Selection of Bills Committee

David Shoebridge

I move the amendment circulated in Senator McKim's name:

Paragraph (b), omit "the bill not be referred to a committee", substitute "the provisions of the bill be referred immediately to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 10 March 2026".

This legislation, the royal commissions amendment legislation, is designed to implement, or is said to be implementing, some of the recommendations from the interim report of the veterans royal commission to allow people from security agencies to give full and frank evidence to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion. What Commissioner Kaldas found in the veterans royal commission was that the Royal Commissions Act is not fit for purpose when it comes to secret information from the ADF and that many people in the ADF felt they couldn't come and speak to the royal commission and tell the full truth about what was happening in the ADF, because of a series of secrecy provisions that apply to members of the military. Commissioner Kaldas and the other commissioners of the royal commission asked the government to fix that during the veterans royal commission, and it did not happen. That was a failure. It's an ongoing failure of the government to not fix it for the veterans royal commission.

It has now become very clear that it's a real impediment. Those same secrecy provisions in the ADF and a raft of other secrecy provisions that apply to ASIO, the AFP and Border Force—indeed, the 850 secrecy provisions that the INSLM said are a significant problem in the Commonwealth space—are a real impediment to people coming and giving evidence to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion. So what does the government do? The government works with the coalition to come up with a very partial and imperfect pretend fix to this. The core part of this bill says that, if the royal commission and the heads of the different security agencies come to an arrangement about what information can be shared, how it can be used and how it can be stored—and information is provided in accordance with the arrangements struck between them—then that information and those whistleblowers, those witnesses, are protected and can't be prosecuted under a certain set of secrecy provisions.

But what that does is give a veto power to the heads of all the security agencies to say what the terms of the arrangement are and how the evidence can be used. If there is no agreement—and it requires agreement between the royal commission and the agency heads—then there's no protection. Why would we be giving ASIO, the AFP, and Home Affairs a veto power over what information can be given to the royal commission, the circumstances in which it can be given and the manner in which that information can be used? That's what this bill does. That's its primary part—the immunity. Of course people across the broader community have a sense of anxiety. If we're having a royal commission into ASIO, you can't have ASIO set the terms in which witnesses can come forward and give evidence about ASIO. That's fairly obvious.

Of course we've asked for this to go to an inquiry. We didn't ask for this to go to a long inquiry. In fact, the inquiry we were picturing was one that would effectively be on the papers. We'd open up for submissions today, we'd consider those submissions on Tuesday and we'd write the report next Tuesday—which would largely be just a reflection of the submissions, you would hope. The fact that the coalition and Labor are opposing even that level of transparency on this and are not letting those engaged stakeholders point out the obvious problems with this bill—like how limited the protections will be and how it again privileges ASIO, the AFP and Home Affairs—shows what a partial and grossly imperfect fix this is.

If you want this royal commission to have public support and you want people to feel like it's getting to the truth—this kind of half baked pretend fix that gives the very agencies that should be under investigation a veto on what evidence can be given to the royal commission and how it can be given erodes that public trust in the royal commission. We think this is fixable. We think the government could agree with some amendments and give broad protections for people going to the royal commission. We think it is possible to amend this bill to fix it, but it looks like the stitch-up is in. The coalition and Labor have agreed that this is all they're going to do, and they want to ensure that ASIO, the AFP and Home Affairs can set the rules for this royal commission. That's why we want it to go to an inquiry.

Sue Lines

The question is that the amendment moved by Senator Shoebridge, standing in the name of Senator McKim, be agreed to.