The Canberra Times, 2 March 2018:
Wednesday, 7 March 2018
When it comes to human rights and civil liberties is it ever safe to trust the junkyard dog or its political masters?
On 18 July 2017, Prime
Minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull announced the establishment of a Home Affairs
portfolio that would comprise immigration, border protection, domestic security
and law enforcement agencies, as well as reforms to the Attorney-General’s
oversight of Australia’s intelligence community and agencies in the Home
Affairs portfolio.
On 7 December 2017, the Prime Minister
introduced the Home Affairs and Integrity Agencies Legislation Amendment Bill2017 into the House of Representatives.
This bill amends the Anti-Money
Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006, the Independent
National Security Legislation Monitor Act 2010, the Inspector-General
of Intelligence and Security Act 1986 and the Intelligence Services Act 2001.
The bill was referred to Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security which tabled its report and recommendations on 26 February 2018.
This new government department on steroids will be headed by millionaire former Queensland Police detective and far-right Liberal MP for Dickson, Peter Craig Dutton.
His 'front man' selling this change is Abbott protégé, former Secretary
of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection and current Secretary of the new Department of Home Affairs, Michael Pezzullo.
The question every Australian needs to ask themselves is, can this current federal government, the ministers responsible for and department heads managing this extremely powerful department, be trusted not to dismantle a raft of human and civil rights during the full departmental implementation.
It looks suspiciously as though former Australian attorney-general George Brandis does not think so - he is said to fear political overreach.
The
Saturday Paper,
3-9 March 2018:
On
Friday last week, former attorney-general George Brandis went to see Michael
Pezzullo, the secretary of the new Department of Home Affairs.
The
meeting was a scheduled consultation ahead of Brandis’s departure for London to
take up his post as Australia’s new high commissioner. It was cordial, even
friendly. But what the soon-to-be diplomat Brandis did not tell Pezzullo during
the pre-posting briefing was that he had singled him out in a private farewell
speech he had given to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation on the
eve of his retirement from parliament two weeks earlier.
As
revealed in The Saturday Paper last week, the then senator Brandis
used the ASIO speech to raise concerns about the power and scope of the new
department and the ambitions of its secretary. Brandis effectively endorsed the
private concerns of some within ASIO that the new security structure could
expose the domestic spy agency to ministerial or bureaucratic pressure.
In
a regular Senate estimates committee hearing this week, Pezzullo described his
meeting with Brandis – on the day before The Saturday Paper article
appeared – as Opposition senators asked him for assurances that ASIO would
retain its statutory independence once it moves from the attorney-general’s
portfolio to become part of Home Affairs.
“I
had a very good discussion on Friday,” Pezzullo told the committee, of his
meeting with Brandis.
“He’s
seeking instructions and guidance on performing the role of high commissioner.
None of those issues came up, so I find that of interest. If he has concerns,
I’m sure that he would himself raise those publicly.”
Labor
senator Murray Watt pressed: “So he raised them with ASIO but not with you?”
“I
don’t know what he raised with ASIO,” Pezzullo responded. “… You should ask the
former attorney-general if he’s willing to state any of those concerns … He’s a
high commissioner now, so he may not choose to edify your question with a
response, but that’s a matter for him. As I said, he didn’t raise any of those
concerns with me when we met on Friday.”
The
Saturday Paper contacted George Brandis but he had no comment.
“ANY
SUGGESTION THAT WE IN THE PORTFOLIO ARE SOMEHOW EMBARKED ON THE SECRET
DECONSTRUCTION OF THE SUPERVISORY CONTROLS WHICH ENVELOP AND CHECK EXECUTIVE
POWER ARE NOTHING MORE THAN FLIGHTS OF CONSPIRATORIAL FANCY…”
Watt
asked Pezzullo for assurance there would be no change to the longstanding
provisions in the ASIO Act that kept the agency under its director-general’s
control and not subject to instruction from the departmental secretary. The
minister representing Home Affairs in the Senate, Communications Minister Mitch
Fifield, said: “It is not proposed that there be a change to that effect.”
The
new Department of Home Affairs takes in Immigration and Border Protection, the
Australian Federal Police, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, the
Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, known as AUSTRAC, and ASIO.
ASIO
does not move until legislation is passed to authorise the shift, and will
retain its status as a statutory agency.
Pezzullo
addressed the fears of those questioning his department’s reach. He said some
commentary mischaracterised the arrangements as “being either a layer of overly
bureaucratic oversight of otherwise well-functioning operational arrangements
or, worse, a sinister concentration of executive power that will not be able to
be supervised and checked”.
“Both
of these criticisms are completely wrong,” he said.
Pezzullo
had already described his plans, both to the committee and in a speech he made
in October last year, in which he spoke of exploiting the in-built capabilities
in digital technology to expand Australia’s capacity to detect criminal and
terrorist activity in daily life online and on the so-called “dark web”.
But
the language he used, referring to embedding “the state” invisibly in global
networks “increasingly at super scale and at very high volumes”, left his
audiences uncertain about exactly what he meant.
Watt
asked if there would be increased surveillance of the Australian people. “Any
surveillance of citizens is always strictly done in accordance with the laws
passed by this parliament,” Pezzullo replied.
In
his February 7 speech to ASIO, George Brandis described Pezzullo’s October
remarks as an “urtext”, or blueprint, for a manifesto that would rewrite how
Australia’s security apparatus operates.
Pezzullo
hit back on Monday. “Any suggestion that we in the portfolio are somehow
embarked on the secret deconstruction of the supervisory controls which envelop
and check executive power are nothing more than flights of conspiratorial fancy
that read into all relevant utterances the master blueprint of a new ideology
of undemocratic surveillance and social control,” Pezzullo said.
As for day to day human resources, financial management and transparent accountable governance, media reports are not inspiring confidence in Messrs. Turnbull, Dutton and Pezzullo.
The Canberra Times, 2 March 2018:
The Canberra Times, 2 March 2018:
Home Affairs head Mike
Pezzullo was one of the first to front Senate estimates on Monday.
It's been up and running
for only weeks, but his new department is part of one of the largest government
portfolios.
Having brought
several security agencies into its fold, and if legislation passes letting ASIO
join, the Home Affairs portfolio will be home to 23,000 public
servants.
Mr Pezzullo was also
quizzed on the investigation into Roman Quaedvlieg, the head of
the Australian Border Force who has been on leave since May last year,
following claims he helped his girlfriend - an ABF staff member - get a
job at Sydney Airport.
It was revealed the Prime Minister's department has had a corruption watchdog's
report into abuse of power allegations for at least five months
while Mr Quaedvlieg has been on full pay earning hundreds of thousands of
dollars.
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