Labor and Coalition team up to retrospectively authorise ‘unlawful’ use of material gathered by Australian agency

Prime minister Anthony Albanese and opposition leader Peter Dutton. There has been bipartisan support for a bill authorising potentially ‘unlawful’ use of material gathered in special investigations by ACIC. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Labor and the Coalition teamed up to pass a bill retrospectively authorising potentially “unlawful” use of material gathered in special investigations by Australia’s most secretive law enforcement agency.

The bill is the third attempt to cure a long-running legal defect in the powers of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) to conduct special investigations and operations.