Federation Chamber Date: 28 October 2025
Speaker:
The Federation Chamber will now consider the bill in detail. I understand it is the wish of the Federation Chamber to take the bill as a whole. The question is that the bill be agreed to.
Andrew Wallace MP:
Madam Deputy Speaker, I move the amendment circulated in my name.
I move:
(1) Schedule 3, page 53 (after line 20), after item 60, insert:
60A Paragraph 29(1)(baa)
Omit “under Part 5.3”, substitute “in relation to Parts 5.3 and 5.3A”.
60B Paragraph 29(1)(bab)
Omit “under Part 5.3”, substitute “in relation to Parts 5.3 and 5.3A”.
I’ve listened carefully to the Attorney-General, who has indicated that the government supports the recommendation of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, recommendation No. 1, in principle but then went on to say that the government thinks that it’s not necessary. I’m not quite sure how that works. Be that as it may, I think it’s important to put on the record the views of the committee, which, as the Deputy Chair, I support, and the reasoning why the committee made the recommendation that it did. The report reads:
The Committee is concerned that the Bill does not extend the Committee’s own role to monitor and review the AFP’s functions under Part 5.3 of the Criminal Code to also include new Part 5.3A.
In relation to the evidence from AGD giving reasons for the Bill not providing it with the power to review the AFPs functions in full under the new part 5.3A, the Committee notes that AGD has adopted a narrow interpretation of the Committee’s current oversight role in relation to the AFP, which does not capture the history behind the enactment of the relevant provisions in the Intelligence Services Act 2001.
I would refer the AGD and the government to the history, which is set out in the report. The report goes on to say:
The Committee’s power to review functions of the AFP in relation to Part 5.3 of the Criminal Code arose from recommendations in its Advisory report on the Counter Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fighters) Bill 2014.
The committee said:
The Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fighters) Act 2014 as passed inserted new paragraphs 29(1)(baa), (bab) and (bac) into the Intelligence Services Act 2001. These new paragraphs, described in a Revised Explanatory Memorandum and a Supplementary Explanatory Memorandum, authorised the Committee to monitor and review the performance by the AFP of its functions under Part 5.3 of the Criminal Code, report to Parliament on those and other matters relating to the AFP, and allowed for related matters to be referred to the Committee by either House of the Parliament for inquiry and report.
The committee went on to say:
The Bill, in introducing Part 5.3A of the Criminal Code, will extend the AFPs counter terrorism activities to include investigation of a suite of new criminal offences for state sponsors of terrorism. If, as proposed by the Bill, the Committee’s existing function to monitor and review AFP’s performance of its functions under Part 5.3 is not correspondingly extended to include Part 5.3A, then the Committee will not have oversight of this aspect of the AFP’s counter-terrorism functions, except in the very rare circumstance in which a control order or preventative detention order is applied for in relation to a Part 5.3A offence. The AFP’s functions in this space would instead be subject to parliamentary oversight by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement, which does not currently oversee the AFP’s counter-terrorism functions. It is unclear why the Bill would intentionally seek to introduce such an inconsistency.
It follows then that it is important, both in terms of keeping the legislative schemes in Part 5.3 and 5.3A parallel and keeping them subject to consistent Committee oversight, for the Bill to extend the Committee’s powers to monitor and review the AFP functions in relation to Part 5.3A.
Madam Deputy Speaker, the Coalition supports the bill. I’ve spoken at length about this. This is a bit of an esoteric argument, I accept that, but it’s an important argument because the Coalition believes, as does the committee and even members of the Labor Party on the committee, that without the amendment that I’ve circulated there will be an inconsistency in the different ways the PJCIS has oversight over Part 5.3 and Part 5.3A. I’m sure that the Attorney-General’s Department would not like to see that inconsistency.
I accept that we are in a bit of a logjam. They have one view; we have another. At the end of the day, what matters most is that the bill is passed. We certainly are not going to get in the way of a bill. We just think this is an amendment that is an important amendment to move. It’s a belts and braces thing. We want to ensure that the PJCIS is appropriately…
Speaker:
The Member’s time has concluded. Thank you.
END
Media Contact: Brendan West – 0402 556 646 – Brendan.west@aph.gov.au
