Espionage, foreign interference and Australia’s national security laws

And how does it get tabled in parliament? And how do you protect some of those issues that the intelligence community, for example, would be very concerned about?

Yeah.

I do have the ability to give a classified report, but I do think fundamentally law reform is a public process.

And so while I take classified evidence, I'll summarize it in the reports and I'll show the agencies how I've summarized it and make sure that they're comfortable with that and listen to any objections they have before I provide it to the attorney.

And for example, in the espionage review, you know, the agencies made some claims in their public statement and I said, okay, show me the intelligence that backs that up.

I want to see the actual reports.

I want to see the intelligence.

And then I can say something general in my report, whether the intelligence supported or didn't support the claims they made.

And that's all I need to say.

I don't need to say where it came from or what the source was.

So I think I'm trusted both by the agencies and by civil society groups to be able to communicate the things that we need to, to get the law reformed.

And are those civil society groups comfortable with this idea that you're the bridge between them and the intelligence agencies?

Look, you'd have to ask them.

And the security agencies? You'd have to ask them.

But what they certainly tell me is that they welcome engagement.

And they welcome the opportunity to sit down with someone who is part of the national security architecture, someone whose role is, you know, I have an independent role, I'm appointed by the governor general, but I'm part of that architecture of national security.

But my job is to listen and to carefully consider all of those things.

So I've had really positive and constructive engagement.

You know, my office is very small and I leverage the expertise of these non-government groups and take their views and their advice very seriously.

So what surprised you most when you first came into the role?

how much you can do with such a small team.

So I'm the first full-time monitor.

All my predecessors were part-time.

They were generally barristers or retired judges.

I come from a government background.