Security watchdog members finalised

Labor has finally settled its ­membership of the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security, which will meet within days to review the listing of several terrorist ­organisations.

Labor MP Peter Khalil will head the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security. Picture: Martin Ollman / NewsWire

Labor has finally settled its ­membership of the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security, which will meet within days to review the listing of several terrorist ­organisations.

The Albanese government had been considering a change to the legislation that dictated the number of MPs appointed from the House of Representatives and the Senate, as it sought to ensure an even balance ­between the factions of three Left MPs and three from the Right.

More than 3½ months after the election, it has decided it would not seek an extra member from the House of Representatives, meaning Solomon MP and former Australian Army officer Luke Gosling will not be ­appointed.

Senator Marielle Smith, a South Australian who joined parliament in 2019 after a career as a senior policy adviser, will fill the third position for the Right.

The committee will be chaired by MP Peter Khalil, and the other Labor members will be Julian Hill and Josh Wilson.

Raff Ciccone and Jess Walsh will join from the Senate.

Mr Khalil, Senator Ciccone and Senator Smith are from the Right faction, while Mr Hill, Mr Wilson and Senator Walsh are from the Left.

The national intelligence community has been watching the make-up of the committee carefully, given its role in ­scrutinising the agencies and the legislation in which they ­operate.

On the opposition side, former Speaker Andrew Wallace will be deputy chairman, while Andrew Hastie, Karen Andrews and senators Simon Birmingham and James Paterson will be the five minority members.

The Greens, with 16 MPs across both houses, were also trying to leverage a seat at the table, with Greens justice spokesman David Shoebridge seeking to join the committee.

“Limiting the membership of this critical committee to the Labor and Liberal parties is more of the closed-shop politics as usual we saw under the Morrison government,’’ NSW Senator Shoebridge said on Tuesday night.

“The proposed committee membership means 15 per cent of the parliament and a full 23 per cent of the Senate are not ­represented at all on a committee providing important ­guidance relating to inter­national security and defence, funding of intelligence agencies and international laws relating to terrorism.’’

Both the Liberal-Nationals Coalition and the Labor Party refused to consider Senator Shoebridge or any other non-major party member joining the ­committee.