Gary,
Your first sentence is very disturbing:
"The suggestion that the Defence Department's Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) has "spied" on the Minister for Defence, Joel Fitzgibbon, is deeply disturbing."

It disturbs me that you would be disturbed by a 'suggestion'.
A suggestion can be repudiated and therefore can be explained away.
Suggestions cause congestion and that means it is hard to swallow in digesting your meaning.

"In our system of government ministers must resign if they lose the confidence of the House of Representatives. Departments are responsible to ministers, not vice versa, and ministers are responsible to the House."

Hear Hear! I have no particular love for Fitzgibbon (and he'll have to take his lumps for not declaring his free plane tickets), but isn't it funny that this sort of leak happened when a Department opposed what a Minister was doing.

Turnbull's implication that Ministers must resign because they lose the confidence of their Department goes utterly against the concept of the civil control of the armed forces. He should be ashamed for suggesting it. He could easily attack Fitzgibbon politically *without* attacking the entire basis of Parliamentary democracy.

Hi Pelican

You asked

"did DSD breach their own mandated limit to foreign signal interception?"

Basically your question is based on an incorrect assumption.

Contrary to popular belief DSD is not limited in that way. Under Subsection 8(1) of the Intelligence Services Act 2001:

"The responsible Minister in relation to ...DSD, must issue a written direction under this subsection to the head of [DSD]. The direction must: (a) require the agency to obtain an authorisation under section 9 from the Minister before: ...undertaking an activity, ... for the specific purpose,...of producing intelligence on an Australian person" see http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/isa2001216/s8.html

So DSD can spy on specific Australian citizens if Fitzgibbon so directs it.

But Fitzgibbon would not direct DSD to spy on himself or any other [Labor] politicians as placing Governing politicians within the Law would shatter the very porcelain of the Westminster System. Isn't that the point?

"If ASIO does not perceive Ms Liu as a risk why should DOD?"

ASIO is a central analytical agency (amongst other things) but it is not the only analytical agency. ONA, AGs, DFAT, PM&C the AFP and to some degree DSD do analysis as well. Hence in 2007 Haneef's imprisonment largely rested on the AFP's (and probably PM&C's) analysis that Haneef was a threat to national security. Note that ASIO had a differing view - that he wasn't a threat - but ASIO's view appears to have been disregarded as inconvenient.

But it can go the reverse way ASIO can jump to conclusions (say way back in the early 1980s - Combe-Ivanov Affair).

Basically most politicians seek the advice they want to hear from whichever intelligence or policy agency best backs up their presumptions.

Peter Coates
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8065

It seems tp me that it should be possible for concerns about the activities of Fitzgibbon to be investigated but that process needs some control around it. Perhaps it's something that should be authorised by the Govenor General if a security agency is able to convince the GG that sufficient cause for that exists. Whilst the GG appointments are often political the GG's themselves often seem to have risen beyond the circumstances of their appointment.

I don't think the fact the trips to China occured while Fitzgibbon was in opposition remove the issue as a concern. The fact that he had not declared gifts of that magnitude potentially compromised him as he was still subject to the political fallout of having that omission exposed.

R0bert

I hope Joel Fitzgibbon intends to repudiate the missile 'defence' system promoted by the Bush regime and the fighter aircraft that were apparently obsolete before we were to take delivery.
Perhaps the scrapping of the 'defence shield' proposal may have prompted Turnbull to raise the yellow peril bogeyman and his interest in Joel's associations with Ms Liu.

Will he be after Penny Wong's scalp next as an agent of China in her drive to reduce carbon emissions or maybe a drive to sabotage our rice growing industry by depriving it of water ?

The prospect of losing these toys would most surely raised the ire of
the hawks in our Defence Department to encourage them to take steps to have him dismissed in favour of someone more amenable to their culture.

Peter
My understanding is that the initial interception has to be made on foreign soil. If a POI arrives on Australian soil (Australian citizen or foreigner) then another agency takes over the investigative process. If the Act did allow for local investigation by DSD then as you say it has to be under Ministerial direction or approval. Hardly likely to come from Fitzgibbon himself in this case.

You might find this link of interest:

http://www.igis.gov.au/inquiries/docs/Brereton_2003.pdf

As far as analysis goes, AGs and PM&C take more of an oversight role and involve themselves with policy matters and I am not aware of any analysis or investigative role in the context of particular cases.