The Turnbull government’s pledges to strengthen oversight of Australia’s spy agencies have been thrown into question by a top bureaucrat’s admission he was wrong to assure Parliament that a committee of MPs would be given more power to scrutinise the agencies.

Nearly a year after the release of an extensive review of the intelligence community by former top officials Michael L’Estrange and Stephen Merchant, the government has still not said whether it will adopt the review’s recommendations to expand the role of one of the key oversight bodies - a cross-party committee of lawmakers.

No decision: Attorney-General Christian Porter. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The expansion would mean MPs have a greater say in probing the operations of intelligence agencies such as ASIO and ASIS, not just the legislation covering them and the funding they receive.

In October, Allan McKinnon, the deputy secretary for national security in Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s department, told a Senate estimates hearing that all the recommendations of the 2017 Independent Intelligence Review were being implemented with only a couple of slight changes.