Mr ADAMS (8:36 PM) —This report considers a proposal from government to extend for a further 10 years the operation of the joint defence facility at Pine Gap. This facility has operated as a joint Australian-American intelligence gathering facility since 1966. As the chairman, the member for Wentworth, has noted, our review of this proposal has been complicated immeasurably by the attitude taken by the Department of Defence. The defence department, apparently with the minister's consent, have deliberately sought to limit the information provided to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties about the purpose and operation of the joint defence facility. They have denied our repeated requests to inspect the facility and have provided us with less information about the facility than is available on the public record. As a result, Defence have undermined our ability to perform the treaty review mandate given to us by the parliament.

It is absurd that we have learned more about the facility by speaking to two respected academics, Professor Des Ball and Professor Paul Dibb. While we regard the evidence from Professor Ball and Professor Dibb very highly and have no reason to doubt it, we do not feel that we can completely endorse the proposed treaty action on the basis of evidence from non-government witnesses. We also find it absurd that Defence supports the right of members of the US Congress to visit the facility and receive confidential briefings while at the same time denying Australian parliamentarians similar rights.

I would also like to highlight the dissenting report, as I am one of the signatories to it. Senator Schacht, Mrs Crosio, Mr Wilkie and I agree with much that is in the majority report, including the recommendation that full access to information and to the facility be provided to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties so as to allow it to complete its review. Our views differ only in two respects. First, we believe that, if the government does not allow the treaties committee to complete its review, parliament should appoint a joint national security committee to complete the review and, more generally, to oversee the operations of the Defence related security and intelligence agencies. Second, we believe that action should not be taken to extend the period of operation of the joint defence facility until parliament has had an opportunity, through either the treaties committee or a new national security committee, to come to a considered view on whether the facility is in Australia's national interest.

Those members who have signed the dissenting report believe that taking binding treaty action in the absence of either of these approaches would undermine the government's own reform treaty making process. More importantly, it would display a disturbing lack of confidence in the maturity of Australia's democracy and a profound disregard for the fundamental principles of public accountability which underpin our parliamentary system. In our view, the principles of openness, transparency and parliamentary sovereignty must override the claim of secrecy being made by the Department of Defence. Before I commend the report, particularly the dissenting report, to the House, I wish to read out a short paragraph from our conclusion to that dissenting report:

. . . in a changing world environment, expectations about community influence over government decision-making have grown. Transparency, not secrecy, is being demanded of governments. Likewise, a better balance is being sought between Executive decision-making and parliamentary oversight.

I commend the report to the parliament.