Senator COONEY (9:57 AM) —This is a vital report of the Legal and Constitutional References Committee in the discussion about what privacy laws we ought to have in this country and, indeed, what we ought to have around the world. I say `around the world' because a lot of the impetus for this report came from the European directive of which Senator McKiernan has spoken. Senator McKiernan chaired this committee and, in his usual able way, has led the committee to make a very significant contribution to the area that we are discussing.

The whole issue of privacy is one that is going to trouble us for some time because it goes to the issue of what information should be made available to the public generally and what should not. Of course, in this era of technology it is very hard for people to keep secure to themselves what they might wish to. The answer to this problem of how information is to be controlled might end up being resolved by making information more available. That is a very interesting concept. Instead of trying to shut off the access that other people have to information about ourselves, if we made that information available to everybody on the basis that everybody made information about themselves available to the world, then an interesting situation would arise. That would mean that we would no longer have problems with the concept of commercial-in-confidence, for example. If a company did not want compulsory regulation of privacy matters but left it up to the goodwill of others and information that would tell us how that company was acting became available, then so be it.

That sort of approach might indicate that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear. What I have been talking about might indicate that that phrase is not as easily applied as it might first appear because if that were the case it would mean that these commercial-in-confidence issues and other similar issues would become available to the public. We have instances in this chamber which arise—one arose yesterday—as to what documents should be made available in the Senate. What proper role does the executive have and what proper role does the parliament have in this question of what information should be made available?

In the area of policing, what documents should be kept away from the police and what documents should the police be able to preserve when they have them? In matters of national security there are great issues. What information should be made available about Pine Gap and what should not be made available? There is a whole area in which privacy has yet to be discussed, but the fundamental issue is the same: what should we, as a matter of right, be able to keep to ourselves, whether we are a government, a party, a military organisation, a police force or whether we are a company trading in commodities or anything else? That is what this issue goes to. Therefore, it is a very important issue.

As we see things, if people find out supposed information about us then the issue arises as to what sort of interpretation they are going to put upon that information. Let me explain further. People say that if you have nothing to fear you have nothing to hide. But that presumes that what is revealed about us or about our company, our country or our party will be interpreted by others in a fair way. One of the great problems in this area is the interpretation that is given to information that becomes available about anything or anybody. That information is often very badly interpreted. So you get information put out to the public which is incorrect, which is given a twist or a spin, as they say, and then comes back in a very unfair way on the person about whom the information has been made available.

I would like to have heard many people in this chamber discuss this document because it is, as I say, a very central issue in our society. It is a matter that affects all of us because there are all sorts of things which we do not want people to know about our own lives—our medical records, for instance. Even in dealings within one political party some people might say, `We will keep those sorts of deals secret.' That does not happen on our side of politics because whatever we do we reveal and it is plain for all to see. But in other places, people do deals which they want to keep secret. It would be a terrible shock to our side to think that that sort of thing happened.

The issue of privacy comes in at every level and in all areas. I am glad that Senator McKiernan had the perspicacity to see that it ought to be developed. I should mention the rest of the committee—Senator Payne, who has recently come to this committee and is quite outstanding, Senator Coonan, Senator Hutchins and Senator Stott-Despoja. In closing, I thank the staff in the secretariat who did the work. Senator McKiernan has already thanked them, but I would also like to mention Dr Pauline Moore, Mr Jonathan Curtis, Mr Gavin Denton and Ms Alison Carson.

Question resolved in the affirmative.