Remember when the Federal Labor Opposition voted in support of data retention legislation? Well, now that it has passed the Parliament and become law, the same Labor Opposition has changed its mind, flagging the need for a review at its annual conference over the weekend.
Speaking at the annual Australian Labor Party Conference over the weekend, members of the Labor left flagged that the party would reconsider their support for the data retention Bill.
The Bill — which is now law thanks to a bipartisan vote in the House Of Representatives — sees Australian Internet Service Providers compelled to collect and store the metadata generated by their customers for a period of two years for law enforcement purposes.
Gizmodo Australia understands that the data retention Bill negotiations led to fury in the Labor caucus between those who felt the Bill didn’t strike the right balance between protecting national security and respecting the privacy of the law-abiding electorate.
Furthermore, we understand that the data retention rethink isn’t part of a radical policy backflip, rather it’s representative of a long-term strategy designed to strike that perfect balance.
Either way, there’s finally some opposition inside the Labor Opposition to controversial Bills such as data retention. [The Age]