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Angus Taylor calls Clover Moore doctored documents story 'conspiracy theory' – politics live Government-led committee rejects surveillance bill – politics live
(30 minutes later)
In September Guardian Australia reported on Labor and union outrage about the social media posts of a Coalition-appointed deputy president of the Fair Work Commission, Gerard Boyce.In a series of social media posts Boyce: A parliamentary report into the Identity-matching Services Bill 2019 and the Australian Passports Amendment (Identity-matching Services) Bill 2019 has recommended both bills be strengthened to provide protections for Australian citizens.https://t.co/Dap0pQJkP3 pic.twitter.com/i379sbjqYC
Said it was “definitely time” for Labor to conduct a review, after losing the 2019 election Australian Bureau of Statistics chief David Kalisch has just given evidence that 20,000 census tests containing questions on gender and sexuality were printed but not used after input from the assistant treasurer, Michael Sukkar’s office.
Described the unions’ election campaign as a “big waste of money”; and Under questioning from Labor, Kalisch acknowledged that the gender and sexuality questions were among eight that were shortlisted as possible inclusions in the 2021 census, but were not used in the census test conducted in Wagga Wagga and Logan in mid-October.
Days after the 18 May election loss, posted an article from the West Australian arguing that Labor had botched the “unloseable” election with the observation “oooooooops!!” Kalisch told Senate Estimates the ABS printed 40,000 forms for the test: 20,000 with the gender and sexuality questions (Form A); and 20,000 without (Form B). Only Form B was put into the field.
AAP has this update from Senate Estimates on Wednesday night: Asked if he had any communication with the prime minister, Sukkar or their offices, he replied – no contact with Scott Morrison or his office, no contact with Sukkar but:
Fair Work general manager Bernadette O’Neill said all commission members had a code of conduct which included not engaging in political matters. I have had some conversations with the minister’s office about helping them understand the nature of the consideration around the decision.”
She said the issue had been dealt with internally after Fair Work president Ian Ross spoke to Mr Boyce. Asked if Sukkar’s office sought to influence which questions were used, he said, “They put a view to me but ultimately it was my decision.”
“The member gave an undertaking not to engage in social media,” Ms O’Neill told a Senate hearing on Wednesday night. Kalisch then tried to avoid questions about what view Sukkar’s staff had put to him, claiming “they did not provide any guidance about what should be on or off the [test] form”, before conceding “they did express a preference but ultimately it was my call”.
While the security committee boilover was proceeding in the House, DFAT estimates was focussed on the Uighurs. DFAT officials have told senators China has noted international concerns about human rights abuses in Xinjiang in the north west of the country, and feels it is “under the scrutiny of the international community”. Asked if the preference was to exclude gender and sexuality questions, he replied:
There is growing agitation about this issue among Australian MPs. Andrew Hastie (who played a starring role a minute ago in the House on the identity sharing bill) used an adjournment speech last night to declare he was troubled by the way that Uighurs culture and identity “is being systematically assaulted, deconstructed and scrubbed out by authorities”. They were contemplating what response they would make around census topics, and didn’t want the census test to pre-empt that decision.”
Officials say the foreign minister Marise Payne has raised this issue with her Chinese counterpart directly on several occasions. Joe Hockey leans in to the Barr inquiry without an official request
Liberals are also expressing concerns in this hearing about Chinese students in Australia. DFAT estimates is now onto the Barr inquiry (which is Donald Trump’s effort to discredit the Mueller inquiry). The evidence from officials is Joe Hockey, Australia’s ambassador to Washington, offered to participate in the Barr inquiry without the Americans asking.
Instances have been raised about people reporting on their remarks in educational and social settings which are then relayed back to their families in China. The officials say it was Hockey’s advice to signal that cooperation (he did flag the idea with the foreign minister Marise Payne prior to sending his letter), and he met subsequently with William Barr, alone, to discuss the inquiry. Officials say there is a readout of that Hockey/Barr conversation, but they don’t intend to share it with the estimates committee.
Labor’s Penny Wong also asked for an update on Dr Yang, a writer and democratic activist detained in China. DFAT secretary Frances Adamson says Hockey reiterated Australia’s willingness to cooperate. She won’t answer whether Barr requested any detailed information from Australia.
Officials say Australia has made it clear that Dr Yang should be treated fairly and transparently, and if he is being detained for his political reviews, he should be released. If you’ve forgotten all this, Australia has agreed to participate in the Barr inquiry (even though it is clearly a partisan exercise) because our former high commissioner in London, Alexander Downer, reported the existence of possible Russian intelligence on Hillary Clinton after a meeting with a Trump aide, George Papadopolous when Trump was running for the presidency.
You can find the committee’s report here Trump rang Scott Morrison prior to his recent visit to Washington to establish who was the point of contact in Australia for the Barr investigation.
Andrew Hastie, the chair of the joint intelligence and security parliamentary committee makes the first statement. He essentially says that while the committee supports the spirit of the bill, it gives home affairs too much surveillance power, with a lack of oversight into how they could use it. Labor’s Senate leader Penny Wong has signalled there will be a lot of questions on this issue this morning.
... Many participants to this review express broad support for the underlying objectives and rationale the bill. For example, measures that aim to address identity related crime and enable law enforcement bodies to cooperate to achieve this objective. Kristina Keneally has responded to the intelligence and security decision not to recommend passing the ID matching bill:
Statement such as this, were echoed throughout the evidence that the committee received. Today the PJCIS tabled a report declining to recommend the passage of the current Identity Matching Services Bill – in any form.
However, some participants rise with the committee and they to ensure appropriate governance and accountability and protection of the individual’s right to privacy. Instead, Labor and Liberal members of the committee are uniting to recommend that the Identity-matching Services Bill be completely re-drafted and referred back to the Intelligence and Security Committee for a further inquiry.
The committee acknowledges these concerns and believes that while the bills explanatory memorandum sets out governance arrangements, such as existing and contemplated agreements and access policies that are not adequately set out in the current bill. The committee has concerns about privacy, transparency, reporting and oversight and does not consider that the bill in its current form can be amended, but rather that it should be completely re-drafted.
In the committee’s view, robust safeguards and appropriate oversight mechanisms should be explained clearly in the legislation. A distinct lack of politics there, as both parties (so far) embrace the bipartisan nature of the PJCIS, which is meant to be above politics. Given it involves Peter Dutton, let’s see how long that lasts.
The committee expresses broad support for the objectives of the bill but agrees that the bill as it stands does not adequately incorporate enough detail. The Greens are picking up on the Anne Davies and Christopher Knaus story involving doctored documents, and will be holding a press conference on it a little later today.
It is for this reason that the committee recommends that the identity matching services Bill 2019 be redrafted according to the following principles: It seems to be the first time since 2002 that this committee, one of the most powerful in the parliament, has recommended a bill be re-drawn (that was about questioning and warrant powers in the wake of September 11) and then referred back.
One, the regime should be built around privacy, transparency and subject to safe to rather robust safeguards to the regime, Usually it just recommends changes to amend the bill, which the government of the day largely – temporary exclusion order aside (not all of those were adopted in full, which created a pretty big kerfuffle) but it is very, very rare for the committee to just say – start again.
two: the regime should be subject to parliamentary oversight, and reasonable proportionate and transparent functionality. Mark Dreyfus:
Three, the regime should be one that requires annual reporting on the use of the identity matching services and four the primary legislation should specifically require that there is a participation agreement that sets out the obligations of all parties participating in the identity, identity matching services in detail. Like my colleagues on the committee, I do not believe that the government is proposing to engage in or to facilitate the mass surveillance of Australians. But I do accept that, given the near complete absence of legislated safeguards in the Identity-Matching Services Bill 2019, those concerns cannot simply be ignored. If there is no intention for the proposed identity-matching services to be used to engage in mass surveillance activities, the government should not object to amending the bill to ensure that those services cannot, as a matter of law, be used in that manner.
Additionally, the Committee recommends that the redrafted bill will be referred to the committee for further review. Concerns were also raised about the proposed one-to-many identity-matching service being used to identify people who are engaging in protest activity. This does concern me. It was only this month that the Minister for Home Affairs, the minister responsible for this very bill, called for mandatory prison sentences for people who engage in protest activity; called for the same people to have their welfare payments cancelled; and also called for them to be photographed and publicly shamed. As presently drafted, this bill would not prohibit authorities from using the proposed face-matching services to identify individuals in a crowd who are engaging in lawful protest activity. That would be concerning in the best of times; it is particularly concerning in the light of the authoritarian disposition of the Minister for Home Affairs.
Both government and Labor MPs on the intelligence committee are united in recommending the identity sharing bill NOT be passed, because it appears to give home affairs too much power, without any oversight. A raft of other concerns was expressed about the Identity-Matching Services Bill, including in relation to this government’s abysmal record on cybersecurity.
Like I said, this is a BIG deal. I do not propose to list all of the concerns here today, but I encourage everyone to read about them in the committee’s report.
Usually it’s ‘we think it can be fixed and here are our recommendations on how to do it’ not ‘DO NOT PASS THIS BILL’. I would like to thank my colleagues on the committee, Labor and Liberal, for their work on this important report. It should not escape anyone watching these proceedings today that, by agreeing to the set of recommendations contained in this report, the Liberal members of the committee have placed the national interest first. For that, I would like to pay tribute to Senators Stoker, Fawcett and Abetz, and the members for Canning, Berowra and Goldstein. I would like to pay particular tribute and extend my thanks to the chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, the member for Canning. I also thank the committee secretariat for their excellent work, both in this parliament and in the last parliament, which underpins this report.
Andrew Hastie is speaking on that identity bill – he says the committee is recommending it be re-drafted. Andrew Hastie:
That’s a big deal. A government led committee is saying a government bill does not have enough oversight. The committee also simultaneously examined the Australian Passports Amendment (Identity-matching Services) Bill 2019. The passport bill proposes amendments to the Australian Passports Act 2005 which would authorise the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to disclose information in order to participate in identity-matching services and provides for computerised decision-making in confirming identity. This bill would also support the objectives of the IMS bill by making Australian travel document data available to identity-matching services by the interoperability hub.
More to come. Again, submitters supported the broad objectives of this bill. Few objections were raised but there were some concerns regarding the use of automated decision-making, in particular where unfavourable outcomes were made for the subject. Most felt that an element of human decision-making should be kept and avenues for review of decisions should be implicitly incorporated into the bill. The committee agrees and recommends that the bill should be amended to ensure automated decision-making can only be used for decisions that produce favourable or neutral outcomes for the subject and that automated decisions should not ... affect outcomes.
Over in Social Services estimates, Labor’s Murray Watt has been grilling the department and the NDIA about the agency’s chair, Helen Nugent, using a Macquarie Group email to conduct NDIS work. That was revealed in this story by Rick Morton here. Watt is concerned about potential conflicts of interest and privacy concerns. Macquarie is the only bank listed on a NDIA housing reference group. It is also reportedly eyeing investments in the specialist disability accommodation sector. The external email is outside the scope of FOI. The committee recognises redrafting of the identity-matching services bill 2019 may have consequential effects to the passports bill. Should this occur this, this report also recommends that the amended passports bill also be referred to the committee for further review. I want to reiterate the importance of the objectives of these bills and that these objectives have the committee’s full support. Wanting to ensure the safety and security of all Australians is something we have in common but we also need to protect citizens’ rights while doing so.
It should be noted Nugent no longer has a formal role at Macquarie. Basically, the bill, as drafted, would allow the government to follow you around as you went about your day.
Watt points to a story, in the AFR, that says Nugent received emails to her Macquarie account that contained “highly sensitive case information on Tim Rubenach, a 32-year-old man with severe epilepsy who died in northeast Tasmania awaiting NDIS care”. It seems we have finally found a bipartisan line MPs don’t want crossed.
He asks if NDIA’s acting CEO, Vicki Rundle, and the department are guilty of “wilful blindness”. They reject this. The DSS secretary, Kathryn Campbell, says Nugent had actively discouraged NDIA staff from contacting her using the external email. Mark Dreyfus, as the most senior Labor member on the committee, also commented on the bill:
Rundle tells the hearing Nugent is “cognisant” of using her official NDIA email. But of any conflict of interests, she adds: “I’m trying to work out what the actual issue might be.” The Intelligence and Security Committee of the Parliament is declining to recommend the passage of the identity matching services bill.
Nugent has not been reprimanded or officially advised to refrain from using her Macquarie email for NDIS/NDIA work. Instead, Labor and Liberal members of the committee are uniting to recommend that the identity matches services bill be completely redrafted and referred back to the Intelligence and Security Committee for further inquiry when it is reintroduced.
They have taken on notice questions about how many NDIA-related emails she has sent and received using her Macquarie email. In taking this step, I congratulate all members of the committee for putting the national interest first and sending a strong message about the value of this committee.
The head of the department of foreign affairs and trade, Frances Adamson, was asked about Australia’s relationship with China, by Penny Wong, in estimates this morning. The identity matching services bill purports to facilitate the exchange of identity information pursuant to the objective of an intergovernmental agreement reached by Coag [in] October 2017.
Here is the chief diplomat’s view: But it includes none of the limitations or safeguards anticipated by that agreement.
Well, Australia’s relationship with China in fact, I think across the world ... every country’s relationship with China is a subject of keen interest and conversation across a wide range of stakeholders. The bill includes almost no limitations or safeguards at all.
And in that respect, Australia is no different particularly given the nature of our relationship with China. As explained in the committee’s report, the identity matching services bill would authorise the Department of Home Affairs to create and maintain facilities for the sharing of facial images and other identity information between government agencies and in some cases, non government agencies entities.
Of course, in formal terms, we have a comprehensive strategic partnership, but we very quickly then, within that, look at the various pillars of activity that we have, including obviously trading investment, people to people links, prominently captured by numbers of tourism and students, and all of those things. The bill would also authorised the Department of Home Affairs to develop and maintain to centralised facilities for the provision of what are called identity matching services.
In broad diplomatic terms, though, Australia continues to engage with China, the prime minister had a good meeting at which I was present in Jakarta on the weekend with Vice President Wang Qishan. The foreign minister also had a very good meeting at which I was present in New York with her counterpart. The first of these two facilities would be called an interoperability hub.
Those meetings, it’s important that they occur as regularly as they can, because they enable us to talk to each other about the nature of the relationship in all of its dimensions, including areas where we have differences. Those differences have been well publicised, not always accurately, but they exist and I think there’s no point in us at all, pretending that they’re not there. The Hub would act as a router through which government agencies across Australia could request and transmit information as part of an identity matching service.
In fact, I think if we were to characterise our current relationship with China and the relationship going forward, it will be a relationship where we will need on both sides to work quite hard to manage what I really think will be enduring differences. The second would be a federated database of information contained in government identity documents. As discussed in the committee’s report, the potential implications of these two new facilities for the privacy of all Australians are profound.
Some points of difference may come and go and be able to be resolved. But other points of difference, which go more deeply to the differences between our systems and our values are likely to endure. Those implications do not appear to have even been considered by the Minister for Home Affairs or by his department.
It should therefore not be surprising in my view that a relationship where there are points of difference, some of them which are actively canvassed in the public domain, that is – I don’t particularly like the term “new normal”, but I think it does apply in this situation. While a bill provides for six different identity mentioned services, the service that elicited the most concerned from submitters to the committee’s inquiry is the face of identification service.
That bill Andrew Hastie is about to report on has been quite controversial. Mostly because it creates a national ID register: That service would enable authorities across Australia to use huge databases of facial images to determine the identity of an unknown person.
1. This Bill amends the Australian Passports Act 2005 (Passports Act) to provide a legal basis for ensuring that the minister is able to make Australian travel document data available for all the purposes of, and by the automated means intrinsic to, the identity-matching services to which the Commonwealth and the States and Territories agreed in the Intergovernmental Agreement on Identity Matching Services (IGA), signed at a meeting of the Council of Australian Governments on 5 October 2017. Using that service, a law enforcement agency could submit a facial image for matching against a database of facial images contained in a in government identification documents, such as a database containing every driver licence photo in Australia.
2. The services will enable identity matching based on personal information held in government systems nationally. They include a number of biometric services in which the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade intends to participate. One, the Face Verification Service (FVS), will allow Commonwealth, state and territory agencies, and potentially in future the private sector, to verify the known or claimed identities of individuals by reference to facial images in government identity records. Another, the Face Identification Service (FIS), will allow authorised facial recognition specialists in law enforcement, national security and anti-corruption agencies to identify unknown persons. Beyond the FVS and the FIS, an Identity Data Sharing Service will allow for the secure sharing of biometric identity information in other circumstances. In return, the agency would receive a small number of matching or near matching facial images from the database.
3. Subsidiary to the IGA, a Participation Agreement (PA) will regulate access to the services by individual Commonwealth, state and territory agencies. Among other things, the IGA provides that strict privacy, transparency and accountability controls must apply to all the services. The Department of Home Affairs will administer the services and oversee compliance with these controls. The agency could then access biographical information associated with those images.
This has been put on the notice paper for this morning: The potential for such a service to be used for mass or blanket surveillance, such as CCTV being used to identify Australians going about their business in real time was raised by numerous submitters to the inquiry.
Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security — Mr Hastie (Chair — Canning) to present the following report and seek leave to make a statement:
Advisory report on the Identity-matching Services Bill 2019 and the Australian Passports Amendment (Identity-matching Services) Bill 2019 .