Mr WETTENHALL (21 May 2009) (10.09 am): I rise to speak in support of the
Telecommunications Interception Bill 2009. In doing so, I acknowledge that it would have been much more difficult for me to support legislation of this kind if it had not contained the important safeguard of the involvement of the Public Interest Monitor.

In essence, the point of difference between members opposite and government members in this debate has been the issue of the Public Interest Monitor.

The bill will enable the Queensland Police Service and the Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission to take up and utilise Commonwealth powers to intercept telephone calls. I have detected no disagreement among members who have participated in the debate so far about the utility of those powers as an effective tool in investigating serious crime.

But, of course, they come at a price and the price is that it is a very significant and serious invasion of the privacy of individuals. That is why it is so important that there are proper safeguards put in place for the use of those powers in addition to the scrutiny that will be brought to bear by the judiciary of applications for warrants for the use of interception on telephones.

We have heard a lot about the delay and the debate about this issue that has occurred over a long period. The members opposite have ascribed blame for that delay on successive Labor governments. The real reason there has been a delay is the stubborn and unreasonable failure of the previous federal Howard Liberal National Party coalition government to accommodate the legitimate concerns of the
Queensland Labor government to have incorporated in this important legislation public interest safeguards in the form of a Public Interest Monitor.

The members opposite have lined up one after the other in this debate to criticise successive Labor governments for insisting on that important safeguard. They have
even gone so far as to make emotive claims about how lives would have been lost in consequence of the absence of law enforcement agencies in Queensland to have the ability to tap telephones.

I wonder how many-if any-of the members opposite, who had the opportunity over the course of the past decade, ever bothered to pick up their pen and write to the former Prime Minister, or write to the former federal Attorneys-General and urge them to incorporate and amend the relevant federal legislation to enable the concerns of the successive Queensland Labor governments to have that safeguard incorporated. I would hazard a guess that not one of them bothered to pick up their pen, not one of them bothered to pick up the phone and speak to the federal Attorneys-General who were in charge of this area of important legislation, or the Prime Minister. If they had, you would have thought that they might have mentioned that fact during the course of this debate. But not one has.
Honourable members interjected.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Wendt): Order! There will be no discussions across the chamber. All discussions should come through the chair. I remind all members.
Mr WETTENHALL: So all of the missed opportunities to bust serious crime in this state that the members opposite have today ascribed to the absence of telephone-tapping powers could have been overcome had any one of them been able to persuade their conservative federal counterparts that a simple amendment to the Commonwealth legislation would have opened the gate to complementary legislation in Queensland. It was a simple amendment.

As soon as Labor came to power federally, an approach was made by Premier Bligh to have these powers incorporated in federal legislation and it was done. It could
have been done a long time ago if any of the posturing members opposite had bothered to take up that cause.

What an inconsistent approach we have heard from the members opposite in this debate. Some of them say that the PIM is the best thing since sliced bread. Others-the majority of them, I would have to say-have characterised it as window-dressing, a waste of time and not really needed. I wonder if any of them have bothered to read the annual reports of the Public Interest Monitor in Queensland, who reports to
this parliament on the exercise of the powers that are given to the Public Interest Monitor in connection with state legislation and state law enforcement agencies. If they had, they would have acknowledged and been in a position to understand and make a more meaningful contribution to this debate about the very important role that the Public Interest Monitor has proven to play through the exercise of similar powers
that we have insisted, as a government, be incorporated in federal legislation in relation to state legislation.

These are no mere technicalities. If members read the annual reports or the periodic records that are tabled in this parliament from the Public Interest Monitor, they would see that it is clear that the Public Interest Monitor plays a very important role and exercises very real safeguards for the citizens of this state, which the citizens of this state want, expect and deserve this parliament to ensure, as it is doing through
this legislation.

For example, in the Public Interest Monitor's annual report for 2007-08, it was noted that there were breaches of warrant conditions on some eight files. The Public Interest Monitor also reports that one Queensland Police Service application was opposed outright by the Public Interest Monitor and subsequently refused by the Supreme Court judge who heard the matter.

The Public Interest Monitor also notes that there had been several applications where the Public Interest Monitor had made submissions opposing some part of the application resulting in changes being made to the warrant conditions from
those being sought by the QPS and the CMC.

Also, as has been noted in the Public Interest Monitor's periodic reports, breaches of lesser significance have been noted. The Public Interest Monitor concluded that both the front-end and the back-end monitoring functions of the Public Interest Monitor continue to be valuable features of the criminal justice system in this place.

In the 2006-07 report, the Public Interest Monitor stated- Discharge of the Public Interest Monitor's functions requires a delicate balancing of two competing facets of public interest. The first is the public interest in ensuring that serious criminal conduct is detected, prevented and made the subject of successful prosecution by
our law enforcement and prosecutorial authorities, particularly during a time of rapid technological change. The second, and no less important, is that fundamental rights of individual members of our community, such as the right to privacy, are respected and interfered with as little as possible in the process of detecting, preventing and punishing that serious criminal conduct.

In addition, a commitment to the principle that independent accountability of our law enforcement agencies strengthens the fabric of our democratic society and aids the rule of law has been central to the creation of the office and the discharge of its functions.

Quite obviously, not one member opposite who has contributed to this debate has read any of the periodic reports that the Public Interest Monitor presents to this parliament. The Public Interest Monitor went on to note that on a number of occasions in the relevant reporting period witnesses and applicants had been questioned by the Public Interest Monitor and that the Public Interest Monitor and the applicants'
representatives, in discussions and negotiations, had been able to reach agreement prior to the matter being heard by the judicial officer on modified positions. All of that has been characterised in the debate by members opposite as window-dressing, as the government hiding behind this ruse of the Public Interest Monitor, as the member for Toowoomba South said, exercising some left wing sort of conspiracy. What a
lot of nonsense.

There are further examples of why the Public Interest Monitor is such an important safeguard. Again, in the 2006-07 report, it was noted that the recording of a telephone conversation between a target and a solicitor was inadvertently monitored in breach of standard warrant conditions preventing monitoring of conversations between targets and their legal advisers. As these examples demonstrate, the role and function of the Public Interest Monitor is no mere window-dressing, as members opposite have tried to characterise it.

There are other reasons why it is important that the Public Interest Monitor is involved at the application stage to ensure that applications are made and determined strictly in accordance with the way that both this parliament and the Commonwealth parliament have set out. There are very limited opportunities for those affected or named as targets in warrants or affected by their execution to challenge
the validity of those warrants in court or the grounds on which those warrants have been issued.

As the Public Interest Monitor observed in his 2005-06 report-Given the difficulties in practice of going behind the face of the warrant the fundamental rights of the individual are therefore best protected by attempting to ensure the process is as correct as possible at the application stage.

That is not to say that the Public Interest Monitors are in some way an advocate for the absent party. Rather, it is to recognise a practical limitation of the process that
impacts on the balancing process. The Public Interest Monitor has developed a practice revealed in the periodic reports to the parliament of resolving issues with the applicant's representative, of being involved at various stages of the applications made to the court, of having an overview of the operations in a way that some judicial officers would not in order to be of real assistance in developing best practice and also to the judicial officers who determine the applications.

Members opposite have, at best, ignored these very real and practical functions that the Public Interest Monitor does perform and the way in which the Public Interest Monitor will be called upon to perform under this bill. More worrying and more disappointingly, they fail to understand the importance of the Public Interest Monitor and the role it will play under this legislation.

With those few remarks, I commend the bill to the House.