Crimes and Other Legislation Amendment (Omnibus No. 1) Bill 2026
Senator SHOEBRIDGE (New South Wales) (18:26): by leave—I move amendments (1) to (7) on sheet 3790 together: (1) Schedule 1, item 13, page 6 (line 7), omit "4 September 2029", substitute "1 July 2027". (2) Schedule 1, item 14, page 6 (line 10), omit "4 September 2029", substitute "1 July 2027". (3) Schedule 1, item 15, page 6 (line 20), omit "4 September 2029", substitute "1 July 2027".
(4) Schedule 1, item 19, page 8 (line 24), omit "4 September 2029", substitute "1 July 2027". (5) Schedule 1, item 22, page 9 (line 3), omit "4 September 2029", substitute "1 July 2027". (6) Schedule 1, item 23, page 9 (line 6), omit "4 September 2029", substitute "1 July 2027".
(7) Schedule 1, item 28, page 10 (line 3), omit "4 September 2029", substitute "1 July 2027". These amendments together are designed to bring forward the sunset date for the account takeover, data disruption and network activity warrants. Under the government's bill, the proposal is to have that sunset provision which would otherwise kick in in a few months extended until the middle of 2029.
As always with this parliament, the sun never seems to set on covert surveillance powers, on additional powers that are given to ASIO. These powers are acknowledged by the INSLM, the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, to be extraordinary powers. The INSLM has said that there is a small handful of cases where they can occasionally be of use to the AFP and ASIO.
It delivered that report to parliament more than 12 months ago. But what the INSLM also said is that those powers absolutely should come with a raft of additional protections. Perhaps one of the most important protections, the INSLM said, is that when these applications are being assessed in chambers, not in open court, there needs to be someone to contest them and to test them.
It should not just be done between a judge or retired judge or AAT tribunal member on one side and the AFP or ASIO on the other, all done in secret, all done on the papers, without anyone contesting it. The INSLM has said that someone needs to test this stuff. From my experience at a state level in New South Wales, there are compelling reasons to ensure that this kind of material is tested.
There was a five-year-long ombudsman investigation in New South Wales into a police bugging scandal. Under New South Wales state law, the police could apply to the New South Wales supreme court for a covert surveillance warrant, and they would produce affidavits. When they started doing these applications for covert surveillance warrants, initially the applications were 10 pages long, and then the affidavits became 20 pages long, and then they became 50 pages long.
By the time it got to 2015 or 2016, there were 200 or 300 pages of affidavits of abstract technical data—long, meandering affidavits seeking to justify, on one occasion, from memory, some 60 individual people to be targeted with covert warrants in a single affidavit and a single application that went to be sighted by a Supreme Court judge in chambers with nobody testing it.
What had developed was a tick-and-flick culture with a couple of judges that would just do these applications, feeling very comfortable with them—'I've read this affidavit before. No worries. Bang, tick and flick'—giving the New South Wales police the power to covertly bug, basically, 60 people in a single go.
The reason that became a scandal in New South Wales was because one part of the police force was using these secret bugging warrants to have a go at another part of the police force, and it ended up being used repeatedly to try and knock off contestants you thought might be going for your same deputy commissioner job. It was all happening in secret. The people who were being targeted by the covert warrants didn't even know it was happening.
They'd turn up at a function with maybe 120 current and former police officers giving someone's farewell. Three people at the function might know that the covert warrants are happening and they're bugging 20 or 30 other police officers, all to try and knock off your opponent so you could be the next deputy commissioner. If you have an interest in this, you can have a look at Operation Prospect and the scandal that was the way in which those covert warrants operated.
With that kind of history, the INSLM has said you can't just have these things operating as a quiet, clubby engagement between the AFP and some member of the AAT or ASIO and some member of the AAT happening in chambers, nobody testing it, just this tick and flick. You can't do that. You need a public interest monitor—somebody who is there to test the applications, test whether or not the scope of what is being sought is reasonable and be willing to say to the police and the tribunal: 'Actually, hang on.
You are going way too far. How could you possibly justify this affidavit targeting 60 or 70 people in a single warrant?' That's the experience that I've seen at a state level, and it's reflected in what the INSLM is saying here: put a public interest monitor in. So, Minister, firstly, is your government aware of that experience in New South Wales in covert warrants in the absence of a public interest monitor?
Secondly, is this government committed to putting a public interest monitor in, or are you quite comfortable with this just being a clubby operation between the AFP, ASIO and the tribunal?