Senator GREIG (10:28 AM) —The Democrats welcome the Crimes Amendment Bill 2002, a legislative initiative from the government which we hope will assist in the identification of bodies in the aftermath of the tragic Bali bombings. We Democrats have already placed on record our sincere condolences to those Australians who lost loved ones in the recent attacks. Our thoughts continue to be with those who are still awaiting news of missing loved ones. I hope this bill will reduce the suffering of such people by ensuring that the process of identification occurs as efficiently as possible.

We Democrats support the intent of this bill and appreciate the urgency of its passage. Nevertheless, we do have some concerns with a few particular aspects of the bill, and I think it is important to talk about those. Specifically, our concerns relate to the disclosure provisions. We note that disclosure of information on Australian databases is permitted to a wide range of agencies and organisations, including foreign agencies. Such disclosure is permitted not only for the purpose of identifying bodies but also for the purpose of investigating incidents such as the Bali bombings. The government should exercise considerable caution in providing the DNA profiles of Australian citizens to foreign agencies over whose activities the government has no control. Information contained on DNA databases is highly sensitive. This is why there are currently strict requirements governing the access, use and disclosure of such information. We Democrats concede that there are some persuasive reasons for departing from such strict requirements in order to facilitate the investigation of incidents such as the Bali bombings. However, we also believe that any such departure should be limited to what is required for the purposes of that investigation.

An additional concern of the Australian Democrats relates to the inclusion of the term `friend' in the categories of persons to whom disclosure can be made of a match between a missing person's DNA profile and the DNA profile of an unidentified body. We appreciate the strong desire of friends of deceased persons to be informed of such information. However, we are concerned that there are no criteria for determining whether someone was in fact a friend of a deceased person. We urge the government to exercise caution in disclosing information pursuant to the proposed subsection 23YUI(2). We hope that the government will not simply disclose such sensitive information to any person claiming to be the friend of a deceased person without at least attempting to corroborate such a claim.

I note that the Labor Party had the opportunity to have a number of its concerns addressed by amendments agreed with the government prior to the introduction of this bill. We Democrats have had no such opportunity to address our concerns. Given the urgency of this legislation and the fact that it is to be the subject of an independent review in a year's time, we are prepared to simply highlight these concerns at this time whilst supporting the legislation. We hope that these issues will be specifically considered as part of the independent review of the legislation and that appropriate recommendations be made. We Democrats will reconsider these issues following the review and take any action necessary to address our outstanding concerns at that time.

Essentially, the bill will amend the Crimes Act 1914 to ensure that DNA profiles are able to be provided by states and territories to the Commonwealth for comparison on the central DNA database; to ensure that DNA profiles are able to be provided by the Commonwealth to states and territories to ensure that the results of the DNA matches can be disclosed to certain specifies persons, such as family members; to enable the communication of DNA matches to overseas agencies in relation to the victims; and to enable the matching of body parts with body parts. It is also worth noting that, when enabling legislation or originating legislation dealing with the notion of CrimTrac and DNA databasing was introduced and discussed—essentially, that was done with the Crimes Amendment (Forensic Procedures) Bill 2001 some 18 months or so ago—at that time we Democrats moved a variety of amendments, one of which was successful. That amendment included the notion that any issues relating to privacy or civil liberties arising from forensic procedures be permitted by a part which contained a reference to a review. The amendment related to the review processes existing under the legislation as it was presented at that time and would have been amended by the government bill.

As I outlined in my speech in the second reading debate on that legislation, the Democrats would like to see the review specifically required to address disparities between the various jurisdictions participating in that national scheme. We also wanted to ensure that the review was specifically required to address privacy and civil liberty concerns that may arise, with a view to focusing the review and ensuring that it adequately examined those measures. When it comes to the question of DNA databasing and databasing generally, my party has continuing and ongoing concerns about privacy. I hope that, with the passage of this legislation, which we today support, the spirit of the original and enabling legislation—particularly in terms of reviews and the scrutiny of civil liberties and privacy—is retained.