Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025

Mr TIM WILSON (Goldstein) (17:49): In the era of national security, all legislation is, of course, enormously important, but it's also equally important that we scrutinise all pieces of legislation to make sure there is not needless overreach and to make sure this parliament is always getting the balance right. We all believe in the importance of human freedom and dignity but also in making sure that we have a secure environment and making sure that we have appropriate crackdowns on those people who wish our community and our society harm—particularly those who are most vulnerable, children in particular—and those who want to perpetrate sexual violence and harm.

That's the basis on which this legislation, the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025, has been put forward to this parliament. I will have served in this parliament now for six years in about five months, with a little bit of a gap in between some of that tenure, and have served on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, including with the current Minister for Small Business, who is sitting at the table opposite me.

One of the challenges you confront—and it's a difficult thing to confront—is that, because we have an enormous amount of faith and hope in our country and our fellow citizens, sometimes some of our fellow citizens fall short. I don't just mean fall short. Sometimes they fall short in a very large way, and we see the dark depths of humanity.

When we find those dark depths and when our agencies that are charged responsible for making sure those people are held accountable, we need to make sure that they have the laws and tools available to them. We need them to be able to go into those deep, dark recesses, particularly online and through telecommunication platforms, to find them; to make sure the content they are producing, what it is they are doing and the harm they are doing, particularly against those who are vulnerable, can be exposed and brought into the sunlight; and to make sure that there's a full pathway for prosecution.

That's why legislation like this matters. What we're actually doing is empowering our agencies—whether they're Federal Police or other intelligence organisations or whether they're working across international borders—to be able to go into places like the dark web and discover the deep, dark realities and the shortcomings of humanity. This legislation is very important because it's a tragedy that, when you engage in some of the responsibilities that you must engage in in this office that we all hold in our different capacities, you see what humanity is capable of.

More importantly, you see how people will treat the most vulnerable, in particular children—whether it's sexual crimes, abuse or sexual violence—the content people will create, capture or distribute; and the different mechanisms by which they connect with other people who find satisfaction through such crimes. Of course, we in the opposition are supporting this legislation because we understand how important it is to protect children and, of course, anyone else who is at the end of sexual violence, sexual crimes or any other type of violent crime where people perpetuate or use telecommunications as a mechanism to do harm.

It's more important because we understand how much technology has become an enabler of some of the most distressing parts of increased crime. There are lots of different challenges that are now being presented. We know that telecommunications is a very significant part of the networks that organised crime uses.

It's a very important part of how terrorist organisations connect with each other, whether it's through mechanisms of distribution of finance, distributing information to others around the promotion and propagation of the information about their crimes, or pathways of coordination for their various different attacks. It's also for other types of harm, where people use telecommunications as a mechanism to distribute the consequences of their criminal conduct and to be able to send it out to consumers as well.

As we use technology to identify pathways to address what might be through traditional channels, what we see more and more of is telecommunications pathways going deeper and darker into the recesses of the internet, beneath the things that you or I, or average people, would use to be able to distribute that information. The consequence of that is that the powers our agencies need to crack down on it are becoming much more substantial.

They need powers so they can access information, and they need pathways to represent others and be in a position to get information from people so that they can provide the evidentiary basis to go through to points of identification and prosecution. We have dealt with this before on the intelligence and security committee, when I was on it. Some of the legislative measures have continued to evolve and take time; that includes what is presented before the parliament today.

It's also something we on this side of the chamber, leading up to the last election, said we would be very aggressive in continuing to pursue, particularly around mandatory minimum sentences, particularly when telecommunications devices are used for things like sexual violence and crime, particularly against women. We understand how much it can become an enabler, how much we see it as a significant and serious threat into the future and how we need to take these issues very seriously.

Sitting behind anything that happens in the online world is something that's actually happening in the real world. When the online world becomes an enabler of crime, it's becoming an enabler of crime in the real world. And sitting behind every one of those stories are real people—often, as I've said before, some of the most vulnerable within our community.

So it's extremely important that we give the agencies the powers they need to be able to crack down on these types of crimes. More important than that, because telecommunications are not limited solely to what goes on within in the domestic boundaries of our great Commonwealth, is that we also need to make sure that our agencies have the capacity to access data and information that transcends our national boundaries.

This has been one of the biggest challenges for our agencies working with other governments and police force counterparts around the world. Once you leave Australia's national boundaries, so ends Australian national law. So we have partnerships, agreements and arrangements with governments and agencies in other countries to be able to information-share on a voluntary basis where we find it fruitful to do so.

With some countries, we're not necessarily in the best position to have those arrangements, but there are countries where we can do it if we come to terms and work with their governments on a mutually beneficial basis. We have agreements in place with the United States, of course, which is of incredible importance, particularly for the infrastructure they have as part of the internet.

But there are countries we should have arrangements with or that we wish we had arrangements with because they are the harbours of so much illicit and illegal content on the internet. I think of countries like Russia, North Korea and so many others. They use themselves as safe havens for criminal activities.

We know they do. They know they do. They become enablers of criminal activity which directly harms not just Australians, although Australians are caught up in it; they become enablers of criminal activity that has an impact on people in every nation around this world.

Because of their role aboveboard and on the dark web, we're in a situation where they allow the criminals to write the rules, not the law-abiding citizens and democratic governments standing up for safety, for justice and for protecting the vulnerable. Whatever our differences, I would hope that everybody in this chamber and this parliament fundamentally believes that the role of this parliament—the government that represents the people of Australia—is to make sure that we defend the best interests of those who cannot speak for themselves and that we stand up and say that there is no place on online platforms for things like sexual violence and sexual crimes against children.

I am fully extending that with the absolute intent that that is the view of the government and that we need to bring forward the powers for our agencies and police to do everything to stamp that out. That's the basis on which, in a bipartisan way, we are supporting this legislation. We actually understand just how important it is to take these steps, because of the human impact that sits behind it.

Telecommunications powers matter. Getting them right matters. This legislation matters for the reasons I've outlined.

That doesn't mean the government always get things right. We know and have lived with, in recent weeks, a situation where Australians have lost their lives as a direct consequence of what happens when the government—through intransigence, indifference or apparently because the minister is new—does not have the proper arrangements in place around telecommunications powers where Australians want to do simple things like dial triple 0 to be connected to an emergency service so that they can get the support they desperately need in a moment of health crisis.

If they don't get that help, tragically, people die. Triple 0—zero, zero, zero—represents the absence of the heartbeats of the lives lost. It should be one, one, one for the people who are still alive.

One of the most disappointing things that we heard in question time today was how the minister responsible didn't see it as her responsibility. We heard the minister being quite happy to pass the buck to the telecommunications company as a way of avoidance and to accept that that number of Australians who desperately needed support in past weeks amounted to their lives being worth zero, zero, zero.

It's very sobering, because we all depend on telecommunications these days. We all desperately need the support and services. When the services are there, we need them to work for us.

We need them to be able to do the task of protecting us, to secure the services we need, to empower Australians—whether it's access to health services or whether it's through crime and support and security. There are times in my electorate where people call the local police station, and they can't even get connected. There are times when they're using their mobile telephony across this country and expect to get access, but they can't even connect to a local telephone tower.

This is a common complaint of members, particularly those from rural and regional Australia, but I can tell you that it happens even in the Goldstein electorate. When it comes to the powers that this parliament affords our agencies, including the Australian Federal Police, ASIO and others, we want to be confident that, when those agencies are going after criminals, working with partners overseas, they are able to find people who are perpetuating harm—people who are committing crimes against children, against women or against any person, particularly where they're using nefarious recording of information, often involving sexual violence, sexual crimes—and that they can find that content and shut it down.

This is not an unreasonable expectation. It is, in fact, exactly what everybody in this parliament should seek. My hope is that, by passing this legislation, it will not be the end of this discussion—sadly, it will not be the end because, tragically, we see the dark depths of humanity in these conversations—but a continuation of the commitment from this parliament that we are serious about finding every pathway to crack down on those people who wish our fellow citizens harm and, more importantly, that we work with agencies around the world to stop the tragedy of those in our country who aid and assist other people in the commitment of their sexual violence and their sexual crimes and help bring them to justice as well.

This is a common cause of humanity. We should make sure that the internet and technology do not become, any more than absolutely necessary—the answer is it's never necessary, absolutely never—a pathway or an enabler to cause harm against those who cannot stand up or speak for themselves. That's why we support this legislation.