KEY POINTS
Ian Carnell
- The scope and rigour of the office’s inspection program was expanded to complement increased activity on the part of the six intelligence and security agencies. This included scrutinising all requests by ASIO for special powers warrants, as well as all requests by ASIS and DSD for ministerial authorisations.
- Commenting on the review and amendment of legislation was a substantial and increasingly time-consuming activity for the office in 2005-06. This activity included proposing amendments to the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act 1986 (IGIS Act) and offering comments on amendments to several key Acts regulating the activities of the AIC agencies.
- I was also a member of the Security Legislation Review Committee (SLRC)
which examined, by way of public submissions and public hearings, certain anti-terrorism legislation enacted in 2002 and 2003. The SLRC was chaired by the Hon. Simon Sheller AO QC and reported to both the Attorney-General and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security in April 2006. The Parliamentary Joint Committee is now reviewing the legislation using the SLRC report as a basis for its review.
- Building on the approach taken in 2004–05, the office made frequent presentations at agency seminars and training courses and at the common AIC induction courses. In the reporting period this included addressing approximately 700 staff in the six agencies. Targeted community outreach activities were also conducted.
- The working relationship with the office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman was enhanced and a memorandum of understanding between the offices was signed on 14 December 2005 (see Annex 3).
- Around a third of the complaints to this office in 2005–06 concerned the timeliness with which ASIO was dealing with individual security assessments for immigration purposes. A substantial effort by ASIO had removed much of a backlog by the end of the reporting period.
- Complaints were received early in the reporting period concerning the overt execution of a number of ASIO entry and search warrants which received wide media attention. Investigation showed that the warrant requests fully satisfied the legislative requirements. It was reassuring that the actual execution of the warrants did not attract complaints of the type noted in previous years (see IGIS Annual Report
2003–04, pp 27–28). - A significant inquiry undertaken by the office concerned an adverse security assessment issued by ASIO in respect of a US citizen in Australia on a temporary visa (which led to his removal from Australia). Investigation showed that ASIO had met the legal requirements and there was no evidence or reason to think that the assessment had been influenced from outside ASIO. The Attorney-General publicly released an unclassified version of my report into this matter (see Annex 4).
- Inspection work showed that ASIS and DSD compliance with the Intelligence Services Act 2001 (ISA) and the associated privacy rules has been sound. In addition, DIGO is now formally subject to the ISA and implemented privacy rules (see Annex 5), while DIO and ONA established privacy guidelines administratively (see Annexes 6 and 7). This office has monitored implementation (which was done well in all three instances) and will review compliance on an ongoing basis.
- In line with recommendations from the 2004 Flood inquiry and consequential amendments to the IGIS Act, work commenced on examining the independence of ONA assessments (an outline of the principles of independence is at Annex 8). This work was ongoing at the conclusion of the reporting period.