Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I have a question. Senator Brandis unkindly suggested I was trying to filibuster the debate yesterday. I can assure him that that is something I do not want to do. I want to ask a very short question that may hopefully truncate this debate. I understand the answer given by the Attorney, that there is no upper limit in terms of the number of devices that can be accessed through a warrant. Will the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security at least be able to ascertain how many devices are caught by such a warrant? In other words, with respect to a particular warrant, will we at least be able to ascertain how many devices that warrant relates to, even in broad terms—whether it is 100, 1,000 or one million? Can we establish that? Is that ascertainable? I will rephrase the question as succinctly as I can for the Attorney. Will this power provide some mechanism to establish how many devices have been caught by a particular warrant? Is that something that can be the subject of scrutiny by IGIS, for instance? It would assist me greatly if we could establish that.