Add Category
Updated
Federal Attorney-General George Brandis has argued his office and department have already changed their handling of correspondence in the wake of the Lindt Cafe siege, despite fiery criticism from Labor senators.
A Senate committee had previously investigated the handling of letters from gunman Man Haron Monis to the Attorney-General's office in the months leading up to the deadly siege.
Senator Brandis and the Attorney-General's department had faced questions about why a letter questioning the legality of contacting Islamic State did not raise concerns Monis would be a threat to the community, and why that letter was not included in an internal review of the incident.
That inquiry made recommendations in September 2015.
The New South Wales Coroner's report into the siege, handed down on Tuesday, included recommendations that such correspondence be passed onto the nation's domestic intelligence agency ASIO.
"There does not appear to be an effective policy in place to require the Commonwealth bureaucracy to forward correspondence received by it to ASIO where that correspondence is relevant to security considerations," Coroner Michael Barnes' report stated.
"I recommend that the Commonwealth Attorney-General liaise with ASIO to develop a policy to ensure that where correspondence is received by a government agency, minister or public office holder, from a non-government entity, and that correspondence is relevant to the security assessments of the author, the correspondence be referred to ASIO."
Senator Brandis responded to the findings during a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra on Tuesday.
"I can advise this committee that at my request the Attorney-General's department reviewed its correspondence handling procedures in cases where correspondence might raise national security concerns and implemented those changes in 2015," Mr Brandis said.
"The consequence of those changes is that such correspondence is now routinely referred to ASIO.
"The Coroner makes no criticism of anyone, whether it be the Attorney-General's department, my office, ASIO [Australian Security Intelligence Organisation], in relation to the Monis letter," he said.
"But even more importantly there is no suggestion that the fact that ASIO did not have the Monis letter was consequential."
Labor Senators Penny Wong and Murray Watt led the interrogation of the Attorney-General at the Senate estimates hearing, disagreeing repeatedly with Senator Brandis' interpretation of the Coroner's findings.
"Stop avoiding the questions. Why have you not followed up and delivered on the Senate's recommendations two years later?" Senator Watt said.
"Stop the theatre Senator Watt," replied the Attorney-General.
"Are we going to get a bit of Latin now?" Senator Watt quipped.
Senator Brandis said the Commonwealth would carefully study the Coroner's report and its recommendations, as far as it dealt with the actions of federal departments and agencies.
Topics: government-and-politics, federal-government, law-crime-and-justice, police-sieges, australia, sydney-2000, canberra-2600
First posted