The Abbott government has agreed to adopt changes to its controversial plan to force phone and internet firms to keep customers' data for two years.
The announcement by Attorney-General George Brandis appears to clear the way for the proposals to become law with Labor's backing.
But some questions linger, with the government's statement differing in key respects from what was actually recommended by a high-powered parliamentary committee.
The bi-partisan Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security last week called for 37 changes to the so-called metadata retention laws, largely relating to increased oversight of how the data is used.
Labor has indicated it will vote for the new laws if the government accepts the committee's recommendations.
While Labor is still expected to back the reforms, some doubt remains while the government amends its legislation to cement the committee's recommendations.
The legislation will force phone and internet firms to keep "metadata" such as the time, origin and destination of electronic communications – though not the content – for two years. The government says such metadata is an essential crime fighting tool but privacy advocates say it could be open to misuse.
Metadata can currently, and will continue to be, accessible to authorities without a warrant.
The committee insisted that if police and security agencies such as ASIO access metadata in a bid to establish the identity of a journalist's source, a copy of the authorisation paperwork must be given to the Commonwealth Ombudsman or the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security.
It also recommended that these watchdogs inform the committee itself of such access authorisations "as soon as practicable".
But the government has only committed to ensuring that the paperwork be provided to the watchdogs "as appropriate at the next relevant inspection". And it commits only to having the Attorney-General to provide a report on all such access authorisations to the committee annually.
The committee also asked to have oversight itself of how ASIO and the Australian Federal Police use metadata in operations and asked that this power be enshrined through a change to the legislation. But the government has committed only to "conferring an appropriate function" on the committee, without promising to lock this power into the legislation.
And while the committee called for the government to make a "substantial contribution" to the upfront cost for providers to store the data, the government's response only notes it has previously committed to making a "reasonable contribution".
A spokesman for Senator Brandis declined to comment beyond the government's statement.
