Now lawCrime & Courts Introduced in the House of Representatives, 27 Aug 2025

Spy warrant secrets can now be shown in court

This law changes five parts of Australia's laws on phone tapping and police powers. It touches people on trial, phone and tech companies, and undercover police who chase child abusers online.

Official name: Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025

Who it affects

• People charged with serious crimes: If police hold secret warrant details that could help them, their lawyers can now get them and use them at trial.
• Prosecutors: They are the lawyers who bring cases against accused people. They can now use the secret details to decide whether to bring or drop a case.
• Spy and security agencies: They can see saved messages while testing their tools, under strict rules to use them only for that and then destroy them.
• Overseas tech companies: They can meet an Australian order by sending copies of messages from their computers.
• Undercover police officers: They have clearer rules on what risks must be weighed before a job is approved.

Surveillance laws hard to follow

Australia has several laws that let police and spy agencies listen to calls, read messages and hack into computers. Experts say these laws are long and hard to follow.

The Department of Home Affairs runs the borders and much of national security. It is working on a plan to join them into one law. This law is a smaller set of fixes while that bigger job goes on.

It changes the phone tapping law, the spying devices law and the Crimes Act. The Crimes Act is one of the main federal crime laws. The government says the changes make the laws work as planned. The bill has five parts.

Secret warrants and fair trials

A warrant is written permission to spy or search. One kind is called a network activity warrant. It lets police gather secrets on crime groups that work online.

A judge or a member of the Administrative Review Tribunal gives this warrant, for up to 90 days at a time. The Tribunal is a body that checks government decisions, like a court but less formal.

What police learn from this warrant was meant to be used only as background. It could not be used as proof in court.

That made a problem. Sometimes these secret details could help an accused person show they did not do it. Prosecutors are the lawyers who bring the case against them. They have a duty to share that kind of thing with the defence, but the law stopped them.

The new rules fix this. Prosecutors can now use the details to decide whether to bring, keep going with or drop a case. They can hand the details to the defence to meet their duty. Defence lawyers can then use them to run the case.

An accused person can now show these details to the court when they are needed for a fair trial. The prosecution can only use them in reply, to answer what the defence has shown.

Say a warrant picked up a chat. It shows someone else sent a message the accused is blamed for. The accused could now use that chat in their defence.

The prosecution still cannot use these details to prove someone is guilty in the first place. People can still refuse to hand them over by saying they must stay secret for the public good.

The independent official who checks national security laws said this part does what he had asked for. The rules apply to old details and to cases already running.

Home Affairs takes a job

The Communications Access Coordinator is the official go-between for phone companies and the agencies that tap phones. The job includes approving phone companies' plans for how they will allow tapping. It also includes letting some companies off the rules for storing data.

In May 2025 the phone tapping law moved from the Attorney-General to the Minister for Home Affairs. The Attorney-General is the minister for the law and courts. But the words of the law kept this job with the Attorney-General's Department, which is the law department. This part moves it to the head of the Home Affairs department.

Testing spy tools on messages

The Attorney-General can let a security agency tap live calls and messages to build and test its tapping tools. Until now that only covered live calls and messages moving over the network.

Some messages are saved and live at the same time. For example, webmail from a phone company can sync to your phone while new messages arrive. The two get mixed and cannot be pulled apart when collected.

The law now lets these testing permits cover saved messages too. The agency must say how much saved material the testing will involve when it asks.

The material can only be used for building and testing tools. It must be destroyed as soon as it can be. The same strict rules for live tapping now apply to these saved messages.

Orders to overseas tech companies

Australia has a deal with the United States about messages linked to serious crime. It lets Australian agencies send an order straight to a US tech company for those messages. These are called international production orders. A judge or Tribunal member must approve each one.

The law assumed companies would send messages as a live feed or a recording. Home Affairs says many US companies cannot do that. So Australian agencies have not been able to get future messages from them.

The law now lets a company meet an order by sending copies of saved messages, such as once every 24 hours. The messages must still be ones made during the time the order covers.

The government says this does not let agencies force companies to break the codes that lock messages. It also does not let them force companies to build new ways in.

Clearer rules for undercover police

A controlled operation is an undercover police job. Officers are allowed to do things that would normally be crimes, to catch offenders.

Before approving one, a senior officer must be sure of some things. The job must not put anyone in serious danger or cause death or serious harm. It must not involve a sex crime or cause major damage to property.

Police said it was not clear how far ahead the officer had to look. This was hardest online, where suspects hide who they are.

The law now says the officer only has to weigh the direct results of what the undercover officers do. That means the results a sensible person could expect. They do not have to weigh what the suspects might do on their own.

The law also says undercover officers can handle child abuse material, or help others handle it. This must be part of a job to catch child sex offenders. For example, an officer might pose as an offender or run an online chat group to get inside a ring.

The government says officers still cannot be allowed to harm a child to make new material.

Undercover officers who handle this material are still safe from being charged or sued. The same clearer rules apply when a job is changed partway through.

Start date

The government brought the bill into the House of Representatives on 27 August 2025. It was sent to Parliament's spy committee to look at. That is the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.

The House passed it on 7 October 2025. The Senate passed it on 29 October 2025. The Senate is the second house of Parliament, which checks bills.

The Governor-General signed it into law on 4 November 2025. The Governor-General is the King's stand-in in Australia. It is now Act No. 53 of 2025. All of it started the next day.

How they voted

Its journey through Parliament

Official sources

• Bill page on aph.gov.au
• Text of the bill
• Explanatory memorandum
• Bills Digest

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