MARK DREYFUS MP
SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL
SHADOW MINISTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM
MEMBER FOR ISAACS
TIME’S UP – TIME TO RELEASE THE RICHARDSON REVIEW
The Attorney-General must release the unclassified report of the Richardson review of the legal framework governing the Australian National Intelligence Community.
When it announced the review way back in May 2018, the Government made it clear it was urgent, declaring that “[t] he national security environment is constantly changing and it is essential that we ensure our agencies have the tools and framework they need to be effective and meet their core function – keeping Australians safe.”
Now, three years after it was first recommended by the 2017 Independent Intelligence Review, more than two years after it was announced, and a full eight months after the final report was handed to Morrison Government in December 2019 by Dennis Richardson, this critical review has still not been made public.
Labor agrees that aspects of this review into our intelligence services have to remain confidential. But we also believe the Australian people have a right to know what their government is doing to keep them safe.
The Morrison Government has been sitting on an unclassified version of Mr Richardson’s report, designed for public release, since June.
The Government claimed that this was “the most significant review of intelligence legislation in more than 40 years” yet, despite spending between $10 and $20 million on a fulltime secretariat to assist Mr Richardson, it now doesn’t trust the Australian people with its findings.
Given the current security and geopolitical challenges faced by Australia and the concerns that have been raised about the Morrison Government’s raids on journalists, it is indefensible for the Government to allow this important report to gather dust.
However, it is entirely consistent with the Morrison Government’s aversion to accountability and the public’s right to know and its obsession with secrecy.
Parliament is currently debating a range of legislative proposals that are directly or indirectly relevant to Mr Richardson’s review. To withhold Mr Richardson’s report from the Parliament, while at the same time asking the Parliament to debate and pass changes to the legislative framework governing the National Intelligence Community, is contemptuous of the Parliament, disrespectful to the Australian people and is likely to result in poorer, less informed debate. That means poorer policy outcomes.
Ultimately, the withholding of the unclassified report can only harm our national security, and it frustrates the very purpose of this review.
Australian taxpayers paid for the Richardson Review. That money was not spent for the purpose of providing the Attorney-General with some bedtime reading. The purpose of the review was to make findings and recommendations that, in the Government’s own words, are directed at “keeping Australians safe”.
There’s no excuse for the Morrison Government continuing to withhold this vital important report from the Australian people and their Parliament.
THURSDAY, 20 AUGUST 2020
