Secrecy Provisions Amendment (Sunsetting Provision) Bill 2026

Senator SHOEBRIDGE (New South Wales) (11:17): We're here debating the Secrecy Provisions Amendment (Sunsetting Provision) Bill 2026 literally at midnight before the provisions expire, because Labor has again failed to meet the moment on secrecy reviews and on transparency. Labor have again failed to live up to the promise they made in 2022 that they would be at least marginally better than the Morrison government on secrecy and transparency.

It's turned out that, actually, the Labor Albanese government is even worse than the Morrison government on both secrecy and transparency. We're here extending these secrecy provisions by another six months. The Greens won't oppose this, because this allows some cross-party and good-faith discussions about the far more important fundamental secrecy reforms.

There are the recommendations from the INSLM, the recommendations from civil society and the recommendations from whistleblower groups; those reforms are essential. But what did Labor do? Labor decided to bring forward one of the most ill-conceived packages to parliament, with a piece of legislation that went to a Labor-dominated committee.

If you read the report from that Labor-dominated committee—the majority report, not the dissenting report from the Greens or from the coalition—it says that bill was fine and it should be passed, even though there's not a single stakeholder who says that. What did Labor propose to do? Labor has a secrecy fetish.

They have an even worse secrecy fetish than Scott Morrison had. Labor had a proposal to get rid of 300 secrecy provisions across multiple different parts of the statute book, and they picked 300 provisions that had never been used. They said, 'Okay, we'll get rid of those and we'll turn them into a general duty to maintain confidentiality.' In return for getting rid of 300 basically dead-letter provisions, Labor said what they now want to introduce is a new, catch-all secrecy provision that would put criminal penalties for breaching government secrecy not just on members of the Public Service but on pretty much anyone who consulted with or engaged with the Public Service.

Not only did they propose a big, new, catch-all secrecy provision—and they said that they were doing it to implement the INSLM's recommendations—but they seem to forget a series of key elements of what the INSLM was proposing. The INSLM said that, yes, hundreds of secrecy offences should be wiped off the statute books and replaced with, instead of criminal penalties, general duties of confidentiality.

Then the INSLM said there should be then put in place a broader secrecy offence but that secrecy offence needs to have checks and balances in it. It needs to properly protect journalists, it needs to properly protect whistleblowers, it needs to have a public interest element in it and it needs to have a harm threshold before people go to jail for breaching Labor's big, new, catch-all secrecy offence.

What did Labor do? Labor put in place, or proposed, a big, new, catch-all secrecy offence but completely failed to implement any of those checks and balances that the INSLM recommended. They thought that they could just bluster on through with this piece of legislation.

They took it to the committee, and, even when every single stakeholder who engaged with that committee said, 'Yes, we kind of support the idea of getting rid of 300 secrecy offences, but you can't implement this big, new, catch-all like you're doing,' Labor then writes a report that says it's all fine—nothing to see here—that the parliament should just push it through and that there's broad support.

Did the Attorney-General not read any of the submissions? Probably, the Attorney didn't. But did nobody in the Attorney-General's department actually read the submissions which said civil society hated this reform?

It's one of these moments where, thankfully, every other political party, that I can tell, in this chamber has said to Labor: 'No, we're not going to support your big, new secrecy offence. We're not just going to waft it on through so that you can put more David McBrides in jail and more Richard Boyles in jail—more whistleblowers in jail—and then extend your ability to put people in jail not just from the Public Service but from, maybe, environmental groups or civil society groups who engage with you too, if you've given them secret information and they share it.' We're not going to do that, so the Attorney-General's cunning plan to create Labor's big, new, catch-all secrecy offence has died.

It has run into the inevitable brick wall that comes when you bring a piece of legislation in that has no friends. That legislation and reform has died. So then what happens?

Then, unless they urgently now extend the sunset on these other Commonwealth secrecy provisions, there'll be no statutory controls in place. So here we are in a muddle and a mess completely of Labor's creation because Labor has a fetish for secrecy—to hide what they're doing from the public and to attack anybody who dares blow the whistle on their government, tell the truth about what's going on in the Labor government or disclose what's happening in the defence department or the tax office or Australia Post.

Because they are so keen to stifle any kind of dissent or whistleblowing, they've got themselves into yet another muddle, just like they did with their FOI reforms that came into this chamber without a single friend outside of the Labor Party—just like they did with the FOI reforms, thinking that some cunning plan in the Attorney-General's office to hack into transparency or to hack into FOI would somehow magically pass this Senate.

It's about time Labor learnt that the public actually cares about access to government information. It's about time the Labor Party learnt that their promises in 2022 about being transparent are now ringing incredibly hollow with the Australian public. It's about time Labor learnt that, if you want to have actual reform in this space, then maybe the Attorney-General should pick up the phone and talk with at least one person outside of the Labor Party before you bring the next cunning plan into the Senate.

With those brief comments, we indicate we won't be opposing this, because this gives six months for that kind of good faith negotiation to happen, so we can come forward with a plan that doesn't double down on Labor's horrible record of jailing whistleblowers, crunching the public service and threatening them if they dare go and tell the public. It gives six months to learn those lessons, and I hope Labor does.