Palmer United Senator Jacqui Lambie has demanded a personal briefing from ASIO's Director-General, accusing the spy agency of potentially "attacking" her by leaking against her push to ban the burqa.
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And the Senator says the views of the security agency on the burqa are irrelevant, despite the Tasmanian parliamentarian previously arguing that it is a national security risk.
Fairfax Media on Wednesday revealed that an ASIO report prepared in 2011 said there is no valid security reason to ban the burqa.
The leak came one day after Senator Lambie unveiled a draft version of her bill, which would see burqa wearers fined $3400 and anyone convicted of forcing a child to cover her face fined $68,000 and jailed for up to 12 months.
Senator Lambie gave a statement to the Senate just before question time and read out a letter she had written to the Director-General of ASIO, whom she named as David Irvine, who was replaced in the role by Duncan Lewis last month.
In her letter, the Palmer United Party senator demanded a briefing by the end of the day about how the ASIO report made its way into the media, a day after her draft bill was released.
"I don't however expect the ASIO report that Fairfax Media has obtained to be authentic and I apologise for wasting your time," Senator Lambie began.
"I expect in the course of your investigation that you will find that it is a fraudulent document or a fake," she said.
But Senator Lambie said if the document was confirmed as authentic, her "public and political campaign" to legislate against the burqa, which no other parliamentarian has announced plans to support, will have been "inversely affected".
"Given that this political ASIO leak could be viewed as a political attack on a senator of the Australian parliament and therefore an attack by one government power on another, I would expect a report or a personal briefing on this matter this afternoon, by the end of the day," she said.
She said it would be a valid question as to whether ASIO is in contempt of Parliament and also dismissed the spy agencies' view on the burqa ban and its implications for national security.
"The question about whether ASIO considers the banning of the burqa a positive or negative thing is irrelevant," she told the Parliament.
ASIO declined to comment.
