Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) is a joint committee of the Parliament of Australia which oversees Australia's primary agencies of the Australian Intelligence Community: Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO), the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation (DIGO), and the Office of National Assessments (ONA).

The Committee, then called the Parliamentary Joint Committee on ASIO, ASIS and DSD, was established pursuant to the Intelligence Services Act 2001[1] and was first appointed in March 2002.

History

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on ASIO, ASIS and DSD (PJCAAD) was established pursuant to the Intelligence Services Act 2001 and replaced the Parliamentary Joint Committee on ASIO (which was established in 1988) and the Joint Select Committee on the Intelligence Services. The PJCIS's purview was expanded from 1 July 2004 to include DIO, DIGO and ONA, following the recommendations of the Flood Inquiry.[2] On 2 December 2005, the name of the Committee was changed to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS).

The members of the first Committee were appointed in March 2002.

Functions

The PJCIS's main function is administrative and expenditure review and oversight of ASIO, ASIS and DSD. The Committee can also review matters relating to the three agencies referred to them by Parliamentary Resolution, or by a request from the Minister responsible for the agency in question. The Committee does not review intelligence gathering or operational procedures or priorities, nor does it conduct inquiries into individual complaints about the activities of ASIO, ASIS or DSD.

Membership

The Committee consists of eleven members: five from the Senate and six from the House of Representatives. Six members are from the Government and five from the Opposition. Serving ministers are not allowed to be members, but members may previously have held ministerial positions. Members of the committee cease to be members when Parliament is dissolved, and new members are appointed after the new Parliament convenes.

The members of the Committee as at 21 June 2017 were:[3]

gollark: The memespeech thing sounds neat. But Unicode's ridiculous amount of invisible characters offers a different solution: storing your data in those instead!
gollark: The main danger with water, as I see it, is that a water outage might take longer to resolve because of the general strain imposed by coronavirus. But that doesn't really necessitate stockpiling.
gollark: Not water.
gollark: The toilet paper, that is.
gollark: It makes sense from a self-interest-only perspective to hoard it, since now everyone else is doing it so it might be gone.

See also

Intelligence agencies

Legislation

References
  1. Intelligence Services Act 2001, s.28
  2. Report of the Inquiry Into Australian Intelligence Agencies
  3. Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, Committee Membership
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