DOCUMENTS

Senator WALSH (Victoria—Minister for Early Childhood Education and Minister for Youth) (17:36): I seek leave to make a short statement. Leave granted. Senator WALSH: The government will be opposing this motion.

The longstanding practice of governments is to not release national security documents. There is a strong and clear public interest in ensuring documents prepared for government by intelligence and security agencies are not publicly available. In this government's view, it is irresponsible to suggest this should not be the case.

While the government respects the Senate and its processes, the government has consistently claimed public interest immunity on the release of these documents, on the basis that the disclosure of these documents would or might reasonably be expected to be damaging to Australia's national security. The PRESIDENT: The question is that general business notice of motion No. 278, standing in the name of Senator Chandler, be agreed to.