August 8, 2023
Labor has succeeded in passing legislation to expand parliament’s most important committee, sparking claims from the Liberals that the government had done a deal that could potentially see a Greens MP appointed to the committee.
The National Security Legislation Amendment Bill passed the Senate on Tuesday, dealing mainly with recommendations from the Richardson review into the national intelligence community three years ago.
This included giving ASIO access to individuals’ expired convictions.
The government added two amendments to the bill, which increases membership of the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security from 11 to 13, and requires four members each to be drawn from the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The government said the changes were necessary because of the enormous workload of the committee but the Coalition argued the amendments had come from nowhere and were designed to allow the government to reward a crossbench MP with a committee position.
By convention, the committee has only ever had members from the two major parties – Labor and the Coalition – apart from a period in 2010-213 when Julia Gillard appointed independent Andrew Wilkie to the committee during the period she was relying on him and two others for confidence and supply while in minority government.
Mr Wilkie, a former senior analyst with the Office of National Assessments, is likely to be appointed to the committee, while Labor is thought to be considering appointing either Meryl Swanson or Luke Gosling as the second new member.
The possibility of a Greens MP being appointed down the track remains viable, with Labor and the Greens arguing that the committee should reflect the composition of the parliament.
The Greens also voted with Labor to reject two Coalition amendments, the first of which sought to kill off the proposed membership increase, and the second to restrict membership to the two major parties.
The committee, which scrutinises national security legislation and holds confidential inquiries into the operations and financial affairs of the nation’s national intelligence agencies, has always been chaired by a government member, with an opposition member as the deputy chair, and produces bipartisan reports and recommendations that are accepted by parliament.
Committee member senator James Paterson, the Coalition home affairs spokesman, said Labor needed to “come clean about their secret deal with the Greens on national security to break years of bipartisanship on the intelligence and security committee”.
“They seem determined to undermine the most functional committee of parliament which has resolved sensitive issues in the past in the national interest,’’ he said.
Labor senator Murray Watt told the Senate the committee, like all committees, should represent the composition of the parliament.
