Prime minister asked by Labor if he or his office played any role in the leaking of a confidential AFP report on encryption laws

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Labor has blasted Scott Morrison, suggesting he played a role in leaking a confidential police submission to parliament’s intelligence committee, an accusation the prime minister attempted to brush off as a “grubby smear”.

With the major parties trading blows about the Coalition’s bill to give security agencies access to encrypted communications, but also negotiating behind the scenes in an effort to land an outcome, Labor used question time on Monday to up the ante with the prime minister.

Morrison was asked whether he could guarantee that neither he or his office played any role in the leaking of a confidential AFP submission referenced in an article in the Australian newspaper, with the opposition pointing out that unauthorised disclosure was a criminal offence.

The AFP later confirmed it had made a supplementary submission to the parliamentary committee on intelligence and security on 29 November. It said “the submission was not operationally sensitive or security classified” but did not address the issue of confidentiality.

Labor dissent on encryption bill a rare break in security bipartisanship Read more

Labor directed questions to both Morrison and the attorney general, Christian Porter, about the apparent leak, with Morrison telling parliament he found the suggestions “offensive”.

Porter told parliament he was unaware whether the AFP advice to the committee was a confidential communication or not. “I simply cannot answer,” he said.

The attorney general said he would speak to the AFP commissioner to determine the nature of the advice. “If [the commissioner] takes the view that some action should be taken I will of course listen to that view.”

Porter blasted the shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, who led the questioning in parliament for being more concerned with “smearing the prime minister” than about “the national security of Australians who face terrorist attacks”.

Earlier, Porter and Dreyfus resumed negotiations on the telecommunications assistance and access bill after Labor warned on Friday it might issue a dissenting report on the normally bipartisan parliamentary intelligence and security committee.

But after question time Porter publicly rejected Labor demands to pass an interim encryption bill extending new powers only for the investigation of the most serious crimes, warning the opposition the whole bill will be put to parliament this week.

Labor wants the committee to issue an interim report recommending passage of the new powers – but only for investigation of terrorist offences and child sex crimes – while it further scrutinises the bill.

It also wants greater judicial oversight and clarity to ensure tech companies cannot be required to introduce “systemic weaknesses” in products after widespread criticism from industry players who fear it will open backdoors in their products.

On Monday afternoon Porter said the main issues between the parties were whether state police should gain powers to order tech companies to help break encryption, “the types of offences that the notice powers would apply to” and the “authorisation processes” before notices are issued.

“We’re not having any interim agreements,” Porter told Sky News. “There’ll be a bill put before parliament and the bill with either be agreed or it won’t be agreed, but we will be dealing with this this week.”

Porter queried why Labor would support a bill “that says it’s necessary and appropriate to protect Australians” when the AFP and Asio order companies to assist decryption “but it’s not at the same time reasonable for state police to also have that assistance”. He noted state police forces also had counter-terrorism units and argued they needed the same powers.

“There’s no point in allowing half of our law enforcement agencies to be able to have this assistance in investigating terrorism, but not the other half.”

Porter warned if parts of the bill were “held in abeyance ... a whole range of offences couldn’t utilise these powers to be investigated”.

“You’d effectively be passing half a regime, which would be totally ineffective. I mean, this bill operates as a conjunctive whole. So what we are trying to do is have a whole bill.”

Porter dismissed the Senate president Scott Ryan’s warning that the covert surveillance powers would undermine parliamentarians’ ability to keep their work secret from police as “very much a side issue”.

He said the complaint could be dealt with by adding a requirement that notice be given to the president and speaker of the lower house.