Morrison uses international crime bust to target Labor but misfires
Chief political correspondent
June 11, 2021 — 5.00am
Australian politicians spend so much time sniping at each other that it is easy to forget the parts of Parliament House that work very effectively very quietly. Behind all the arguments about national security, for instance, stands a committee that has reached bipartisan agreement for years on every major bill that grants powers to police, spies and security agencies.
Like a wall nobody notices as they walk by, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security supports an entire system of laws on foreign interference, telephone interception, metadata and more. It does this by settling disputes between the major parties and, most of the time, telling ministers when their powers go too far.
While there is sniping, many parts of Parliament House actually function quite well. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Take away that wall, in other words, and the roof caves in.
So there was concern on both sides of politics this week when Scott Morrison took a shot at Labor during his press conference to reveal an Australian Federal Police operation that led to 220 arrests and disrupted drug deals and murder plots.
Asked a straight question about border controls and drug imports, Morrison blamed Labor for blocking three draft laws that would help the police stop transnational crime. But he was too eager to start a political fight. And he got some of his facts wrong.
This has gone down badly on both sides of politics. One Labor MP calls Morrison's remark a kind of "vandalism" against the PJCIS. "Everyone knew it was bullshit, and it was cheap," he says. Liberals also know the Prime Minister was out of line.
The Prime Minister blamed Labor for blocking transnational crime laws and got some of his facts wrong. Credit:Rhett Wyman
This is dumb timing when Morrison heads to the G7 summit in London this weekend to discuss global security with leaders like United States president Joe Biden. At the very time he urges G7 leaders to show unity against autocracy, he exaggerates the divisions at home.
The PJCIS does not get along easily, but it gets along. It is chaired by Liberal Senator James Paterson with a Labor deputy chair, Anthony Byrne. Its other members are Eric Abetz, David Fawcett, Celia Hammond, Julian Leeser and Tim Wilson from the Liberals and Anne Aly, Mark Dreyfus, Kristina Keneally and Jenny McAllister from Labor.
That gives it a majority of six Liberals to five Labor MPs but no shortage of robust opinion. The remarkable result is that most of its recommendations are unanimous.
Committee chair Senator James Patterson, Credit:Dominic Lorrimer
One of the three draft laws Morrison complained about, the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment International Production Orders Bill, already has that bipartisan support. The committee last month ruled the bill should be passed, but it did not give it a blank cheque. It recommended 23 changes.
The IPO bill would allow Australian agencies to gain access to telecommunications data from overseas providers, speeding up investigations. But it works both ways, which means Australia data can end up with overseas investigators. The PJCIS wants stronger oversight of this exchange.
The committee also wants a safeguard so that evidence supplied from Australia is not used to secure the death penalty for someone overseas. The goal is to match a safeguard already in place for the United Kingdom under similar laws.
The second security measure is the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill, which would give the AFP and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission far greater powers to hack criminal networks.
Under this bill, known as SLAID, an AFP officer in Canberra could gain the authority to take over a criminal's online account and perhaps even pretend to be that person in order to identify other suspects. It would be a powerful way to investigate those who trade in drugs or child abuse.
But the government only asked the committee to consider the bill on December 7 last year. The PJCIS has held a public hearing and is likely to want private briefings before it decides its position. It may want to know how the AFP investigation revealed this week, Operation Ironside, might have used the new law.
Labor is not dragging its feet on SLAID, nor on the IPO powers. Both bills are going through the PJCIS in the usual way, along with more than a dozen other inquiries.
The third bill is different. Morrison was right on the gulf with Labor on a bill that would give security agencies more power to vet workers at places like wharves and airports. The head of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, Michael Phelan, went public this week about the way drug bosses are able to control baggage handlers and others.
Labor objects to the way the Transport Security Amendment (Serious Crimes) Bill would give authorities the ability to bar workers, but it is running out of time on this issue. The government has listed the bill (which is a transport matter and not subject to the PJCIS) as the first item of business when the Senate meets at noon on Tuesday.
Labor leader Anthony Albanese has to decide whether to hold out against the bill and side with the Transport Workers Union, or to support the bill and avoid being wedged on national security.
Some caucus members believe it is futile to vote against the bill when Pauline Hanson and other crossbenchers will probably vote it into law. Labor is arguing for amendments, such as a clear avenue of appeal for workers who could lose their jobs, but the pragmatic approach is to let it through.
None of this is a pitched battle over national security. Morrison may not like being asked to amend security laws, but he will not be the last prime minister to negotiate changes through the PJCIS or a Senate he cannot control.
And one lesson the PJCIS has learned over the years is that every bill needs scrutiny. Federal officials assured the committee, for instance, that the AFP and other agencies could be trusted to seek approvals from higher authorities when gaining powers to track the metadata that reveals valuable details about (but not the contents of) a conversation.
Then, once the laws were passed, the committee was told that councils used the law for minor matters like parking fines. The RSPCA even used a "loophole" to run its own investigations.
The committee was also assured that police would apply all the checks and balances required when using new laws to intercept phone calls. Then, in April, the AFP local police in the ACT admitted they failed to follow the process 1700 times.
That experience means the PJCIS is likely to want more scrutiny, not less, when government agencies and ministers come up with new ideas to expand police powers. And the laws will be better as a result.
David Crowe is national political editor.
David Crowe is chief political correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via Twitter or email.