Hon Speaker, the General Intelligence Laws Amendment Bill, or "Spy Bill" as it became known, effectively provides legislative legs for the State Security Agency. The State Security Agency is the new centralised civilian intelligent service that looks very similar to the old Bureau for State Security. Therefore, we must work hard to ensure that even though the State Security Agency looks like the Bureau for State Security, it does not become like it. We were told that the General Intelligence Laws Amendment Bill was a piece of a technical legislation. We were also told that the major intelligence policy changes would have to wait for the introduction of a new State Security Agency Bill sometime in 2015. However, there were two issues that we felt they could not wait.
Firstly, there is a major concern that the State Security Agency's legislative mandate is too wide and provides legislative licence for it to become involved in gathering intelligence on lawful political activity. This perception that the State Security Agency has become involved in gathering intelligence on lawfully political activity has been driven by numerous intelligence scandals.
Therefore, we have proposed a number of amendments, some of which were accepted and, as a result, the State Security Agency's legislative mandate now specifically excludes lawful political activity, advocacy, and protest. This is by any measure a significant democratic step forward.
Secondly, there is also a major concern that the State Security Agency circumvents provisions requiring a designated judge to authorise the interception of communication. The concern here is that in gathering foreign signals intelligence, the State Security Agency will use its bulk interception capacity warehoused in the little known and even less spoken about National Communication Centre to sidestep the designated judge. We proposed a number of amendments that ensure that foreign signals intelligence gathering were subject to the regulation of the Interception of Communications Act. However, these proposed amendments were rejected. All references to foreign signals intelligence were systematically purged, including even the amendments proposed by the State Security Agency itself.
The regulation of foreign signals intelligence gathering has now been relegated to the murky world of secret regulations. With one step forward and one democratic step back, we will oppose the General Intelligence Laws Amendment Bill. Thank you. [Time expired.] [Applause.]