MARK DREYFUS MP

My admiration and deep respect for Senator Barney Cooney is immeasurable and I send my condolences to his family and friends. While I stand here with a deep sense of sadness, it is, however, Barney's contribution to Australian politics, his sharpened instinct for social justice and the generous guidance that he afforded me and so many others, that stands out.

This amendment is necessary to help protect the personal information, and therefore the security, of virtually every Australian who has a smartphone or uses the internet.

If politicians and their staff are seen to be somehow exempt from the integrity mechanisms that other parts of the Commonwealth are subject to, how is that right? How will that help to restore trust in government and in politics at large? It doesn't seem right to me and I don't think it will seem right to many Australians either.

The safety of our community and the security of our nation must always be paramount considerations for every member of this parliament.

Labor support this bill. We support this bill because we recognise the need to modernise the legislative framework that governs the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, ASIS, to reflect the changing operational realities in the global environment and the nature of the national security challenges that Australia now faces.

Labor supports this bill as this is an extension of our support for the original bill. We supported the original Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act 2018 and the National Security Legislation Amendment (Espionage and Foreign Interference) Act 2018 on the basis that foreign interference in our political system, if it is malign, is unacceptable and, even if it is benign, should nevertheless be transparent.

Members of the judiciary are easy targets considering they cannot defend themselves publicly. And it is not new that they are picked on by politicians and some elements of the press. But there has been a notable worsening lately, and it is making both our justice system, and the people in it, ill. It's time for it to stop.