FINDINGS OF REPORT ON FOREIGN INTERFERENCE LAWS:
* Bipartisan agreement that laws should be passed.
* When dealing with espionage, foreign interference and sabotage offences "prejudice to national security" can't merely be embarrassment to Australia alone, and must also include a degree of damage or harm.
* Clear definition needed of what is a "foreign political organisation".
* Review is needed into existing secrecy provisions in other laws.
* Five-year sunset clause on section dealing with "unauthorised disclosure of information by current and former Commonwealth officers".
* Legal defence for journalists where the person "reasonably believed that dealing with or holding the information was in the public interest".
* Attorney-General's consent needed for a prosecution under the proposed secrecy offences.
* Reduce proposed maximum penalty for the secrecy offences to seven years' jail for conduct involving communication of information, and three years for other dealings.
* Maximum penalty for the aggravated secrecy offences to be 10 years' jail for conduct involving communication of information and five years for other dealings.
* The term 'support' only refers to 'material support', not news reporting, editorial or opinion writing and humanitarian assistance.
* Attorney-General should be able to take into consideration, before an espionage charge is laid, whether a person is dealing with national security information for academic purposes.
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