Supplementary Submission 7.1 to Submission 7 - Submission to Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security Inquiry - Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill 2020 (Cth) (Submission 7.1)

Abstract

<p><b>The Hansard transcript of the hearings of the P JCIS on the Bill on Friday 30 October 2020</b> at pages 1-14 has various contestable claims about the supposed ordinariness of an ASIO questioning watTant on the significantly expanded matters relevant to security included in the Bill - espionage, acts of foreign interference and politically motivated violence.</p> <p>It subsequently associates those claims with two points:</p> <ol><li> range of other Commonwealth authorities enabled to require persons to attend for questioning based on an internal authorisation only (with the exception of the Australian Building and Construction Commission) (and thereby in1plicitly elevating the executive office of the Attorney General as the issuing authority for a questioning warrant as a higher level of authority than internal authorisation, particularly as ASIO is now located within the Home Affairs ministry)</li><li>Purported equivalence of ASIO questioning warrants with the range and variety of ASIO Special powers warrants available on the Attorney General's authorisation under Part III, Division Two (Subdivisions A to J) of the ASIO Act 1979 (Cth).</li></ol>