Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence) Bill 2025

Ms CLUTTERHAM (Sturt) (19:03): Today I rise in support of the Albanese Labor government's Defence Amendment (Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence) Bill 2025, which will establish a parliamentary joint committee on defence. This bill ensures that departments entrusted with extraordinary powers are subject to extraordinary accountability. In a time of evolving security threats, it has never been more important to maintain rigorous, independent oversight of our defence environment.

In September 2022, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence referred an inquiry into international armed-conflict decision-making to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. This joint standing committee examined the critical issues of how Australia makes decisions to send service personnel into international armed conflict, having regard to several relevant and contemporary factors: the approach of similar Westminster system democracies; parliamentary processes and practices; and security implications of different decision-making models that could compromise ADF safety, operational security and intelligence or have other unintended consequences.

On 31 March 2023, the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade tabled its report, which illustrated a deficiency in that it found the existing parliamentary oversight and accountability mechanisms for Defence and specified portfolio agencies to be inadequate—inadequate from the perspective of balancing accountability and transparency and national security considerations, including the risk of exposing information in the public domain that could be advantageous to potential adversaries.

This needed to be addressed, and to do so the joint standing committee recommended—and the government agreed—that a new joint statutory committee be established to supersede and enhance the defence related functions of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. It was recommended that the new committee be modelled on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, which was established under the Intelligence Services Act 2001, ensuring that it can request and receive classified information and briefings.

Access to this type of information is critical if informed and justifiable decisions are to made in relation to the critical decisions that are required. Australians expect these types of decisions to be made based on relevant, accurate and timely information. Australians and the Australian Defence Force personnel who are affected by these decisions deserve to have the decisions underpinned by relevant, accurate and timely information.

This bill implements this recommendation by inserting a new part, part VIIIAB, into the Defence Act 1903 to create the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence. By amending the Defence Act, this bill seeks to create the committee which will oversee the Australian Defence Force, the Department of Defence, the Department of Veterans' Affairs and key defence portfolio agencies, including the Australian Submarine Agency, Defence Housing Australia and the Australian War Memorial.

In terms of functions, the committee will be charged with a broad range of duties, including reviewing the administration and expenditure of Australian defence agencies, including their annual reports; considering white papers, reviews and other policy documents dealing with strategies, planning and contingencies of Australia's defence agencies; scrutinising Australia's defence capability development, acquisitions and sustainment; considering matters related to defence personnel and veterans affairs; examining and being apprised of war or warlike operations, including ongoing conflicts; monitoring the involvement of Australian defence agencies in significant non-conflict operations both domestically and internationally; monitoring and reviewing the implementation of the government's response to findings of any royal commission inquiring into matters relating to the defence of Australia or an Australian defence agency; considering the operation, resources and performance of the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force; considering the operations, resources, independence and performance of the Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Regulator; inquiring into matters referred to the committee by a minister or either house of the parliament; and inquiring into other matters relating to one or more Australian defence agencies on the committee's own initiative.

The committee can also request briefings from a number of people for the purpose of performing its functions, including the head of an Australian defence agency, the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force and the Director-General of National Intelligence. In order to successfully do all of this and discharge its functions, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence will be able to receive and consider classified information in carrying out its oversight functions.

This will ensure it has the information needed to conduct effective scrutiny of Defence and its portfolio agencies, thereby strengthening government decision-making on defence and strategic policy. If information of this nature is going to be received, then, in receiving this information, clear, appropriate and effective safeguards need to be put in place—safeguards that strike the right balance between the government's commitment to greater public accountability and transparency of Defence and the necessary protection of information provided to the committee.

This is to ensure that Australia's national security and operationally sensitive information belonging to us and that of our international partners are protected. This is critical. This is not a lack of transparency or a motivation to conceal or to hide or isolate information.

This is to protect our national security, and making critical decisions while protecting our national security is necessary and essential. Full and frank discussions cannot take place, and decisions cannot properly be made without this framework. Proceedings of the committee will not be conducted in public without the minister's approval except for proceedings relating to the annual report of the Department of Defence or the Department of Veterans' Affairs.

Evidence and documents that the committee receives in private cannot be published without consent of the person who provided that information or, in cases where it was provided by a staff member, without the consent of the head of the relevant Australian defence agency. Restrictions must also necessarily apply to the disclosure of protected information in reports by the committee to the parliament, and, quite rightly and necessarily, the bill gives special treatment to this protected information.

Protected information includes operationally sensitive information; information that would or might prejudice Australia's national security, its foreign relations or the performance of an Australian defence agency's function; and information relating to an ongoing inquiry or investigation by the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force. The power to access information is also not unfettered.

Specifically, the committee cannot require a person to disclose protected information unless the minister responsible for the Commonwealth entity from which the information originates has authorised its disclosure to the committee. The minister may also issue a certificate prohibiting the presentation of evidence or production of documents to the committee if to do so would risk the exposure of protected information.

Finally, the committee cannot publish evidence or documents containing protected information without the agreement of the minister responsible for the Commonwealth entity from which the information originates. This includes the prohibition of disclosing protected information in a report to the parliament without the agreement of the minister responsible for the Commonwealth entity in question.

Further, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence will also be responsible for monitoring and reviewing, on an ongoing basis, the Australian government's response to the findings of any royal commission inquiries relating to defence and will be charged with considering the operations, resources, independence and performance of the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force and the Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Regulator.

The purpose of this specific oversight is to ensure the independent regulators in the defence portfolio are able to fulfil their statutory functions. It will also supersede and enhance the defence related functions currently undertaken by the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade through the defence subcommittee. In terms of what the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence will not have jurisdiction over, this includes matters that currently fall within the jurisdiction of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, including oversight of those matters.

Oversight of the Australian Signals Directorate, the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation and the Defence Intelligence Organisation will remain under the colours of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, and these organisations will also continue to report through to that committee. With respect to the constitution of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence, in the same vein as the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, the Prime Minister, in consultation with the Leader of the Opposition, will appoint up to 13 members to the new committee.

This includes no more than seven government members and six non-government members from both houses of parliament. Members of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence, their staff, committee staff and any other individuals who come into possession of protected information in connection with the performance of the functions of the committee will also be subject to a range of criminal offences designed to deter them from disclosing or publishing information without specific authorisation from the relevant minister.

Offences are also in place that are directed to protecting witnesses who are requested to provide evidence or documents to the committee. These offences are reasonable, necessary and proportionate, ensuring that the committee can access the information required to exercise effective oversight of the defence portfolio while maintaining the confidentiality and security of that information.

The safeguards relating to offences and the safeguards relating to the protection of information are about ensuring that the operations and functions of the committee are underpinned by the highest standards of integrity, which the Australian public deserve. Clearly defined obligations and clearly defined consequences for breaching those obligations are essential to maintaining this integrity.

In an era of rapid geopolitical change and uncertainty, a meaningful and genuine defend-and-deter capability is critical. The ability to make decisions in our national interest following full and frank discussions and access to relevant, thorough and clear information is critical. Bipartisanship with respect to these issues is critical.

Bipartisanship with respect to the peacetime increase in Defence spending in Australia's history—providing what is now an additional $70 billion for Defence capability—is critical. Our government, the Albanese Labor government, will continue to increase Defence spending to record levels to deliver the capability that Australia needs. Parliamentary oversight, through the committee process, of the significant commitments that are being made to shore up our defence industrial base and sovereign defence capability is critical.

That means that bipartisanship with respect to the formation of this committee is critical, because it is in the interest of all Australians. This bill is a response to the longstanding recommendations to establish a defence committee. The government is motivated to keep Australians safe as our strategic environment becomes inevitably more complex and fast moving.

We need to act now to ensure that sustainable infrastructure is embedded within our parliament, to ensure that strong security is hand in glove with strong oversight and to ensure that the right balance is struck between safeguarding our national security and upholding our world-leading democracy. I commend this bill to the House.