The politicians who ushered in these powerful new national security laws proved this week that they remain wholly ignorant on the issue, writes Michael Bradley.

Where we now stand with the debate on Australia's national security laws was starkly highlighted on Q&A on Monday night.

Government MP Kelly O'Dwyer and shadow education minister Kate Ellis, who both voted in favour of the recently passed laws giving ASIO wide new powers, demonstrated pretty comprehensively that they don't know or understand what those laws actually do.

You can judge them by their own words.

KELLY O'DWYER (responding to comments by Greg Sheridan on the new s35P of the ASIO Act, which makes it an offence to disclose information relating to a special intelligence operation):

It applies to anybody who recklessly or deliberately discloses a special intelligence operation and there are some protections in place, Tony. The protections that are put in place are that we have the same whistleblower provisions that are in existence for intelligence organisations. It is oversighted by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security.

Untrue. The whistleblower protections have no application here and do not protect a journalist or anyone else who makes a disclosure caught by s35P. Further, the existence of special intelligence operations are required to be reported to the Inspector-General, but he or she has no oversight function in respect of them and no role to play regarding s35P.

KATE ELLIS (on s35P):

Because when Greg said this is about preventing a Snowden case and covering up secrets, that's rubbish.

Untrue. Any journalist or anyone else who published information leaked by Snowden, if it related to a special intelligence operation, would almost certainly commit an offence under s35P.

KATE ELLIS (on s35P):

It means that under the laws now you cannot be prosecuted for inadvertently revealing this. You have to actually recognise that there is a real risk and that an ASIO officer's life could be in jeopardy as a result of it and you have to decide to do it anyway.

Untrue. Section 35P says nothing of the sort, there is no requirement that anyone's life is in jeopardy for the offence to be committed. This one is just fiction.

KATE ELLIS (on s35P):

On top of that - on top of that the Director of Public Prosecutions has been asked to look at the public interest and ensure that the journalist is not operating in the public interest and if they were, then they've been advised that they should not be prosecuted.

Misleading. As a sop to the Joint Committee which considered the bill, an express requirement was added to the explanatory memorandum that the DPP consider the public interest before launching a prosecution. This is no more than a restatement of the DPP's duty in any prosecution, and it gives no guidance or advice as to when he or she should prosecute.

Later, there was a discussion about ASIO's new power to not only monitor, but to "add, copy, delete or alter" data on any computer or device it is monitoring.

KELLY O'DWYER:

Yeah. Well, look, I don't accept the premise of the question. Certainly ASIO can have a look at materials, unbeknownst to the person whose materials they might be looking at, and they can go in and it's under warrant, so there are some protections around that, to actually have a look.

TONY JONES:

But your own law says "add, copy, delete or alter." I mean add, delete or alter information inside a citizen's computer, isn't that the power we're talking about?

KELLY O'DWYER:

Well, my understanding is that the premise of the question is not correct and instead what ASIO can do is they can gather information that an individual may have on various systems, including their electronic systems, and that they can gather that information unbeknownst to the individual. They can access that if they are concerned, for instance, that that individual may be engaged in some activity that could cause harm to the nation or to citizens.

TONY JONES:

Is this one of the problems that we find when new laws and new powers like this are brought in or contemplated being brought in without a proper debate about what they actually mean? Because we seem to have a difference of opinion about that?

KELLY O'DWYER:

Well, we have a difference of opinion but it has been properly oversighted. There has been an inquiry that's actually looked...

TONY JONES:

But you still haven't explained those words?

KELLY O'DWYER:

Yes, well, I...

JULIAN BURNSIDE:

She didn't know they were there and the premise is right.

I can't put it any better or more succinctly than Julian Burnside did.

How delicious that the usual Left vs Right Q&A divide should have been so turned on its head that the right wing journalist Greg Sheridan and libertarian QC Julian Burnside found themselves allied against the united front of the Liberal and Labor parties.

It'd be nice to think that our politicians might pay a little more attention to the next round of intelligence laws now before the Parliament, but nothing in the public debate should give us much confidence that they will.

Michael Bradley is the managing partner of Marque Lawyers, a boutique Sydney law firm. View his full profile here.