New laws set to be passed by Canberra this week will make it a crime for the media to disclose the death of an innocent bystander caught up in a bungled covert spy agency operation, the government's dumped independent national security legislation monitor has warned.

It comes as shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus told ABC TV that he could not be "absolutely certain" journalists or whistleblowers disclosing bungled operations publicly would not face up to 10 years' jail.

"I can't be absolutely certain but what I can be certain of is that Labor is going to be monitoring how these provisions work in practice, and I'd stress again, we are talking about quite a small number of operations that are ever likely to be special intelligence operations," Mr Dreyfus said on Tuesday.

Under the new laws, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation officers will now have greater immunity from prosecution if they commit a crime in the course of a "special intelligence operation".