MARK DREYFUS
SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL
SHADOW MINISTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM
MEMBER FOR ISAACS
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS SPEERS
THURSDAY, 24 OCTOBER 2019
Subject: PJCIS Report on Identity-matching bill; Angus Taylor; 2022 election.
DAVID SPEERS: The Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus joins me now. Thanks for your time this afternoon. Look, let's just start on this issue about the identity hub that's been proposed here. You share the committee's concerns that the bill needs to be completely rewritten, that there aren't adequate privacy and transparency safeguards in there. But do you still agree with the intent, the objective of what's being proposed?
MARK DREYFUS, SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Thanks for having me David. Yes, I do share the committee's concerns as expressed in the unanimous report. I'd pay tribute to all the members of the committee Liberal and Labor alike for putting the national interest first.
Parts of the bill, the objectives of the bill, which is that there should be potentially, with appropriate safeguards, use made by Australian Governments federal and state of identity data that's available to them. That's the objective. But this bill was almost completely silent on safeguards, almost completely silent on protection of privacy. And that's why - and I'm not attributing reasons. You, anyone, any Australian interested in this can read the report of the committee. It's a unanimous report. It sets out the principles that need to be attended to when the bill is redrafted. And I'm very pleased that the committee has acted in the way that it has.
SPEERS: The spokesperson for Minister Dutton, the Home Affairs Minister, says the committee has made recommendations. We will work with the committee to legislate these laws. So that sounds to me as though they are going to attempt to rewrite the legislation and address some of those concerns of the committee. What are the sorts of privacy protections that need to be built in? Does this go to which agencies can access this data and how they can access the data?
DREYFUS: Yes, it absolutely goes to which agencies have access. It goes to the conditions on which they have access. It goes to who makes the decision about whether that access is to be granted.
Many of the submissions that the committee received suggested that there needs to be some kind of warrant process put in place. Obviously, when the Government comes to redrafting, the Government should give serious consideration to precisely what should be the approvals process. And when the bill returns to the Parliament - and I fully expect that it will - then the committee is going to be asked to look at it again and one of the matters we will be closely examining is that approval process.
SPEERS: Some of the arguments in favour of this bill, from Home Affairs and from the minister at the time, were that in an unfolding situation - maybe a child's been abducted, maybe a terrorist incident is unfolding - you don't have time to get warrants and so on. You need to be able to access that database, find the identity of the people who have been captured on a CCTV picture, and do that super-fast. Is it possible to build in then a warrants process to access the data?
DREYFUS: It is and we can look to the examples of the United Kingdom and the United States who make a very large use of warrants in all of their coercive power situations. They've got emergency approval processes as well. It's possible to write those sorts of things into legislation. We're going to have to look at all this when the bill comes back.
SPEERS: Does it slow things down? That's the point here. Does it slow things down or can you have a mechanism where that can be done as quickly, in a live context?
DREYFUS: We've already got that kind of emergency process in relation to a whole range of other warrants and approvals, where it's an emergency situation, that the approvals processes is shortened. That's possible to write into the legislation as well.
But let's be clear, David, many of the submitters were very concerned about the possibility of mass surveillance. The committee made clear that it doesn't accept that the Government intends to do mass surveillance and because of that, it won't be difficult for the Government to write into the legislation that this is ever to be used for any kind of mass surveillance techniques.
SPEERS: What about and this was another example at the time - you do get a threat or, you know, agencies pick up some intelligence that there's a potential threat of a stadium, big, big sporting event or whatever. They want to use this database to be able to scan people coming through the gate or in the crowd and, you know, pick out the person who might be a threat. Would that be allowed?
DREYFUS: Well, because that is precisely the intrusive use of an extraordinary power, that's the kind of use of the power that needs to be surrounded by safeguards, by checks, and by a very, very clear approvals process in which privacy and the liberties, the ordinary liberties of Australians, are considered.
SPEERS: Alright, but you do believe those aims are possible with privacy and transparency and oversight arrangements built in.
DREYFUS: No one is suggesting that this is anything other than difficult. We've got technology that is racing ahead, that is giving potentially undreamed of power to our security agencies and our police forces. It has to be surrounded by safeguards.
The use of any powers that use this new technology has to be accompanied by proper approvals processes. We're seeing it in relation to the intrusions of privacy in social media. There's a whole range of intrusions of privacy that weren't even dreamed of 10 years ago, David, That's why when we launch off in this direction, to provide new powers to agencies, we have to make sure that they are accompanied by safeguards.
That's in essence, why the committee has rejected the bill in the current form. They're saying, have another go. Yes, the objectives are worthwhile, but there will need to be far more safeguards, much clearer approvals processes.
SPEERS: The Angus Taylor matter - can I just turn to that briefly here. We just heard you and Mark Butler say that if the Prime Minister doesn't, in the next 24 hours, Labor will be referring this matter to New South Wales Police to consider an investigation. We heard Mark Butler refer in Question Time to a New South Wales law that you're obviously looking at here. What's your suspicion here Mark Dreyfus? Do you think Angus Taylor or someone in his office has forged a document?
DREYFUS: We know that Angus Taylor and his office have used a forged document.
It's pretty extraordinary, David that the Prime Minister at the start of the week was prepared to say that politicians and journalists and no one in Australia is above the law. The Prime Minister's quite happy to see investigations of journalists and potential prosecutions of journalists. He's not prepared to apply the same standard to one of his own ministers. He should be urgently requesting the New South Wales Police to conduct a proper investigation of this matter.
It's apparent that a forged document was used. It was used in a letter sent by Mr. Taylor to the Lord Mayor of Sydney and immediately before the Lord Mayor even received that letter, Mr. Taylor and his office made that letter with the forged document accompanying it available to The Daily Telegraph who of course ran a story about it.
That's an extraordinary state of affairs. Mr. Taylor has done nothing in Question Time to clear up this matter. If anything he's muddied it.
SPEERS: He's denied his office forged a document here. Can I ask - maybe this is a legal question - is it possible to make a mistake here? An accidental misinterpretation of a document? That may have been what's gone on?
DREYFUS: The document that was provided to the Daily Telegraph is a clear forgery. It's available online for people to compare. Media organisations have put up, including yours, I think, side by side the documents.
SPEERS: Yes, we were just showing it.
DREYFUS: And that's what's been used. The forged document has been used by Mr Taylor and his office. He is putting forward the already debunked conspiracy theory saying that his office drew this document from the website of the City of Sydney. The City of Sydney has already made an exhaustive examination of its metadata logs of its own website and has said the document was put up over 12 months ago, in the form, its original form, and has not been changed. So someone else has done this and Mr Taylor and his office have used a forged a document.
Mr Taylor needs to come clean on exactly what happened here. He certainly hasn't clarified anything about this Taylor-made scandal in his answers in Question Time today.
SPEERS: Final one before I let you go Mark Dreyfus. I've heard you deny this until you're blue in the face that you're not going anywhere but Nikki Savva writes in the Australian
DREYFUS: (laughs) Why are you asking?
SPEERS: Nikki Savva is a respected journalist. She's written again that you, Brendan O'Connor and Mike Kelly may be going. We'll see a Super Saturday of by-elections early next year. For the record Mark Dreyfus, is that true?
DREYFUS: It was baseless when it was raised by others. And I'm sorry, Nikki Savva. It's baseless when it's raised by you as well.
SPEERS: Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus. Thanks very much for your time this afternoon.
DREYFUS: Thanks very much, David.
ENDS
