2016-03-16
Today the Labor Party again supported the Abbott/Turnbull Liberal government's Mandatory Data Retention Scheme, despite the spiralling cost and expanding scope, the Australian Greens said.
The ALP has again joined with the Government to vote down a Greens Senate motion calling for the scheme to be abandoned.
"This scheme was poorly conceived from the outset. It is an absurd, expensive and ineffective farce. It's an indefensible encroachment into the private lives of everyday Australians from the Liberal Party, who say they stand for personal freedom," Australian Greens Co-Deputy Leader and Communications Spokesperson Senator Scott Ludlam said today.
"Since Labor allowed its introduction, the implementation of this $300 million scheme has been botched, and the list of agencies seeking warrantless access to data has continued to grow.
"Warranted and targeted surveillance plays an important role in assisting law enforcement agencies to locate the needles, all this scheme does is create a haystack several orders of magnitude larger.
"Perhaps the most ridiculous part of this nonsense is that it is trivially easy for anyone trying to circumvent it. For as little as 15 cents a day they could use any one of the methods outlined by none other than Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull himself.
"The government should never have introduced this scheme. Labor should never have backed this scheme. They should both get together to clean up the mess, and scrap it," Senator Ludlam said.
The full text of the senate motion is available at http://scott-ludlam.greensmps.org.au/content/motions/liberals-mandatory-data-retention-scheme-supported-labor