Sky News' David Speers was just as confused as George Brandis after the Attorney-General struggled to explain the concept of 'metadata' live on air.

COALITION and Labor numbers will push through laws to collect and store details of our private online and phone traffic but not before rebel senators demand answers to some tough questions.

Legislation to keep metadata – the who-when-where of our messages but not the contents – for two years has been recommended by crime and terrorism fighters as crucial to keeping the nation safe.

But the Greens and some cross-bench senators won’t make passage easy. Debate in the House of Representatives is still underway and the Senate might not see the legislation until next week.

It’s a “fascist, Orwellian and mass surveillance scheme” said Greens Senator Scott Ludlam while Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm, who will support 14 amendments, believes “there are massive problems that should concern all of us.

Here are six questions the Government will have to answer:

WHY TWO YEARS?

Senator Leyonhjelm will move amendments to limit storage to three months, but police and national security advisers have told the Government the two year period is essential if patterns of criminal behaviour are to be detected among terrorists and within child sex gangs.

“The most serious and complex cases, such as terrorism, espionage, organised crime, financial crime and public corruption, involve lengthy investigations,” says the Attorney-General’s Department.

“There are also many crimes, such as sexual assault, which are often not brought to the attention of authorities until long after they occurred.”

WHO PAYS?

The scheme will cost around $400 million and is being portrayed as an extra one per cent tax on the telecommunications industry. If the Government doesn’t cover the cost, consumers most likely will.

The Government will be asked to at least cover some costs of the program.

“This is a very significant amount of money. Telcos are already some of the most highly regulated firms in the country,” said the Institute of Public Affairs.

“ (Communications Minister Malcolm) Turnbull has suggested Government will contribute substantially to the cost of implementing data retention. But whether we pay for data retention through internet bills or just general taxation, we’ll still pay for it.

“This new burden could dramatically reshape the telecommunications sector. All else being equal, large firms, with their well-established regulatory teams, are able to comply with new regulation much easier than small firms, which lack the economies of scale to absorb costs.”

CAN’T COLLECTION BE AVOIDED?

Messages can be avoided collection by using the likes of Skype, Confide and Wickr which don’t provide metadata.

“To this we must say that the fact that a proposal does not do everything does not mean that it does not do some things of value,” Labor’s Tim Watts told Parliament.

Further, argues Mr Watts, it should be acknowledged most criminals are dumb and so likely to not use devices which could dodge surveillance.

SHOULD THE ACCC HAVE ACCESS?

Under existing metadata laws some 80 government organisations can dip into the material and in 2012-13 there were 312,929 authorisations for this.

The number has been cut to 20, including ASIO, Federal and State police, the Crime Commission, Customs and Border Protection and state-based anti-corruption bodies. But also the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, hardly a front-line anti-terrorist organisation.

The Government will be asked to explain why a primarily economic body needs to be on the list when it already has large powers, in some areas greater than those of criminal law enforcement.

It’s to fight cartels, says the commission. “Most of our cartel cases we have got hold of phone records. So, you need that,” said ACCC chairman Rod Sims.

But the Institute of Public Affairs has said: “Indeed, over the half a decade that data retention has been debated, its most fervent advocates have been economic regulators, not counter-terror agencies.”

METADATA HONEYPOTS?

The fear is that internet service providers will take the cheapest options for storage, which could mean outsourcing to overseas companies.

This could make them vulnerable to misuse and hacking. The Greens will ask that all storage be in Australia.

This underlines a broader fear that hackers will see a way to make money out of these information honeypots and break into the metadata stores.

WHO WILL BE WATCHDOG?

The legislation allows for regular review of the storage measures and their effectiveness by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, but that’s not acceptable to some.

Senator Leyonhjelm will argue this gives all say tom the major parties and shut out the minor parties and independents.

He wants a sunset clause – meaning the storage laws will end in three years at which point they will be reviewed by the PJCIS with a report to Parliament.

That way, the cross-bench senators would be able to vote on resumption or abandonment of the laws.

Either way, the parliamentary committee will be demanding all agencies present their records on metadata use, which could add to the regulation of the laws and additional costs.