Glasgow, and what we found out last week—through leaked documents—was that the government attempted to make amendments to recommendations to the delegation that more World Heritage sites be protected from 1.5 degrees of warming and that all nations pledge to keep warming to 1.5 degrees to protect UNESCO World Heritage listed sites. The leaked documents showed that our government had tried to remove that clause relating to 1.5 degrees. Now, why on earth would the Australian government—that is, the custodian of this great natural wonder of the world—want to remove something as simple and fundamental to the future protection of the reef as limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees above 2005 levels? That is what we signed up to at the Paris Agreement. This is what was on display at Glasgow.

We know that our government managed to weaken the language around coal, as to removing and phasing out coal, but what I want the committee to explore is not just Minister Ley's recent jetsetting off to lobby the World Heritage Committee, back in May this year, where she flew from country to country, no doubt offering dirty deals, to get the support of those committee members for leaving the reef off UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger. I'd also like to examine the long-term, premeditated push by this government which started back in 2016 to make sure that the Great Barrier Reef was never listed as in danger from climate change by UNESCO.

Now, I chaired a select committee into the $444 million that was given to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, a small private foundation that was raising money from philanthropy to invest in projects for restoring reef health and raising advocacy and awareness on the state of the Barrier Reef. That was a very controversial grant—$444 million. Money that was going to go to other agencies was suddenly being channelled through this small private foundation.

After taking evidence—significant evidence—over many months, in many locations, we really were none the wiser as to what the key motivation of this government was back in 2017-18 to give the money to this agency. I wrote, as chair of that committee, to the National Audit Commission asking that they look into this audit. It turns out that the email that kicked off this entire process was around wanting to avoid a World Heritage in-danger listing for the Great Barrier Reef—so, $444 million to try to head off a World Heritage in-danger listing, or a process that could lead to that in-danger listing.

Here we are, going into 2022, and since then the reef has suffered another two mass coral bleachings. People may not be aware, but the Great Barrier Reef didn't see any mass coral bleachings from marine heatwaves until 1998. There'd been a mass coral bleaching in Barbados in the 1960s that was disputed by scientists at the time, but we'd never seen global marine heatwaves impact the Great Barrier Reef until 1998. We found that a number of climate scientists who were warning about a future of mass coral bleachings and marine heatwaves were shocked when in 2016 we had the biggest mass coral bleaching on record: 30 per cent of the coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef was lost from that 2016 bleaching.

Climate scientists told our committee, the Senate Environment and Communications References Committee, in a separate inquiry into warming oceans that they did not believe it was possible, on the best climate models, that we could get back-to-back mass coral bleachings until 2050—and that's exactly what we got: a back-to-back bleaching in 2016 and 2017. Then, as if we weren't shocked enough, we got another mass coral bleaching in 2019. That's four mass coral bleachings from marine heatwaves in nearly 10 years. Plus we had storm damage from cyclones. We had pollution on the reef. We have invasive crown-of-thorns starfish. There have been so many cumulative pressures on the Great Barrier Reef.

No-one is in any doubt—except this government—that the future of the reef is in danger. The committee needs to examine why this government is so hell-bent on avoiding a World Heritage in-danger listing. I have my own theories. If the Great Barrier Reef was to be declared in danger from climate change—which was the advice of the scientific committee to UNESCO, which our government so ferociously lobbied to undermine—it would make it a lot harder for this government to continue to build new coalmines, because it would be required to have a plan for reducing Australia's emissions. As custodian of the reef, the government would be required to take effective, drastic and radical climate action. It wouldn't be able to get away with being in the pocket of fossil fuel industries and approving massive gas projects like the Beetaloo Basin, a fracking project in the Northern Territory that has four times the carbon footprint of the Adani coalmine and will increase our national emissions by 20 per cent—the equivalent of 68 years of our current carbon footprint in one project.

The Greens will be testing the chamber's support on whether we agree with that project going ahead later this year. But this is exactly the issue at heart here: will this country, will Australia as custodian of the Great Barrier Reef—this greatest natural wonder of the world—take the climate action necessary and show the leadership necessary to secure the future of the reef for our kids? No matter what we do, even at 1.2 degrees of global warming we've already lost half the coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef. Unless we reduce our emissions by 75 per cent by 2030, our current business-as-usual emissions scenario will put this nation and this world on the path of three to four degrees of warming. If the world doesn't act radically, that is the end of the Great Barrier Reef; that is the end of the world's great coral reefs as we know them.

I think that's another reason this government is so hell-bent on making sure the Great Barrier Reef is not declared in danger: because the Great Barrier Reef is actually in better shape than many of the world's other UNESCO coral reefs. Of course, the government comes out and asks, 'Why aren't the other reefs being declared in danger?' I have no doubt they will be if the Great Barrier Reef is declared in danger. But what stronger signal could we send? What louder siren call could we make than to declare the world's reefs in danger from climate change? That's what's going to be required to get action.

At least 500 million people depend on the world's coral reefs for their livelihoods. Are we going to sit by while we cook the oceans or while we go out and explore for more oil and gas in the oceans? Our government just opened up 80,000 square kilometres of Australia's oceans to new oil and gas exploration this year—80,000 square kilometres, at a time when the International Energy Agency has said no more fossil fuel exploration from 2021. That's coming from the conservative International Energy Agency: this is the year that we end all fossil fuel exploration.

This is directly linked to the fate of the Great Barrier Reef and it needs to be exposed. So this inquiry reference before the chamber today is a very short and simple inquiry into the Great Barrier Reef and the World Heritage in-danger-listing process. It is absolutely crucial that we pass this today, because in Paris on 26 November the Australian government will be there, lobbying the world again to take the Great Barrier Reef off any proposal for a World Heritage in-danger listing. No-one denies that the Great Barrier Reef is in danger except this government. Why push climate denial at such an important time in history? This is at a time when we're told by the United Nations that this is code red for humanity. This is when a Conservative politician like Boris Johnson has said that the world is at one minute to midnight if we don't act.

And what do we do? We try to convince the world that the world's largest coral reef system—2,000 kilometres which can be seen from space—is not in danger from climate change, and that UNESCO and the World Heritage Committee should not list it as in danger. That's exactly what we should be doing if we actually want action on climate: no more climate denial; we need to take action, and action won't come while we deny that what we're seeing unfold before our very own eyes is happening. It is very real and it can't be swept under the rug because this government is in bed with fossil fuel interests. It takes donations from fossil fuel interests and it's doing whatever it can to silence the Greens and others out there who are lobbying for effective climate action.

I urge the Senate to consider this reference and to vote in support of it. There has never been a more important time than now to act. I'm happy to keep talking if you want, Acting Deputy President Fawcett!

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Fawcett ): No, we've heard quite enough thank you, Senator Whish-Wilson. Your time has expired.

Senator WHISH-WILSON: I'm sure you have!

Senator McALLISTER (New South Wales) (17:22): Labor supports this referral to inquire into the health of the Great Barrier Reef. The government, led by Mr Morrison, has a woeful record on reef protection and the Morrison government needs to heed the warning from the World Heritage Committee considerations and to improve dramatically its efforts to protect the reef. The international community is obviously concerned about the reef and so are Australians. The reef supports 64,000 jobs, it produces billions of dollars in revenue in a non-COVID year and it is one of the natural wonders of the world. It's an invaluable part of our world's natural heritage and Labor wants it to remain that way.

Australians know—I think they understand now—that the Morrison government's incompetence has brought the reef to the brink; it's on the threshold of being placed on the in-danger list. The government have had a temporary reprieve, so let's hope that the reprieve provides the impetus they need to lift their game dramatically. But of course, like all things with this incompetent, tired and shambolic government, it's actually unclear what the government's attitude towards the reef is. Just weeks ago, the Minister for the Environment, Sussan Ley, lauded the Queensland government's reef regulations to the World Heritage Committee's decision-makers. They were central to the temporary reprieve Australia received on the in-danger listing for the reef. But now, back home, Senator McDonald—who Mr Joyce has recently had installed as Special Envoy for Northern Australia—has reportedly been saying she doesn't support the reef laws, those laws that are absolutely critical to protecting the reef and jobs in Northern Australia.

It's a pretty familiar story, isn't it, something we see time and time again: the Morrison government out there in the international community saying one thing and at home saying the complete opposite, with the Liberals pulling in one direction and the Nationals pulling in the other. Who would know what they actually think about this? Who would know what they intend to do? Who could trust a single thing offered by this Prime Minister in relation to almost any public policy question that you can imagine? It is never about the public interest. It is never about the question in hand. It is always some slick political game, some nasty trade-off between internal warring parties. We are not well served by this process.

If there is any issue where the public interest, the national interest, the international interest, the interests of generations to come, should be at the centre of decision-making, it is decision-making about the reef. Australians haven't forgotten the last catastrophic decision: $443 million handed over to an ill-equipped private foundation in a backdoor deal with no tender. The Morrison government has dragged its heels on the now overdue update to the Reef 2050 plan. We need a fair, transparent, objective assessment of reef health consistent with the appropriate standards. Australians would be devastated by an in-danger listing and Labor supports the referral.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: There being no further speakers, Minister.

Senator SESELJA (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (17:26): The government makes no apologies for standing up for the national interest and defending our tourism industry, traditional owners, reef communities and 64,000 Australian jobs up and down the reef. We will continue to work with UNESCO and the World Heritage Committee to protect the long-term future of the reef and with the Queensland government in ensuring that the strategies under the Reef 2050 plan are delivering the best possible outcomes for the reef. The World Heritage Committee's endorsement of Australia's position will give reef managers, marine scientists and land managers the ability to demonstrate the success of the outstanding work that is taking place across the reef. The procedures and decisions of the World Heritage Committee are all publicly available.

The PRESIDENT: The question is that the reference to the Environment and Communications References Committee be agreed to.

The PRESIDENT (17:34): Senator Van, you have the call to continue your remarks.

Senator VAN (Victoria) (17:34): These assistance powers are necessary due to the current threats that we face and the expectation from the community that when Australia's interests are under threat the government will use its technical expertise to ensure essential services remain functioning. It is the government's ultimate responsibility to protect the availability of Australia's critical infrastructure, and it's crucial that the government has last-resort powers to respond to the incidents or to mitigate the impact of attacks.

While the government recognises that the industry should be the ones to respond to the vast majority of attacks and cybersecurity incidents, there will be times when their skills and powers will not be enough. As a last resort, government assistance will enable the government to step in and protect critical infrastructure when industry is unable to. These last-resort powers may be exercised only when: a cybersecurity incident has occurred, is occurring or is imminent; the incident has, is having or is likely to have, a relevant impact on a critical infrastructure asset; there is material risk that the incident has seriously prejudiced or is likely to seriously prejudice the stability of Australia, its people, the defence of Australia or national security; or when no existing regulatory mechanism can be used to address the cyberattack.

The government assistance powers are subject to ministerial authorisation powers, and include the ability for the secretary of the Department of Home Affairs to give directions to a specified entity for the purposes of gathering information to determine if a further power should be exercised. The secretary will also be able to provide directions to a specified entity, requiring the entity to do one or more things in response to the incident, or make a request to the authorised agency to provide specified assistance and cooperation to respond.

While these powers are significant, they are proportionate to the threat landscape that we face and are clearly defined and confined with a range of safeguards in place to ensure that they are used appropriately and only in the most serious circumstances. These safeguards include: the need for powers to be exercised only when no existing regulatory mechanism can be used to address the cyberattack; mandatory consultation with the relevant entity, except where consultation will frustrate the effectiveness of directions or requests; the intervention power is to be authorised only once the Minister for Home Affairs has sought agreement from the Prime Minister and the Minister for Defence; mandatory notification to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security as soon as practicable of the authorisation, circumstances, actions, status and parties involved in each measure; Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security oversight of intelligence agencies' functions; that the Commonwealth Ombudsman can investigate complaints made about actions of government agencies and the exercising of the government assistance measures; and annual reporting to parliament on the use of these powers to ensure the transparency and accountability to parliament and the Australian public.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security has backed the passage of these urgent reforms. The complex and persistent nature of these threats that our critical infrastructure faces means we cannot sit and wait for a serious incident to occur before we act. The Morrison government is committed to protecting our national interest and ensuring that threats to our national security are mitigated so that our communities remain safe and our society continues to function. This bill is an important step in protecting our critical infrastructure from cybersecurity threats, making it essential that the bill be passed. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Senator McALLISTER (New South Wales) (17:39): I rise to speak on the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2021. This is a bill that went to PICAS, and I was pleased to have the opportunity to consider it as originally presented in that forum. I've been very grateful to have been a member of that committee for much of my time in the parliament, first as a member and now as the deputy chair. I want to make a few general remarks about its operation and purpose before moving to the specifics of this bill.

When this committee was first established during the Hawke government it was not without controversy. Indeed, it was actively opposed by many from the Liberal-National coalition, who were then in opposition. I think it's fair to say that the value and importance of the PJCIS is now recognised across the aisle, and that's a good thing, because the inquiries that the committee undertakes allow for a deep and detailed policy consideration of a kind that is not always possible in other parts of the parliamentary system. There's an idea, I think sometimes, that the committee's work is done in secret, but that's actually a misunderstanding of how we work. In fact, much of what happens happens in public. The deliberations and negotiations that we go through collectively as a committee when we're drafting our committee reports really do create the space to identify and iron out potential problems with laws. Honest and open dialogue lies at the heart of the work that's undertaken by the members of the committee, and it is a source of enduring value. It's one of the reasons Labor has sought to protect the operation of the committee and to continue to ask what is required to ensure it's able to do the work that the parliament requires it to do.

The workload of the committee has been especially high in recent years, and I would note that the work that we do as committee members is really only possible because of the assistance and expertise of the secretariat that assists us. It is imperative that the parliament continue to properly resource that secretariat so that it is able to help produce detailed, thoroughly researched reports which can support the parliament in debates like this. We also need to ensure that the powers and operation of the PJCIS reflect the responsibilities that it has. This is an increasingly complex and significant national security policy area. I have a longstanding view that it is time to enhance the powers of the PJCIS. There are many more national security laws than there were at the beginning of the century, and as the powers and capabilities of the intelligence community grow, it is appropriate that the oversight of those agencies grows also.

Many of you will know that I have introduced in this place a private senator's bill which builds on the work of Senators Faulkner and Wong before me. The bill seeks to better align the governing legislation of the PJCIS to its work by implementing the recommendations of the 2017 Independent Intelligence Review. Nonetheless, the committee as presently constituted and with its existing powers, as I said, plays a really important role. The culture is as important as the structure, and the report that informs the debate today is a product of a productive culture. Of course, the bill that was originally introduced looks quite different to the bill that is before us. I will talk through how we arrived at that position.

The bill deals with an extremely important policy area. The threat of cyber-enabled attack and manipulation of our critical infrastructure is serious. It is considerable in scope and impact and, unfortunately, it is increasing at an unprecedented rate. We do face increasing threats to essential services, to businesses and to all levels of government. In the past two years, cyberattacks have struck federal parliamentary networks, the health and food sectors, media and universities. That's not just true here; it's a trend internationally. It presents real challenges for policymakers, for governments and for operational agencies, because the solution cannot lie in governmental action alone. The solution can't lie in the creation of new criminal offences alone. The solution must lie in creating frameworks for cooperation between business owners and asset managers and government to ensure that we are protecting those assets that really underwrite so many economic and social activities in the Australian context.

Unfortunately the first attempt at this bill really didn't get it right. The original bill sought to introduce a very wide range of new measures—and that's fine; in fact, we do need to think carefully about how government and business will work together. But the approach taken by the government meant that the bill that first landed really did not get this right. As PJCIS found, the threats to critical infrastructure are complex, are serious and demand a swift and comprehensive response. However, the consequence of moving in a way that was insufficiently consulted on with industry meant that the first attempt made it unlikely that it would achieve the anticipated goal.

It was on that basis that the committee, unusually, recommended that the bill be split in two. The committee said that the government should prioritise the most urgent aspects of the bill in bill 1—that is, to expand the list of sectors deemed to be systems of national significance, the additional reporting requirements for cyber incidents and new government assistance measures. Then the committee recommended that other things, more-complex things, be deferred. The main purpose of recommending deferral was to allow additional time for consultation, because the overwhelming experience in receiving the submissions—and we received about 100 submissions—was that industry felt that there had been insufficient consultation on the matter at hand.

There were a range of concerns. In particular, the delegation of significant decisions into delegated legislation rather than primary legislation meant that neither the parliament nor the affected entities could really know the full impact, impost and cost of the legislation. This was incredibly significant for nearly all submissions. I'll point to one in particular. In a previous life I had the good fortune to work closely with many businesses in the Australian water sector, and I know that the sector is deeply concerned about an all-hazards approach to managing threats to their infrastructure. Their submission was that the way the legislation was drafted meant that they could not understand the costs that would be likely to be imposed upon their businesses. They were also concerned that the way the government had approached defining the risk and threat architecture meant that it risked departing from the internationally accepted standards that are universally used throughout the water sector.

It was an interesting example, because of course the businesses we are working with and talking about are used to managing risk—maybe not this risk, but certainly risks presented by natural hazards. That's a key factor if you're running a water infrastructure company or a water utility. So, their point in their submission to the committee—and they were just one of many—was that they would prefer to see the mechanisms by which risk was assessed and organised being better aligned with the international standards they were already using.

These weren't the only concerns. A number of other concerns were presented by industry. They felt that the notification time frame for advising a relative authority of critical or other cybersecurity incidents was too short and was inconsistent with existing guidelines. They were concerned that they might be directed to do things that would compromise their ICT systems, and of course we know how valuable an ICT system is for a business. This was particularly so for the technology companies—those with global operations—concerned or looking to be reassured that this core part of their business infrastructure wouldn't be negatively affected by an intervention from government. But the main issue, as I said, was regulatory complexity and the uncertainty associated with the cost of this legislation.

It was on that basis that the committee recommended that the bill be split, and I commend my colleagues on the committee for taking that approach. So the bill that's before us really only deals with the most pressing aspects that were presented to us as essential by the agencies. It includes an expanded definition of 'critical infrastructure assets' to include assets across 11 sectors. It now includes: communications; financial services and markets; data storage and processing; defence industry; higher education and research; energy—electricity and gas; food and groceries; health care and medical; space technology; transport; and water and sewerage. That's appropriate. It includes government assistance to relevant entities in response to significant cyberattacks. It requires mandatory notification of a cybersecurity incident within 84 hours, and it also provides an opportunity for oversight by the PJCIS.

The definition of 'significant incident' has been tightened and improved, and it includes consultation requirements, if there is a ministerial authorisation, to make sure that relative entities are informed in writing and offered the opportunity to make a submission within 24 hours of receiving an authorisation. I'm pleased that the government did accept the committee's recommendation in this regard, and I understand government will be proceeding to engage industry further on the additional components of the package that were not able to be presented in this legislation on this occasion.

I want to conclude by speaking briefly about democratic institutions and elections. As you can see from the list I just read out, they are not included in this bill. I'm comfortable with that, but we need to understand that our democratic institutions should in fact be considered critical infrastructure, and we need to pay closer attention to the extent to which they are adequately protected from external threats. We know, because we have seen it overseas, that there are many, many instances of interference in democratic processes and in democratic infrastructure. It's not the same, in my view, as business infrastructure; these things are different. But we do need to have a much clearer indication from the government about how it intends to protect democratic institutions and election infrastructure. So far that really has not been forthcoming. I do note that the security agencies are aware of this and speak about it when they are offered the opportunity to do so in public hearings, but what's needed is a strong leadership approach from government.

We need to understand how an attempt to interfere in an Australian election would be handled. Which agency would be responsible for taking the lead? Which minister would be responsible for coordinating the approach? If it occurred during a caretaker period, what would be the interaction with the opposition? Who would take responsibility for communicating about this in the public domain, to voters and electors? These are all important questions, and at the moment they remain unanswered. The problem is that, by not answering them, we create the opportunity for them to be answered in a hurry, and that is not a recipe for good policymaking. These are things that are able to be anticipated, and, in anticipating them, we should craft a response, preferably one that is shared on a bipartisan basis and actually reflects a shared commitment to protecting and nurturing our democratic arrangements.

I am out of time and so I will leave my remarks there. Labor does support this legislation. Again I thank my colleagues on the PJCIS for the incredibly constructive way they approached this inquiry.

Senator ABETZ (Tasmania) (17:54): A little while ago I called for a national summit on cybersecurity to bring together the best and brightest from the private sector, the public sector and academia to work together to provide the most focused protection possible for all of us against cyberattacks. I made that call because in the most recent Australian Cyber Security Centre's annual cyber threat report we received an overview of the cyberthreats affecting Australia, and it impacts all of us. In the 2020-21 financial year the ACSC received over 67,500 cybercrime reports, an average of one every eight minutes, representing an increase of nearly 13 per cent from the previous financial year. Cybercrime reports submitted record a total self-reported financial losses of more than $33 billion. Ransom demands by cybercriminals range from thousands to millions of dollars. Almost 500 ransomware related cybercrime reports were received via the ReportCyber website, an increase of nearly 15 per cent compared to the previous financial year.

Cybercriminals are moving away from the low-level ransomware operations towards extracting hefty ransoms from large or high-profile organisations. To increase the likelihood of ransoms being paid cybercriminals are encrypting networks and also exfiltrating data then threatening to publish stolen information on the internet.

This is just a bit of an insight as to the cyberthreat that confronts us as a nation. In short, we have a problem. These attacks are by organised crime and state players who seek to do us harm, serious harm. So in this ugly and threatening environment there is an absolute imperative for the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2021.

This government is committed to protecting our critical infrastructure to secure the essential services all of us rely on—everything from electricity and water to health care and groceries. The increasingly interconnected nature of critical infrastructure exposes vulnerabilities that could result in significant consequences to our security, economy and sovereignty. The amendments to the legislation will ensure the government is well placed to assist entities responsible for providing critical infrastructure assets to respond to serious cyberattacks as the first step in strengthening of Australia's critical infrastructure security.

The reforms outlined in the amended bill will strengthen Australia's ability to respond to serious cyberattacks on critical infrastructure in three ways: firstly, by expanding the definition of 'critical infrastructure' to include energy, communications, financial services, defence industry, higher education and research, data storage or processing, food and grocery, health care and medical, space technology, transport, and water and sewerage sectors; secondly, by introducing a cyberincident reporting regime for critical infrastructure assets; and, thirdly, by making government assistance available to industry as a last resort. Subject to appropriate limitations, government will be able to provide assistance immediately prior, during or following a significant cybersecurity incident to ensure the continued provision of essential services.

Recent cyberattacks and security threats to Australian critical infrastructure make these reforms critically important to deliver and respond to the recommendations from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security to bring forward these elements as a priority. For the record, with Senator McAllister and others that have spoken on this bill, I serve on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. I commend my colleagues on the way that we have been able to deal with these matters in a bipartisan way, putting forward suggestions to the government, which thankfully have been adopted, because our first concern and proper concern is the security of our fellow Australians and, in relation to this legislation, ensuring that our essential or critical infrastructure is protected as much as it possibly can be.

Importantly, the legislation will enable the government to provide emergency assistance or directions immediately before, during or after a significant cybersecurity incident, to mitigate and restore essential services. The community can be assured that any government powers will be subject to strong legislated safeguards and oversight mechanisms under very specific circumstances. It's one of those things, in debating and considering legislation of this kind, that, instinctively, I don't like this government involvement, but what I dislike even more are the threats of cyberattacks and seeing them play out elsewhere.

Attacks on our critical infrastructure require a joint response, involving government, business and individuals, reflecting the interrelated nature of the threat. The government is already working in partnership with critical infrastructure entities to codesign sector-specific requirements to manage and respond to the risks. The Australian government will continue to work with those entities that are responsible to ensure the second phase of reforms is implemented in a manner that secures appropriate outcomes without imposing unnecessary or disproportionate regulatory burdens. That's where further discussions are now taking place, and the view of the committee was that those matters had not been fully discussed and socialised with the sector. I look forward to the outcome of those discussions.

Why are these reforms necessary? While Australia has not suffered a catastrophic attack on critical infrastructure, we are not immune. As a government, we are seeking to be proactive as opposed to responding to an incident. International cyberincidents, such as the ransomware attack on the US company Colonial Pipeline, affected the distribution of fuel to customers on the east coast of the United States. This demonstrates the potential for attacks to cause devastating harm. Australia is facing increasing cybersecurity threats to essential services, businesses and all levels of government. In the past two years we have seen cyberattacks on federal parliamentary networks, logistics, the medical sector and universities, just to mention a few. Internationally, we have seen disruptive cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, including water services and airports. Australia will not be, and is not, immune to those attempted attacks.

Throughout 2019 and during 2020 Australia's critical infrastructure sectors were regularly targeted by malicious cyberactors seeking to exploit both victims and the crisis of COVID for profit, with a total disregard for the community and the essential services upon which it relies. For example, during that period, multiple regional hospitals were the victims of a cyberattack. As a result, some health services to large regional communities, including surgeries, were disrupted. This has happened here. A major national food wholesaler was the victim of a cyberattack which affected their systems and temporarily disrupted their ability to provide food to our fellow Australians at a time of unprecedented pressure on the food and grocery sector. A water provider had its control system encrypted by ransomware, which, had the system not been restored quickly enough from backups, could have disrupted the supply of potable water to a regional population hub, as well as having the potential to impact on the economy, given the reliance of primary industry on this water supply. And on 19 June 2020, the Prime Minister advised that the Australian government was aware that Australia's critical infrastructure was being targeted by a sophisticated state based actor.

The situation is clear, unfortunately, that there are elements within the wider world community—both criminal actors and state based actors—that would seek to compromise the delivery of essential services to the Australian people, and that is why this bill which seeks to protect the critical infrastructure of our nation is so important. This government has been proactive in this space. Whilst more work needs to be done on other elements of the initial bill, that which is being put to the parliament in this legislation and which the Senate is being asked to pass is, on any assessment, vital. It's important. It's considered. The support of the Australian Labor Party, in that regard, is to be commended. The other aspect of the bill that needs to be considered is the incident reporting regime. Reporting cybersecurity incidents to the Australian Cyber Security Centre through the portal will help inform the government and us, as a nation and as a people, as to how to respond to these elements.

The approach taken by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security has been, to date, always a reasoned and considered approach where we seek to put political differences aside as much as possible with a sharp focus on the security of our nation and ensuring the very best outcome. So, when we are confronted with criminal elements and state actors—and these state actors, I would suggest, are dealing in a criminal manner as well—that are seeking to impact our very way of life and the provision of essential services to our fellow Australians, it is right and proper for the government to seek to legislate in this space to provide security and support to ensure that our fellow Australians are protected as much as they possibly can be.

The provision of ongoing oversight by the committee, I think, is important as well. The government has agreed to that, and that provides a bipartisan flavour to the oversight, because these powers that are given to government and government authorities are from time to time overused, if not abused, because there is a particular focus on one particular issue, and then you've got to balance those up with the other considerations which we, in a liberal democratic society, treasure and seek to protect. Getting that balance right is vitally important, and that is why having the oversight, along with the committee, is something which I am pleased the government is willing to do.

I commend the bill to the Senate. This is about protecting our fellow Australians in the best possible manner against those that seek to do us harm. I trust that this legislation will be able to be passed before we break.

Senator SHELDON (New South Wales) (18:08): I rise to speak on the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2021. The pervasive threat of cyber enabled attack and manipulation of critical infrastructure assets is serious, is considerable in scope and impact, and is increasing at an unprecedented rate. Australia is facing an increasing cybersecurity threat to essential services, businesses and all levels of government. In the past few years, cyberattacks have struck federal parliamentary networks, the health and food sectors, media, universities and transport operators. You may recall that, only three months ago, the transport giant Toll Group in Australia faced a series of attacks on its operations which had a very detrimental attack on the performance of its business. Internationally, cyberattacks have disrupted critical sectors including water and fuel supplies in the United States.

It's important that Australia's critical infrastructure is protected from cyberattack, but the government's first attempt at legislating such protection was chaotic, uncoordinated and could not be supported, even by the government members of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, to the credit of those senators.

The original bill expanded the definition of critical infrastructure coverage from four sectors: electricity, gas, water and ports to 11 systems of national significance: communications, financial services and markets, data storage or processing, defence industry, higher education and research, energy, food and grocery, healthcare and medical, space technology, transport, water and sewage. The original bill introduced additional reporting requirements for cyberincidents affecting critical infrastructure assets. The original bill introduced new government assistance measures to relevant entities for critical infrastructure sector assets in response to significant attacks, including cyberattacks. It introduced additional positive security obligations for critical infrastructure assets, including a risk management program to be delivered through sector-specific requirements.

As the PJCIS report noted, threats to critical infrastructure are often complex and serious and demand a swift and comprehensive response. The PJCIS also found that the government's attempt to introduce both the new government assistance measures and the new positive security obligations for sector-specific requirements in the one bill, given the complexity of the latter, may have ended up achieving neither. With limited opportunity to pass legislation this year, the PJCIS recommended that the government prioritise the most urgent aspects of the bill in bill 1—they are, the expansion of the sectors deemed to be systems of national significance, the additional reporting requirements for cyber incidents and the new government assistance measures.

The committee recommended that the positive security obligations and sector-specific requirements be deferred to bill 2, following additional consultation with industry. The committee also recommended that bill 2, when introduced, be referred to the PJCIS again for another inquiry. That's certainly appropriate.

The PJCIS inquiry received around 100 submissions and held multiple public hearings featuring dozens of expert and industry appearances. Most, if not all, companies, industry bodies, trade unions and critical infrastructure asset owners and operators expressed some form of reservation with the bill. It consulted on the unknown or unquantified regulatory impact or the contemporaneous rules development that has occurred in parallel with the committee's review.

Key concerns heard by the committee included that the significant detail left to be resolved by sector-specific rules in delegated legislation instead of in the primary legislation meant that neither the parliament nor the affected entities could know the full impact, impost and cost of the legislation. There was concern that the notification time frames for advising the relevant authority of any critical or other cybersecurity incident within 12 and 72 hours respectively were too short and inconsistent with existing guidelines. Many companies were concerned that they would be directed to do actions that would, intentionally or otherwise, compromise their ICT systems. Sophisticated technology companies particularly and those with global operations were concerned that the ASD could not understand and would, therefore, cause harm to their systems. Across all sectors, the committee heard about growing regulatory complexity and duplication causing confusion in compliance costs, particularly in relation to sector-specific recommendations. Unions raised that potential positive security obligations could include expanded personal security checks.

Many stakeholders felt that the consultation process with the department was poorly promoted, that the process was too rapid and that that input, concern and feedback was not acknowledged or addressed. Considering the significance and complexity of the consistent issues raised by the bill, a lack of tangible suggestions to address these by the government and the department, and the depth of disagreement between stakeholders and the department, the committee felt any attempt to resolve these concerns with a single bill would unduly delay its time-critical elements.

Instead, the bill by the government being discussed here only introduces the most pressing elements of an enhanced cybersecurity framework: an expanded definition of 'critical infrastructure assets' to include assets across the 11 sectors I've just mentioned; government assistance to relevant entities for critical infrastructure sector assets in response to significant cyberattacks; mandatory notification requirements of a cybersecurity incident by an entity to a relevant Commonwealth body, to allow for the written report to be made within 84 hours instead of 48 hours of an oral report being made, and to empower a relevant Commonwealth body to exempt an entity from the requirement to provide a written report; PJCIS oversight arrangements whereby the secretary is required to give a written report to the PJCIS as soon as practicable after a government assistance measure is directed or requested, detailing the circumstances, actions, status and parties involved relevant to any cybersecurity incident; the PJCIS review of the operation, effectiveness and implications of the security of the critical infrastructure legislative framework in the act, to begin not less than three years from when the bill receives royal assent; reporting obligations, including the draft rules relating to the mandatory reporting obligations, being provided directly to any entities that would reasonably be impacted by the draft rules; and the minister having to formally respond to any submissions made by responsible entities. There's a definition of 'significant impact': a cybersecurity incident will have a significant impact if the incident has materially disrupted the availability of essential goods and services provided using the asset or if any of the circumstances specified in the rules exist in relation to the incident.

In relation to ministerial authorisation, under new section 35AD consultation is required to inform relevant entities in writing and invite those entities to make a submission within 24 hours of receiving the draft authorisation. A person is not entitled to cause access, modification or impairment of computer data or a computer program and if a person, including employees or agents of a responsible entity, exceeds their authority then that would amount to such unauthorised access, modification or impairment for the purposes of the act.

The government has accepted the committee's conclusion that significant engagement, consultation and work are required to achieve workable, positive and enhanced cybersecurity obligations and sector-specific rules and will defer those aspects to the forthcoming bill 2 expected in 2022. The committee also made two recommendations relating to democratic institutions and elections: that the government review the risks to democratic institutions, particularly from foreign-originated cyberthreats, with a view to developing the most appropriate mechanism to protect them at federal, state and local levels; and that the government review the processes and protocols for classified briefings for the opposition during caretaker periods in response to serious cyberincidents and consider the best-practice principles for any public announcement about those incidents. The government has not yet responded to these recommendations. While they're important recommendations they're not directly relevant to bill 1.

In a dynamic and changing cyberthreat environment it is crucial that Australia's technical authority, the Australian Signals Directorate, is empowered to assist entities in responding to significant cybersecurity incidents to secure critical infrastructure assets. These are last-resort powers, and affected entities will undoubtedly retain their reservations. In supporting the legislation, Labor is relying on the intention stated in the bill, and given by department and agency heads, that these powers will only be used as a last resort. With this in mind, it is very important to emphasise that the PJCIS will be notified and briefed each time the government enacts this power and that it will conduct a full review of legislation when additional critical infrastructure reforms are introduced by the government.

In evidence provided to the committee, witnesses overwhelmingly indicated their willingness to cooperate with ASD. Government assistance powers would only be needed in the event that an affected entity is unwilling or unable to respond appropriately. Thus these measures should only be needed rarely, if ever. In the instance that there is disagreement between an entity and ASD on the best course of action, this bill incorporates the committee's recommendation to include safeguards that require the minister to consider multiple impacts and current responses.

The government has conceded that more work needs to be done in communicating, consulting on and responding to concerns regarding its proposed positive security obligations for critical infrastructure sectors. These are important initiatives, and they need to be done properly.

As I mentioned before in regard to the Toll Group incident, the critical effect on businesses of any bill in this area needs to be fully considered. One thing was raised very clearly by some of the other industry bodies:

The Australian Investment Council said the new laws—

as they were first drafted—

were a threat to Australia's economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic as they had the potential to impede the ability of Australian businesses to access vitally important foreign funding.

…   …   …

The Business Council of Australia said the new laws—

as they were first proposed—

would jeopardise Australia's economic prosperity and discourage foreign investment. It said the new powers would affect users in jurisdictions outside of Australia, and it is not clear how they will interact with requirements under relevant US and European laws, such as privacy statutes.

These are critical questions that were raised by the business community but also by the trade union movement. The Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Ms McManus, said:

Potentially forcing food and distribution centre workers, apprentice electricians and nurses—the workers who have carried us through the pandemic—to comply with lengthy security checks is a massive drain on the economy and an assault on the right to privacy that every Australian should be able to enjoy …

She went on to say:

The elements of this bill which could place additional requirements on ordinary working people will do nothing to strengthen national security and will only create problems for working people, for the agencies asked to enforce it, and for the Australian economy. They should be removed from the bill.

Of course, we now see the bill broken up into bill 1 and bill 2, which is critically important to get speedy action on those matters which have broader support in the Senate:

In its submission to the inquiry, Qantas said the financial implications of implementing the reforms may create a significant financial burden for some businesses including its own.

Again, those impacts need to be considered in any proposition of the bill.

In my last 20 seconds, I wanted to raise one thing that is always important for national security and that this government has failed to do: we have thousands of overseas seafarers coming in without appropriate security checks. It's about time the government stepped in to do something there as well.

Senator FAWCETT (South Australia) (18:23): I rise to address the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2021, noting that the government has brought in some amendments. Like some of my colleagues, I'm a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, and I have been for a number of years. This is probably one of the first times where I have seen the agencies get to the point where they haven't done sufficient consultation with industry, but it's an example, I think, of where this committee is very effective, in that, on a bipartisan basis, we were able to work with agencies and industries to get an understanding of where things sat—hence the recommendation to split the bill, which many of my colleagues have talked about. They have also talked about some of the particular measures in the bill, so what I plan to do with the time I have available here is to give people who may be listening to this debate a little more background on some of the emerging trends overseas and here in Australia. I will particularly look at some of the evidence that was provided to the committee by Ms Noble, who heads up ASD, because I think that really speaks to the heart of why these step-in powers are required and why we do need to get this right with industry.

The first incident I want to go to took place in Ukraine in 2015. The reason I'm talking about this particular cyberattack is experts believe it is the first time there has been a large-scale grid-level attack that has been successful on a modern nation. The control centres of three Ukrainian electricity distribution companies were remotely accessed, and the breakers at some 30 distribution substations in Kiev and a western region were opened, causing more than 200,000 consumers to lose power. In this case, the hackers gained entry through a sophisticated phishing campaign and BlackEnergy Malware to cause havoc in Ukraine. Governments and cybersecurity companies have attributed the hacks to Russian groups with suspected, albeit not proven, and unclear links to the Russian government. This occurred on the back of not only the 2014 annexation of the Crimea but also the incursion by Russian forces in the eastern part of Ukraine. Many people believe that this area of Ukraine has become a bit of a playground for Russia and other actors to, essentially, test their capabilities in cyberspace. In 2017 there was a hack that broke into thousands of Ukrainian networks by sabotaging a fairly widely used piece of software, and that attack disabled around 10 per cent of computers in Ukraine and inflicted financial costs to about 0.5 per cent of Ukraine's GDP. If you think about what 0.5 per cent of GDP would mean in Australia, it's a significant amount of money.

A number of companies and foreign governments have looked to help Ukraine, freeing up aid and other investments to try to boost their ability for cybersecurity. Latvia has also experienced crises. The most recent attacks are probably the two in the States that have made the media. One was the SolarWinds cyberattack, which is one of the most sophisticated and large-scale cyber operations that has ever been identified. The US government stated the operation was an intelligence-gathering effort, and they've attributed it to an actor that is most likely Russian in origin. The President of Microsoft said it was the largest, most sophisticated attack the world has ever seen, and it affected federal agencies, courts, the private sector, and state and local governments across the US. A more recent incident, from May this year, was the attack and shutdown of one of the US's major pipelines that supplied fuel infrastructure. The hackers stole data from the company while demanding a large ransom to get things going again.

That's the global scene. You can see that actors are using cyber means to impact critical infrastructure for criminal intent in terms of money, for espionage in terms of stealing money, or for a grey-zone technique of undermining the community's confidence and potentially diminishing a nation's capacity to control its own defence when it lacks things like electricity or communications. More recently—and starting to involve Australia—in July of this year Australia, the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States for the first time attributed publicly an attack involving ransomware and IP theft that affected some 30,000 businesses around the world to the Ministry of State Security of the Chinese Communist Party. The threshold for attribution is quite high, but what that indicates is that when the strategic update of 2021 talks about the fact that grey-zone activities are increasing, we are seeing very tangible examples of that here in Australia. The consequences of disruptions in our digital systems are quite extreme, and not only from those obvious blockages or thefts. We've also seen a couple of failures just in the aviation industry, not necessarily attributable to malware or cyberattack, but it gives an indication of how that could be used to significantly disrupt the normal operations of a country. Just one here in Australia: when the ticketing system for Virgin went down globally, we saw massive delays of travel around Australia due to that ticketing and freight and luggage-loading system going down. And so it doesn't take too much to see, as you compare what happened through COVID and the impact when passenger flights weren't flying—on trade, on services such as mail, banking et cetera and on the movement of notes and other things around the country—that those services can experience significant impacts from attacks on critical infrastructure where it fails.

At the heart of the contention in this bill were concerns by industry around the step-in powers that were proposed by the original bill. I think it's really instructive to go to the evidence provided by Ms Noble, the head of ASD. A lot of people have indicated that industry cooperates, and that's acknowledged and, in fact, that is the vast majority of players in Australia, whether they be state governments or the private sector. In evidence from ASD during the inquiry, Ms Noble said:

… we do have some wonderful examples of incredible cooperation. You might recall that in 2019 there was a significant impact of ransomware against the Victorian health system, and that's a good example. We have a close relationship with the Victorian government and they also had a private incident response provider. So this was a terrific example of state government, federal government and private sector working together. 'Good' looks like this: they contacted us so we were able to work with them. They provided us with technical information from their network, like logs and images of discs. That happened on day one. Within 24 hours, we sent incident responders on the ground to work side by side with the Victorian government, the private entity impacted, their private service provider and our staff from the Australian Cyber Security Centre. We were able to fully map the network quickly and to identify the nature of the criminality.

That's an example that ASD provided of how things can, often do and should work for the benefit of the Australian people. But Ms Noble went on to say:

Bad looks like this––and this is a real example, but I'm not going to name names, because that's really important. We found out something happened because there were media reports. Then we tried to reach out to the company to clarify if the media reports were true, and they didn't want to talk to us. We kept pushing— sometimes we have to use our own very senior-level contacts; sometimes through people … who might know members of boards or chairs of boards—to try to establish trust and build a willingness to cooperate. At times, we have spent nearly a week negotiating with lawyers about us even being able to obtain just the basic information that I described in the first scenario, asking, 'Can we please just have some data from your network; we might be able to help by telling you quickly who it is, what they're doing and what they might do next?'

In this case that I'm referring to, five days later we were still getting very sluggish engagement and were trying to get them to provide data to us and to deploy some of our tools so that we could work out what was happening on their networks. That goes for 13 days. This incident had a national impact on our country. On day 14 were we only able to provide them with generic protection advice, and their network was still down. Three months later they got reinfected and we started again.

So it's important to understand that, when we talk about 'step-in powers', we're talking about scenarios like that, where, with good cooperation, you see a seamless working together, side by side, with people helping each other out and you get quick resolutions of these incidents, which can be damaging to Australia's ability to run an effective, free, First World nation and provide the services that Australians depend on. But where, for whatever reason, a commercial provider chooses not to engage with ASD and where the flow-on effects go on for days, if not weeks, and impact on Australia and Australia's capabilities, then it's appropriate that ASD is given the legal authority to step in to work not against but with that provider, because of the obligation for them to report and to cooperate.

It's important to understand that the threat environment is deteriorating. There has been a 60 per cent increase in ransomware attacks against Australian entities between last year and this year. We see both state based actors and criminals acting against Australian entities. They're motivated by a range of imperatives, from espionage to generating influence to interference to preparing to disrupt, degrade or deny services or actually disrupting, degrading or denying services. Some, as I've said, purely have the motivation of stealing money. There's also a broader economic cost. Some of the evidence, again from ASD, was that AustCyber have estimated that a significant cyberattack against Australia could cost around $30 billion and 160,000 or so jobs. That's ASD's and industry's assessment of what the cost could be of a significant cyberattack here in Australia that is sustained, and that's why these measures are important.

It's interesting that, over the past 12 months, just over one-third of all incidents that have been reported to ASD, the cybersecurity centre, were related to critical infrastructure, and the assessment is—because that reporting is currently voluntary—that that's only a fraction of what has probably occurred, hence the requirements not only for the step-in powers but also for reporting within 12 hours, if it's a critical and significant event. So, in the advisory report on this Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2020, the committee has recommended that the emergency powers be swiftly legislated in a standalone bill with a second separate bill to be introduced after further consultation. This two-step approach, which the government has agreed to and which we're now dealing with today, will enable the quick passage of laws to counter the looming threats against Australia's critical infrastructure, while giving businesses and government the additional time to do the co-design work on the most effective regulatory framework to ensure the long-term security of our critical infrastructure.

As other colleagues have mentioned, our committee, the PJCIS, made 14 recommendations in relation to the bill. We received compelling evidence that the complexity and frequency of cyberattacks on critical infrastructure is increasing globally. Australia is not immune. There's clear recognition from government and industry that we need to do more, and this first bill—bill No. 1—is to expand the critical infrastructure sectors that are covered by the act to introduce government assistance measures to be used as a last resort in crisis scenarios, as well as mandating reporting obligations. I encourage senators to support the bill.

Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS (New South Wales) (18:38): Over quite some years, I have repeatedly spoken about the national interest and our national sovereignty in reducing our dependency on the Communist regime in Beijing. As part of this, I have continued to stress how vital it is that we overhaul our critical infrastructure and foreign investment framework. This includes expanding the parameters of national interests to ensure we protect our national sovereignty. We need to look at practical ways to protect that sovereignty, starting with the port of Darwin. Post pandemic, we need to debate some difficult issues, including a clear direction on how we will ensure that we do not place ourselves in the same circumstances.

To date, critical infrastructure ownership has been, regrettably, restricted to ports and utilities assets like gas, water and electricity. Notwithstanding that, many of our critical assets, like the port of Darwin, are in the hands of entities with close ties to Beijing. I have been calling for critical infrastructure legislation to be strengthened to expand the coverage of this legislation to more sectors, including banking, finance, food and groceries, agriculture, health and medical, transport, data, communications and IT, and airports. Indeed, the Bills Digests for the Security of Critical Infrastructure Bill 2017 noted several stakeholders had suggested that the legislation should apply to additional sectors, including those that I have been advocating for. Regrettably, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, which inquired into the bill in March 2018, was satisfied that additional sectors did not need to be included. However, it recommended the government:

… review and develop measures to ensure that Australia has a continuous supply of fuel to meet its national security priorities.

And as part of that process:

… should consider whether critical fuel assets should be subject to the Security of Critical Infrastructure Bill 2017.

I am pleased that finally the PJCIS has come to the realisation that it made a mistake, including about critical fuel assets, and that the Morrison government has finally worked out that protecting Australia's critical infrastructure to secure the essential services that all Australians rely on—everything from electricity and water to health care and groceries—is long overdue. It seems to have finally dawned on the Morrison government, despite the many warnings, that the increasingly interconnected nature of critical infrastructure exposes vulnerabilities that have, I believe, already resulted in significant consequences to our security, economy and sovereignty.

The PJCIS reported on the SCI bill in September 2021. The government has followed the advice of the committee and split the bill. Bill No. 1 addresses three components. Firstly, the reforms outlined in the amended bill will strengthen Australia's ability to respond to serious cyberattacks on critical infrastructure by expanding the definition of critical infrastructure to include the energy, communications, financial services, defence industry, higher education and research, data storage or processing, food and grocery, health care and medical, space technology, transport, and water and sewerage sectors. Secondly, the bill introduces a cyberincident reporting regime for critical infrastructure assets. Thirdly, it makes government assistance available to industry as a last resort and subject to appropriate limitations. Government will be able to provide assistance immediately prior to, during and following a significant cybersecurity incident to ensure the continued provision of essential services.

Recent cyberattacks and security threats to Australian critical infrastructure make these reforms critically important to deliver. The objects of the SCI Act are to improve transparency and facilitate cooperation and coordination between the various levels of government in Australia. The aim of this is to allow information to be collected so that risks that may exist within current structures can be readily understood and managed. Whilst these changes are overdue, as I have also advocated, we should look at expanding restrictions that could be imposed to prevent acquisition, lease et cetera by entities, whether Australian owned or controlled or with foreign directors or directors with dual nationalities taking over Australian businesses or companies, including looking at reciprocity of ownership. There seems to be no legal or constitutional reason to prevent the SCI Act from being expanded to cover the subject of ownership as well as its current subject areas. I note the comments of the committee regarding the overall review of the act and how it will now be undertaken more effectively after the passage of bill 1.

I reiterate another concern that was raised by the committee in its report regarding the unknown regulatory burden of positive security obligations on industry. In submissions to the committee, an overwhelming concern from industry representatives was the unknown nature of the majority of the regulatory impact or burden to be imposed by the proposed new provisions. While the bill outlines and defines the types of obligations and some of the elements of those obligations that industries will have to comply with, most of the detail of what businesses will have to do and by what means is not prescribed in the bill. This detail is proposed to be designed and outlined in rules to be presented in delegated legislation. Without certainty regarding definitions and regulatory requirements, affected industries cannot plan for the potential impact and cost of the framework's requirements.

As chair of the Senate Standing Committee on the Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation, I believe this bill highlights yet again the propensity of the executive to relegate important obligations to delegated legislation. I welcome the committee's comments at paragraph 2.61 of its report. While this process of designating rules outside of the legislation is identified as providing for flexibility and consultation, most industry submitters expressed a preference for this detail to be included in the primary legislation, or that detail to be negotiated and provided in instruments to be considered alongside an amending bill before the framework be considered and passed through parliament. Indeed, at paragraph 3.6 the committee goes on to assert:

The significant detail left to be resolved by sector rules in delegated legislation instead of in the primary legislation does not allow the Committee, the Parliament, or the effected entities sufficient confidence of the full impact of the legislation.

I now turn to other concerns. The committee examines the threat to be countered, noting that the:

…threat of cyber security vulnerability and malicious cyber activity has become increasingly evident in recent years.

When outlining these threats and the increasing challenge of preparing, hardening and countering assets, Mr Mike Pezzullo, AO, Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, stated:

Basic cyber security protections will always help, but malicious actors, such as cybercriminals, state sponsored actors and state actors themselves will defeat the best defences that firms, families and individuals can buy. We have to do what we can, of course, to defend our own networks and devices against known vulnerabilities.

The bill presupposes that any attack would come from external forces, but what if the threat comes from within the entity? What concerns me are the number of companies and subsidiary companies of overseas state-owned entities that operate across a broad spectrum of our economy and, more pertinently, the number who have majority or part ownership of critical assets. As the committee points out in its report:

The application of asset definitions only to assets that are located within Australia… further confuses the potential application to digital elements of critical infrastructure entities that have parts of their functional infrastructure or data located offshore…

As I have reiterated in speeches in this place which explore the legal contours of Chinese-controlled investment in Australia, there's a paper that I have previously cited by professors Roman Tomasic and senior lecturer Ping Xiong which stated that in 2003 China established the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission which oversees state shares in major SOEs. That paper states that in 2016 there were 66 major Chinese SOEs with a presence in Australia across most industry sectors. Of these, 39 were centrally controlled with 139 subsidiaries. The other 29 were provisionally controlled with 84 subsidiaries. We know that for Chinese companies corporate governance is limited. Rather, they are subject to corporate social responsibility norms underpinned by article 19 of China's company law, which requires that the Communist Party of China have its operatives embedded in their organisations to carry out their activities. The CCP is front and centre of SOEs, irrespective of whether they operate inside or outside China. Further and probably most significant is the issue of Australian businesses carried on by, or land acquired from, government—be that Commonwealth, state, territory or local government—not being subject to foreign acquisition procedures under the FATA Act, except if proposed to sell to a foreign government investor and if the subject of the sale was public infrastructure. A foreign government investor includes foreign governments, state-owned corporations and corporations in which a foreign government or separate government entity alone or together with one or more associates hold a substantial interest. This exemption afforded to acquisition of land or business from governments is very troubling given the nature of the pronouncements by Premier Dan Andrews in Victoria and his Belt and Road Initiative plans, as well as the extent of the reach of agreements between China and Premier McGowan's WA government.

This is the critical point that must be considered: the Commonwealth can regulate activities of governments only if there is a constitutional head of power that allows it to do so. In broadening any national security test consideration of the removal of the exemption relating to governments will be a critical test of the government's political fortitude in effecting real change. Hence, unless we remove that exemption so that all acquisitions by foreign entities are subjected to scrutiny and the national interest test, we will not address the elephant in the room—namely, investment by the CCP and its entities in Australia, especially in strategic assets. There has not, as far as I know, been any update to this listing. There is no public listing of PRC companies or PRC invested projects in Australia. The most accurate source of this is the PRC itself, but the PRC investment and corporate presence in Australia to some extent is held within Treasury. These figures are not publicly available and are often simply approvals rather than records of actual investments. China, obviously, has the best figures, but they are not publicly available. China has established a chamber of commerce in Australia to oversee the activities of its state owned entities, both national and provincial.

This body is highly influential, given it represents the owners of many billions of dollars. It branches right across the broad spectrum of energy, aviation, foreign relations, financial industry sectors, legal—you name it, they're there. The massive financial power, and thus influence, of this body on Australian companies and governments has not yet been fully appreciated. It is time that the public was made aware of the corporate reach of these PRC SOE companies, and this includes details of what government agencies know of their holdings and activities. A public database of Australian assets owned by Chinese entities or entities of countries with state owned entities that own assets would be an informative national resource for economic and security purposes, but, to my knowledge, such a database does not exist.

Accordingly, I found the recent ABC program on the Pandora papers, on 4 October, to be a very informative program. Indeed, it reaffirmed my concerns, which I have raised in the Senate, with respect to foreign investment matters. I do not normally agree with Senator Whish-Wilson, but I do agree that there should be a public beneficial-owners register. Indeed, I am on the record urging the government to establish a register so that Australians can know—indeed, they should know—about foreign ownership of assets in Australia. All Australians are entitled to know who owns what in their country, especially who owns those critical assets that are vitally important if attacks, particularly attacks from within, happen. Therefore, amendments to the SCI Act are the first step in strengthening Australia's critical infrastructure security, but there is, I fear, a lot more work still to be done.

Senator PATERSON (Victoria) (18:53): I rise to speak on the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2021. I'm pleased to have the opportunity to do so, having chaired the inquiry into the legislation. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security tabled its report out of session, so I'll speak to our recommendations as well as to this bill. At the outset, I thank my fellow members of the PJCIS, in particular the former deputy chair, Mr Byrne, and the shadow minister for home affairs, Senator Keneally, for the constructive and bipartisan way they worked with me and Liberal colleagues on the committee for our report and its recommendations.

Every 32 minutes a critical infrastructure asset suffers a cyberattack by a state or non-state actor. COVID-19 has seen a shift to even more of our lives being online, deepening our reliance on digital systems to navigate life and business like never before. Throughout the pandemic, the total number of reported cyberattacks in Australia increased by 13 per cent.

Many Australians are familiar with the criminal ransomware gangs and their for-profit motives in launching cyberattacks to extort economic advantage for themselves personally. These are serious and ever-present threats to the cybersecurity of our businesses large and small, as well as to individual Australians. Recent high-profile attacks against JBS Foods, the Nine Network and Colonial Pipeline powerfully illustrate the broader cost of these tactics to our economy.

However, the trend which focused the minds of PJCIS members the most on the urgent challenge facing us is the involvement of nation-states who use the cyber-realm as a new frontier to threaten our security, our sovereignty and our freedom. Our cyberchallenges are increasing in complexity as a result of the evolving security environment in the Indo-Pacific region. Grey-zone tactics which lie between peace and war, where foreign states use cyberintrusion and digital espionage, among other tools, to threaten our interests, are increasingly being relied upon, particularly by authoritarian states. Independent experts who appeared before the PJCIS told us that it was likely that foreign state actors are already prepositioned on sensitive networks and that that presence could be activated against our interests as a prelude to a regional crisis. ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess recently confirmed this fear as part of his annual report to the parliament, reaffirming the very real and serious risk we face as a nation and the urgent need to respond decisively.

Given how interconnected our digital systems are, it is not very difficult to imagine the society-wide consequences if, for example, our financial system were shut down, or if our food supply chains were suddenly disrupted. This would be debilitating, not only for individual Australian citizens but also for our country and particularly for our ability to project power into the region. With the evolving cyberthreat, it is clear that the digital world is the new battlefield, and Australia, along with our critical infrastructure service providers, needs to be armed to respond.

The recent public attribution, by Australia and many of our allies, of the Microsoft Exchange attack to the Chinese government and its agents is a concrete and recent example of this danger. It also highlights how there's not always a clear distinction between state and non-state actors when it comes to cyberthreats, with the Australian Signals Directorate's Rachel Noble telling the PJCIS that the Chinese government effectively propped open the doors of businesses around the world to enable cybertheft and extortion to take place by criminal actors.

It is worth noting in passing that there is a very high technical and political threshold for attributing cyberattacks. So the decision to do so in this instance by so many countries, including the European Union, NATO, all of the Five Eyes members and Japan, is a significant one. There have, of course, been other high-profile attempted and successful cyberintrusions which have not been publicly attributed, including against this parliament, against our political parties and against the Australian National University.

There is a clear recognition from both government and industry that we need to do more to protect our nation against these sophisticated cyberthreats. Our security agencies urgently need emergency powers to defend us from these threats. Of equal importance, however, is the need for critical infrastructure providers themselves to harden their own defences against this attack and to protect the essential services that we all rely upon. They have an obligation to do so, not just to protect their employees, their shareholders and their customers but in the national interest.

The PJCIS has considered this bill over the past year, over four public hearings and with 88 submissions also supplemented by classified briefings from security agencies on the threat environment. The challenge that the committee faced in this inquiry was to find an appropriate balance between, on one hand, what has been clearly demonstrated as an urgent need for the emergency intervention powers and, on the other hand, the legitimate concerns from industry that additional regulation could impose a financial burden and, particularly, could do so at a time that is sensitive for our economy as we recover from the pandemic.

In 14 recommendations, the committee has advised the government to adopt a two-step approach towards strengthening Australia's critical infrastructure against cyberattacks in particular. This two-step approach would give our security agencies the emergency tools they need to counter the urgent cyberthreats, in one bill, while giving industry additional time to finalise the co-design process of additional security obligations in a collaborative way with the government. The committee has recommended that the government legislate, in this first bill, those last-resort intervention powers for the Australian Signals Directorate, the expansion of the number of sectors captured by this legislation from four to 11, and the enhanced cyberincident reporting obligations. The proposed government amendments to the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2020 do just that.

The committee proposed immediate passage for these three key provisions and the associated enabling clauses because they were the most urgent and essential, and because the other clauses of the bill, whilst still important, attracted the most concern during the inquiry process. I do acknowledge that, while the broadest concern aired in the inquiry related to the positive security obligations recommended to proceed in a second bill after further consultation, there was opposition to the emergency assistance powers—in particular, from the tech sector. These are extraordinary powers and, while the committee did understand the desire on the part of the tech sector for their use to be judicially reviewable, given the clearly stated intention of the government for them only to be used in crisis scenarios, we did not think it was workable or desirable for these issues to be litigated in the courts in the event of a major national emergency. Instead, the PJCIS has recommended that it is notified of any use of these powers and that we'd be briefed on the circumstances of their use. This will allow the committee, on behalf of the parliament, to ensure that they are genuinely only used as a last resort, as the government has outlined.

The government is carefully considering the rest of the committee's recommendations, and I want to thank the government, in particular, the Minister for Home Affairs, Karen Andrews, for its engagement with the committee and for the implementation of our recommendations so far, reflected in this amended bill that we're debating today. I'd also like to thank the Director-General of the Australian Signals Directorate, Rachel Noble, and the head of the Australian Cyber Security Centre, Abigail Bradshaw, for their candid engagement with the committee and for the vitally important work that they do in combating these serious threats to our country. It's my hope that, equipped with these powers, and, ultimately, the passage of the second bill, these key agencies are able to work with industry, effectively to combat these threats.

The emergency reforms outlined in the amended bill will strengthen Australia's ability to respond to serious cyberattacks on critical infrastructure by expanding the definition of 'critical infrastructure' to now include energy; communications; financial services; the defence industry; higher education and research; data storage or processing; food and groceries; health care and medical; space technology; transport; and water and sewerage sectors by also introducing that cyberincident reporting regime for critical infrastructure assets. That's particularly important to make sure that we have a complete and full picture of the threat environment that we face. In evidence put to the committee, it is clear that there is underreporting of those cyberincidents and that there may be many more incidents occurring and, indeed, potentially, payments being made by firms in response to ransomware that are never reported and which we're never aware of. We do need to have a full picture.

Finally, we are making government assistance available to industry as a last resort, and subject to those appropriate limitations. This is the need outlined very articulately by the secretary of Home Affairs, Mike Pezzullo, in his evidence before the committee in July this year. He said that he would prefer to have that power on the statute books tonight. We haven't quite delivered as a parliament by getting them on the statute books in July, but I hope that very soon we'll have them on the statute books—after royal assent. That's because it is absolutely important our agencies have the powers they need to respond to that crisis scenario, although we hope it will never eventuate.

Recent cyberattacks and security threats to Australian critical infrastructure make these reforms critically important to deliver. It's true that most companies do willingly cooperate with the Australian Signals Directorate when they suffer an attack. The government assistance mechanisms are an important tool of last resort to assist companies that are unwilling or unable to respond to a serious cyberincident. Unfortunately, during our inquiry, the committee did hear an example of at least one systemically important business that failed to cooperate with authorities in a timely way, leading to a nationwide disruption of its services. This business was then reinfected in a second attack. In the event of a crisis, our security agencies must have last-resort powers to avoid a situation like this and to keep critical infrastructure up and running if providers are unwilling or unable to do so themselves. These are world-leading powers which are vital for the task at hand, but they will be subject to strong safeguards and appropriate oversights.

There may be other businesses, as I said before, who have never reported that they were under attack. While the volume of cybercrime reporting has increased, the Cyber Security Centre stated in its latest annual threat report that reported cybersecurity incidents may not reflect all the cyberthreats and trends in Australia's cybersecurity environment. Mandatory cyberincident reporting for critical infrastructure assets will give the government a clear picture of the cyberthreat environment. This will ensure that our cybersecurity policies and the significant powers that we entrust our security agencies with accurately reflect and are proportionate to the threats and trends in Australia's cybersecurity environment.

Of course, cybersecurity is not just the government's job. Industry has a vital role to play, too. The passage of the subsequent bill, after further consultation and co-design, is essential to ensure a comprehensive response to the long-term security of our critical infrastructure. The second phase of these reforms will be implemented according to the PJCIS recommendations by further amending the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act and capturing those remaining elements of the SOCI bill, in particular the risk management program, the systems of national significance and the enhanced cybersecurity obligations.

I encourage industry and the Department of Home Affairs to continue to work productively together through the co-design process to refine the proposed regulations that make sure we strike the right balance so we can deliver those additional protections that we all agree are necessary. It is my hope that, by the time any revised second bill is referred to the PJCIS, the major concerns industry raised through the first inquiry will have been resolved so that we can quickly deal with it and it can be expeditiously legislated. While Australia has not yet suffered a catastrophic attack on critical infrastructure, as other speakers have said in this debate, sadly we are not immune, and the increasingly interconnected nature of critical infrastructure exposes vulnerabilities that could result in significant consequences for our security, our economy and our sovereignty. This demands both a swift response, which we are dealing with today, and a comprehensive response, which I hope we deal with in short order. I'm confident that the two-step approach adopted by the government to urgently expedite emergency powers for our security agencies to protect Australia's critical infrastructure does just that, and I commend the bill to the Senate.

Senator HENDERSON (Victoria) (19:06): It's my pleasure to rise and make a contribution on the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2021. I want to start my contribution by saying very clearly that the national security threat in this country has changed quite dramatically, as the director-general of ASIO made very clear in evidence during the last estimates. Foreign interference and espionage will soon overtake terrorism as the biggest national security threat to Australia. We have, of course, a very proud history of combating the physical threats to Australia's national security. For instance, since September 2014 Australia's law enforcement agencies have disrupted 21 major terrorist attack plots, 138 people have been charged as a result of 66 counterterrorism related operations around Australia and 50 terrorist offenders are currently behind bars for committing a Commonwealth terrorism offence. I'm very pleased to say that the Australian government has passed 22 tranches of national security legislation.

But, as we've just heard in the excellent contribution from Senator Paterson, who is the chair of the PJCIS, the increasingly larger threat to Australia's national security is in the threat posed by cyberattack—digital disruption—and other non-physical ways in which Australia's freedoms, its democracy and its national security can be compromised. That is why this particular bill is so important. The PJCIS has done an incredible amount of very fine work to identify the urgent need to pass this bill and to implement these emergency powers as well as to conduct further consultation with industry in relation to the second tranche of amendments to our law that are required.

I want to briefly reflect on my first speech in this place. I certainly raised my concerns about the protection of critical infrastructure back in October 2019, when I spoke about the need to keep our nation strong and the need to protect Australia's security and strategic interests and how we had taken enormous strides to combat terrorism and foreign interference, support our intelligence agencies and build our defence capability. But I also made the very strong point that, when things aren't working, we have to call them out. At that time, Australia's critical infrastructure assets weren't appropriately protected—our airports, our power stations, our data networks, our communications infrastructure and our ports, including the port of Darwin. I made the point very strongly that they should not be falling into foreign hands when there was a national security threat. Since that time, led by the Treasurer, there have been some very important reforms to our foreign acquisition laws so that critical infrastructure is better protected, the sale of critical infrastructure to foreign interests can be stopped on national security grounds and the disposition of critical infrastructure assets can be forced on national security grounds. On that note, as an aside, I welcome the Minister for Defence's decision to launch a Department of Defence investigation into the long-term leasehold of the Port of Darwin by a Chinese-owned company. I welcome the work that the Minister for Defence is doing in that regard.

As we've heard in this debate, Australia has seen increasing cyberthreats and attacks on critical infrastructure such as water services, airports, hospitals and even our own parliamentary network. Throughout 2019-20, Australia's critical infrastructure sectors were regularly targeted by malicious cyberactors seeking to exploit and harm victims for profit. For example, multiple regional hospitals were the victims of a cyberattack, and as a result some health services to large regional communities, including surgeries, were disrupted. A major national food wholesaler was the victim of a cyberattack which affected its systems and temporarily disrupted its ability to provide food to Australians at a time of unprecedented pressure on the food and grocery sector. A water provider had its control system encrypted by ransomware. Had the system not been restored quickly enough from backups, that could have disrupted the supply of potable water to a regional population hub, and it had the potential to impact the economy, given the reliance of primary industry on this water supply. In June last year the Prime Minister advised that the Australian government was aware that Australia's critical infrastructure was being targeted by a sophisticated state-based actor.

In the 2020-21 financial year alone, the Australian Cyber Security Centre received over 67,500 cybercrime reports—an average of one every eight minutes—representing an increase of nearly 13 per cent over the previous year. Cybercrime reports recorded total self-reported financial losses of more than $33 billion. In particular, as we have heard in this debate, Australia has seen a worrying escalation of ransomware attacks on individuals and businesses, exacerbated by the fact that cybercriminals are now moving away from low-level ransomware operations and towards attacks which extract heavy ransoms from large or high-profile organisations. These cybercriminals can cause—and are causing—enormous damage in the way they are encrypting networks, extracting data and often threatening to publish stolen material online. These attacks go to the heart of Australia's democracy and its freedom, and they represent a grave threat not just to our economy but also to our national security.

The Morrison government is committed to protecting Australia's critical infrastructure to secure the essential services all Australians rely on—everything from electricity and water to health care and groceries. The intelligence agencies, which do so much fine work to keep Australians safe, have raised the red flag on the urgent need to act quickly to take further action to protect our critical infrastructure. Amendments to the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2020 will ensure that the government is well placed to assist entities which are responsible for critical infrastructure assets to respond to serious cyberattacks as the first step in the strengthening of Australia's critical infrastructure security.

The reforms outlined in this amended bill will strengthen Australia's ability to respond to serious cyberattacks on critical infrastructure in a number of different ways. The bill expands the definition of 'critical infrastructure' to include the energy, communications, financial services, defence industry, higher education and research, data storage or processing, food and grocery, health care and medical, space technology, transport, and water and sewerage sectors. It introduces a cyber incident reporting regime for critical infrastructure assets. When critical infrastructure assets are under attack we need to know about it, and we need to know about it urgently, so that we—government, intelligence agencies and industry—can work together to combat these attacks. The bill also makes government assistance available to industry as a last resort and subject to appropriate limitations. The government will be able to provide assistance immediately prior to, during or following a significant cybersecurity incident to ensure the continued provision of essential services.

Recent cyberattacks and security threats to Australian critical infrastructure make these reforms critically important to deliver, and of course they reflect the response to the recommendations from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, which has brought forward these elements as a priority. The reforms will bring our response to cyberattacks more in line with the government's responses to threats in the physical world. As I mentioned at the beginning of my contribution, we can be mightily proud of the way in which we have combatted terrorism, but this is the new frontier, where no physical presence on our soil is necessary to represent a serious threat to our national security and our economy.

Importantly, the legislation will enable the government to provide emergency assistance or directions immediately before, during or after a significant cybersecurity incident to mitigate and restore essential services. As we know, nearly every essential service is run by sophisticated digital networks via sophisticated communications systems, and that of course makes the delivery of those services so much more efficient and ensures that we have state-of-the-art services in this country. But having all of this critical infrastructure underpinned by very sophisticated digital networks also presents new vulnerabilities in the way in which we are required to protect this infrastructure.

So this is a very important bill. This is a very important bill for Australia's democracy, for our economy and for our national security. I commend the work of the PJCIS in bringing forward its recommendations to ensure that our government works and acts quickly to address the further reforms which are required. I commend this bill to the Senate.

Senator DAVEY (New South Wales—Nationals Whip in the Senate) (19:18): I rise to speak on the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2021. The increasingly interconnected nature of critical infrastructure exposes vulnerabilities in our nation and for our national security that could result in significant consequences, not just for security but for our economy and our sovereignty. Attacks on our critical infrastructure require a joint response involving government, business and individuals, reflecting the interrelated nature of the threat. Our government is already working in partnership with critical infrastructure entities to co-design sector-specific requirements to manage and respond to security risks across critical infrastructure sectors. The government will continue to work with these entities that are responsible for critical infrastructure to ensure that, as we go forward, a second phase of reforms is implemented in a manner that secures appropriate outcomes without imposing unnecessary or disproportionate regulatory burdens. But the reforms outlined in this bill will strengthen our existing ability to respond to serious cyberattacks on critical infrastructure by expanding the definition of critical infrastructure, by including a cybersecurity incident reporting regime for critical infrastructure assets, and by making government assistance available to industry as a last resort and subject to appropriate limitations. These reforms are necessary because, while we haven't suffered a catastrophic attack on critical infrastructure to date, we are not immune, and we have seen attacks overseas that we don't want to see repeated in our own markets.

International cyber incidents, such as the ransomware attack on US company Colonial Pipeline which affected the distribution of fuel to customers on the east coast of the United States, demonstrate the potential for these attacks to cause devastating harm. We are facing increasing cybersecurity threats to our essential services, businesses and all levels of government. In the past two years we've seen cyberattacks on federal parliamentary networks, the logistics sector, the medical sector and on universities, just to mention a few, and while, thankfully, they didn't have significant consequences, they certainly had consequences that we need to address, and we need to make sure we are protected in the future.

The Australian Cyber Security Centre's Annual cyber threat report contains an overview of the cyberthreats affecting Australia and how the ACSC is responding, and provides vital advice on how all Australians and Australian organisations can protect themselves against those threats. In the 2020-21 financial year the ACSC received over 67,500 cybercrime reports, an average of one every eight minutes, representing an increase of nearly 13 percent on the previous financial year. Cybercrime reports admitted via ReportCyber at cyber.gov.au recorded total self-reported financial losses of more than $33 billion. Ransom demands by cybercriminals range from thousands to millions of dollars. Almost 500 ransomware-related cybercrime reports were received via the ReportCyber website, which is an increase of nearly 15 percent compared with the previous financial year. And cyber criminals are moving away from low-level ransomware operations. They are moving towards extracting hefty ransoms from large or high-profile organisations through increasingly sophisticated technological mechanisms. To increase the likelihood of ransoms being paid, these cybercriminals are encrypting networks and exfiltrating data, then threatening to publish stolen information on the internet.

These shifts in targeting and tactics have intensified the ransomware threat to Australian organisations across all sectors, including critical infrastructure, which is why these reforms are so important. These reforms will be implemented through strengthening the Australian government's capacity to identify and manage the national security risks of espionage, sabotage and coercion resulting from foreign involvement in Australia's critical infrastructure. The government amendments to this bill, the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2021, which amends the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018, have been made to expand the security of critical infrastructure to cover 11 critical infrastructure sectors. This includes energy, communications, financial services, defence industry, higher education and research, data storage and processing, food and grocery, health care, medical, space technology, transport, and water and sewage sectors—all sectors that are vitally important to our day-to-day lives and to the lifestyle we have grown accustomed to in our nation.

The amendments will also apply the reporting obligations of critical infrastructure ownership and operational information to the register of critical infrastructure assets to the added critical infrastructure sectors. It will allow the government to mandate cyberincident reporting for critical infrastructure sectors to the Australian Signals Directorate's Australian Cyber Security Centre. It will also introduce government assistance measures providing powers for the government to respond to security incidents that seriously prejudice Australia's prosperity, national security and defence. Importantly, it will enable the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, PJCIS, to conduct a review of the operation, effectiveness and implications of the bill not less than three years from when the bill receives royal assent. That point is vitally important, because that adds to the scrutiny capacity of this parliament over the bill, to make sure that it is operating effectively, efficiently and as intended. It will allow the PJCIS to have an overview and a watching sight of how the bill is being implemented and to provide a review and any relevant recommendations when the review is conducted in three years time. As a member of the parliamentary committees for the scrutiny of bills and delegated legislation, I find that parliamentary scrutiny over such issues is very important and adds to the robustness of our legislation going forward.

The government assistance powers that are proposed as part of this bill have been proposed as a result of the consultations, which revealed a strong community expectation that, in emergency circumstances and as a matter of last resort, the government will use its technical expertise to protect Australia's national interests and restore the functioning of essential services. Collaborative resolution will always remain the most effective method of resolving an incident, and that is why it is the government's first preference to work with industries and with our critical infrastructure providers to maintain our national security. However, it is the government's ultimate responsibility to protect the availability of Australia's critical infrastructure, and, in such emergency circumstances, it is crucial that the government has last-resort powers to respond to the incident or mitigate its impact.

The government recognises that industry should and will, usually, be the first responder to the vast majority of cybersecurity incidents, with the support of government where necessary. However, under the provisions in this bill, the government does maintain the ultimate responsibility—as would be expected by the Australian public—and this is in Australia's national interests. So, as a last resort, government assistance will enable the government to protect critical infrastructure sector assets in the event of an imminent attack, during an attack or following a significant cyberattack. These last-resort powers may only be exercised where a cybersecurity incident has occurred, is occurring or is imminent; where an incident has had, is having or is likely to have a relevant impact on a critical infrastructure asset; or where there is a material risk that the incident has seriously prejudiced, will seriously prejudice or is likely to seriously prejudice the social or economic stability of Australia or its people, the defence of Australia or national security. They could also be brought in where there is no existing regulatory mechanism that can be used to address the cyberattack. The intervention power may only be authorised once the Minister for Home Affairs has sought agreement from the Prime Minister and the Minister for Defence. It is not a free-for-all. There are protections built in to ensure that it is truly used as a mechanism of last resort.

I want to reiterate that this bill has been consulted on. It's very important to understand the level of consultation that has occurred. From August to September, the Australian government consulted publicly on this bill and on protecting critical infrastructure and systems of national significance through the consultation paper. There were over 2,000 participants from over 500 entities who took part in town hall meetings, sector-specific workshops and bilateral meetings to support the development of the reforms, including the sector-specific thresholds.

The Department of Home Affairs received 194 submissions on the consultation paper, and in November 2020 the government consulted publicly on an exposure draft of the bill. Home Affairs also spoke to over a thousand individuals during that public consultation on the exposure draft, which opened on 9 November and closed on 27 November. There were also 122 further submissions received during the exposure draft consultation period. There were also the PJCIS hearings and, as we acknowledged at the time, many sectors have had multiple challenges to deal with during the pandemic.

In saying that, the consultation on this bill has been thorough. Amendments have been made in response to that consultation and the bill, as it now stands, is robust and fit for purpose, and I commend it to the chamber.

Senator RUSTON (South Australia—Minister for Families and Social Services, Minister for Women's Safety and Manager of Government Business in the Senate) (19:31): This Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2021 responds to the recommendations of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security's advisory report on the bill and the statutory review of the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018. The government acknowledges and thanks the committee for its work, both in relation to this bill and to other government national security priorities.

Cybersecurity threats targeting Australia's national and economic interests are increasing in frequency, scale and sophistication. Twenty-five per cent of cybersecurity incidents that the Australian Signals Directorate responded to last year were found to be targeting the nation's critical infrastructure, including energy, water, telecommunications providers and our essential health networks. As the Director-General of Security noted in his recent annual report, there is:

… potential for Australia's adversaries to pre-position malicious code in critical infrastructure, particularly in areas such as telecommunications and energy. Such cyber enabled activities could be used to damage critical networks in the future.

And:

Australia's threat environment is complex, challenging and changing.

This brings into focus the importance of these amendments and why the government has accepted the committee's recommendation to expedite the introduction of these important measures. The PJCIS has made 14 recommendations in the advisory report, notably, including that the bill be split into two, with a first bill to incorporate the measures to respond to cyberincidents and cyberincident reporting, as well as associated definitions and powers, and for a second bill to be introduced following industry consultation to include the remaining preventative measures. The PJCIS indicated that the measures in the bill should be legislated in the shortest possible time, given the moral imperative of the government and our security agencies to harden our essential services and ensure the continued safety of the Australian community.

The measures in the bill will expand the scope of the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act to include assets in an additional 11 industry sectors as critical infrastructure assets; provide a mechanism to require cyberincident reporting; enable government responses to serious cybersecurity incidents; and retain associated definitions and powers. The bill also includes a provision that the PJCIS may conduct a review of the operation's effectiveness and implications of the reformed security of the critical infrastructure legislative framework in the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act not less than three years from when this bill receives royal assent in accordance with recommendation 14 of the advisory report. The government will respond to the remaining PJCIS recommendations relating to the second bill as soon as possible.

Engagement with industry will not stop with the passage of this bill. The government will continue to work collaboratively with industry to support the implementation of their obligations with the ultimate goal of reducing the likelihood and the severity of catastrophic impacts to Australia's critical infrastructure. Malicious cyberactivity represents a threat to Australia's way of life. It can undermine our sovereignty, democratic institutions, economy and national security, and it is the responsibility of all Australians to protect themselves against it. Accelerated digitisation during the pandemic has made Australia more vulnerable to cybersecurity threats and emboldened malicious actors. These measures will be a step towards ensuring cyber-resilience for all Australians.

I commend the bill to the Senate. I also table a correction to the revised explanatory memorandum relating to this bill.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator O'Sullivan ): The question is that the second reading amendment moved by Senator Thorpe be agreed to.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator O'Sullivan ) (19:42): No amendments have been circulated. Does any senator require a committee stage? If not, I shall call the minister to move the third reading.

Senator RUSTON (South Australia—Minister for Families and Social Services, Minister for Women's Safety and Manager of Government Business in the Senate) (19:42): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Senator KENEALLY (New South Wales—Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (19:43): I rise to speak on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2021. This bill responds to recommendations made in 2017 by the former Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, Dr James Renwick CSC, SC, and proposes to amend the Criminal Code Act 1995 to introduce an extended supervision order scheme. This would complement the current suite of powers available to the Australian Federal Police to counter the threat of terrorism.

Currently, when authorities believe that a convicted terrorist offender would continue to pose a risk to the community at the expiry of the offender's custodial sentence, the Commonwealth may apply to the supreme court of a state or territory for an order to continue that offender's detention for up to three years at a time. In order to make a continuing detention order, the court must be satisfied that no less restrictive measure would mitigate the risk to the community of the offender's release. In line with the recommendations by the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, this bill proposes an alternative to continuing detention orders—that is, an extended supervision order. This would be a less restrictive option than a continuing detention order. Under an extended supervision order, a convicted terrorist would be released into the community at the end of their sentence but would be required to comply with prohibitions, restrictions or obligations that are, in the court's view, reasonably necessary and appropriate and adapted to protecting the community.

These powers do introduce a less restrictive option than what is currently in existence, but that is not to diminish the significance of the new powers. As this bill introduces extended supervision orders and such an order could significantly restrict the liberty of an individual who has completed their sentence, this bill was very carefully considered by the opposition.

The bill also seeks to address what the government has described as the current lack of interoperability between continuing detention orders and control orders in the Criminal Code due to the different courts from which these orders may be sought. Currently, only federal courts can make control orders and only state or territory supreme courts can make continuing detention orders. That means a supreme court cannot make a control order or any other type of post-sentencing order if, in the view of the court, less restrictive measures would be effective in preventing the unacceptable risk. If this bill becomes law, a state or territory supreme court would be able to make an extended supervision order as an alternative to a continuing detention order.

This bill was referred to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security for review. The committee received valuable and considered submissions from experts on law and human rights, as well as from government departments and agencies. Amongst the issues discussed in submissions and hearings were the human rights considerations of extending restrictions to a person's civil liberties after they have served their sentence, the methodology for assessing risk of future offending, the standard of proof required for an extended supervision order and the safeguards and oversight accompanying the powers proposed by the bill.

The committee made 11 unanimous and bipartisan recommendations. These included requiring that the issuing authority must consider whether a person is already subject to other post-sentence supervision orders, and the cumulative impact of multiple post-sentence orders, including the risk of oppression; an independent review to be provided to the parliament of methodologies used to determine a person's risk of violent extremism and the effectiveness of mandating participation in deradicalisation programs; and provisions for the Commonwealth to bear reasonable costs associated with the offender's legal representation. The committee also recommended stipulations that conditions imposed under an extended supervision order cannot in effect amount to detention, and that these new powers be subject to a statutory review by the committee after the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor conducts his review.

These are important and necessary recommendations that further demonstrate how seriously the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security takes its role in calibrating the important issues of national security, human rights and procedural fairness, all in a bipartisan way in the national interest. I am pleased, then, both as a member of the intelligence and security committee and as a member of this chamber, to note that the government has advised that they will be accepting the majority of the committee's recommendations. As such, Labor will support this bill, strengthened and improved as it is by the amendments made.

Labor takes the issues of national security very seriously. Australia's national terrorism threat level was raised to 'probable' in 2014 and has remained there since. 'Probable' means there is a credible threat that people have the capability and intent to conduct terrorist attacks in Australia. In the time since 2014, the threat level has remained constant but the threat itself has transformed, including a now increased threat of ideologically-motivated violent extremism, fuelled largely by a rise in right-wing extremism and, sadly, as evidenced by the mass-casualty terrorist attack committed by an Australian right-wing terrorist in Christchurch. ASIO, the AFP and state law enforcement agencies have all warned that extremists are exploiting the fear and insecurity created by the COVID-19 pandemic, vilifying culturally-and-linguistically-diverse communities, spreading disinformation as a means of recruitment to sow fear and incite violence. The Attorney-General's Department and the Department of Home Affairs told the committee that, of the 86 individuals convicted of Commonwealth terrorism offences, 13 are due to be released over the next few years. With this in mind, it is important that our security and law enforcement agencies have a range of options to monitor the threat posed by terrorism, particularly by convicted terrorists who continue to demonstrate an intent to harm Australians.

These amendments, the amendments recommended by the committee, are important, which is why it is surprising that it took the government three years to introduce this legislation, as it had been recommended by the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor back in 2017. It is also surprising that the Minister for Home Affairs, Ms Karen Andrews, told the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in September that the need for this legislation was greater than ever, when the Morrison-Joyce government only handed its response to the committee's recommendations in late October. It is surprising to learn that the former Attorney-General, Christian Porter, had told the Australian newspaper in 2018 that 'the government intends to introduce legislation to create an extended supervision order scheme as soon as possible'. Perhaps we should not be surprised that 'as soon as possible' for the Morrison-Joyce government is actually in three years time. It is perhaps just another example of a headline and an announcement without the detail, and of acting too little, too late.

However, the bill is now at the parliament. It has now gone through a review by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. It has been considered carefully by the committee, and as a member of the community, I acknowledge and thank all committee members for their diligence in conducting the review of this legislation. I acknowledge that the chair, Senator James Paterson, did considerable work on this legislation, particularly given that he only took on the leadership of the committee earlier this year and that a fair amount of the work done on the committee was prior to his taking on responsibility as chair.

We have arrived at a bipartisan report done in the national interest and focusing on what is important for Australia's national security. Having worked collaboratively and with diligence to review and improve this bill, Labor supports the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2021.

Senator THORPE (Victoria) (19:53): I rise to speak on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2021. We will not be supporting this bill, because it is highly flawed. I say to the government: come back to this place when you want to do the right thing, and then we can negotiate.

This parliament has passed well over 70 counterterrorism laws in the last two decades, and often they have simply never been used. This bill proposes to establish a new type of post-sentence order in the Criminal Code to manage the future risk presented by a person who has finished their imprisonment for a terrorism or security offence. This extended supervision order would enable someone to be released into the community subject to conditions on their activities and movements after they have completed their sentence. However, the Criminal Code already contains provisions that permit a state or territory supreme court to make what's called a 'continuing detention order' in relation to the same category of offender. These continuing detention orders require a person convicted of a serious terrorism offence to remain in detention for up to three years after they have completed their sentence.

I note that the Human Rights Commission has called for the introduction of an extended supervision order regime because it provides a less-restrictive way of managing the risk of serious crime in the community. The Human Rights Commission argues that where a risk is proven to exist and a court considers that the community can be protected through conditions imposed on a person after they're released then this should be preferred instead of continued detention because it's a more proportionate response. It is also consistent with the general principle of the criminal law that an offender should be released from custody once they have done their sentence. However, the continuing detention order regime that we have now will not be repealed. It will continue to exist alongside provisions in this bill. Also, what's worse is that this bill is not at all what the third Independent National Security Legislation Monitor suggested as a better way forward.

As I mentioned earlier, this parliament has passed over 70 counterterrorism laws in the last 20 years. Many of these laws create really broad, extensive and often overlapping powers. This means that it is becoming more and more probable that the human rights of people are being impacted due to the snowballing nature of all these laws. I urge my fellow senators not to consider this law on its own, but in the broader ecosystem in which it lives. If this bill is passed the new extended supervision order regime would add to this country's already extensive and often unjustified counterterrorism powers. Once given to police and spy agencies these powers do not come back.

This bill cannot be seen in isolation. It must be seen in the context of the many, many powers that this parliament has already given the police and intelligence agencies of this country. At the very least, the extended supervision order regime should replace the continuing detention order regime. These two extensive powers should not sit side by side. I foreshadow a second reading amendment to reflect this and I ask the support of my fellow senators. There is no need for these two regimes to exist at the same time. If this bill is passed as it is and control orders are not repealed then offenders in New South Wales could be subject to up to four overlapping post-sentence order regimes.

I say to the government: this bill is not it. Come back to this place, put forward something that at the very least abolishes the continuing detention order regime. Act on the advice from the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor and then we can negotiate. I say to the government: go do your job, come back to this place when you've got something that is worthy of the Senate to consider. The Australian Greens cannot agree to this bill in its current form. I move:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate notes that:

(a) this bill is not supported by key stakeholders in the logistics, technology, and education sectors, among others;

(b) in the review of this bill undertaken by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, numerous stakeholders reported insufficient consultation by the Government with their respective sector or industry and many reported that this bill would result in the imposition of an excessive regulatory burden on their business, including the potential duplication of regulatory systems;

(c) this bill imposes very serious obligations on entities deemed to be providing critical infrastructure, including:

(i) the potential for the takeover of business or operations by Government security agencies, and

(ii) the ability for the Minister to authorise the Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs to direct an entity to gather information, undertake an action (or direct that an action not be undertaken), or authorise the Australian Signals Directorate to intervene, when a cyber security incident has occurred, is occurring, or is likely to occur; and

(d) this bill would give the Minister considerable powers under the guise of protecting the security of critical infrastructure".

Senator VAN (Victoria) (19:59): The national terrorism threat level was raised to 'probable' in September 2014 and since then there have been nine attacks and 21 major counterterrorism disruption operations in relation to potential attack planning in Australia. Since 2001, 92 people have been convicted of terrorism related offences in Australia, including seven who were juveniles when charged. More than 50 are currently serving custodial sentences and a number of others remain before the courts for terrorism related offences. One need only look back to the horror of the Lindt Cafe attack or the Bourke Street attack in my home state of Victoria to know that these threats are real and present within our society. This is something that the Morrison government takes very, very seriously. It is resolutely committed to pulling every lever of government to protect Australians and prevent the threat of terrorism from occurring on our shores.

It is vital to remember that the security of Australians underpins the recovery of Australia from COVID-19. If our citizens are not safe, they cannot prosper. While COVID-19 has put a halt to many of the norms of our daily lives, the threats against Australians and our communities continue to propagate. For those intent on violence, more time at home spent online meant more time in the echo chamber of the internet on the pathway to radicalisation. It was noted by the director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, Mr Mike Burgess:

COVID has reinforced extremist beliefs and narratives about societal collapse and a race war. As a consequence, we are seeing extremists seeking to acquire weapons for self-defence, as well as stockpiling ammunition and provisions.

An ideologically motivated terrorist attack in Australia remains plausible, most likely by a lone actor or small cell rather than a recognised group, and using a knife or a vehicle rather than sophisticated weapons.

As we learnt from the horrific 2019 London Bridge attack and the 2020 Streatham attack in the UK, convicted terrorists can pose a very real and ongoing threat to public safety when they're released back into the community after serving their full jail sentence. In the case of the February 2020 attack in London, Sudesh Amman injured two people before he was shot dead by police officers who had had him under close surveillance. The attacker had been released from prison just 10 days before he carried out the attack. Had this individual not been under close surveillance, it is most likely that many more would have been injured or killed.

Terrorist attacks perpetrated by individuals who have previously been incarcerated on terrorism charges reinforces the complexity of the challenges that prisons around the world face in relation to terrorist offenders. Despite the efforts of correctional officers to deradicalise prisoners, recidivism still occurs. At a fundamental level, recidivism constitutes the continuation of, or a return to, a previous pattern of criminal behaviour. While our correctional officers put a great deal of effort into reducing the rate of recidivism, unfortunately many individuals walk out of prison more radicalised than before they went in. This is why we must have the right rules in place to ensure that if and when recidivism occurs, our fine law enforcement agencies are prepared and can prevent it before our citizens are harmed.

Peter Severin, the former commissioner of New South Wales prisons, spoke earlier this year to the fact that some of Australia's most notorious terrorists have not disavowed their extremist beliefs in prison and they remain dangerous as their re-entry into the community looms. Six offenders who were convicted following Operation Pandanus in 2005, which dismantled a terrorist network operating between Sydney and Melbourne, remain in custody in New South Wales and will become eligible for release between now and 2026. If and when these individuals are released, we must ensure that the right framework is in place so that our law enforcement agencies are able to adequately ensure that, when back in the community, these individuals pose no threat to the greater public and that, if they do pose a threat, law enforcement agencies can quickly act upon it.

In 2016, the Australian government introduced the high risk terrorist offender regime into the Commonwealth Criminal Code. This provides for the continuing detention of high risk terrorist offenders who pose an unacceptable risk of committing serious terrorist offences at the end of their custodial sentence. This was a significant step towards keeping our community safe from those that wish to threaten the lives of innocent Australians. The Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2021 government amendment builds upon the work the coalition government has done so far to make our communities safer. The bill before us will ensure that the risk posed to the community from high-risk terrorist offenders is mitigated, following their release from a custodial sentence. It will do this by creating an extended supervision order, an ESO, for high-risk terrorist offenders who are released into the community. This will ensure they are subject to supervision and monitoring conditions which are proportionate to the level of risk they pose to community safety. The new scheme will ensure public safety is the No. 1 priority for our courts when making decisions about the release of high-risk offenders. Under an extended supervision order, the court may impose any conditions that it is satisfied are reasonably necessary and reasonably appropriate for the purpose of protecting the community from the unacceptable risk of the offender committing a serious terrorism offence.

The extended supervision order scheme will complement the existing continuing detention order scheme in the Criminal Code Act 1995 and will broaden the range of tools available to protect the community from terrorist offenders. Currently, there are only two options for managing such offenders. The first is a continuing detention order, under which a court may order that the person remain detained, where they pose an unacceptable risk to the community and where that risk cannot be addressed through less restrictive means. The second option is a control order, which allows conditions to be placed on a person in the community. These orders are not tailored for the post-sentence context as they only allow for a defined set of conditions and are issued by different courts to continuing detention orders. In creating extended supervision orders, the bill will broaden the range of measures available to address the risk of terrorism to the Australian community. The government has put in place robust legal frameworks to provide agencies with appropriate powers, including control orders, preventive detention orders and emergency 'stop, search and seize' powers. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security has recently reported, following its consideration of these powers, and recommended that they be continued. The Australian community rightly expect that their government will do everything within its power to prevent individuals who have a proven track record of causing harm, or who have had intentions to cause harm, from further threatening the community when they get out of jail. This improved scheme delivers on our commitment to keep Australians safe.

The bill also amends other legislation to support the effective implementation of the extended supervision order scheme. To ensure the compliance of an offender on an extended supervision order, the bill amends the Crimes Act 1914 to extend the existing regime of monitoring warrants for control orders to also include supervision orders and interim supervision orders. These amendments will allow law enforcement to monitor the compliance of an offender, either with their consent or with a warrant to search their premises or person. Amendments to the Surveillance Devices Act 2004 and the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 will allow law enforcement to obtain warrants for electronic surveillance to monitor compliance with supervision orders and inform the minister's decision as to whether to apply for a post-sentence order. The bill also amends the international production order regime, which was introduced through the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (International Production Orders) Bill 2020, allowing for improved cross-border access to communications data for law enforcement agencies. These amendments will ensure that agencies are able to obtain international production orders for the purpose of monitoring compliance with extended supervision orders.

The bill amends the National Security Information (Criminal and Civil Proceedings) Act 2004 to extend existing provisions which apply to control order proceedings, to allow the court to consider sensitive information in extended supervision order proceedings without that information being disclosed to the offender or their legal representative. This will ensure that the process of applying for an extended supervision order does not reveal sensitive sources— which is of the utmost importance in a custodial environment. To ensure that the offender receives a fair hearing the bill extends the existing special advocate regime that is in place for controlled order proceedings. The bill expressly prohibits the court from considering court-only evidence in determining whether to make continuing detention orders, as is currently the case.

The government amendments also address recommendations by the PJCIS in relation to the bill. The government accepted 10 of the 11 PJCIS recommendations in full, in part or in principle. In the context of the recent New Zealand terror incident and the operational need for the ESO scheme to manage high-risk terrorist offenders it is essential that this bill be passed. The bill ensures that our law enforcement agencies have the powers they need to respond to the evolving threat of terrorism and reflects the government's continued commitment to keeping Australian communities safe and secure. This bill demonstrates the Morrison government's commitment to providing holistic protection against the threat of terrorist activity. This will ensure that our communities remain safe and will address any gaps in the current legislative framework that may allow malicious individuals to cause harm. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Senator MOLAN (New South Wales) (20:11): Like other senators in this place, I rise to speak to the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2021. I listened to other senators who have addressed this bill. It always restores my faith when I hear reports from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. As explained to us by Senator Keneally, bipartisan support came out of the process within that committee. I spent some time on that committee in my first iteration within the Senate. It's an excellent committee. The way it gets bipartisan support for various bills is excellent. I was very happy to hear that Labor does support the bill.

I listened to Senator Thorpe, and I thank Senator Thorpe for her contribution. I guess there has to be an objection from the Greens in relation to this, but I would say that a very solid argument can be made that we do need both continuing detention orders and extended supervision orders. They are two quite different functions and they give an extraordinary amount of flexibility to courts and other officials in how they handle terrorists who have been incarcerated but still hold extremist views. I think these powers are justified. It is very important that we look at these powers as a whole, as Senator Thorpe explained. When you do look at them in context, I think it is possible to see that both the CDO and ESO are of value and are needed.

Senator Van spoke to us and reminded us that terrorism is a significant problem. There have been nine attacks and 21 disruptions. That's still a significant problem. Since 2001 there have been 92 convicted terrorists—50 of which are still incarcerated. He reminded us that the Director-General of ASIO spoke very strongly and openly about the impact of COVID on the terrorist situation in this country—ideologically motivated terrorist groups are there and they became more active during the COVID period. He also gave us examples of released offenders conducting terrorist activities. So I think that this is very relevant to every aspect of our life.

The government is well and truly committed to ensuring the safety and security of all Australians. As we've seen and as we were reminded by Senator Van, the recent terrorist attacks in New Zealand, as well as the 2019 London Bridge attack and the 2020 Streatham attack in the UK, convicted terrorist offenders continue to pose a risk to the community at the end of their sentence. This bill enhances the safety and security of every Australian by creating what's been explained to us this evening, extended supervision orders, ESOs, to ensure that high-risk terrorist offenders can be appropriately managed in the community at the end of their custodial sentence.

Part 1 of schedule 1 of the bill creates an extended supervision order scheme, for high-risk terrorist offenders, in division 105A of the Criminal Code. A state or territory supreme court would be able to make an ESO in relation to a convicted high-risk terrorist if satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that the offender poses an unacceptable risk of committing a serious terrorism offence if released into the community at the end of their sentence. Under an ESO the court may impose any conditions that it is satisfied are reasonably necessary and reasonably appropriate and adapted for the purpose of protecting the community from unacceptable risk. ESOs would provide a less restrictive option—and this is the key for the Greens—if the court is not satisfied that a continuing detention order is necessary.

It's important to realise that with the balances that exist in this bill the state or territory supreme court will be able to impose an ESO for up to three years at a time, if the court is satisfied, as I mentioned before, on the balance of probabilities, on the basis of admissible evidence, that the offender poses an unacceptable risk of committing a serious terrorism offence. One of the real benefits of this bill is that the court can impose any condition it likes, on an offender, that it considers proportionate to the risk the offender poses.

Part 2 of schedule 1 amends the Crimes Act 1914, which relates to surveillance devices—and is referred to as the Surveillance Devices Act, SD Act—and the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 to extend the existing surveillance and monitoring powers that are available for control orders to apply to ESOs, including search warrants and warrants for various types of electronic surveillance. Law enforcement agencies will also be able to seek electronic surveillance warrants under the SD Act, to inform the AFP minister's decision whether to apply for an ESO or a CDO.

Part 2 of schedule 1 also amends the National Security Information (Criminal and Civil Proceedings) Act 2004 to extend the court-only evidence provisions and the special advocate scheme that applies in control orders proceedings to ESO proceedings. It also amends the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 to exempt decisions made by the AFP minister under division 105A of the Criminal Code from judicial review under that act and to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979 to confirm that a condition imposed by an ESO or an action relating to electronic monitoring is not a prescribed administrative action for the purpose of the definition of an adverse security assessment under the act.

The bill also provides agencies, therefore, with the necessary tools not just to apply ESOs but to monitor compliance with those orders and to protect sensitive, national security information within ESO proceedings. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security has considered the bill and made 11 recommendations. The government is accepting 10 of those in full, in part or in principle. There is a part 3 to the bill, which makes minor consequential amendments to the Crimes Act to reflect the creation of ESOs.

Schedule 2 of the bill contains amendments to provisions introduced by the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (International Production Orders) Bill 2020, referred to as the IPO bill—international production orders. The IPO bill was passed by both houses on 24 June this year and received royal assent on 23 July. As the IPO bill was in parliament at the same time as the ESO bill, it was necessary to draft contingent amendments in this way. The IPO bill was introduced for a framework to facilitate Australia entering into cross-border access to data agreements with foreign countries for an effective and efficient pathway for Australian law enforcement agencies to obtain communications data and vice versa. The proposed Australia-United States CLOUD Act agreement is an example of this.

This bill will amend the IPO framework to enable law enforcement agencies to obtain an international production order for the purpose of monitoring compliance with an ESO. The use and disclosure framework will also be amended to facilitate the use of information collected under an international production order to be used when making an application for a CDO or an ESO.

This is a good bill. It's a bill which has function and which is relevant. Even in the context of everything else this government has produced to counter terrorism over many years, it's an adjunct to those things and I commend this bill to the Senate.

Senator McALLISTER (New South Wales) (20:21): Labor supports the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2021. As others before me have pointed out, it responds to a recommendation that was made by the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor quite some time ago in 2017. That recommendation was to establish a federal extended supervision order regime.

The bill went before the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and, before turning to the content of the bill, I just want to make some brief comments about Labor's broad approach to national security and how that affects the work in that committee. Whether in government or in opposition, we consistently work to ensure that our security agencies have the powers and resources that they need to keep our community safe, and that our laws are adapted to meet changing security threats. That approach is consistent. We take the advice of national security agencies seriously and we understand the context of our decisions—most specifically that in acting to protect our nation we act to protect a nation that is founded on the rule of law and respecting individual liberty.

Our approach to national security needs to reflect and respond to these core values. To the extent that individual rights are burdened—and they are burdened from time to time—such burden must represent the least-intrusive manner to achieve a security objective and be proportionate to the actual threat. We scrutinise evidence carefully and we never politicise national security. Labor is committed to working through the evidence of agencies, stakeholders and experts in a deliberative manner, and our bipartisan approach means exactly this: we expect the PJCIS to interrogate the issues that are placed before it robustly, without seeking to obtain narrow electoral advantage. We seek to embed in our national security architecture robust oversight. Strong and effective oversight does not undermine our national security; in fact, it enhances it. Public trust and confidence in our security and intelligence agencies are best ensured through strong and rigorous oversight and scrutiny.

As with all bills, that's the approach we took to this one. As I indicated, this bill has taken its time in arriving. The INSLM made a recommendation for a scheme such as the one contained in this bill in 2017. It took the current government three years after that to even introduce legislation into the parliament. In October 2018 the former Attorney-General Mr Porter told the Australian newspaper:

The government intends to introduce legislation to create an ESO scheme as soon as possible.

And yet legislation was not introduced until nearly two years later in September 2020. Now, in the last sitting fortnight of 2021, this bill has been listed for debate.

If this bill becomes law, it will be possible for federal authorities to seek an extended supervision order as an alternative to a continuing detention order. Under a supervision order, an offender would be released into the community at the end of his or her sentence but would be required to comply with prohibitions, restrictions or obligations that are, in the court's view, reasonably necessary and appropriate and adapted to protecting the community.

One of the key reasons for the bill is to address what the government describes as 'the current lack of interoperability between continuing detention orders and control orders in the Criminal Code due to the different courts from which these orders may be sought'. It is a genuine problem, and the committee took evidence about this. Currently only federal courts can make control orders, but only state and territory supreme courts can make continuing detention orders. This means that a state or territory supreme court cannot make a control order a less intrusive response to a threat, or any other type of post-sentencing order, if, in the view of the court, less restrictive measures would be effective in preventing the unacceptable risk, and this is because the making of these orders is not available to that court. If this bill becomes law, a state or territory supreme court will be able to make an extended supervision order as a less intrusive alternative to a continuing detention order, but only—and this is key—if this represents a proportional response to the risk that is posed and a response that is adequate to protect the community.

When the intelligence and security committee looked at this bill, we made a range of unanimous and bipartisan recommendations to improve the bill, including the inclusion of additional factors that an issuing authority must consider prior to issuing an extended supervision order, such as whether the person is already the subject of another post-sentence supervision order under state or territory legislation. We recommended that a court may make an order requiring the Commonwealth to bear all or part of the reasonable costs and expenses of the offender's legal representation for an extended-supervision-order proceeding.

These are important powers that have the capacity to intrude on a person's liberty. It is appropriate that a person be represented when these matters are being considered. The committee recommended that the issuing authority be required to assess the necessity and proportionality of the combined effect of all of the proposed conditions of an extended supervision order, not just each individual condition in isolation; ensuring that conditions imposed under an extended supervision order cannot amount to effective detention, by providing that a supervision order cannot require an individual to remain at a specified premises for more than 12 hours in any 24-hour period; that authorities cannot impose new conditions under an interim supervision order unless the subject of the order consents; and ensuring that authorities can exercise discretion when it comes to minor or unintentional breaches of a supervision order—that is, that they have the discretion not to prosecute if it is clear that this was not something intentional done by the subject of the order.

The committee also recommended that the government commission an independent review of the range of risk assessment tools that are available to evaluate whether a person poses a risk of committing terrorist acts, and that there also be a statutory review of their new powers within 12 months after the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor completes his review, noting that the monitor is due to commence that review as soon as practicable after 7 December of this year.

This is a good example of the committee exercising its authority and its role to review legislation and to ensure that it is balanced and proportionate. As I said earlier, the power to establish a post-sentence arrangement is a most significant power, and the committee's amendments largely seek to establish additional checks and balances to ensure that this power is not abused. The government has largely accepted each of these recommendations, though, with some justification, it has argued that legislative amendments are unnecessary to achieve two of the committee's recommendations. The government has, however, rejected part of recommendation 7:

The Committee recommends that proposed clause 105A of the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2020 be amended to require that interim supervisions orders

may not be subject to application to include new conditions prior to confirming an extended supervision order

may be amended with the consent of both parties.

The government has rejected the first part of this recommendation on the basis that it would like to retain the ability to have new conditions imposed under an interim supervision order, provided that those new conditions are agreed to by the independent issuing authority. Recommendation 7 was a considered, bipartisan and unanimous recommendation of the committee. In our view, the government has not offered a compelling reason to reject part of that recommendation, and for that reason I wish to place on record that, in the event that Labor is successful at the next election, it is a recommendation that we would revisit in government.

As the shadow Attorney-General noted in his remarks in the other place, not all of the concerns that were raised by submitters to the committee's inquiry are addressed by the government's amendments, nor were all of those concerns addressed by the Intelligence and Security Committee's recommendations. For example, the Law Council was not persuaded that amendments to the bill put forward by the Attorney-General's Department and the Department of Home Affairs in August, which would allow a control order or extended supervision order to apply to a person in immigration detention, were necessary. In common with a number of submitters, Labor members of the Intelligence and Security Committee also expressed concern that, where the bill departs from recommendations made by the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, those departures have not been adequately justified by the department.

I note that, if the bill becomes law, the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor will be required to undertake a review of the measures contained in the bill as soon as practicable after 7 December 2021. Just as importantly, the Intelligence and Security Committee will be able to commence its own inquiry within 12 months of the INSLM's report being completed. Those reviews will provide the monitor, the parliament and civil society groups an opportunity to evaluate the practical application of the measures contained in this bill, and to consider whether further improvements are necessary or desirable.

Senator FAWCETT (South Australia) (20:31): I too rise to address the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2021, and I also do so as a longstanding member of the PJCIS. I highlight for those who are listening to this debate the two recent examples in New Zealand and the UK. In both of these examples, what was seen was people who had been convicted of terrorist offences and who had been released because they reached the end of their sentence. Yet the authorities knew and were concerned that the radical ideology which had caused them to offend in the first place had not been renounced, and for that reason they imposed various conditions under their laws in New Zealand and the UK that enabled police to monitor, follow and watch what people were doing. I note that, in both of those incidents, the fact that those conditions were in place did not stop the offenders in the case of the New Zealand incident walking into a supermarket, going to a shelf with knives, grabbing a knife and stabbing a number of people before the police were able to intervene. Similar things happened in the UK.

The reality we face today is that there are a range of reasons terrorist offenders do it and there are a range of circumstances for each person. We see, through groups like ISIS or ISIL—depending on how you want to define them—and their affiliates around the world, that many of these people are quite sane, balanced in their world view, not necessarily from low-income families who have been deprived and not necessarily uneducated. We have people who trained in Australia as doctors and physicians who have gone to join such organisations. If people hold these ideologies deeply, they don't give them up on the basis of a custodial sentence. We have seen much evidence from around the world that many deradicalisation programs are marginally effective at best and, in many cases, appear to have no real impact. As we look at some offenders, such as Benbrika and others in prisons in Australia who've been ringleaders in the past, the potential remains very high for them to not only continue to hold those views but also to continue to lead and inspire others to commit, and for them to commit, atrocities into the future. So, whilst I take the point, raised by others in this debate and during the inquiry, that measures such as extended supervision orders are an infringement on civil liberties, I would contest: so are terrorist acts against our citizens, and we have a duty as a government to protect the people of Australia.

The origins of this bill in part go back to the INSLM's review into division 105 of the Criminal Code, and I go back to the statement that he issued when he launched that inquiry. At the time when the original bill in 2016, the Criminal Code Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Act, was legislated, the then Attorney-General, Senator Brandis, said:

… there is no existing Australian regime for managing terrorist offenders who may continue to pose an unacceptable risk to the community following the expiry of their sentence. Law enforcement agencies can seek to rely on control orders to manage the risk of terrorist offenders upon their release from prison. However, there may be some circumstances where, even with controls placed upon them, the risk an offender presents to the community is simply too great for them to be released from prison. This is a significant public safety issue.

So the INSLM was looking to see whether there were other options that could be effective, as this is fairly extreme in a plural, liberal democracy where we believe in the rule of law and that once somebody has finished their sentence they should be free. So he recommended an alternative approach, which has resulted in this bill.

There are two parts to the bill. Part 1, schedule 1, creates an extended supervision order scheme, the ESO scheme, for high-risk terrorist offenders, in division 105A of the Criminal Code. A state or territory supreme court would be able to make an ESO in relation to a convicted high-risk terrorist offender if satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that the offender poses an unacceptable risk of committing a serious terrorism offence if released into the community at the end of their sentence. I go back again to the examples in New Zealand and the UK where that is not a hypothetical; that has been lived experience in comparable nations in very recent days. Under an ESO, the court may impose any conditions that it is satisfied are reasonably necessary and reasonably appropriate and adapted for the purpose of protecting the community from the unacceptable risk of the offender committing a serious terrorism offence. ESOs would provide a less restrictive option if the court is not satisfied that a continuing detention order, or CDO, is necessary. So that's the direct outcome of the INSLM's review.

Part 2 amends the Crimes Act, the Surveillance Devices Act and the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act, the TIA Act, to extend the existing surveillance and monitoring powers which are available for control orders to apply to ESOs, including search warrants and warrants for various types of electronic surveillance, so law enforcement agencies would be able to seek electronic surveillance warrants under the SD Act and the TIA Act to inform the AFP in its decision as to whether to apply for an ESO or a CDO.

The committee ended up making a number of recommendations, having heard evidence from a range of people. The key one is recommendation 1:

… that proposed clause 105A of the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (High-Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2020 be amended to provide that an issuing authority must have regard to:

whether the person is subject to a post-sentence supervision order under State or Territory legislation, and if so, the conditions of that order; and

the cumulative impact on the person of multiple post-sentence orders under Commonwealth and State or Territory laws, including the risk of oppression when considering an application for a post-sentence order.

This goes directly to the concerns that were raised by Senator Thorpe, by the Greens. The government accepted that recommendation and it has agreed to amend the bill in line with the recommendation.

The government notes in its response that the extended supervision order scheme, the ESO scheme, will operate independently of post-sentence or PSO schemes at state and territory level. Where an offender is eligible under a state or territory scheme and the ESO scheme, the Commonwealth would work in close collaboration with the relevant jurisdictional partners to consider appropriate options on a case-by-case basis. It is not the intention that an offender would be subject to concurrent Commonwealth and state or territory orders. That's an important clarification to make, given some of the concerns that have been raised here tonight.

Recommendation 2, though, is one that I'm very pleased to see. Having been on the committee for a number of years, I have raised this issue on several occasions. The Violent Extremism Risk Assessment 2—VERA-2—framework is the tool that is used to try to determine whether somebody poses an ongoing risk. This goes to the heart of the issue around the nature of the people who are wedded to an ideology that informs their actions. The basis for this tool comes from people trying to analyse other criminals and violent offenders, such as sex offenders, to determine whether or not the condition that has caused them to be susceptible to offending against children or other people in violent sexual acts remains. It's trying to assess whether there is an illness or a propensity in somebody, from a psychological or mental health perspective, whereas evidence has shown time and again that many terrorist offenders—in fact, I would argue the majority of terrorist offenders—are quite sane and are quite competent; they just believe and intend to act upon their beliefs of the ideology they follow.

So the tool that is used is, I would argue, not sufficient. I have long argued that one of the key points should be appropriate experts who can look at the ideology and look at what the ideology promotes—the actions of people who adhere to it—so they can make an assessment that, if the person still adheres to that ideology and has in the past demonstrated that they are prepared to act upon those principles, instructions or encouragements from that ideology, then they will be prepared to apply either an ESO or, again, in light of the New Zealand and the UK example, a continuing detention order to somebody who has demonstrated that level of propensity for violence: the means and the motivation, if you like, to cause harm to Australia's population.

So I'm pleased to see that VERA-2 will be reviewed—and looking at other tools. But I would argue that a more comprehensive framework is required, with alternative sources of evidence for the judiciary to consider in terms of whether somebody still poses a risk to the Australian community. I'm pleased to see that the Department of Home Affairs will commission an independent review, given that the government accepted that recommendation. I certainly trust that the PJCIS will have the opportunity to examine that review and to engage with the independent reviewer when it is complete, to understand what they have found and where the recommendations go to, because it's a key element in deciding whether somebody should be subject to anything at all post their sentence but, if so, whether an ESO is adequate or whether a CDO is what is required. If we are going to operate in a rules based, evidence based, fair and transparent society, the ways we gather that information for our judicial officers have to be repeatable and fair to all concerned and, above all, effective. So I welcome and look forward to the outcome of that review.

There are a number of other amendments, the majority of which the government has accepted in full or in part. Senator McAllister has gone to recommendation 7, so I won't re-cover that part. But I think the key thing that comes out of this is that the government has been diligent in working in a bipartisan manner to make sure that the Australian population are safe, to understand the risks—whether through foreign interference and espionage or through terrorism—and put in place measures that give our law enforcement agencies the powers they need to discover, to protect and to apprehend and give our judicial system the powers they need to suitably punish or confine in order to protect society. One of the strengths of this committee—and, in an environment where so many of the Australian public are somewhat cynical of the institution of the parliament, I think this is a shining example from this parliament, this Senate and this committee—which is a joint committee with the House, is that we work constructively to put in place checks and balances, so that we achieve a workable balance that enables our authorities to be effective but still maintains the essential essence of Australia as an open, free, plural society. I commend this bill to the House.

Senator PATERSON (Victoria) (20:45): I rise to speak on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2021. I welcome the opportunity to do so as chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, which finalised the report into the proposed bill in September. I'm pleased to be following two of my fellow committee members, our new deputy chair, Senator McAllister and one of our longest-serving members, Senator Fawcett, who have made typically thoughtful contributions to this debate, as they do to the committee. At the outset I want to thank all members of the committee; in particular, our former deputy chair Mr Byrne and the shadow Attorney-General, Mr Dreyfus, who I worked with particularly closely in a bipartisan manner to finalise this report and to reach our unanimous recommendations, along with the other Liberal members of the committee.

In 2014, Australia's national terrorism threat level was raised to where it, unfortunately, remains today, and that is 'probable'. That indicates that there is credible intelligence to suggest that groups and individuals have the capability and the intent to conduct a terrorist attack here in Australia. Unfortunately, we cannot fully eliminate the threat of terrorism here in our own country, nor has any other country around the world been able to do so. Recent attacks in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, allegedly carried out in the name of violent ideologies, serve to remind us of this fact. What we can do is provide our intelligence, security and law enforcement agencies with the best tools, both operational and legislative, to manage the risk and reduce the threat posed to Australians. This bill goes to one of those key legislative tools.

We know that there are convicted terrorist offenders in prison right now whose sentences are soon to expire and, regrettably, many of those people represent an ongoing threat to the community because they are unrepentant in their ideology and have been unwilling, in many cases, to undergo any reform opportunities provided to them in prison, including de-radicalisation programs and other opportunities. There are currently two options available for managing such offenders. The first is a continuing detention order, which Senator Fawcett spoke about at some length. That allows a court to order that a person may remain detained where they pose an unacceptable risk to the community and where that risk cannot be addressed through less restrictive means. The second option is a control order, which allows conditions to be placed on a person after they are released back into the community.

While these tools have proven at times to be effective, there has remained a glaring hole in the suite of powers that our agencies have to manage this risk. The continuing detention order scheme requires—quite rightly, given the significant deprivation of liberty involved in keeping someone in custody after their sentence has been discharged—a very high legal threshold to be met for a court to agree to the ongoing detention of an offender who continues to pose an unacceptable risk. The scheme for control orders, which are currently issued by federal courts, only permits a defined set of conditions to be imposed upon a terrorist offender and it creates—unintentionally—an interoperability issue, whereby the court considering an application for a continuing detention order is not able to impose conditions on the offender where it is not satisfied that a threshold for the continuing detention of the offender is met. This is really important, and this bill will address this. This discrepancy continues to run the risk that some offenders may end up walking free with no ongoing supervision, even when the court has concerns that a person may pose a serious risk to the community.

This bill seeks to address these issues by introducing an extended supervision order scheme which would allow a state or territory supreme court to make an extended supervision order in relation to a convicted, high-risk, terrorist offender, if satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the offender poses an unacceptable risk of committing a serious terrorism offence if released into the community at the end of their sentence. The ESO scheme provides the court with a wider range of measures that can be used to better tailor the response to a particular offender and their individual circumstances. The evidence put to the committee was that those circumstances do differ and that different restrictions or supervisions are appropriate to be tailored to meet the needs of that offender and to meet the needs of the community in being protected from that risk.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security reviewed the proposed legislation, as well as some further government amendments that were provided to us part way through our inquiry, and we're strongly supportive of the introduction of an extended supervision order scheme to manage this ongoing threat of terrorist offenders. The committee received submissions from agencies such as the Australian Federal Police as well as public interest groups such as the Law Council of Australia, which assisted us greatly in our consideration of this bill. I thank particularly those regular submitters to the committee for the way in which they assist us to do our important work.

The AFP advised the committee that the terrorism environment in Australia continues to grow in its complexity:

While the National Threat Level has remained at PROBABLE, ongoing challenges to law enforcement include the demise of the IS territorial caliphate and the need to investigate and prepare for the possible return of foreign fighters; continued investigations into domestic attack planning; the aftermath of the March 2019 Christchurch attack - the first mass-casualty terrorist attack by an Australian right-wing terrorist; the increased threat of right-wing terrorism; the role of technology in propagating violent extremist ideologies; and the heightened need to address the reintegration and continuing risks associated with the release of convicted high risk terrorist offenders completing their head sentence.

The committee noted in particular the evolving nature of the terrorism threat and the increasing complexity associated with people who, unfortunately, are being radicalised online. Quite disturbingly, in evidence to the committee and since in public, this is at a much younger age. Unfortunately, this has continued, and we fear was likely accelerated, during the COVID pandemic.

In considering the evidence provided we recommended what we think are practical and sensible amendments to the bill, including ensuring that issuing authorities consider whether an individual is subject to a post-sentence order under a similar state or territory regime and ensuring that the individual and combined effect of all of those conditions remain both proportionate and necessary.

The government has accepted in full, in part or in principle 10 of the 11 recommendations made by the committee. I want to thank the AFP, the Attorney-General's Department and the Department of Home Affairs, as well as the other submitters, for their engagement with and contributions to the committee. And I want to thank the government for its constructive response to the committee's recommendations, which it has tried very sincerely to implement as consistently as possible with our report. That's a very important part of what we do.

The PJCIS continues to strongly support the AFP and the important work they do, ensuring that they have the necessary tools to disrupt the activities of those who would seek to harm the Australian community and our way of life, while also ensuring that the appropriate safeguards and oversight mechanisms are in place. These do go hand-in-hand, and the next bill on the agenda which we'll talk about relates to some of those oversight and safeguard mechanisms.

This bill, including the government amendments, which have now been approved by a majority of states and territories in accordance with the intergovernmental agreement on counterterrorism laws, is a really important one to ensure that the community remains safe and protected from this, regrettably, ongoing threat of terrorism. It will ensure that our agencies continue to have the appropriate and necessary powers that they need to combat complex terrorist offenders. Australians can therefore continue to have confidence in the ability of our law enforcement officers to keep them safe. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Senator Mc LACHLAN (South Australia) (20:53): I rise to speak about the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2021. This bill seeks to amend the Criminal Code Act 1995 to introduce the concept of an extended supervision order, which may be imposed on terrorist offenders if they're released into the community and the court finds that on the balance of probabilities they pose an unacceptable risk. It can then apply various conditions on that individual. There are also ancillary amendments in the body of the bill which expand monitoring and surveillance powers to support this initiative.

As an old defence lawyer, these types of bills always put a shiver up my spine. They always have the language of Orwell, and they should be considered at great length before passing any parliament. In this instance, in my review of the bill, I have found comfort in the process of the bill as outlined by my friend and colleague, Senator Paterson. It is not a knee-jerk reaction to a supposed problem. It is a real problem. The foundation stone of this initiative is that there is an existing and increasing terrorist threat to this country as groups seek to take away and challenge our liberty with asymmetric warfare. As my other colleague and friend Senator Molan has expressed, that is only going to increase, unfortunately, and become far more complicated.

What also gives me comfort in relation to this bill is that the parliament has already decided to have this type of order, so it would be presumptive of me, as a new member of the Senate, to rail against an order when the parliament has already settled on a regime of this nature. In fact, this provides an additional, less restrictive option for the courts, not only because there is a possibility for a person that will not reject their ways of evil and violence that they may fall between the current legislative regime and return to civilian life but also it is less restrictive and gives greater options. In this country we already have control orders, interim control orders, preventative detention orders and continuing detention orders. So the fact that this is less restrictive and provides for less restrictive options should find favour with members of this Senate.

It has gone through the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, it has been examined by the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills, it comes from a suggestion of the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor and, of course, it has been subjected to an inquiry by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. The parliament and this Senate have worked hard to bring this bill to the chamber without any unnecessary oppressive conditions and sought to balance the rights of the individual against the needs of the collective. That is, of course, always a difficult conundrum.

There were two aspects of the bill which were, if I can use the term, 'debated' by the various committees. One was that this is a form of punishment. If a person commits a crime, they are tried, found guilty and punished. There is always an objection, once the punishment is complete, that they shouldn't be punished again. The rationale for the bill by the government, and it has some merit, is that this is a control order about future risk and not a compounding punishment. You have to accept that principle to accept this bill. I dealt with this ethical dilemma when I was in state parliament and similar legislation was brought in by the Labor government in relation to sex offenders who weren't rehabilitated but were leaving prison and posing a significant risk to the community. The parliament similarly settled on a like rationale.

The other aspect of the bill which was subject to much debate in the committees or in dialogue between the various parties, was the concept of the lower burden of proof on the balance of probabilities that there was the likelihood of an unacceptable risk. The government's view, which was accepted by members of the committee in its dialogue, was that this is a lesser condition placed on the individual. The others are detention orders and thus should have a higher burden. This is a less restrictive condition which potentially allows these individuals to return to the community, albeit under particular reporting conditions and/or surveillance. So, again, the resolution or the landing of both the government and the various committees has given me comfort, and I also appreciate the comments from across the aisle from members of the Labor Party, similarly taking a view that we appear to have landed at least in a position of some balance.

Speaking of balance, I've always had an interest in the debate about liberal democracies restricting individuals' rights in the pursuit of the collective security. It's a fascinating topic, and there are, dare I say, hundreds of articles—maybe more—on this topic. In my reading, in contemplating my comments for the debate tonight, I came across a 2006 article by Christopher Michaelsen, 'Balancing civil liberties against national security? A critique of counterterrorism rhetoric'. He argues, interestingly, that the dichotomy between civil liberties and restricting them for national security is a false dichotomy, a false debate, not a rewarding one that will lead you down the path of a rational conclusion. In fact, he points out that people always argue that we must curtail civil liberties to combat terrorism. On the flip side, others argue that if we curtail our liberties we're no better than the terrorists. That's an oversimplification of a complicated argument. But he does cite various aspects of German law. I do not profess to be an expert in German law at all. It is something I have never studied. I do have a degree in Scot's law, but it's unhelpful this evening. German constitutional jurisprudence uses a proportionality test, which consists of three main requirements. Any curtailment of constitutionally protected civil liberties and human rights must generally be (1) suitable, (2) necessary and (3) appropriate. I only raise this point for the benefit of members and perhaps their future reading. But I think, even if you apply that test, having regard to the various reviews of the committees, this bill should find favour with the Senate.

Senator SCARR (Queensland) (21:02): At the outset can I say that I was privileged to hear three very thoughtful contributions to this debate before having the opportunity to speak myself. The first was from Senator Fawcett, who has been a longstanding member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. I thought he gave a particularly thoughtful contribution in relation to the practical matters of evidence-gathering and how these need to be considered in the context of the particular case. Then Senator Paterson, who I think is making an outstanding contribution as Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, provided some sobering reflections, based on submissions to the inquiry, in relation to Australia's current threat level and exhorted us to ensure that, as senators in this place, we have regard to the tools that are needed by our intelligence and law enforcement agencies to combat the terrorist risk on both an operational basis and a legislative basis. In that regard, Senator Paterson made the point about the two options currently available—continuing detention orders and control orders—and the need to have something else, that being the extended supervision order, which provides a bit more flexibility in relation to the controls which could be placed on a particular individual. Senator McLachlan spoke intelligently about the fact that this option provides the judiciary, in particular, with an order, an option, to impose some sort of control that is something less than a continuing detention order. That should really be front of mind as we consider this legislation before the chamber this evening.

Senator McLachlan's contribution to this debate should give the Australian public great comfort that, when matters such as this come before this chamber there are senators such as Senator McLachlan, Senator Paterson, Senator Fawcett and Senator McAllister—who's now deputy chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security—who think thoughtfully about these matters and are alive to the inherent tension between ensuring the protection of our community, on the one hand, and being mindful of every citizen's rights and liberties, and the rule of law, on the other.

I want to pick up on a few of the points that Senator McLachlan made. The first is about the process this bill has gone through. I believe vehemently—passionately—that process is extraordinarily important when this place considers legislation. It is so important that public peak groups, like the Law Council of Australia, have the opportunity to make detailed submissions with respect to proposed laws that those submissions are considered soberly and intelligently; that proposed amendments that should be considered and adopted are adopted and that necessary amendments are made; and that governments of whatever persuasion don't simply stand on their dig and refuse to make amendments to draft legislation.

I'm very pleased that Senator McLachlan referred to that process. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security made a number of recommendations to the government. Those recommendations were adopted by the relevant departments and amendments were made to this legislation, which we're considering this evening. In addition to that, as Senator McLachlan referred to, this bill has gone in front of a number of scrutiny committees. I'm a big fan of the Senate scrutiny committee process.

The Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation Committee is where I serve with my good friends Senator Davey and Senator Ciccone, who are with us this evening. They make an outstanding contribution to that committee. I see Senator McAllister's here as well. I gave her a compliment before—I didn't know she was in the chamber when I mentioned she serves as deputy chair on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. There's also the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights.

This legislation has gone in front of both of those scrutiny committees. The security intelligence monitor has considered this matter as well. So that process should give a lot of comfort to the Australian public. Senator McLachlan also made the very intelligent observation that similar issues had been considered in the realm of sex offenders. This is not a case of compounding punishment but one of mitigating future risk and that needs to be considered.

I think the most important duty of any government is to protect our law-abiding citizens, our nation, against threats, be they external or internal. In doing so, the appropriate balance must be sought with respect to also protecting the rights and liberties of everyone residing in this country. I reflected on three recent terrorist attacks and how this bill interrelates with what occurred in those three cases. In the 2019 London Bridge terrorist attack the perpetrator had been serving a 16-year sentence on terrorist charges, had been released on licence and, notwithstanding some of the observation procedures which had been implemented with respect to him, managed to perpetrate a terrorist crime to great consequence and with a number of fatalities. There was the Streatham attack in 2020—another stabbing terrorist attack by someone who had committed a previous terrorism-related offence, was under surveillance but still perpetrated another crime against innocent people. Then there was the Auckland attack on 3 September 2021, closer to home, where eight New Zealanders were stabbed in a crime which was perpetrated by someone who had been released from prison—in this case, in July of 2021—and had been followed for 53 days straight by the security force in New Zealand. They followed him for 53 days straight but still they couldn't prevent that awful attack on those eight people who were stabbed during that awful incident.

This is a real issue, and we in this place would not be discharging our duty if we weren't to soberly consider whether or not, as Senator Paterson put it, our intelligence agencies have all the tools at their disposal to protect Australians. I have looked at the tests, as Senator McLachlan has looked at the tests, to consider whether or not there are appropriate checks and balances. And as Senator McLachlan did, I too have come to the conclusion that those checks and balances are certainly here. This applies only to high-risk terrorist offenders. The Supreme Court of a state or a territory has to be satisfied on the balance of probabilities that a convicted high-risk terrorist offender poses an unacceptable risk of reoffending and that any conditions which are imposed are reasonably appropriate and reasonably necessary to protect the community. I think that's an appropriate test. I don't think I'd be discharging my duty as a senator if I weren't to support the legislation which is before the chamber this evening.

It should also be noted that there are other reforms, other amendments, which are being brought in conjunction with this legislation around the use of search warrants and electronic surveillance. There has been appropriate consideration as to whether or not some of the decisions made under the course of the implementation of this legislation should be subject to judicial review. I think appropriate consideration has been given in that regard and an appropriate conclusion reached in that respect.

In summary, I think the regime in this legislation provides more flexibility. It allows courts to impose conditions which are more specific and more tailored to the idiosyncrasies of a particular case, and I think that's appropriate. Above all, it protects the community and strikes the right balance of protecting the rights and liberties of our citizens. I commend the bill to the chamber.

Senator CHANDLER (Tasmania) (21:13): It's a pleasure to rise tonight to speak on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2021. I have been in sitting in the chamber for some time now, listening to the debate on this bill and looking around the chamber. It's always nice to be in here on a night when we are debating legislation and we see senators from both sides of the chamber nodding along in agreement to each other's contributions. It's a testament to the hard work and bipartisan regard undertaken by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. We've heard many considered contributions in here tonight on this bill. I listened along to Senators Molan, Fawcett, McLachlan and Scarr, and they all made very reflective and considered contributions that go to all of the complexities around dealing with these very significant national threats.

Senator Paterson, as well, as Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, went through some of the nuances around this legislation and outlined the work that the PJCIS undertook to ensure that this legislation does strike the right balance. Senator Scarr mentioned in his contribution the importance, or indeed the primacy, of government's role in protecting our nation against threats. That is an incredibly important thing that motivates many people to seek election to this place and something for all of us to consider in the back of our minds when we are passing legislation through these chambers.

As a member of the coalition government, I'm proud of everything this government has done, since I was first elected, in 2019, to keep Australians safe. Indeed previously, in my role as a committee member on the Senate Standing Committees on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, I had the opportunity to question the Australian Federal Police, ASIO, Home Affairs, the Attorney-General's Department and the like about the current security threat in our country, which this legislation attempts to deal with, and about what we can do to keep our community safe from those who seek to harm us in such horrendous ways. The bill that we are debating this evening is another part—another brick in the wall, so to speak—of us doing everything that we can to keep our community safe. This legislation, we know, is necessary to keep Australians safe, to keep our community safe.

We know there are people in this country who want to kill and injure innocent Australians in pursuit of their extremist agendas. We know this because many of them have been caught in the act of preparing to commit mass murder and violence. They have been found guilty by a court and sent to prison. We also know that many of these convicted terrorists have been given sentences that allow them to be released from prison after just a few years behind bars. We know that, in many of these cases, security services will consider these people to be still committed to their dangerous ideology and determined to use their release to continue to pursue violence and murder. Again, this is something that I have pursued with the AFP previously at Senate estimates.

It continues to amaze me that, as a society, we insist on giving second and third chances to the worst kinds of criminals who have committed or planned to commit the worst possible types of crimes against innocent Australians. We see it all the time with sex offenders and child abusers. These dangerous criminals are sentenced to a few short years in prison and then they're back in the community despite the fact many of the experts believe that such offenders will never be rehabilitated and will always be at risk of causing more harm.

Terrorism is another type of crime where it is clear-cut: if you've planned or participated in a terrorist act, you shouldn't be out on the streets—not today, not tomorrow, not next year. Most of the responsibility for ensuring that is the case rests with the courts. As a parliament, we can only do so much. That's why it's important that we do exercise the powers we have as lawmakers to keep the community safe from those who we know wish to do us harm. The bill that we're debating here this evening helps to achieve this by improving the ability of our courts to make extended supervision orders, ESOs, on a convicted high-risk terrorist offender and, under that ESO, to impose any conditions that it is satisfied are reasonably necessary for the purpose of protecting the community.

Sadly, we've seen examples around the world where known terror suspects and previously convicted terrorists have committed further atrocities when they've been released, and we know that the risk of terrorist acts remains present. Last year the UK parliament had to rush through legislation to end the absurd practice of automatically releasing terrorists halfway through their sentence, after one of those terrorists committed another heinous act following their release. There is little doubt that law enforcement and security agencies have serious concerns about the release of convicted terrorists who not so long ago conspired to murder innocent Australians. It has been reported that some retain active contact and influence with terrorist circles, including actively working to recruit other violent criminals to their terrorist ideology. This revelation demonstrates the problem with courts giving terrorists the benefit of the doubt at sentencing. There's every chance that they'll walk out of jail on the date by which the court hoped they'd be rehabilitated, having spent their time in jail continuing to hold and expound to others the same murderous ideology.

Our security services and our police forces do a fantastic job of tracking down terrorists and putting them behind bars. So why do we let them back onto the streets and tie up our law enforcement services tracking and monitoring the same terrorists that they've previously caught? The terrorists certainly don't deserve that kind of generous optimism, and the Australian public doesn't deserve to be put at risk. For the large proportion of criminals who are not seriously dangerous and whose crimes are of lesser magnitude, rehabilitation is, quite rightly, a significant priority of the justice system. For those criminals, that is an appropriate avenue that we should pursue. But to prioritise the hope that a terrorist would have learnt the error of their ways after a few years in prison over the public safety measure of having them detained and off the streets is absolute madness. Our sentencing system and, indeed, the process that we have for dealing with these violent offenders on release need to be able to deal with the potential that, at the end of the initial head sentence, there is still a serious community safety concern. That's what this bill that we're debating, the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2020, is all about. The courts and the parliament must be putting community safety first and keeping these dangerous criminals off the streets and behind bars.

To go to the detail of the bill, part 1 of schedule 1 creates an extended supervision order scheme, the ESO scheme, for high-risk terrorist offenders in division 105A of the Criminal Code. A state or territory supreme court would be able to make an ESO in relation to a convicted high-risk terrorist offender if satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the offender poses an unacceptable risk of committing a serious terrorism offence if released into the community at the end of their sentence. Under an ESO, the court may impose any condition that it is satisfied is reasonably necessary, reasonably appropriate and adapted for the purpose of protecting the community from the unacceptable risk of the offender committing a serious terrorism offence. Again, this bill minimises some of the guesswork that might have to be undertaken once an offender's sentence has expired and instead creates a new opportunity to make that assessment to determine whether the individual concerned is still of significant risk to the community, and that is incredibly important.

Part 2 of schedule 1 would amend various pieces of legislation—the Crimes Act 1914, the Surveillance Devices Act 2004 and the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979—to extend the existing surveillance and monitoring powers that were available for control orders to apply to ESOs, including search warrants and warrants for various types of electronic surveillance. Law enforcement agencies would be able to seek electronic surveillance warrants under the Surveillance Devices Act and the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act to inform the minister's decision on whether to apply for an ESO or a CDO. Part 2 of schedule 1 would also amend the National Security Information (Criminal and Civil Proceedings) Act 2004 to extend the court-only evidence provisions and the special advocate scheme that applies in control order proceedings to ESO proceedings. There are a number of further amendments to other important pieces of legislation in the remaining schedules of the bill, which, in the interests of time, I will leave to others to go into.

As I said, the government are committed to ensuring the safety and security of all Australians. In my opening remarks I noted that, as a member of the government, having commenced my term as a senator in 2019, I'm very proud of all the work that we've done in this space. We have seen recent terrorist attacks, and I mentioned the United Kingdom. But other colleagues have referenced ones far closer to home in their contributions—in New Zealand, where convicted terrorist offenders continue to pose a risk to the community at the end of their sentences. This bill will enhance the safety and security of every Australian by creating ESOs to ensure that those high-risk terrorist offenders can be appropriately managed in the community at the end of their custodial sentences.

As I've said, a Supreme Court will be able to impose an ESO for up to three years at a time if the court is satisfied, on the balance of probabilities and on the basis of admissible evidence, that the offender poses an unacceptable risk of committing a serious terrorism offence. The court will be able to impose any condition on any offender that it considers is proportionate to the risk that the offender poses. The bill also provides agencies with the necessary tools to monitor compliance with these orders and to protect sensitive national security information in ESO proceedings. We know that it is incredibly important that our law enforcement agencies have all the tools which they should have available to them to be able to monitor compliance. This is because that can be an incredibly complex and often incredibly costly exercise, so we should be doing everything we can to make that process easier for law enforcement.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security has considered this bill and made recommendations. The government has accepted 10 of those in full, in part or in principle. Again, it has been so interesting to sit here in this chamber this evening, to listen to the debate on this incredibly important bill and to see the fruits of the PJCIS bipartisan process in reviewing this legislation and ensuring that it strikes that important balance between, as Senator Scarr said before me, ensuring that all of our citizens are equal under the law, that we're all afforded the rule of law and natural justice on the one hand, but, on the other, ensuring that our community is kept safe.

I think that this bill, the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2021, will go part of the way to keeping Australians safe. I know that we as a government have already done so much to ensure that Australians are safe, and we'll continue to do so into the future. We have a firm commitment to the Australian people that we'll do whatever it takes to ensure the safety of all Australians. On that note, I commend this bill to the Senate.

Senator O'SULLIVAN (Western Australia) (21:28): I rise today to speak on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2021. It's great to follow some excellent contributions from my fellow senators. I enjoyed listening to Senator Chandler and to Senator Scarr before her. And I was in the chamber earlier, at the beginning of this bill, and heard Senator Keneally with her opening for the opposition. It's terrific to see the bipartisan way in which this bill is being addressed and I thank the Labor Party for their continued support for such important issues and matters, particularly as they come before the Senate.

I'm proud to be part of a government that's so committed to a strong stance on national security. I have seen that ever since I was elected. Since the beginning of my term I have seen the significant commitment that this government has to protecting Australians against the atrocities of terrorism, ensuring that that's dealt with and stamped out, and certainly addressed. But we must always remain vigilant; this isn't just a set-and-forget situation. We know that these threats are continually evolving, and legislation has to keep up with that. The way we address and police threats and the way we thwart potential attacks obviously have to continue to evolve. This legislation goes some of the way towards addressing some of those evolving and changing circumstances.

This government has committed over $270 billion to defence spending over the next 10 years. That figure is up 40 per cent since 2016. We are a government that is absolutely committed to the security of our nation and to protecting Australians, whether it be here on our own soil or across the world, thwarting the development and rise of terrorist actors that would seek to disrupt our way of life, impede our freedoms and, sadly, cause misery and attack upon Australian citizens—indeed, upon anyone in this country. The Morrison government is committed to ensuring the safety and security of all Australians. Australia has a robust national security and counterterrorism framework that ensures our agencies have the powers that they require to prevent terrorist attacks and manage those who would seek to commit them.

Since the terror threat level was raised to 'probable' in 2014 the government has passed 19 tranches of national security legislation. This legislation ensures agencies have the powers that they need to be able to prevent terrorist attacks. These laws are kept under constant review to ensure that our legal frameworks are appropriate and adapt to the evolving threat environment. Protecting the community from terrorist attacks is ultimately one of the Australian government's highest responsibilities. It's certainly one of our highest priorities. If the Australian people know one thing about the Morrison government, it is that it has not shied away from the key task of keeping them safe. The latest piece in our national and regional security puzzle, the AUKUS agreement, is an important example of this.

This bill will give our domestic law enforcement agencies an important tool in their toolbox to keep Australians safe. It will enable the creation of what is known as an extended supervision order, or ESO, that high-risk terrorist offenders can be placed under and that will operate under division 105A of the Criminal Code. Under this new scheme, respective state and territory supreme courts will be able to make an extended supervision order in relation to a convicted high-risk terrorist offender if they believe that, on the balance of probabilities, the offender poses an unacceptable risk of committing a serious terrorism offence if released into the community at the end of their sentence. This scheme will ensure the ongoing safety of the community from these criminals in situations where a court is not convinced that ongoing detention is necessary but where a risk is still present.

As we've seen in recent years, convicted terrorist offenders can continue to pose a significant risk to the community, even after they've served the sentence of their initial crime. This played out, sadly, in the tragic consequences of the 2019 London Bridge attack and also, more recently, in the recent terror attack in New Zealand. We must ensure that Australians are safe from convicted terrorists. With several convicted terrorist offenders due to complete their custodial sentences in the next five years, the need for effective risk management measures to keep our community safe is greater than ever. These people can never be allowed to perpetrate such an attack on Australian soil. If anything could or should unite all of us in this place, it should be that. As I said earlier, I'm very pleased to hear that the Labor Party is supporting this bill, and I'm pleased about their approach on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. It is very important, and I thank them for the fact that they have approached this in a bipartisan way.

The implementation of an extended supervision order can be extended for up to three years by a relevant court and can involve any condition on any offender whom the court considers proportionally risky—that is, any condition can be applied to any convicted terrorist that a court feels is necessary to keep Australians safe. These conditions can include prohibitions, restrictions or obligations, and we need—our law enforcement agencies need—to be able to have the legal operations to make decisions to keep Australians safe. This is what this bill is enabling; this is exactly what this bill is doing.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security has considered the bill and made 11 recommendations. The government is accepting 10 of those recommendations in full, in part or in principle. The Greens' refusal to support this bill is disappointing. It's predictable, but it is nonetheless disappointing—and shameful, in fact. They point out that many counterterrorism laws have never been used. That's a good thing, isn't it? Thank God we actually haven't had to use them, because that would mean there has been an atrocity that's occurred on our shores.

I'll return to the AUKUS agreement. Just hours ago, Minister Dutton signed an official agreement with the United Kingdom and the United States to access their nuclear submarine technology. This is a very big step for our country. We are taking it in lock step, and we're going in lock step with two of our closest allies, helping to ensure the safety and the security of our nation as well as those of our region and our regional allies. I just want to commend Minister Dutton, the Prime Minister, Minister Payne and all those involved in the negotiation of this very important and, indeed, historic agreement. There really hasn't been agreement like this for many, many years. It's emblematic of Australia's commitment to upholding our role in the Asia-Pacific, while recognising the importance of our traditional allies. It's also emblematic of this government's commitment to national security. I must admit that Labor's commitment to AUKUS in that regard is commendable, and, as I've said already, their bipartisanship on this bill is also much appreciated.

But it's not only on submarine technology that we are increasing our cooperation with the US and the UK. In 2019 it was announced that the United States and Australia had entered into formal negotiations for a bilateral agreement under the United States's Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act, the CLOUD Act, as the first step towards significantly boosting law enforcement cooperation between two allies, with strong protections for the rule of law, privacy and, importantly, civil liberties.

Contained within this bill, the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2021, is a schedule amending the framework that facilitates Australia's entering into cross-border access to data agreements. This will make it easier for data sharing between the United States and Australian law enforcement and border security personnel. This data can also be used to monitor ESOs and would cover all supervisory orders related to terrorism and terrorism related activities made under part 5.3 of the Criminal Code.

This bill is an important addition to the government's response to the terrorism threat. The amendments to the Criminal Code have been approved by a majority of states and territories, we've heard, and as required by the Inter-Governmental Agreement on Counter-Terrorism Laws.

To enable the parliament to give full consideration of this bill, it was referred to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, who have reported back. As I said before, nearly all of the recommendations of the committee's report were implemented, and it really is time for this legislation to be dealt with here and to be passed. So I certainly do commend the bill to the Senate, but, in closing, can I just thank that committee for their dedication? Senator Keneally, in her opening remarks, made reference to the way that that committee works so well together and, in particular, pointed out that a lot of the heavy lifting of this was done by the previous chair, now the assistant defence minister, Mr Hastie, in his role, so I thank him and the current chair, Senator Paterson, for their commitment. The work they do on that committee is so important. They carry quite a significant administrative load. The work they do really is to be commended. They are dedicated. In particular I single out Minister Hastie, the former chair of this important committee—the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. I know he absolutely committed himself to this committee. He's a former SAS officer. He was very committed. He knows security. His dedication to this committee—and, indeed, the dedication of all members of that committee—is very much appreciated. I thank them very much indeed. I commend this bill to the Senate.

Senator COLBECK (Tasmania—Minister for Sport and Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services) (21:40): I thank my parliamentary colleagues for their contributions to the debate on the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2021. Protecting the community from terrorist threats is and will continue to be one of the government's highest priorities. This bill will be an important addition to the government's response to protect the community and keep Australians safe from terrorist threats. Extended supervision orders will complement and add to the existing tools available to manage high-risk terrorist offenders at the end of their custodial sentences.

I thank the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security for its detailed consideration of this bill. I also thank my colleagues across the chamber for recognising the need for these important measures. This bill reflects the government's ongoing commitment to protecting the Australian community from terrorists and ensuring our law enforcement and security agencies have the powers they need to respond to the evolving threat of terrorism. I commend the bill to the Senate.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator McGrath ): The question is that the second reading amendment moved by Senator Thorpe be agreed to.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator McGrath ) (21:50): The question is that the bill be read a second time.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator McGrath ) (21:54): As no amendments to the bill have been circulated, I shall call the minister to move the third reading unless any senator requires that the bill be considered in Committee of the Whole.

Senator COLBECK (Tasmania—Minister for Sport and Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services) (21:54): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.